The Evil Within Review

Hey guys, I've been practicing my writing for a while and I wanted to know how I did (what better place to have a quality check for a review than a video game forum?) so in the spirit of a sequel coming out this fall, here is my review of The Evil Within

As I run from a lunatic with a chainsaw into an elevator that will hopefully bring me to safety, all I can think is “this is only the game’s opening?” and that is when The Evil Within hooked me. The Evil Within is a survival horror achievement that is a key step in reviving an endangered genre, nearly killed by faux survival experiences turned shooters, such as Resident Evil 5 and 6. But the Evil Within is able to be a boost in the arm of survival due to the game getting many of the key aspects of horror right, including lighting, atmosphere, enemy variety, and a feeling of hopelessness at times.

Technical

With all of that said, there is one area where The Evil Within steps down in a significant way and that is the graphics. The problem with the graphics is that you can tell there was not a whole lot of detail put into them and you can tell by things looking very ugly at times. This is not to say the game is bad in all technical levels though because it is not. In fact, the game has tremendous atmosphere that is boosted by the superb lighting and chilling sound. The sound truly adds to the experience because it gets louder at just the right times to make you think something is gonna happen but nothing does. Something else I have to mention is the frightening music that you'll hear as you make your way through the world and in the hub. Also Tango Gameworks did a very good job of placing clutter in just the right places to maximize the spooks. An example of this are the wheelchairs in the hallway during the intro that are all arranged in a way to slow you down and be uncertain about the fate of your character. Another thing I have to talk about are the controversial blackbars that the developers included for cinematic value and I personally don't mind them one bit and got used to it after the first hour. Overall the game’s graphics are poor but all the other technical components are done very well.

Story & Characters

The story and characters of The Evil Within are the parts of the game I'm most torn on. On one hand, we get a lot of background on the main character, Sebastian as well as the villain, Ruvik but on the other hand, we barely learn anything about the world we're in, the side characters, and their motives. The worst offender of this is Joseph, Sebastian’s incredibly boring and static assistant that is just there for the occasional partner mission. Then there’s Kidman who, albeit is a little better but we barely learn anything about her in the main game and have to buy dlc to learn her motives. Back to Sebastian though, we read a lot of his journals and find out that he actually is quite an interesting character with a real story but he does not show it in any of the cutscenes or dialogue throughout the game. I'm fine with this being the case for Ruvik however, because he is the main villain and I'm sick of mainstream cliche villains telling their whole life story and all their motives. The game also does a fantastic job of really showing how damaged and broken this character is as well as how twisted his mind has become. Then there’s the story, which is actually pretty cool once you realize what it's all about. The only problem is it's more of a souls-esq story in the sense that the storytelling is done through bosses, the environment, and collectibles. This means that you will be very confused and not have any idea what's going on for a majority of the playthrough. I am going to excuse this, this one time but next time don't do your storytelling with things that most people aren't gonna find all of.

Gameplay

Now the most important part of the Game, the gameplay. The gameplay is done very well for the most part with me having some gripes here and there. One problem is that the movement is very stiff and It’s two extremes, you're either sprinting or you're walking at a snail’s pace. I understand that they don't want you just jogging your way through each level but if they could make the walking speed just a little faster that would be great but this is just nitpicking. My main problem with the gameplay is that when you start the game it feels very dated and it's not until you start to upgrade Sebastian a bit that the game starts feeling much smoother. This includes the stiff movement, the way your character can only sprint for a few seconds at the beginning, and the difficulty to aim when you first start. Once you start to get yourself upgraded though, you're going to start having a blast sneaking upon enemies, blasting their heads off, and fighting bosses. The boss fights are another thing done superbly well and truly reward the thinking player. For example, there is one boss that you fight in a barn and you CAN fight him there or you can lead him outside the barn into a multitude of environmental traps. This isn't even just one boss that you can go at in different ways, you can do that with a lot of them. The Evil Within truly rewards finesse and I love it for that. Something else you can do is, instead of wasting some ammo on killing an enemy legit, you can just shoot it in the leg and burn it with a match. I have also heard about people complaining about the game being too hard but it really isn't, you just have to play smart and explore a lot so you never have to struggle with ammo. Oh and on top of all the endorsements I've already given the game, it also has great enemy and weapon variety to make sure you don't get bored.

Conclusion

Like all good opening installments do for their franchise, The Evil Within creates a very solid establishment for a sequel to improve on and I'm very excited to see where the series goes next.

9/10. (Sorry if the formatting ends up being a mess, I did this on my phone)

9/10 ?

No way man

this game isn't that good. You have to be a complete survival horror noob to think this game is a 9/10. I think the best survival horror game is alien isolation, so in comparison this game is more akin to resident evil horror status, but even that level of gameplay doesn't do it much justice. This game average at best on all fronts.

Alien Isolation is a hiding simulator, that turns to a lame FPS later on. Calling it the best Survival Horror is a joke. Don't you spend the ending half shooting repetitive robots? Movie-gamer fans are lost in nostalgia with that game. It's a 7/10 tops.

The Evil Within is a solid game but the sequel needs to iron-out the flaws of the past. I did a mini review a few years ago and replaying it now going for 100% yet again. TEW suffers from control and technical issues, along with some questionable pacing. It's also a 7/10 for me. However it's gameplay has more variety and depth than the Resident Evil franchise, and would say it builds on the gunplay, it just lacks the overall polish.

i saw this thread earlier and wondered how long it'd take you to make an appearance ;)

you're usually quite objective in your assessment of games but what you've said here displays a real lack of understanding / recognition for how well atmospheric stealth games can translate to survival horror if pitched right. it has its faults for sure but they're not the hyperbolic ones you give in your post

@Macutchi: I think my view is more on-point with Aliens: Isolation, than darktowers opinion for The Evil Within.

At least I acknowledge what the game is overall as I've played the game, at least as much as I did before stopping. And I'm not stating Horror games cannot have stealth, The Evil Within has a poorly added stealth mechanic, however it goes without saying that is entirely what Isolation's gimmick is before it becomes a kill robot FPS, and not even a good one.

And even if people like Isolation, that's cool. But naming it the best Survival Horror game and calling someone a "noob" makes me wonder how much they're blinded by movie nostalgia? and how many truly great Survival Horror games they've played.

I gave Isolation a 7. And last I checked that's very good, better than you'd give The Evil Within :P

two wrongs don't make a right ;) and ai never comes close to becoming a fps. ammo that actually kills the working joes is so scarce and they take so many hits to kill that it's just there as a last resort, nothing else

It's a great game but i would never give it a 9. That score means its almost perfect which if you think that's the case then i highly disagree. I loved the game but the absolute highest score i would give is an 8, and that's on a good day. The game has fantastic presentation but is brought down by muddy textures and some flat visuals. Gameplay is very interesting but the letterbox format makes everything just more annoying. And the story sucks.... Sorry but it really does suck. Just for that i wouldn't give it a 9. Very well written review though!

@Macutchi: Isn't a famous English quote also, "An eye for an eye"

And true I phrased that wrong. However you don't need to always kill stated threat to make it no longer a problem of progress.

You can't kill The Haunted in TEW by normal means either but you need to play more of the game to know that Mac :P

Hence the entire point of my reply, I responded to an ignorant post who probably hasn't even played The Evil Within based on his vague comment. I however have played both games. And explain the games in correct context even if I don't give them positive mentions.

Sure I'm not the biggest fan of Aliens as a movie franchise, and stealth games are not my usual genre. Heck played it to convince a friend I tried it. But being a jerk on someones thread, calling them a "noob" then jerking over the one good Alien game in history, then calling it the best Survival Horror game. Who's really the noob here?

You can't blame me putting my fist into a bias opinion, in a genre I absolutely adore :)

Everyone can argue that The Evil Within has many rough edges and I'm ok with that. Some of it is valid. But calling Isolation the best, or even excellent in the Survival Horror genre by any stretch is an insult.

You already know I'm a big fan of The Evil Within/ Psycho Break, even stated you waited for my reply. . Yet I give TEW the same rating as Aliens. If that's not a lack of bias? I don't know what is.

LOL NO!

i'm not even a big fan of the movies, but i think the game is phenomenal!

if you play the game on nightmare difficulty, you CANNOT kill the synthetic robots with just a shotgun

in fact, you can play the WHOLE GAME without killing anyone, fact!

atmospheric stealth horror survival > whatever the heck evil within was

@darktower:

> whatever the heck evil within was

You'd have a clue if you played it. Looking it up on Youtube isn't an incentive stance and is worthy of being shunned_

fact!

But lucky us, we get a sequel that can build on the previous game. And you can go back and play your second favorite game of all-time, Colonial Marine. Everyone wins.

The game runs terribly, 1/10. The rest is irrelevant to me.

i think it's excellent, don't be insulted it's just an opinion :)

i didn't realise you gave ai and tew the same rating... i don't get that since you're so scathing of ai and you enjoyed tew so much you replayed it a dozen times or so, iirc, how come?

@Macutchi:

i think it's excellent, don't be insulted it's just an opinion

If you think it's excellent? That's fantastic. Sure I think you should play more Survival Horror games (maybe) :^) but at least you're not naming it King of the Hill lol.

However the opinion in question lacked any context worth of relevance towards The Evil Within outside of random negatives unrelated to the game, which puts people off giving the game a fair chance. A chance lost by someone who has continued to prove he has never played TEW. But is open to trash the game. .

i don't get that since you're so scathing of ai and you enjoyed tew so much you replayed it a dozen times or so, iirc, how come?

Because I respect Isolation for what it is even if it's one-note, and as a product it's far more polished than The Evil Within. From a gameplay perspective I feel it's lacking in variety and substance over TEW.

As when I stopped the robot models was getting very copy and paste with repetition in its gameplay, which had a big change of focus sure, however it was for the worse, and that's the games main overall flaw that halted my progress.

I can't complain about the hide and seek nature of the game, because some really like that. The Aliens A.I. itself was impressive and how it reacted to a number of situations. It's the games main draw. And though would have made a much shorter game without the robots, when they focused on that, it fell apart.

I think Isolation is a very good game for what it sets out to be (till robot-fest), but I don't think it's anything more unless you're a die-hard Alien fan.

The Evil Within however is a great example of some people here judging a game on identity. It's a new IP that has yet to leech off a successful franchise for rose-tinted glasses, you get what you get and nothing more.

The Evil Within has many of its own strengths that haven't been done well in the genre since the 128-bit generation and even as a flawed product I adore what it gets right. The Evil Within is a mutated mix of many elements I enjoyed about survival horror games. And that's why I'm playing it right now :)

i think my opinion is due more to me loving a good stealth game ;) i like games with dynamic gameplay when i have to think and strategize. it was refreshing to play a survival horror with a focus on using well crafted stealth mechanics to keep an enemy at bay instead of being primarily combat focused.

yep, the lack of variety and the length of the game are what i'd say it's two main faults are too. although i did like the working joes. the ones in apollo core were really creepy and mostly used to good effect.

and it's been so long since i last played tew that i can barely remember it. all i can remember is being disappointed that it wasn't scarier. i'm looking forward to playing it again with a clean slate

@Macutchi:

i like games with dynamic gameplay when i have to think and strategize

Something more important in The Evil Within than you may have realised. You can't tackle all situations guns blazing unless you're asking to be dry of resources early-on and likely death, doing so is the same as never finishing the game. Sometimes it's even best to use environmental traps and manipulate enemy projectiles in ways that can put your own life at risk to save your much needed ammo.

As such does the survival, in Survival Horror exceedingly well.

being disappointed that it wasn't scarier

It's not that scary a game, especially if you've ever played any good horror game before. Tense and eerie are the vibes best reflecting the game as horror, and even then I've played games that do tense and eerie better.

It has moments that can be considered as scary to the faint of heart, such chase sections, and some random jump-scares in unexpected moments, but they're few and far between.

It's something I'm hoping the sequel will improve upon.

Needless to say. I'm going to be real harsh on the sequel if it fails my expectations :P

This Forum Reminded Me that Why Internet Can Ruin Your Fun.

I have Played Lots of Survival Horror Games and I Think This Game is a 9/10.

Lol.Have You Played Alien Isolation That Much ? You Can EASILY one Hit Kill those Robots with a shock baton.(and Later you get a Shocker gun)

And which version of Evil Within have you guys Played ?

I Played the PC version and had no Graphical/Control Glitches. (It just had some AI Glitches and 1 or 2 enemy types that had Cheap AI.

@dorog1995:

It just had some AI Glitches

I've been playing The Evil Within recently on P.C. and PS4 again for sequel hype. And I do find the A.I. to clip in and out object, and other odd issues worse than PS4, yet PS4 has it's own share of problems.

Had a funny bug with P.C. on Chapter 3 a few weeks ago, messed up my run even on two save files, Chainsaw man vanishes after he's freed from the chains. Had to start the game all over again lol.

The sequel just needs to be far more polished on all platforms. Can't wait, think I'm more hyped for TEW2 than I am for REmake2.

Yeah it really Needs to be. I had the Similar Bug in chapter 10(or maybe it was 11) with Laura's Second Bossfight.(hopefully it didn't ruin my save files)