Xbox 360 launch title Condemned: Criminal Origins raised the crowbar on action-horror games and redefined melee brawling as we know it, tasking players with pummeling a never-ending siege of junkies and homeless psychos with an array of awesomely crude and brutal weapons (papercutter blades!). Developer Monolith is upping the intensity, scares, and violence with Condemned 2: Bloodshot, which enthusiastic Senior Producer Constantine Hantzopoulos says is actually “the game we wanted to make when we made the [first one].”

Picking up about a year after Condemned’s “Say what ?” finale, our demo had protagonist Ethan Thomas — steeped in alcoholism — being thrown out of a bar and, soon after, being hit in the face with a brick by an insane-o who asks, “Ready to have some fun?” Boy, are we ever!

In Condemned 2, the action starts immediately, highlighting an integral decision that, as Hantzopoulos puts it, challenges players to “be a badass or don’t be a badass.” We watched as Ethan quickly chose the former and the game speedily transformed into a thrill-aminute supernatural freak show. (Think lots of possessed thugs and angry tar-covered icky undead thingies.)

The combat is four-layered, with hand-tohand blows, environmental finishing moves, weapons, and chained attacks. Of course, you can use pretty much any blunt weapon, and guns make a return appearance — but seriously, who uses a gun in a Condemned game? For a twist on melee combat, you’ll be able to throw your weapons, but so can the A.I., so watch your back! Monolith has also retooled the forensics system, which now acts like a mini-game that gives you story hints based on how correctly you analyze the crime scene. Then there’s Hobo Fight Club, the cherry on top of the blood-spattered cake. It’s basically a battle arena that

Monolith mocked up to test the new combat system, but they liked it so much that they created a fight-till-you-die mini-game out of it. The longer you last before dying, the higher you’ll climb up the leaderboards. It’s not confirmed for the final game, but by the looks of this over-the-top brutality mode, leaving it out would just be mean — and we know the Monolith guys aren’t that sadistic.

SIDEBAR: FPM, Anyone? That is, first-person melee? While Condemned: Criminal Origins featured some of the most visceral melee combat around, it’s hard to imagine a game like it coming to fruition without the great FPS titles of yore and their equally great melee weapons. Remember slaughtering naked zombies and imps with Doom’s chainsaw? What about hearing the Quake III announcer call out “Humiliation” whenever you scored a kill with the weird sawblade-tipped Gauntlet? And don’t forget Serious Sam’s Bonecracker, Unreal Tournament’s Impact Hammer, and, of course, Gordon Freeman’s trusty crowbar in Half-Life 2. Finally, it wouldn’t be OXM if we didn’t show a little love for Derrick Cole’s glowing fisticuffs in Breakdown. So there.