Frederich Nietzsche warned us once that if we gaze long into the abyss, that the abyss gazes into us. He also suggested that a pair of powerful spectacles could be the perfect cure for a person in love... so he's obviously a smart bloke. Yet if the ongoing morbid fascination with crime and criminals is anything to go by, modern man has all but ignored his warnings; all you need to do is turn a page or switch on the TV to be bombarded with a sensory overload of viscera and violence, both real and imagined. The truth is, we're all drawn to our darker side in some way or another, but some don't just look longingly into the abyss, they embrace it.

Enter FBI Special Agent Ethan Thomas, a renowned hunter of psychopaths and deviants with a close-rate that'd make that Detective Goran guy consider passing over some of his tougher cases. But in recent months, the trail has gone cold on some of the most brutal slayings the city has ever seen from more than half a dozen serial killers. You'd think the Feds would be thrilled for the reprieve, but without deranged wrists in those fancy nickel-plated handcuffs, nobody will be sleeping soundly while this dirty half-dozen roam the streets.

So when Agent Thomas gets a call about a victim whose gruesome slaying resembles the MO (that's modus operandi for those of you who don't watch enough CSI) of a killer the papers have dubbed The Match Maker, he's on the scene before the flies are. And it's a fresh crime-scene alright, so fresh in fact that as you go through the tutorial ropes, you'll discover that the killer is still in the building. From there, Condemned: Criminal Origins is like an interactive serial-thriller novel, with the action of James Patterson, the clinical science of Patricia Cornwell, and the sheer, unadulterated violence of Thomas Harris. Throw in enough unsettling flashbacks and creepy occult occurrences to make Fahrenheit seem sane, and you've got a pretty good idea of what to expect.

Condemned is an exercise in first-person fustigation, or put more simply, it's all about belting, bashing, pounding, pummeling, or causing blunt-force trauma in copious amounts. By throwing Ethan (and by extension, the player) into the deep-end on the run from the Feds and on the most wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks, Condemned makes plausible that most crucial of survival-horror staples: you're on your own, outnumbered, outgunned, and out of ammo. While some games would have you scrounging for bullets to dispatch your foes, Condemned revels in melee mayhem, encouraging you to pick up anything and everything that could be used to club your fellow man to death.

Except in this case, your fellow man isn't quite human anymore. As the story progresses you'll find out more about what it is that is afflicting the most vulnerable segments of society; the homeless, the drug-addicted, the mentally ill. But don't get this confused with some sort of bleeding-heart liberal nonsense, you won't be healing or helping, because these guys and girls are violently psychotic and will tear you limb from limb if they get the chance.

So you'll need to grab whatever you can, A) to defend yourself, and B) so they can't use it to beat you to death! The variety is quite astonishing: a piece of rebar with concrete on the end, the top of a school-desk, a mannequin's arm, the blade of a paper guillotine, the list goes on. In a nod to survival-horror classics, there's a small arsenal of firearms available, but these only turn up a few times during any given chapter, and they're usually the harbinger that something wicked your way comes.

First-person fisticuffs and fracas is difficult to pull off at the best of times, with Breakdown and The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay being the only titles that spring to mind in the Xbox's library to do it justice. Well Condemned is certainly the 360's pugilistic paragon, with some of the most enjoyably visceral combat on the new console.

Every weapon you come across has different strengths and weaknesses; a sledgehammer does some fierce damage and has a good reach, but it's slow to swing, and awkward to block with. Conversely, a piece of 2x4 with nails is swift to strike and parries enemy attacks handily, but packs a relatively light punch and requires you to get up close and personal. The end result is that you're free to experiment and find your preferred method of attack and defense, and better yet, in the abandoned environments you frequent, an alternate improv implement of annihilation is about as common as dead birds and bits of metal.

It's easy to forget that your adventure into the seamy underbelly has a purpose, but every once in awhile you'll need to set aside your aspirations of becoming a bouncer in Sydney, and do your real job: solve crimes. In Condemned, this is done largely through CSI-esque gizmo usage; using UV lights to reveal blood trails, photographing evidence, and pointing some sort of DNA-sniffer at things...think of it as a super-condensed version of the CSI crime-solve-montage that does away with the montage bit. You'll be in constant cell-phone contact with an FBI friend called Rosa, who apparently has nothing better to do than sit in the lab all night to assist in your clandestine evidence-gathering.

The tools are pretty cool and fun to use, and the only complaint here if anything is that they're underused. Indeed, the whole forensic aspect is incredibly streamlined; you won't ever get to choose or use any tools when you want to, rather Ethan's "instincts" will kick in to let you know it's time to press the X-button. His instincts have a few other side-effects, ranging from prescience and flashbacks to the occasional bout of altered reality. It's in moments like these that Condemned scares and unnerves you the most, whether it be a group of department store mannequins stalking you and blocking your way, or an empty indoor swimming pool that suddenly becomes a tortured vision of a hellish field.

In fact, if there's one thing Condemned does really well, it's scare the pants off of you. Sure, it uses the tried-and-true innocuous items going bump in the night thing that Doom 3 did so well in unison with the sudden appearance of fiendish foes, but the level design and general ambience is the real winner here. It won't come as a surprise to anyone who played Monolith's F.E.A.R. on PC (soon to be an Xbox 360 title!), but the environments in Condemned are just so damn realistic it's terrifying. Which isn't to say the constant claustrophobia and labyrinthine hallways won't get repetitive, because it will, but the game does such a good job of keeping the locations fresh and the scares constant that you probably won't notice. If anything, the bigger problem is that the various set-piece locales rely on the fact that Ethan is about as flexible as a 10-day old cadaver, thus ruling out opportunities for you to interact with the environment by jumping, ducking, etc.

Still, Condemned is an excellent example of what the Xbox 360 is capable of; aside from the great environments, the motley crew of creatures and baddies you'll face are beautifully grotesque, although the models look a little ordinary up-close...which is another pretty good reason not to let them get that close! At first you'll face deranged derros and hopped-up hobos, but before long you'll encounter psychotic firefighters, mutant cooks, and anorexic addicts who are literally climbing up and bouncing off the walls. The lighting is nothing short of amazing, as are the visual effects that kick in during flashbacks and visions.

That said, Condemned isn't without its share of problems. To begin with, it's very, very dark, so lower quality TV's (particularly cheap LCD panels) will struggle with the contrast. It can be adjusted in-game, but you run the risk of negating the scare-factor by bumping up the brightness too much. The framerate could be better too; it hovers around 30fps most of the time, but is prone to fairly frequent dips during chaotic battles with more than two enemies. On the flipside, the load-times are pretty minimal for an FPS, and Ethan tends to walk in a ponderous, almost jerky manner, which exacerbates the appearance of a flakey framerate.

If there's one area in which Condemned is above reproach, it would have to be the audio. Monolith has gone all out with the Dolby Digital 5.1, and it's easily one of the scariest sounding games you'll ever play. The ambient sound effects are incredible, and if it were possible for audio to drip authenticity, these derelict buildings would be truly sodden! You can really imagine being Ethan, clutching your torch in one hand, piece of lead pipe in the other, straining your ears trying to work out whether it's just the natural creaking and groaning of a condemned building you hear, or if the unidentifiable thud you heard off to the left means impending doom.

Then, when combat finally does come, the sound of various solid implements connecting with soft tissue and bone is sickeningly realistic. The music plays a more subtle role, but does its fair share in the creep-you-out department. The voice acting is great too, and fans may recognise Greg Grunberg from Alias shedding his loveable best-friend agent role in favour of the head-splitting, psychic-visioning Ethan Thomas.

Condemned isn't a particularly long game, weighing in at around 10 hours for a fairly thorough play-through. But this isn't one of those games you'll want to spend dozens of hours on, because truthfully it'd probably get more than a little repetitive. Half the skill in game design is knowing when to say enough is enough, to avoid padding out the gameplay just to add an extra hour or two. It's all about pacing, and Condemned masterfully balances relentless action with dread-inducing lulls. Any longer and the effectiveness of the game would vanish, and good horror is all about timing.

With that said, Condemned has stacks of unlockable goodies for you to uncover if you are so inclined, and 50 Achievements to discover for maximum Gamerscore points, some of which will require you to replay the game to obtain. You can always adjust the difficulty too if that's your thing, but the default setting offers a solid challenge for even experienced players. Ethan can't take a lot of punishment, especially from firearms, so you'll probably die quite a few times.

Much has been made of the fact that Monolith compel the player to collect dead birds and pieces of metal, but the truth is that it makes sense contextually. And it's well worth spending as much time as possible to acquire all the metal pieces, which unlock dossiers and reports that will shed some light on Condemned's admittedly confusing storyline. Even after beating the game and getting every single report, the chances are you really won't understand what's going on at the ending. Whether this is a setup for a sequel or just deliberately ambiguous to get people chatting, the end result is that Condemned is a compelling, terrifying game that will keep you on the edge of your couch to the very end... and keep you guessing long after the credits have rolled.