History VideoGame / TheSuffering

* BaldBlackLeaderGuy: Blackmore is bald. Blackmore is black (not ebony black, but definitely not white either). Blackmore is essentially the leader guy of crime in Baltimore (and who knows what else). [[spoiler:However, it turns out that Blackmore is a personality that exists only in Torque's head. Torque is certainly not bald. In fact, a picture of Blackmore from Jordan's point of view shows Torque wearing a cowboy hat. Interestingly enough, the first game had a cut-out prologue that showed Torque wearing a cowboy hat, which falls off when he turns into a monster. He does not put it back on. Is this FridgeBrilliance or what?]]

** The premise of the game is one big metaphor for [[HadToComeToPrisonToBeACrook criminal recidivism]], especially Torgue chooses the good morality choices. [[spoiler: If the player chooses the "good" ending, Torgue is revealed to have been framed and his rescuer tells him that he has a chance of a retrial so he can clear his name. Horace Gauge, of the ghosts of Carnate Island, blames the justice system for his girlfriend's death because they chose to send him to a prison full of people who were far worse than him rather than help rehabilitate him (even stating that he was imprisoned over an assault charge that was presumably done in self-defense), causing him to snap from fear and believe his girlfriend will die without his protection. The release of the Malefactors is a visual metaphor for this, as they were released when a person of true moral conflict comes into a place of pure evil, which includes sending an innocent man to an extremely dangerous, maximum-security prison called Abbott State Penitentiary.]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Hermes is basically one giant reference to [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust the Holocaust]]. A sadistic prison guard who enjoyed killing people while justifying it that he was just following orders and who loved using gas more than anything. Hell, his boss fight ends when you ''put him in an oven''.

** The Head C.O. and Ernesto are two noteworthy examples as they become Torque's allies out of necessity rather than liking you personally, though they develop a grudging respect towards you if you help them. With all the monsters infesting the island, even they know they can't be picky with their allies.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: In the first game's prologue "Waiting To Die", a couple of inmates recognize Torque and remember that he's in prison for killing his wife and kids. This disgusts them so much, they try to shank Torque, which results in Torque going berserk and killing them in self-defense. Then there's the other death row inmates in Torque's wing; Slick may give Torque a pass for killing his wife, but [[WouldntHurtAChild draws the line at kids]], and all of them show a distinct hatred for Floyd, the child rapist.

For example — the Slayer represents the Guillotine/Axe executions, and in Baltimore, it represents all those shankings and axe murders...

* RuleOfSymbolism: Every single enemy in the game is representative of a method of execution or an urban horror/vice. For example — the Slayer represents the Guillotine/Axe executions, and in Baltimore, it represents all those shankings and axe murders...

* EvenEvilHasStandards: In the first game's prologue "Waiting To Die", a couple of inmates recognize Torque and remember that he's in prison for killing his wife and kids. This disgusts them so much they try to shank Torque, which results in Torque going berserk and killing them. Then there's the death row inmates, who all show distinct hatred for the child rapist.

* DefiniteArticleTitle

* NotSoDifferent: Numerous other characters compare Torque to themselves, and vice-versa. [[spoiler:Depending on your moral path, they may be right.]]

* LaughingMad: One of the ghost voices on the island is left in a permanent state of this after her treatment by Dr. Killjoy.

* InfantImmortality: Most assuredly averted to great horrific effect. The murder of two children is a crucial backstory event that colours all the events in the series. Also, the Infernas in the first game are ghosts who represent the petty cruelty children can commit, and have to be slain in order to progress (although thankfully not while in their ghostly UndeadChild form). In the second game, there is a sequence involving a baby mentioned below, which is in some ways the most unsettling part of the game.

* MercyKill: You have the option to do this once in the first game. Doing so nets you good points on the KarmaMeter.
** Same with the second game, but the guy you'd do it to [[spoiler:ends up dying anyway when a boss comes out of a nearby hole, knocking a large crate into the area where he was sitting]].

[[FromBadToWorse Then something happens]].

* TheTheTitle

A film was announced in 2005 and was slated for a 2011 release. [[DevelopmentHell "Slated" being the operative word, as it has yet to be released.]]

* AmbiguousSituation: Torque's situation in the good karma ending of ''Ties That Bind'' is very...odd. [[spoiler:Carmen remarks that she wants her and Torque to never be apart again, then they hug. Given that Carmen ''is dead'' and that Torque just killed his alternate personality, it's entirely possible he actually killed himself in the final boss fight.]]
* AnAxeToGrind: Torque can find an axe to replace his shiv in the first game. It does three times the damage and knocks down whatever it hits, in addition to significant knockback on the smaller enemies. As a tradeoff, it swings slower, preventing you from just charging in like with the shiv. As long as you can time your first hit right, though, its knockdown effect will instantly paralyze anything it hits. Each hits counts as another knockdown, so anything hit by it is staying down until they die or you stop. The rat-filled slavers are immune to both the knockback and the knockdown, but it stuns them and kills in three hits anyway. The only things not vulnerable to it are the Infernas (can't be knocked down and on fire), exploding rats (too small and fast), and bosses.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Berserk mode in the first game, especially if you're going for a good karma run. Its attacks are very powerful, but you cannot heal during it, it counts as an evil action, and [=NPC=]s you have to escort tend to get caught up in its attacks. ''Ties That Bind'' altered this so berserk no longer counts as an evil action and is actually changed/upgraded by your karma level, but [=NPC=]s remain just as dumb so it must be used very carefully.

** If you go down the neutral path in the first game, this happens with [[spoiler:Torque's eldest son.]]

* BuriedAlive: The origin of the Burrowers - as an execution method in the first, originating from Irish workers buried alive in accidents in the second.

* ChildrenAreInnocent: The backstory for the Infernas is a horrific aversion; they were originally three little girls who lived in a Puritan village founded on Carnate Island, who decided it would be super-fun to start accusing people of being witches. [[BurnTheWitch The resultant trials and hysteria, naturally, got about thirteen people burned as witches.]] The guilt of what they had done drove them over the edge and so they leapt off of a cliff to their death.

* CombatTentacles: The Burrowers use their chains in this manner. The Creeper has a particularly disturbing version - they're impaled through the victims of his crimes.

** Potential addition; in Ties that Bind, there is a point in the game where a woman is trying to get to her baby, whom you can hear crying and presume to be under the white sheet in the living room. Turns out when you do finally check it out, the baby actually isn't there...
* DeadlyGas: Hermes preferred the gas chamber, died by the gas chamber, and thus came back as a being of gas. [[LampshadedTrope Lampshades]] and [[JustifiedTrope justifies]] the green color in a single swoop by saying that he intentionally colored the gas so that people can see it coming.

* DifficultButAwesome: The axe takes longer to swing than the shiv and leaves you vulnerable to being hit before you can follow through, but with careful timing it lets you stun-juggle nearly any enemy in the game with no fear of retaliation.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Hermes is basically one giant reference to the Holocaust. A sadist prison guard who enjoyed killing people while justifying it that he was just following orders and who loved using gas more than anything. Hell, his boss fight ends when you ''put him in an oven''.

* EnemyMine: Twice in the first game, once in the second. In the first, [=COs=] team up with the prisoner Torque in order to fight their way out through a part of the level. In the second, [[spoiler:Jordan of the Foundation]] teams up with Torque when the Malefactors REALLY get thick. [[spoiler:Except she still wants to kill you. Whoops.]] If you've been going the Evil route, [[spoiler:she does genuinely team up with you.]] But [[spoiler:if you don't end up killing her she gets captured by The Creeper and you get good karma]].
* EnemyWithin: Torque can transform into a Malefactor himself to utterly tear things to shreds. [[spoiler:If you're good, it's just Torque on an adrenaline rush. If you're neutral or bad, it's ambiguous if you actually change]]. In the second game, [[spoiler:the BigBad of it all turns out to be Blackmore, a split personality]].

* EpilepticTrees: In-universe: Nobody knows for sure what causes the disaster, but there sure are a hell of a lot of people theorizing about it. Prisoners blame the guards, guards blame the prisoners, maybe it's magic, maybe it's the end of the world, maybe it's the result of hallucinogens being released, maybe it's all in some way related to Torque himself (just as hell breaks loose, a voice ''does'' say "been waiting for you" as he arrives), maybe it's all in Torque's mind -- and we never find out for sure.

* FlushingEdgeInteractivity: A restroom very close to your first cell is the location of the {{Cutscene}} where you pick up Torque's first MoralityPet. Needless to say, the toilets needlessly work (though if your graphics card isn't up to snuff you can expect the most geometrically unsound flush imaginable).
* GeniusLoci: Both Carnate Island and Baltimore have gathered a LOT of bitterness and anger over the years of their existence.
** It's implied that any place that has enough evil in its past can become this sort of malevolent Genius Loci, and begin spawning Malefactors representing the sins that brought it to this state. It's further implied that everywhere actually has enough evil for this -- you just have to look to discover it.

* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: The Horde from ''Ties That Bind''. One minute, you're preparing to enter a mysterious glowing portal in the floor in the middle of the prison which, according to your wife's ghost, will take you to Blackmore's drowning pool. Then this humongous, nightmarish worm-thing emerges from the gate, smashes a chopper and proceeds to attack you in the following battle.

* HappyEndingOverride: ''Ties That Bind'' does this to the first game if you got the good karma ending. So you conquered your demons, learned you were innocent, and escaped Carnate? Whoops, you just got captured, the creatures are now in Baltimore and your innocence, not to mention sanity, is once again in question. Lampshaded by Dr. Killjoy at the theater.

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Malefactors are made from human sins and cruelty, but the biggest threat are other humans, ranging from [[ArmiesAreEvil the Foundation]] to prisoners; the bosses tend not to be monsters, but ''humans'', living or otherwise. One mook in the second game recognizes this - there's far, FAR too many human sins, and thus, unlimited demons.

** Torque's own jump suit and general hygene level change depending on how good or how evil he is -- it's a bit grungy starting out, it's filthy and he's covered in open sores when you're pure evil, he looks just fine and recently-washed when pure good. his insanity transformation also changes when your good or evil in the second game, the evil insanity torque looks much more demonic, while the good insanity torque looks like a muscled up version of his normal self. the attacks also change in the second game. There's also an undocumented bonus to good and evil -- when you're pure good, health packs heal you more (and heal much less when you're evil), but conversely, you can berserk more when evil.

*** The second game allows you to choose from which of the three endings the original The Suffering you finished at to choose as a starting point. Interestingly, how you ''begin'' the second game has repercussions as late as the final boss and who is or is not with you at that time.

** Dr. Killjoy also counts, he seems to genuinely believe his attempts to cure his patients, including Torque, is for their own good, despite the fact that most of them end up dead.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Torque can't remember what happened on the night his family was murdered. Also, it turns out that [[spoiler:every time Torque goes monstrous, he has no recollection of what happens.]]

** [[spoiler:Ranse Truman may have the same abilities Torque has. He did say that he was handling the first couple waves of monsters sent at him just fine, but he would not have won against the last wave without taking extreme measures. Hmm....]]

** Same with the second game, but the guy you'd do it to [[spoiler:ends up dying anyway when a boss comes out of a nearby hole, knocking a large crate into the area where he was sitting.]]

** [[spoiler:It even zigzags for each variant. Ended the first game neutral, ended the second game good? Your son was pumped up on drugs given to him by Blackmore, and you DID accidentally kill your wife, as opposed to the "normal" neutral ending, in which Torque's abuse of his son caused him to commit murder-suicide and he beat his wife to death in anger. And so on.]]

--> [[spoiler:Accompanied with it is a picture of Torque's wife children. Its quality also depends on the ending. Good keeps it clean. Neutral has it worn out. Bad leaves it stained in blood.]]

* {{Mundanger}}: In the first game, the good ending has Torque [[spoiler:framed by a Government Conspiracy.]] The evil ending has him [[spoiler:apparently being manipulated by the same supernatural evil he finds in Carnate.]] The neutral one? [[spoiler:Torque accidentally killed his wife, and his elder son finds out, intentionally drowning his little brother before committing suicide.]]

* NoCanonForTheWicked: All three endings from the first game lead into the second one (with effects as late as the final bossfight), but if you don't have an OldSaveBonus and haven't beaten the game at least once, you can only start where the neutral ending left off.

* PracticalEffects: By nature impossible in a non-live-action video game, but the monsters for the series were designed by practical effects god Creator/StanWinston and very much have a Practical Effects aesthetic to them -- the majority of them look like they could be pulled off with a guy in a suit, animatronics, or high-end puppets.
* {{Prison}}: The setting of the first game -- the entire island of Carnate is a prison.
* PrisonChangesPeople: A key motif. Abbot State Penitentiary literally brings out the worst in people, the poor living conditions, brutal discipline, equally-brutal gangs and the subtle supernatural power all slowly driving inmates insane.
* PrisonRape: Surprisingly (but thankfully) averted. Despite the pitch-black atmosphere of the series and their portrayal of the horrors of urban society, rape has gone absolutely untouched. In fact, the only sexual situation glossed over at all is [[spoiler:Horace murdering his wife after he has sex with her.]]

** While the subject of prison rape is untouched, there is a child rapist on Death Row in the original game, and Ties that Bind gave us the Creeper.

* PsychoElectro: It's saying something that Horace is actually one of the most (sorta) balanced characters on the cast.

* {{Retcon}}: The good karma ending of the first game revealed that Torque was innocent of his family's murders. [[spoiler:But the second game revealed that, no, he wasn't. He, in his Blackmore guise, was the one who sent the thugs to intimidate Carmen, which resulted in her and the boys deaths. Though part of its own good karma ending explains that Blackmore never intended for them to get killed, and was angered that the thugs misunderstood his orders.]]
* RuleOfSymbolism: Every single enemy in the game is representative of a method of execution or an urban horror/vice. For example -- the Slayer represents the Guillotine/Axe executions, and in Baltimore, it represents all those shankings and axe murders...

* SequelHook: The good ending of the first game had Torque being told by a thug that his family's death was ordered by "The Colonel." We find out about the Colonel (Blackmoore) in the second game.

* ShockAndAwe: Horace's method of execution was the electric chair, and thus has the powers of electricity as a ghost. Though these are mostly confined to simply causing some fireworks and travelling around in power boxes, later in the game [[spoiler:Horace blows open a latched-shut cell door with his electricity.]]

** Horace shares a name with another character [[Film/{{Shocker}} executed by electricity.]]

-->'''Malcolm:''' [[Literature/{{It}} We all float down here]].

* UnholyGround: It is implied that Carnate Island is an inherently cursed settlement - the various disasters and lapses in human decency being the island's attempt to get rid of the humans that settle there - and that the Malefactors are the Island's last resort in doing so. The same could be the case for Baltimore.

* WormSign: indicates a Burrower is going to dig up out of the ground and sling chains at you.

->There's a difference between those that feel safest in the light, and those that feel safest in the dark. Which are you, Torque?