played the game last week and here is are my thoughts
PROS
- EXCELLENT ATMOSPHERE: the atmosphere of the game is well executed from the foggy environment to gory asylum, evil within does an outstanding job of immersing you into its world . the sound and lightning are also top notch especially in dark, quiet and isolated areas.
- GOOD LEVEL DESIGN : the environment are gorgeous and well designed which supports exploration and offer varying paths to game-play . many area in the game are primed with traps which leads to a more vigilante style of play.
- EXPLORATION and SURVIVAL : as a true survivor game your resources are very limited thus smartly managing your resources and a more careful approach to game-play can better your chances. hence exploring evil within's vast environment can be very rewarding as there many hidden items and collectible to found. limited resources, exploration and a fairly executed stealth mechanic lead to very satisfying survivor horror experience.
- ART STYLE : creatures in the game are well deigned and the game makes excellent use of gore
- GREAT PACING : for 20+ hour game evil within never felt strenuous
- REPLAY VALUE : upgrade tree, collectible and a new game + offer good incentive to replay the game.
CONS
- FLAT CHARACTERS : from an un-interesting protagonist to the empty supporting cast, evil within offer little in terms of character development. this is further enhanced by the mediocre voice cast
- BAD STORY LINE : the story in evil within is stupidly far fetched it basically resident evil meets silent hill via inceptionbut in a bad way.
- CLUNKY COMBAT : combat has its far share of issue like very isolated over the shoulder view, useless melee combat and a broken cover system.
- TECHNICAL ISSUES : texture pop-in, draw distance and choppy animation happen very often in the game.
- CHEAP DEATH : after finishing the game i checked stats and found i died 102 times. this combined with distant check points and evil with boils to trial and error which makes the game quite frustrating
MINOR GRIPES
- IDENTITY CRISIS : for the most part the action and horror in evil within is well balanced but at time it tends to tilt more to action which is very detaching and breaks immersion which is a very crucial aspect of any horror game
evil within is a game with so much potential but it flaws hold it back from true greatness. hopefully they will do a better job next time
SCORE = 7.5