Have you seen those commercials of the people being filmed while playing this game? Players jumping left and right, screaming in fear! Judging by the trailers I knew The Evil Within was going to be a step in the right direction in restoring the once dead Survival Horror genre. In a year where I haven't had much excitement over any game this is one that I had circled on my calender. Come on, Shinji Mikami is behind it putting the game is in great hands....or is it?
The quote on quote "God Father" of horror is back. The man that brought us Resident Evil 1-3, as well as 4 (which I fell was the start of the downhill spiral for the series). Maybe I should have tamed my expectations, ya? But those early RE games has a perfect tone and setting to extract those uncomfortable feelings from your brain so I'm sure he can recapture that magic again.
The Evil Within stumbled out of the gate immediately. The awful rendering where every scene is plagued by late texture pop ups was already an annoyance, and the voice acting was horrifically bad. There wasnt any emotion from any of the 4 characters during the opening scene as a bunch of weird events unfold around them and it continued all throughout the game. Sebastian Castellanos is one of the four characters, and unfortunately is the main character. Some may be able to look past some of the technical flaws but it really broke the immersion for me. I wanted to be sucked in right off the bat and know that this game was taking the genre seriously. Ultimately neither aspect to The Evil Within was able to inject those uncomfortable feelings of horror into my mind and ended up falling way short of my high expectations.
The whole time I just had a Resident Evil 4/5 type vibe. I felt like I played this game before. A game that kinda/sorta wants to be scary, but it doesn't want to scale back the action either which makes the horror portion suffer. Some instances I could see some nice design choices to create an uneasy atmosphere, but then the game will toss you into an action sequence or throw lots of enemies your way breaking the horror aspect. Or it will put you into tedious stealth gameplay that just slows everything down too much. Forcing you to use stealth in the opening scene wasn't adding to the horror aspect, it just added frustration and set a bad tone early on. The Evil Within doesn't quite know what direction to take or what kind of game it wants to be. It WANTS to be a horror game but it just never set that tone. I think it's extremely important to establish what kind of game this is going to be from the get go, the tone I got was action-y. Quite possibly the scariest thing was unintentional when a statue on top of a rat was gliding across the floor. It tried to throw in some cheap jump scares by having things pop at you but they never worked.
I kept pushing through the flaws because I thought that I would finally get the answers to the many questions with a revealing ending but it was all for not. The game is a mystery with strange events that follows "Seb" and takes him on a nightmare roller coaster being constantly faced with death. This unlikable protagonist is accompanied by 2 other equally unlikable detectives, a strange doctor and an equally strange patient, Leslie. You are stalked by man named Ruvik who possesses super natural powers that can alter objects, he can also teleport and has total control of the surrounding environments. His goal is to capture the mentally ill patient for personal reasons. It sounds interesting but it never really goes anywhere. Some events are cleared up by text based dialog, audio recording and newspapers but it never really clears up the important details, just minor plot points. You don't really learn anything during cutscenes or through speech so by the time the game is over you are still puzzled as to how and why things happened.
This all sets up the survival horror gameplay that we all yearn for. You faces hordes of zombie like creatures using stealth, or just go guns blazing. Stealth is most likely the way to go because you only have a limited amount of supplies and scarce resources which I like. Bullets and healing items are strategically placed through the levels (although enemies do drop ammo) so it is wise to not be trigger happy. The stealth however quite slow and tedious, especially if you end up dying and have to go through it all again. 88 times my poor Sebastian was decapitated, sliced and diced, blown up, or smashed to death, so get familiar with dying. Some deaths feel cheap but it is certainly a challenging game.
To aid you, you get your typical revolver, shotgun, and a neat little crossbow that fires all sorts of elemental damage. You can find cogs/gears that can be used to make more arrows, while disarming bombs will also earn you those items as well. Each weapon has upgradeable stats that can make it more powerful, faster to reload, like basically every other game with similar gameplay. Unfortunately the main pull for this game, to me, was the horror and it failed to establish that message early on. The Silent Hills demo made me more fearful, and legitimately frightened in the opening seconds than The Evil Within did the entire 20 hour campaign. It's all about the tone you set in the very beginning, it's key.
At least the environments looked pretty good and was constantly changing. The story elements gave the developers complete control over how to design the levels and they definitely excelled at it. While they were nice to roam around in, I often felt like they exaggerated a lot too to create the illusion that this was indeed a horror game, like the one chapter with gigantic eyeballs looking at you with blood everywhere. Not one place (with exception of the Mansion ironically) made me terrified and cautious. To me it wasn't scary, just bizarre. I was more afraid of getting blown up by those annoying boobie-traps. But as I said, I did enjoy the overall design, it was nice to look at. Enemy design was also a strong point. I wasn't too impressed with the normal "zombies" that you find roaming around, but the bosses were detailed nicely. Fighting them was also a treat and required a bit of problem solving (some did at least) to make the battle easier.
The music was solid too. It desperately tried to pump in those uneasy feelings but to no avail. It wasn't omnipresent although there was always something playing in the backround. It was faint. You knew it was there but it wasn't drowning out the other noises giving you a chance to immerse yourself in the environment. Unfortunately there weren't many "other" noises that struck a cord with me. Resident Evil has the memorable Zombie moan, The Last of Us has the Clickers clicking, but nothing hear made me stop in my shoes when I heard The Evil Within's "Zombies".
My overall experience with The Evil Within could certainly be forgotten. It wasn't a bad game by any means, it just wasn't the game I thought it would be. I wanted something that could scare me out of my socks, sleep with the light on (I exaggerate of course), and just plain scare me but it never did so. With a sluggish story, laughably bad acting, poor rendering, and the inconsistent gameplay styles just added to the disappointment. There are some redeeming qualities like the sountrack, and overall design to levels and enemies, but it's not enough to pick up the slack for an overall generic game. And although I was extremely disappointed with the first 8 chapters, it started to pick up steam by chapter 9, only to lose by the end of chapter 15. I see potential, but I think they tried a little too hard to create a terrifying game.
Also added this month: The Evil Within, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, Paradise Killer, Dishonored: Definitive Edition.
Riders republic. Nice. I never bought it but played beta twice. Good fun openworld game.
I have 3 other mates who like playing multiplayer games. Is this something we will all enjoy together?
It’s a really fun game when there’s a lot of people on but the player base dropped a lot compared to launch. This should help increase the amount online drastically.
It’s definitely a - I want to chill with my friends type of game so definitely check it out! Also it’s a huge improvement over Steep
Sounds good. Also, Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores DLC coming a day after. I'll be more likely spending time on that DLC first. But will join when free.
Riders Republic is a ton of fun and one of the best things Ubisoft has done in recent years IMO.
The music and acting are obnoxious, which I just turn down... but it's so much just freeriding mountain bikes or other stuff across the mountains. I haven't played w friends, but I imagine it would be a ton of fun in MP. Very underrated game!
I kept getting caught up in other games so I never got around to buying Doom Eternal. If it's good I'll still buy it so i can keep it. The reboot was awesome, i think i played through it about 5 times, and platinumed it.
Same here, I've had Doom Eternal on my wishlist for a long time. I'm definitely jumping in considering the free PS5 upgrade they released.
It is a lot of fun. First FPS in a while that has really grabbed me. And I love FPS games. C’mon Killzone/Resistance series remasters/remakes/sequels…anyt hing.
I agree , Sony has not produced a single player FPS campaign in about 8 years. I already played DOOM Eternal which was awesome.
A whole lotta Bethesda titles in this lineup
Sackboy also got included as well despite already being as Essential title
Regarding sackboy, you're right... That's confusing. At least wait until it's not in essential, as it's impossible to have extra without essential.
Damned if you do and damned if you don't with that one I think. When a former monthly free game goes into the subscription catalog at a later date it also gets criticism, so may as well just add it straight away for people who don't claim it going forward I guess.
Hopefully the claim on the game counts as a essentials claim so when the game leaves the catalogue it doesn't leave the players library.
I found a similar situation frustrating I played fallout 76 when it was introduced as a premium game a month or so later it was a essentials game and I could not repurchase it so I'll lose the game when it leaves the Library
Spiderman is in the titles leaving Extra in May. Guess 1st party titles aren't guaranteed to stay
That's just the way of subscription services in general, titles come and go, but I'm sure it'll be back. Maybe it's a Quantum Break deal where it's just a license refresh?
It's one of the reasons I fear a subscription/digital only future. I don't want the platforms telling me what I can and can't play at any given time and waiting of tenterhooks for games I actually want to be available.
Oh boy, that's making me want to jump back into Returnal! Not that I'd mind buying the game, love it.
Great Month, own most of them but looking fwd to trying monstor boy, nice sto have EW in my collection now and some wolfeinstein.
The Evil Within started with so much promise. It's time for this underappreciated franchise to make a return for modern audiences.
Definitely. 'Another Chance' is poor wording though, because it makes it sound like the first two weren't good games - they were.
I'm hoping we'll get a sequel now that GW Tokyo is out. TEW3 would seem to be the next obvious title to work on for Tango.
Oh totally
For me the Evil Within II was like the jump between Assassins Creed and Assassins Creed II, it was fantastic and they fleshed out Sebastian so much.
I know they've said before it probably will be the end of his story but I'm hoping for one more game, Ruuvik is still out there so hopefully he will pull Sebastian back in somehow to get his revenge.
Loved the first one a lot, bought part 2 but the disc got damaged, didn't get very far. I'll give it a play on Game Pass eventually.
Its an awesome game you wont be disappointed id say, you can probably get it for around $15 now, no real reason to wait
The PlayStation 4 has some of the best horror games to offer. Be informed that we hold no responsibility if you can't sleep at night.
Very good review! Thanks for ur honest opinions =)
Compared to Alien: Isolation, this game feels like something from 2005.. yeah, RE4 basically, only worse, much worse. And not only gameplay wise but graphically too it seems to be stuck in 00's. Alien is next gen though, gfx at least
Great read
i agree with your score too
that game disappoint me greatly
the first few chapters were good to great
but after that i was forcing my self to keep playing
This game sucked in my opinion compared to something like the original Dead Space. More like a 5/10. Also, who the hell is Shigenori Mikami?
Garbage review, the whole time you were talking about what you were expecting the game to be. Nothing about what it actually is. None of Mikami's games were particularly 'scary' they just combined fun gameplay with great atmosphere through the sound and level design. I don't know why people were expecting something ridiculously scary. Its not as if the original resident evils were anything properly scary like the silent hill games or say amnesia.
I personally thought the game was great and in terms of gameplay is the best thing ive played all year. Yes, it has its technical issues which can't be excused and the graphics are inconsistent from level to level but the game is extremely fun. 8.5 for me.