Oh how the mighty have fallen! Since we last saw FBI Special Agent Ethan Thomas, the world has lost Heath Ledger to drugs and John Howard to a nerd...Britney Spears lost her knickers and her kids, and Tom Cruise has well and truly lost the plot. The ravages of time have not been kind to a lot of people, and sadly for him, Ethan Thomas is one of those people. After the troubling events of Condemned: Criminal Origins, an unconventional serial killing investigation which took a decidedly supernatural turn, Thomas quits the Bureau and hits the drink hard, trying to lose himself in a bottle and forget all the things he saw...and did.

As Condemned 2 opens a year after the events of the original, it's pretty clear his plan hasn't exactly been a smashing success. Looking like Grizzly Adams might have if he toured with Nirvana and then died in a Mexican prison, Thomas is about, oh, say a year overdue for a stint in rehab. In fact, Thomas is still drunk and haunted by ghosts, demons and visions when agents from the Serial Crimes Unit track him down fighting with a bum on the streets. Unlucky for them, really, since they need his help tracking down the mysterious man who contacted one of their agents.

Condemned 2 kicks off from here in much the same way as its predecessor: navigating dark, decaying urban environments filled with all sorts of piss-your-pants scares, and pissed-in-my-pants-already psychotic hobos who want to do nothing more than pound on you with whatever is near to hand. Like the original, Condemned 2 relies pretty heavily on first-person fisticuffs, and after listening to criticisms of the first, Monolith have re-tooled the melee mayhem, largely for the better. The left and right triggers now control each of Thomas's arms independently, allowing for the inclusion of a combo-system that deals out extra damage if you can manage to pull them off.

The combos, while kind of awkward, make the melee much more enjoyable once you get into a rhythm, and the addition of a new chain-combo to reward frequent success is even better. Once you fill up this new meter, Thomas is able to unleash a brutal, quick-time controlled combo that will kill most foes instantly. There's a lite role-playing twist here though; pull off enough of these chain combos and you'll eventually unlock even better ones, including an insane move where you'll snap your foes arm and break their leg, leaving them alive but utterly crippled and entirely at your mercy...or lack thereof.

In fact persistent bonuses are the watchword for this sequel, which rates your performance in each chapter of the game, doling out a reward based on how well you do. Your ranking, thankfully, has little to do with how badly you get your arse handed to you by the homeless, but is instead tethered to finding collectibles, completing optional objectives, and performing your investigative duties in an exemplary fashion. The rewards range from handy to downright essential, including a tazer, knuckledusters and a Kevlar-vest among others. The beauty of the system is that excelling is entirely optional, and while the upgrades will all make your life easier, you can tackle the game just fine without them.

Of all the things that made the original Condemned great though, it was the forensic investigation component that really seemed to resonate with gamers. Sure, it felt a little under-cooked and had limited use, but the idea of being some sort of Gil Grissom-meets-The Rock crime scene investigator who is equally handy at processing DNA with a pipette as he is extracting it with a piece of pipe was cool. Condemned 2 heard your calls though, peoples of the intertron, and they worked hard to make the forensics play a much larger part in the game, both as part of the plot and also as optional side-quests. You'll be able to select from a variety of possible responses to analyse the evidence, rewarding not only your observation skills, but also the ability sort genuine data from useless red-herrings. It's quick and intuitive to do, and much of it is optional, so if you're more pugilist than scientist you can skip many of these sections entirely.

While it all sounds pretty good so far, I need to interrupt this review to bring you an important and alarming announcement: Condemned 2 ships with one of the worst game-breaking bugs on the Xbox 360. The game has an auto-save feature, but don't make the mistake of thinking this means you can just turn your console off when you're done for the night, dear readers. Doing so has a pretty decent chance of corrupting your Condemned 2 profile completely, destroying all your save information and resetting all your progress. This includes any inroads you've made towards Achievements that require X amount of kills, for example, so it really is an absolutely devastating, inexcusable situation for a game to ship like this. Sadly, increasingly pathetic quality assurance seems to be par for the course on many console titles these days, but it's a rare and deplorable game that can actually erase your progress and send you back to the start with nothing. So if you're going to play Condemned 2, make sure you always quit back to the menu before turning off your console.

So long as you can avoid losing all your progress like I did though, Condemned 2 is an otherwise smooth experience for the most part. There's the occasional physics glitch and it's not uncommon for Thomas to get stuck on corners or objects on the floor, which is mildly irritating...but in the scheme of things, probably not something worth complaining about. Fans will probably have more grumbling to do about the subtle changes to the balance of the game, in which weapons seem to have lower durability, and where gunplay features much more heavily. Guns are powerful, but the ammo is limited to whatever is in the clip, and until you unlock the ability to holster a second weapon, you won't find them too unbalancing. That said, when the game starts throwing teams of soldiers armed with assault rifles at you, it really does start to feel more like a poor man's F.E.A.R. than it does Condemned, which is a shame.

What makes Condemned 2 shine is the quality of its visual and audio design, which create some of the creepiest set-pieces on the Xbox 360. The sense of a decaying city spiralling towards madness and ruin is just perfect, with crumbling architecture, piles of rubbish and general detritus ensuring nothing in the game feels or looks clean. In a novel twist, Thomas can actually use this dangerously decrepit environment as more than a source for improvised weapons now – he can actually use it to kill his foes directly. Impaling crazed enemies on bits of rebar, smashing their heads through televisions or into a fire is immensely satisfying, and succeeds at making you look at the levels in a whole new way.

Condemned 2 is just as dark as its predecessor, often requiring you to use a torch to throw a bit of light into the surrounds, and Monolith makes excellent use of that old horror movie favourite, something-running-quickly-across-the-screen. This, coupled with a terrifying use 5.1 surround-sound, will have you constantly looking around, trying to follow that shadow you saw or locate the source of that ominous sound you just heard behind you. The musical score knows when to keep a low profile or ramp it up which is great, and the voice acting is decent enough too. Fans will lament the lack of Greg Grunberg returning as Ethan Thomas, but the new guy is alright once you get used to him.

The original Condemned's pacing was almost spot on, and the sequel hovers around the same level, moving you quickly from set-piece to set-piece and ensuring that even when it's quiet, you're on the edge of your seat. There's 11 chapters to the sequel's constantly twisting storyline, and it should provide around a dozen hour's worth of playtime, depending on your difficulty setting. Naturally getting a gold rating on all levels is a bit tougher, and the unlockable First Person Shooter mode means you can replay the game with even more emphasis on firearms if that's your thing. Also included is the Bloodshot Fight Club, which is basically a single-player deathmatch that lets you duke it out in a variety of arenas, tailoring the experience to your preference. You can pick number of enemies, types of weapons and all those sort of things, and it's a pretty good way to experiment with the combos.

Rounding out the Condemned 2 package is something I'd honestly rather not talk about, but am compelled by the Reviewer's Code to do so: tacked-on multiplayer options. Seriously, a first-person brawler where people walk and punch and swing weapons is not going to set the world aflame even if it's done right, and Condemned 2 certainly doesn't do it right. It feels awkward, looks hilariously bad, and the fact it's still really dark and only supports 8 people makes it feel lifeless and drab. To Monolith's credit, they didn't just settle for bog-standard deathmatch...there's a mildly interesting crime-scene evidence hunt that has the Influenced (crazy hobos) trying to conceal evidence from the cops, but even this feels pretty pointless. Condemned 2 doesn't *need* multiplayer, and honestly, it's better without it.