Midway took a turn for the dramatic with many releases over the last year, shying away from their usual arcade-like efforts and instead giving us deeper adventures like Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy and the surprisingly good The Suffering, putting a prisoner in the middle of a dwelling jam-packed with freaky enemies and a story revolving around the murders of his family. This year looks to be no exception for the company, as they have Area 51 and Narc right around the corner, along with a follow-up to The Suffering co-titled Ties That Bind.

The game once again focuses on Torque, the tortured man who was wrongfully (maybe) locked up for killing his entire family. If you remember from the first game, he was supposedly headed for a death sentence when his prison was sabotaged by numerous freaky looking creatures. The game had three different endings to choose from, depending on your performance throughout the game and some decisions you made in terms of finding particular items or letting certain survivors get away. Ties That Bind follows closely in the story, no matter which ending you had. Torque once again finds himself in an institution-like area in the middle of Baltimore, but this time there are larger areas to explore, including outdoor terrain to cover. The mystery behind his family still lingers, and his nemesis, Dr. Killjoy, is still lurking about. Oh, and so are a lot of the freaks from the first game...as well as a few new "inventions".

Surreal Software is making some promising moves on the sequel thus far, enhancing the level design with greater detail and promising a lot more areas to explore as you make your way through the story, still trying to find out the truth. There's also a new weapons system that will be in place that will allow for better performance when fighting against enemies, a huge plus when you consider how the first game would sometimes hit snags with the items you picked up. Early shots of the game show some varying detail that will make a huge impact, like Torque covered in a great deal of blood while firing a weapon at some forthcoming foes whose limbs are made of sharpened blades.

The Suffering: Ties That Bind may be another great sequel from the house of Midway, as things are shaping up to be improved on every level. We'll have a more detailed look at the game in a few months, when E3 will truly reveal the Ties and see if they're binding.