Agony

Agony proves that, like beauty, horror can be only skin deep. With gratuitous amounts of violence and masochistic overtones, this blood-soaked adventure is not for the faint of heart. But while its bold and detailed environments depict Hell in the most nightmarish ways possible, even the fantastically obscene sights and creepy sounds become mundane and dull by the end of its series of repetitious mazes, unimaginative item hunts, and weak stealth gameplay.

Agony is, true to its name and intentions, a hellish experience. My excitement for the game was quickly quashed behind bugs, crashes and unbalanced gameplay, failing to live up to the potential of the game’s core ideas and outstanding visual design. I hope that I can travel back to Hell following some substantial patching but, as things stand, Agony is torture in all the wrong ways.

When you’re finished with the campaign there are two additional modes to sink your teeth into if you really want to be a masochist. The first is succubus mode that (as you can expect) allows you to play through the campaign as a succubus demon. It’s a bit of a power fantasy mode where now you’re the one on the offensive, instead of hiding from monsters you’re actively seeking them out but honestly the thought of trudging back through that campaign is torture enough. The other mode in the game is called agony mode and there’s a bit more to it than the previous one. This is a highscore focused m...