Summary [8.0 out of 10]

A promising start to a new potential franchise, The Evil Within gets back to the horror roots of survival horror while providing a mostly engaging story with strong game play and visuals. Uneven difficulty hamstrings the game somewhat, however, and the controls can get in the way of proper command execution but the game still shines thanks to some truly tense, creepy and  outright scary moments make this a game that survival horror fans, especially those disillusioned by Resident Evil’s transition to more of an action focus, should definitely pick up. It isn’t perfect but it is still a very solid experience.

What’s It Like:

Resident Evil 4: The overall look and feel of the game scream Resident Evil 4 which isn’t especially surprising given that it was directed by Shinji Mikami. The control scheme, camera, environment, enemies and basic play mechanics are so in line with RE4 that it feels more like a sequel to that game than Resident Evil 5 did. I love the hell out of RE4 so this is a definitely a good thing.

Silent Hill 2: For me, Silent Hill 2 was hands down the scariest survival horror game I have ever played and The Evil Within invokes some of those same feelings in the atmosphere and overall creepiness. The feeling I got playing this game is very reminiscent of that and while it is not as creepy and tense as SH2, it gets close enough for a strong comparison.

Eternal Darkness: The Evil Within has a lot of twisting turns that mess with your head and it plays with your perception of the game’s reality which is something Eternal Darkness did exceedingly well. Very little is straight forward in this game and it reminded me of the head games Eternal Darkness played with you.

The Great

Game play: The game play is made up a of a great mixture of play styles and there are several different paths an options to choose from when trying to tackle an obstacle or enemy. If you find yourself having a difficult time with a section there are often numerous alternate ways of going about the task that can get you out of your rut. This leads to some amount of trial and error but it also makes victories small and large feel much better. The difficulty can stymie this sometimes but the tactical options available really make it a lot more fun and you can fit the game to your preferred play style to a degree as opposed to feeling shoe horned into just one thing.

 

Graphics: The game is absolutely gorgeous from the environments to the character models and while it all looks gray and oppressive, there is a good variety of locations and enemies to keep it from looking stale. Aesthetically there are a lot of really ugly things in this game but they are rendered beautifully and even the most disturbing elements look incredible.

 

Challenge: This is kind of weird because I am going to complain about difficulty later on but it is very good to see a game like this be a challenge even for veterans at this kind of game. Even on the lowest difficulty setting you are not going to be able to just walk through it easily. The necessity for strategy and resource management means that if you try to just charge through guns blazing you are going to die quickly and badly. Even if you are a seasoned player you will die often here and generally speaking that is a good thing. Part of what adds to the tension and fear is the challenge involved and that really makes it a much more effective horror game.

The Good

Story: One problem that comes up whenever you have a game or story in general that deals with insanity in any for is that you often times get a bunch of nonsensical bullshit that they don’t bother to really tie in to a story because weird shit. The Evil Within could be a bit more coherent narratively but it holds itself together enough to keep the player invested and move the story along. You are supposed to feel unbalanced and as such the chaos is necessary and instrumental. It could go a little lighter on the weirdness and a bit heavier in the sort of symbolism and metaphor that Silent Hill 2 managed but what is here is good.

Controls: The basics of the controls will be familiar to anyone who has played survival horror game post Resident Evil 4. The movement, inventory management and basic attacks are pretty well standard for this type of game. Where it gets a little shaky is when you throw stealth, secondary weapons and running into the mix. The collision detection can be a bit spotty sometimes too so getting into intense close quarters action in boss fights and things like that can be a sketchy and frustrating proposition. Still, potential frustration and clumsiness aside, the controls are solid.

Monsters: The enemy variety here is pretty decent with a number of different sorts of monsters with a variety of behaviors so it doesn’t feel like there are just pallet swapped zombies or something. Even the baseline ‘Haunted’ enemies have several different looks, attacks and behaviors so they don’t feel particularly recycled. Some of the boss types repeat more than I think they should to be effectively scary as opposed to frustrating and annoying but in general there is a good mix here.

The Bad

Uneven Difficulty: I know I praised the challenge above and I stand by that but I would rather there be a consistent escalation of the difficult as opposed to what feels like an EKG up and down of difficulty. It is a game in which you are meant to run through on the easier difficulty and then go back through in a game plus on the harder difficulty and then the plus game on the hardest and I find that kind of irritating. There is still a challenge on the easiest and the normal isn’t impossible if you play it on its own but with excessive one hit kills and nightmare scenarios that come out of nowhere, it can be very frustrating. I like a hard game but I like consistency as well.

Conclusion [8.0 out of 10]

The Evil Within is a game I have wanted for a long time, one that gets back to what makes survival horror survival horror and it does it very well. It has some pacing issues when it comes to difficulty and the story and controls aren’t perfect but the overall package is very good and should be a welcome addition to any survival horror library. I hope that this kicks off a new franchise and that we get more iterations off of this aesthetic without degenerating into an action game with horror elements. This is the first game since the second Dead Space that I have played that has really felt this scary. Well, Alien Isolation, but it is a different sort of game play altogether. If you are looking for a survival horror experience that harkens back to the genre’s roots melded with a Resident Evil 4 style then you need to pick up The Evil Within.