The Evil Within

[Sulaco]

Kind of surprised by the lack of discussion on this. I was deciding between this and Alien Isolation for my horror game fix for the moment, and decided to wait for this.
Picked it up at midnight, been playing for the last few hours. I'm only on Chapter 2, about an hour and a half in, on the "Hard" difficulty.

It's far too early to pass judgment on the overall plot or character development, but I can already unequivocally say it is vastly superior to the last several Resident Evil games (and I say this as one of the biggest and oldest fans of that series). Finally, a return to both survival, and horror, in the "Survival Horror" genre. Who'd a thunk?

It has a definite RE 4 feel, if RE 4 focused more on horror and less on silly anime-esque goofiness. It also has a very strong Silent Hill 2, ethereal "is this really happening...what is going on right now?" vibe that's to be expected with the psycho-horror setting.

RE 4 meets Silent Hill 2 with a splash of Dead Space.

Another minor (but notable) plus for me was the inclusion of a real, honest-to-goodness physical manual, IN COLOR to boot! Not the most in-depth thing in the world, but sure beats a slip of paper with the key bindings.

Anyway, it's early so far but I'm liking the pacing and direction this game is taking. Already it's vastly superior to RE 5, 6 and Revelations combined. Not that that's saying much, but still.

 

[sze5003]

Keep this updated I'm planning on getting it for ps4 today. Woke up and read the ign review and a few others and only joystiq gave it a 50 so far. Although they did mention a lot of things they didn't like about the game..that's mostly what it felt like.

 

[Sulaco]

Oh, and a few obligatory screens too:

 

[JackBurton]

Kind of surprised by the lack of discussion on this. I was deciding between this and Alien Isolation for my horror game fix for the moment, and decided to wait for this.
Picked it up at midnight, been playing for the last few hours. I'm only on Chapter 2, about an hour and a half in, on the "Hard" difficulty.

It's far too early to pass judgment on the overall plot or character development, but I can already unequivocally say it is vastly superior to the last several Resident Evil games (and I say this as one of the biggest and oldest fans of that series). Finally, a return to both survival, and horror, in the "Survival Horror" genre. Who'd a thunk?

It has a definite RE 4 feel, if RE 4 focused more on horror and less on silly anime-esque goofiness. It also has a very strong Silent Hill 2, ethereal "is this really happening...what is going on right now?" vibe that's to be expected with the psycho-horror setting.

RE 4 meets Silent Hill 2 with a splash of Dead Space.

Another minor (but notable) plus for me was the inclusion of a real, honest-to-goodness physical manual, IN COLOR to boot! Not the most in-depth thing in the world, but sure beats a slip of paper with the key bindings.

Anyway, it's early so far but I'm liking the pacing and direction this game is taking. Already it's vastly superior to RE 5, 6 and Revelations combined. Not that that's saying much, but still.

Please do not put RE5 and RE6 in the same sentence. RE6 was a complete crap game with no RE components. It was a Call of Duty game with RE character skinned overlays. Absolutely HORRIBLE! RE5 although not really a survival horror game, was pretty fun with some RE roots. Coop was also pretty awesome. It was a TRUE coop game, not just two people on the same screen.

It's good to hear about The Evil Within. If it's close to RE4, I'm in. Loved that game.

 

[Lil Frier]

I've never played any RE games, but given their general reception, hearing TEW compared favorably's probably a good sign. I was looking at this game, until I saw the zombie stuff, because it just didn't impress me too much. However, I'll have to check it out again, if it's getting high marks. I had planned for Dying Light to be my zombie/horror game, but it got pushed back, so this COULD fill the void.

If I finish Shadow of Mordor quickly enough, maybe I'll flip it to Best Buy and pick this up as my single-player game for late-October.

 

[sze5003]

Was going to pick it up during lunch but I didn't have time. I'll probably stop by on my way home. It's like I enjoy these games but I don't because of all the tension. But it sounds very interesting.

 

[Lil Frier]

I know what you mean. It's why I only played DOOM 3 for about an hour when I was younger. It's like you want it to be scary, but then you're not happy when you're scared, so it's what you want, but not what you expect. You almost get bored with the game because of how slowly it plays, but it plays slowly because you're too scared to do anything, haha.

 

[sze5003]

I know what you mean. It's why I only played DOOM 3 for about an hour when I was younger. It's like you want it to be scary, but then you're not happy when you're scared, so it's what you want, but not what you expect. You almost get bored with the game because of how slowly it plays, but it plays slowly because you're too scared to do anything, haha.

Yea I see myself playing it like I did outlast. Basically torturing myself to slowly go on. Worst is I don't know how it will play out..seems like you can not be stealthy all the time and it also seems like you will have to fight at times but just have to accept that you will get clobbered. I'm still reading reviews and most of them are pretty good so far.

 

[purbeast0]

OP how is the sound in this game? i'd LOVE to play a freaky game that has actual good sound in it to help with the atmosphere.

this is a game i would probably pay like $30 to purchase but not full price, because once finished, no chance i play it again. maybe i'll try to get it around black friday or something. definitely looks interesting, although being compared to RE4 isn't something i like, since that is when i stopped liking RE games because the formula changed so much.

 

[Lil Frier]

Yea I see myself playing it like I did outlast. Basically torturing myself to slowly go on. Worst is I don't know how it will play out..seems like you can not be stealthy all the time and it also seems like you will have to fight at times but just have to accept that you will get clobbered. I'm still reading reviews and most of them are pretty good so far.

The only bad one I saw was Polygon, who complained about severe clichés and a super-vague story, mostly.

OP how is the sound in this game? i'd LOVE to play a freaky game that has actual good sound in it to help with the atmosphere.

this is a game i would probably pay like $30 to purchase but not full price, because once finished, no chance i play it again. maybe i'll try to get it around black friday or something. definitely looks interesting, although being compared to RE4 isn't something i like, since that is when i stopped liking RE games because the formula changed so much.

If you're quick about it, you just play it, beat it, and flip it back while it's at $40 in trade for Best Buy or GameStop. That's what I did with Watch Dogs: Bought for $52, beat in a week or two, traded back for $44, $8 rental.

It's also how I'm potentially going to consume Shadow of Mordor, though it might take a bit longer.

 

[sze5003]

I ended up getting this at best buy. The guy ended up giving me the pre-order edition even though I didn't pre-order. It came with a survival pack code and I somehow got a $10 gift card too.

Installed it now and just waiting for my food to get done before I scare myself.

 

[Tweak155]

Promising review.

 

[sze5003]

Played up to chapter 3 and I had to stop because it's pretty tense. The atmosphere is great, very spooky and dark. Almost so dark a lot of times I have no idea where I should be going. Another part of it that makes it scarier.

I spent about 35 minutes on chapter one just trying to get away from that dungeon area. One thing that could improve is the "where the hell am I and what's going on" feel. But my guess is it's part of the ambiance of the game.

I'm playing on the first difficulty available. I didn't want to try survivor because I'm already having a hard time. I think sneaking could be done a bit better. The camera angles are a bit wonky and take getting used to. What I don't understand is how I am carefully sneaking behind an enemy and right before I get to him he turns around. That pisses me off because I literally have no ammo most of the time.

Chapter 2 is freaky and confusing because it's dark as hell and you have to sneak through most of it...pretty much through all these bushes and because your so low and the darkness is everywhere, it's hard to tell what is around.

I wish the guy would walk a bit faster or even run quicker. It's almost as if they intentionally set you up to fail it seems. A lot of trial and error and trying to figure out how to stealth your way through it..without knowing or having an easy time seeing where you need to go.

Overall so far I'm enjoying it. It's very gruesome and full of tension. So tense that playing the game makes you want to stop but at the same time you want to keep trying to see if you can get past a certain part. I can tell you this game will take me forever to get through so far lol.

You need to be careful with your med packs because they don't give you much health. Have to conserve ammo and matches to burn bodies or else they come back to life. It keeps you on your toes the whole time. I really believe it needs a patch for the AI. Sneaking behind someone should not cause them to turn around last minute. It also seems when you are near an enemies they don't attack right away.

But maybe that's just me getting stuck on some parts. I certainly died a lot of times and got swarmed by zombies many times where I didn't know what I was doing or how I should be doing it.

 

[Lil Frier]

That's something else Polygon complained about, how the game basically felt like it was a trial-and-error game, not one of strategy. The author said most boss encounters meant just going in, dying, learning what killed you, then doing that until you learned all of his tricks. It's not like something with WoW, where you'd get some kind of foreshadowing to the attack, and have a chance to dodge or something.

There are two go-to things in gaming right now:

1. "Be the villan," which seems to be popping up for Fable: Legends, Dying Light, Evolve, and Mario Party 10, among others.

2. Overly punishing games where death is expected and unavoidable, due to vague design which requires death as a learning tool, rather than a negative to be avoided. This seems to involve the Souls games, Shadow of Mordor, the upcoming Lords of the Fallen and Bloodborne, and The Evil Within.

 

[sze5003]

That's something else Polygon complained about, how the game basically felt like it was a trial-and-error game, not one of strategy. The author said most boss encounters meant just going in, dying, learning what killed you, then doing that until you learned all of his tricks. It's not like something with WoW, where you'd get some kind of foreshadowing to the attack, and have a chance to dodge or something.

There are two go-to things in gaming right now:

1. "Be the villan," which seems to be popping up for Fable: Legends, Dying Light, Evolve, and Mario Party 10, among others.

2. Overly punishing games where death is expected and unavoidable, due to vague design which requires death as a learning tool, rather than a negative to be avoided. This seems to involve the Souls games, Shadow of Mordor, the upcoming Lords of the Fallen and Bloodborne, and The Evil Within.

I don't mind trial and error I just feel like the stealth could have been done better. I mean they are zombies or creatures. It's not like clickers in the last of us where they can't see you. These guys see you right away and sneaking up on them is tough because while you are doing that some creep in the background sees you somehow and then you are done.

Also as I mentioned before, you get so close to a stealth kill only to have them turn around an be like there you are! Kind of annoying..at one point I snuck next to a guy that was crouching, stealth killed him and all of a sudden a horde feeding on bodies in the distance somehow heard my stealth kill and ran towards me. It was way too dark to see where I was going. What looked like a path turns out to be a bunch of shrubs and bushes with a dead end wall.

I think I tried this section over 5 times before I understood where I was suppose to be going. At times, stealth only gets you so far and it seems just when you think you are safe the mechanics change in an instant and combat or running away is the only thing to do. Except, running is hard because castellano is slow as molasses and its so dark you may as well be running blind. Maybe I should have turned the brightness over 50 in the settings.

The game is fun if I can call it that..not sure if fun is the right word or just extremely tense and freaky as in what the hell is that and what do I do now. They definitely got that aspect right. In a sense I would say it's more horror than it is survival or staying alive. At times its like you just wish you would die instead of wondering around blindly not knowing what's around the corner(s).

Anyone interested I would pick it up if you have the time to sit and get through it as well as get used to the style. I haven't played alien isolation but I hear that is a good one too with similar aspects.

 

[Sulaco]

OP how is the sound in this game? i'd LOVE to play a freaky game that has actual good sound in it to help with the atmosphere.

this is a game i would probably pay like $30 to purchase but not full price, because once finished, no chance i play it again. maybe i'll try to get it around black friday or something. definitely looks interesting, although being compared to RE4 isn't something i like, since that is when i stopped liking RE games because the formula changed so much.

The sound is nothing spectacular, from what I can tell. That is to say, it's perfectly competent, with eerie music and ambiance effects, and the gun sounds are very well done. But nothing that made me say "Wow! What great music/effects!" I'm also not an audiophile, just play through my TV speakers, but the sound and music are on par with the rest of the experience.

Also, what did you NOT like about RE4? I ask because as an RE series fan, I also feel RE4 is hugely overrated, mostly because of its new control scheme. People were so excited about moving away from fixed camera angles and static backgrounds I think they overlooked a lot of the game's other weaknesses.
tEW plays much better than RE4 and RE5. Although that's not saying too much. You can move and shoot, obviously, and stealth is actually a factor.

What sets it apart the most from RE 4 and 5 is simply a focus on horror. I haven't been "sh*t your pants" scared or anything, but the pacing, tension, and ambiance of the game is far, FAR more "horror" focused than RE4 and 5 (and of course 6).
Very limited ammo (so far), forces you to be smart. Much more graphic, disturbing visuals. And an overall feeling of dread. Something largely missing from RE4 through 6.

I don't want to hype the game too much yet as I'm still not very far in. But so far I'm really enjoying it and would heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a more old school survival horror game ala early Silent Hills and Resident Evils.

 

[Kneedragger]

Man I totally forgot about this game. I'm going to have to watch some streams later today..

 

[purbeast0]

The sound is nothing spectacular, from what I can tell. That is to say, it's perfectly competent, with eerie music and ambiance effects, and the gun sounds are very well done. But nothing that made me say "Wow! What great music/effects!" I'm also not an audiophile, just play through my TV speakers, but the sound and music are on par with the rest of the experience.

Also, what did you NOT like about RE4? I ask because as an RE series fan, I also feel RE4 is hugely overrated, mostly because of its new control scheme. People were so excited about moving away from fixed camera angles and static backgrounds I think they overlooked a lot of the game's other weaknesses.
tEW plays much better than RE4 and RE5. Although that's not saying too much. You can move and shoot, obviously, and stealth is actually a factor.

What sets it apart the most from RE 4 and 5 is simply a focus on horror. I haven't been "sh*t your pants" scared or anything, but the pacing, tension, and ambiance of the game is far, FAR more "horror" focused than RE4 and 5 (and of course 6).
Very limited ammo (so far), forces you to be smart. Much more graphic, disturbing visuals. And an overall feeling of dread. Something largely missing from RE4 through 6.

I don't want to hype the game too much yet as I'm still not very far in. But so far I'm really enjoying it and would heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a more old school survival horror game ala early Silent Hills and Resident Evils.

re4 just went away from everything i liked about the RE series in general. it wasn't the slow, puzzle solving, eerie game anymore. it was more a run and gun, action game. you didn't run into the 1 zombie that was just standing there wobbly, in the middle of the hall way, blocking your path, without ammo. and then you had to figure out how to get around him. it created a lot of tension, and that kind of stuff happened a lot. that whole feeling was just gone from the series when part 4 came out, and part 4 didn't feel like an RE game - it felt like every other 3rd person shooter out there.

i think the closest to the original RE feel that i've gotten in recent times is the first dead space. it created a lot of tension, encounters had a lot of tension in them because they didn't happen very often and when they did, it was just a freaky experience. it also had an amazing atmosphere.

as for the sound, i play on a good surround system so i'm just curious about the sound in general because it can truly make an experience that much better. like the sound in the last of us is incredible and adds A LOT to the game. definitely had a lot of subtle and ambient sounds, but also the sounds of the weapons wher eyou could feel the punch in your chest was awesome. tomb raider also had really good sound.

i think i will definitely enjoy this game though, but i probably won't get around to play it for some time. i'm just in no hurry to rush through it or anything so i'll wait until i can find it cheaper than just play it when i can get to it. with killer instinct s2 coming out today, and sunset overdrive around the corner, and still playing horizon 2, i can wait till i find it cheaper i think.

 

[sze5003]

One thing the game has is that same tension from the older RE games. I liked the older ones vs 5 and 6. The quite and peaceful areas where it's just you and you are solving a puzzle and then get suprised. That happens in this game too although it has a ton more tension. Too much I think, you really can't relax and explore in this game because it's so dark and you have no idea which enemy is where.

I walked into a room and a bomb went off which I had no idea could have been disarmed. I feel like I'm in a silent hill/ saw movie when I play this.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I'm enjoying this game. The survivor difficulty level is pretty brutal though. Dying almost seems unavoidable in some places, at least on your first playthrough. As others have said, the way the game seems to want you to play is to die a lot, but learn from it for next time. I "might" be in an untenable situation right now. I just got through with a pretty big firefight where I literally used every round of ammunition I had. Now the game has thrown me into an area where there are a few unavoidable enemies that I can't sneak up on. Without ammo my character is less than useless. With one enemy you can kind of melee kite them to death, but with two at once there seems to be no hope.

 

[sze5003]

I'm enjoying this game. The survivor difficulty level is pretty brutal though. Dying almost seems unavoidable in some places, at least on your first playthrough. As others have said, the way the game seems to want you to play is to die a lot, but learn from it for next time. I "might" be in an untenable situation right now. I just got through with a pretty big firefight where I literally used every round of ammunition I had. Now the game has thrown me into an area where there are a few unavoidable enemies that I can't sneak up on. Without ammo my character is less than useless. With one enemy you can kind of melee kite them to death, but with two at once there seems to be no hope.

I've heard on hard if you get stuck like that you may need to restart the last checkpoint or maybe the chapter. I'm playing on normal and had trouble when I had no ammo and there were multiple enemies around. The thing is the character moves slowly and the melee is pretty useless if you have more than one guy coming at you.

 

[calyco]

RE 4 meets Silent Hill 2 with a splash of Dead Space.

Sold! Nice review, still replaying The Last Of Us and definitely gonna check this one out now.

 

[Bman123]

I'll pick this up when it's cheap, when I need a horror fix I'll watch someone stream it on ps4

 

[sze5003]

I'll pick this up when it's cheap, when I need a horror fix I'll watch someone stream it on ps4

Streaming isn't the same I watched the streams too. Very different when you are actually playing.

 

[Bman123]

Oh I'm sure, especially with headphones on. I use to play a pc game like that, the one where all you have is the lantern and you have to hide from everything
Those were some great gaming moments, scared as ever