About a month ago I was sitting in a Barnes & Noble reading Jennifer Toth's The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City, a chilling book about NYC's underground homeless. Dirty, ravaged by disease, and not opposed to dining on sewer rats bigger than your body, these fellow humans dare to dwell in places you and I would never care to tread, lest we be consumed by the unholy darkness and possibly torn apart by unclean hands.

The very same fears hold true in Sega and Condemned's Xbox 360 launch title, Condemned: Criminal Origins. Much like the aforementioned book, Condemned plunges you into places that have been devoured by the destitute, except there's no closing the book, no staring at a mysterious exit in a NYC subway and going on with your normal everyday life. You'll have to duck underneath the CAUTION tape and explore some of the scariest places ever seen in a videogame, and if you and I share even the most remote interests, you're going to love ever nail biting second of it.

Condemned is a first person adventure where you must combine detective work and lethal cunning in order to clear your good name and survive while trapped within the worst living conditions. Framed for murders by a serial killer, you're basically on his scent and traveling throughout his twisted network, and standing between you and your target are a myriad of deranged psychos who want nothing more than to watch your brains splatter against a wall. And to make things even more interesting there's a sort of supernatural element to consider.

What makes the game unique is your character's reliance on melee combat and how you can basically fracture skulls with one good shot. More so than any game, Condemned's developers really focused on making the bone-splintering melee attacks realistic and by and large they have succeeded. Not that I have experience taking busted conduits to the face, but being on the receiving end of such virtual blows are almost painful. That's because Condemned actually makes you feel like you're kicking someone's ass. And believe me; you're going to be kicking lots of ass. The unholy plethora of different scum bags that reside within the shadows are evil to the core and begging you to take your best shot, which you most certainly can, what with the fire axes, pipes, locker doors, metal signs, boards with nails, boards with bolts, and sledge hammers lying about. There are a handful of firearms in the game, but the pistols and shotguns are almost always low on ammo and practically useless over prolonged periods. But they're still effective for maximum stoppage, but just be sure to manually check each weapon before firing. There's no HUD in this game, so, and this is really a unique feature, you'll have to pop out the clip and make note of how many bullets are left.

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