“Something dark and unspeakable left you deeply scarred.
Now, you must return home to cut off the evil at it’s source.
But, to defeat your enemies you first have to conquer your own demons;
and make the choice between good and evil.”

Such as the narrative states in the trailer for “The Suffering: The Ties That Bind,” this is the story board for the soon to be released Surreal Software horror video game which follows Torque, it’s blood soaked sociopathic antihero who has escaped from the monster ridden island prison for the criminally insane which served as the backdrop for the video game company’s moderately successful previous installment, “The Suffering.”

In the sequel, Torque returns to his hometown, a city which makes the fictional Abbott State Penitentiary seem like springtime in Martha’s Vineyard, to do battle with villains, used hypodermic needle ridden creatures crawling out of pools of blood, and his own internal demons which had previously caused him to murder his entire family.

And what apocalyptic metropolis do you think the Seattle based Surreal Software has chosen as the setting which could produce such a pathological and murderous protagonist? You guessed it, Baltimore.

Swwwwweeeeeeet! I don’t even play video games and I love this news.

Here are some of my favorite snippets from yesterday’s Baltimore Sun article on the upcoming video game:

“ Yet when his creative team contemplated settings for their gory new release, Baltimore leapt out at them like a giant, bullet-ridden arachnid, one of the creatures that patrols the digitized downtown.”

“ In Baltimore, "we knew there was a lot of interesting stuff that would fit into a horror game," said Richard Rouse III, a design director and writer for Surreal Software, the Seattle-based company behind the release. "The real environment is horrible, on some level."’

“ Yet many of these monsters have been here all along, at least in the game designers' dark assessment of Baltimore. Most of them embody urban plagues - Mainliners(the drug needle speckled creatures), for instance, personify drug abuse, and The Gorger, a beast with a distended belly and huge mouth, represents hunger - that trouble this and other large municipalities.

"We wanted to contain things that people could recognize from real life," Rouse explained, "to make the horror more profound."’

"We were looking for archetypal Baltimore," explained the Surreal Software environmental artist, Mark Bullock, a previous short time resident of Baltimore who organized a game designer field trip to the city last year to help gain a feel for the city. “I mean, when I was living there I had a great time (but) there was always the helicopter and the spotlight chasing some guy.... Until we had that trip to Baltimore, I don't think people got the rowhouse concept... They couldn't believe such structures existed.” (heh??? Not that I mind, but I had no idea that rowhouses were such a difficult concept to grasp for people living on the other coast.)

I suppose it is a bit idiotic for me to take pride in this city’s dark and dangerous reputation; but to some degree or another, despite the fact that we all want the city to improve, I think most of us do this and have taken a macabre delight for our city’s notoriety for blight and urban entropy. Let other cities have their Gilmore Girls, Providence and The O.C. We’re perfectly happy with Homicide, The Wire and The Corner. It somehow gives us an earned sense of smug hard-boiled superiority, knowing that we’re making a go of it in a place that in this one way overcasts touchy-feely utopias, like New York and L.A. Have you ever had to listen to a San Franciscan try to impress you with scary stories about The Tenderloin? It brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it. “Oooh, junkie teenagers begging for change. How ever do you survive?”

I suppose, too, it was pretty idiotic of me two nights ago, while walking home, after noticing a guy coming out of the shadows and changing directions to rendezvous with me about fifty yards ahead, to actually enjoy the cat and mouse we ended up playing. I changed directions and hid in an alley, waiting for him to get far enough away that I could dart to the front door of my building without him catching me. When he realized that doubled back behind him, he turned around and tried to catch me, but I was too close to my building for him to get me. I actually delighted in being sure that I wasn’t being paranoid and had successfully marked him, and mocked him from the safety of my building’s lobby.

It wasn’t until I was in the elevator that the thought popped into my head, “You know, walking home isn’t really supposed to be like that.” Granted, he wasn’t covered in hypodermic needles or trying to eat me, but still?

Yep, definitely idiotic.