Recently Played: The Evil Within

I recently finished The Evil Within, and while I debate whether or not I've played enough games to make a list of anything in the year 2014, I thought I'd talk about this one- because it sure gave me a lot to think about following the nightmare adventures of gruff detective guy Sebastian Castellanos. From what I can gather from the internet, it's a very divisive game and I can perfectly see why.

I still had fun with The Evil Within. Or rather, that kind of Souls-like fun where it gets hard to decide if it's awesome or bullshit.

The Evil Within (Saw What You Did There)

The Evil Within (or TEW, a great acronym) is billed as survival horror with an over the shoulder camera to evoke third person shooter action and more importantly, Resident Evil 4. I suppose it's an inevitable comparison to make considering the director is Resident Evil guy Shinji Mikami, but I can say that if you try to play TEW like RE4, you're not going to have a good time. Many of the enemies are built to exploit that kind of mindset as they have whole combo strings and running grabs, so if you try to do your one step backwards to aim and shoot you're going to get caught every single time. There is a lot more running this game, both in and out of combat. So as a minor pro-tip, you're going to want to upgrade stamina. Just saying.

Overall it is a rough game. It's pretty easy to see where it lacks polish as you play, and I'm not just talking about those letterboxes. I played this on the PS4 and adapted to the black bars sandwiching the screen. You can argue if it's stylistic choice or a design element to keep the game from collapsing into itself, but there's really only one boss fight where it's really noticeable as it's almost impossible to keep an eye on the ground and the ceiling at the same time. Luckily there are combat options to mitigate this. But the letterboxes and unpolished edges didn't kill the entire experience for me. I don't know, maybe I'm not that picky. But I feel like Skyrim was a bigger mess on the technical side if I had to pick a more guilty culprit.

Really my biggest problem with TEW on the deepest levels of opinion is the aesthetic. The unfortunate part is that the game doesn't feel like it has its own identity. It's main inspiration and art direction is taken straight from the Saw movies. So for me, it doesn't have much to do with horror and is more torture and mutilation with characters you don't have much reason to care about even when they're getting split apart. The game leaves nothing to imagination. Nails in brains, crazies with chainsaws, barbwire through the skin, blood by the gallons, and other stuff that makes TEW feel like a lost Doom level.

I know some people will be into that. But it's not very scary and feels like raw gore is trying to carry the whole thing. What's also a shame is that there's a psychological aspect they could have done much more with if they weren't trying to pile on the gore. There's only one or two enemies I find with really fantastic designs, and one of them is Safehead, or the Keeper, who has played a lot in the promotional material. Maybe you wouldn't think that a guy wearing a safe box for a head would be that great. But he has a lot of animations that sell the idea perfectly. My favorite of which is him smacking his head with his hammer to make a great clanking noise. It's so good.

Kneecaps are the New Headshots

When it comes to playing the game, like I said before it's not the smoothest experience. But I still had fun because The Evil Within places a weight on ammunition and supplies I don't find very often. Every bullet is a celebration. Every healing syringe is a fist pump. Every new gun is a block party. Scavenging areas and picking up stuff feels so great that exploring the somewhat ho-hum environments is still very satisfying. They also like to hide keys (in really ridiculous spots) that open up locked boxes in the save room that give you extra ammo and other bonuses. Whenever I found a key, I was always super pumped to get back to a save room to see what I got.

I will say that TEW has one of the roughest starts I've ever seen in a long, long time. Before you get your crossbow and other weapons, the two-three hours or so are a major slog. There's a unreliable stealth mechanic the game expects you to lean on until you get more bullets or supplies. But the major strategy or spin TEW tries to put on shooting zombies is blasting their legs so they fall down and you can set them on fire with a match. For the majority of the enemies and bosses, setting them on fire is a big deal. It either kills them instantly or does tons of damage. And if there's a crowd, the fire spreads so you can waste three or four enemies with one match and save yourself lots of bullets. Helping this is the agony crossbow with various trap bolts that can immobilize enemies, blow them up, freeze them and more. The game is really built around it, so, you really want to use it. Seriously, don't save that shit. Just use it.

You can still headshot enemies if you want, but how the aiming works and the way enemies shamble and stumble about, it's much harder than say... a residence of evil in the fours.

The Instant Kills Within

The other really big thing is that... The Evil Within has bucket loads of things that will kill you instantly. So much so that your health bar doesn't even really matter. Almost every single boss will kill you as soon as they touch you. I can see where it's meant to establish tension. You really don't want crazy spider lady to slap your shit... but it just makes TEW super punishing and unforgiving. And if you manage to die three or four times on a boss encounter the tension is gone and all that is left is frustration and aggravation. That's not even including many of the traps and extended sequences where failure means instant death. Another pro-tip is to save all your upgrade goo for anything but your health bar. Your health bar is like points in Who's Line is it Anyway? It just doesn't matter.

The bosses are definitely the low point of the game except for Safehead guy. He's one of the rare encounters who doesn't blast you instantly if he touches you, so that's probably why I actually had fun with him. He's more of a hazard while you battle other things in the environment and while that might sound annoying, he's pretty well balanced so that it's not a real hassle. There's more going on with Safehead than all the other boss encounters so you actually have time to enjoy what's happening.

"I'm a police officer. Maybe I should help you."

I'll finish things up here with one of my favorite lines from the game found above, which comes from Sebastian Castellanos the player character. It perfectly sums up his deal as he's nearly a blank slate. He's Mr. Detective Guy in a bad spot. There are files in the game that fill in his backstory, but it never plays into the main plot or any meaningful way. You could switch him out with anyone and it would hardly matter. The other thing is how he doesn't seem to pay much attention to what's going on even when other characters are explaining the gravity of the situation. As a detective, he never seems to have the appropriate reaction to what's going on. Maybe he's been there and done that, but there's no way to know as he fails pattern recognition and asks dumb questions like "Am I going crazy?" ten hours deep into the story when a doctor has already laid down just how severe the stakes are.

As a few final pro-tips, don't upgrade your melee. Whether it's at level 1 or level 5, it's always junk and a waste of valuable upgrade points. Stick that into your ammo stock or literally anything else. Also, if you find a certain powerful weapon known to pop up in games like these, don't try and save it for the final boss. You'll just end up disappointed. Trust me.

Thanks for the write up. Although I've gradually come to the decision that this game isn't for me (as someone who loved RE4 as an action game, but doesn't like any horror or survival horror games), I did enjoy learning more about this odd and divisive game.

Yes, upgrading your stamina is definitely key because of how the game doesn't have any sort of defensive maneuvers otherwise. I think TEW is indeed a little rough around the edges, but that's part of what I enjoy about it. Despite its many influences and homages from Resident Evil 4, at the same time it almost feels as if it's spitting in its face. Like how the Haunted are significantly more aggressive and will be constantly rushing at you, as opposed to the sprint-and-stop movement of the Ganado in RE4. Part of that is because you can now technically move and shoot in TEW (even if it's not recommended because of how inaccurate your shots become), though it also forces you to think fast and make some actual split-second decisions. It infuses that fear of the mob mentality much more so than RE4 ever did, which I've always thought of as being kind of easy.

In RE4 it often feels like the Ganado are there for you to toy with; they're so dumb most of the time that the game often affords you the space and time to kill them however you want. TEW is different, however. It forces you to try and kill everything in sight as soon as possible and with whatever means necessary. The combat usually has such a strangely intoxicating degree of chaos, that even if the game itself is never scary in the slightest, it still does well in making sure I feel the adrenaline pumping. And of course, the heavier focus on supplies and making every shot count goes to great lengths to replicate part of the allure of survival horror. Certain encounters that force me to improvise (if not run away) leave me with a resounding sense of accomplishment. Even though many of the game's combat scenarios are unfortunately mandatory, learning how to get the most out of every bullet can give some encounters a strangely puzzle-like quality to them.

Oh, but fuck enemies with guns... I swear, why does every damned horror shooter always have to resort to throwing enemies at you that can shoot back? RE4, RE5, RE6, Dead Space 3 -- all at one point (or in RE6 for like 70% of the game) force you against enemies with guns (or crossbows), and all of them are of varying degrees of awfulness. Though in RE6's case, I'd say the zombies are funnily enough much more frustrating than the J'avo ever were.

Instant-kills obviously aren't fun, either; and yet a game like Alien: Isolation has them a-plenty. In fact a significant majority of the game will likely be filled with them if you're unlucky! And yet it hasn't caught not nearly the same amount of ire. I keep meaning to do a blog comparing and contrasting both games anywhoo to think about each succeeds and fails as a horror game. The instant-kill thing in particular is a good example of how different they are. Like, the alien in Isolation I found to be legitimately terrifying, and so when it would kill me... I rarely felt frustrated. To the contrary, it was actually somewhat relieving; it functioned as a way to then let out all of that built up tension and terror. The Evil Within however isn't scary in the slightest, so falling into a loop of instant-kills during the Laura boss in particular imbues nothing but frustration.

I do think you're overblowing how many instant-kills there are in the game, though. Laura's one defining attack is indeed that same instant-kill move where she smashes your face in, though The Keeper (as you mentioned), the invisible octopus thing, the giant spider, and the dog don't have any instant kill attacks. I think upgrading your health is still very much a worthy investment, especially for how it can also fully heal you at that.

Also, the story and the writing is indeed complete rubbish. Like, it has all of these little references dotted about here and there to help expand the overall story... but it's all so poorly delivered that I've never cared to dig into that stuff. Even when you wipe away the bullshit to see just what this game is really about, all you have is still just some poorly told pile of shlock.

Still, that TEW is unforgiving, unrelenting, and at times maybe even a bit unfair is part of why it's easily one of my favourite games of the year. I always knew leading up to release that it would be divisive, because many of the hallmarks of survival horror typically are.

@savage: No problem! And yeah, it may be evoking a bit of RE4 here and there, but it's a very different beast.

@yummylee: Yeah, I agree with you on a lot of that. The Haunted definitely feel more of a threat, they're always in your face and sometimes hard to keep a bead on. And those with the guns are a pain in the ass too. Like in RE4 you can take on mobs easily. In TEW it's more like "oh shit, that's a lot of guys I don't really want to mess with."

Also the invisible octopus thing does indeed have an instant kill move. When he's hiding on the ground, if you manage to run into him he ensnares you and bites your head off. It's rare though and I only saw it once because I had no idea what he was doing. But I see your point. I forgot about the dog boss and the spider guy so maybe it's not as bad as I felt it was. But it sure feels that way. Probably due to all the times I was pretty intent on killing Laura instead of running away. Sure felt damn good when I beat her though.

It takes effort and dedication to write a story more nonsense than the entirety of Resident Evil but here comes The Evil Within to save the day. Er, lose the day I guess

@frostyryan: From what I understood of the story, it had potential. I think.

A crazy brain project linking people's subconsciousness together with the small caveat that the designer and catalyst required to run the machine happens to be a psychopath who wants out. How people got there can be explained by the mysterious third party (whoever Kidman works for) snatching people to try and integrate with Ruvik considering his murder streak doesn't make it safe for key personnel. But for what ends? How does it work? Is there any kind of symbolism of the various monsters? Ehhhhh....

But yeah The Evil Within was out there.

It gets a thumbs down from me personally. I see how Patrick gave it 2 stars now. I was enjoying it up until maybe Chapter 12 and I'm at the weird snake/octopus/chameleon boss now and have no desire to play the game anymore. I've unloaded almost all of my arsenal into him and eventually succumb to the exploding maggot things; I could probably beat it but I've run out of will to do so. They seem to like to put you into situations at the end that are just annoying and not fun at all. A perfect example is the floating saw blades room... nothing more than annoying. Or the entire bus sequence where you get off the bus to get medical stuff for your buddy and on your way back you have to fight like 50 zombie guys.

@handlas: I didn't have any particular trouble with the octopus guy except for discovering his instant kill attack, but that guy does take a bunch of ammo if you don't unload on it with your biggest guns. But yeah, those death roombas were extremely annoying.

Wow, I genuinely had no idea the octopus had an insta-kill attack! And I've completed it twice now :o Also, holy shit you killed Laura?? You didn't have to y'know, and even in NG+ I've heard she's surprisingly difficult to kill. But hey kudos to that in any case!

The little maggot things drop ammo when you kill them. And here's a video of me beating the boss on Nightmare mode, if it'll help in anyway.

Laura can be killed? Or are you referring to the first encounter?

@theacidskull: She can. You get a trophy for it, too. Though she's so resilient that I'd argue you're not really supposed to unless you're playing in NG+.

Well that's my copy just arrived with it's useless (but fairly nice quality) notebook. Debating whether or not to use the pre-order DLC, the gun and upgrades seem like they could damage my first play though but the arrows almost seem like content held back just for the pre-sale. I pushed through the opening "limping" section in the PC demo before it just refused to run any more so hopefully I'll be on the positive side of the divide with this one!

Well looks like I just found a new reason to beat the game again. :)

Also

Instant-kills obviously aren't fun, either; and yet a game like Alien: Isolation has them a-plenty. In fact a significant majority of the game will likely be filled with them if you're unlucky! And yet it hasn't caught not nearly the same amount of ire. I keep meaning to do a blog comparing and contrasting both games anywhoo to think about each succeeds and fails as a horror game. The instant-kill thing in particular is a good example of how different they are. Like, the alien in Isolation I found to be legitimately terrifying, and so when it would kill me... I rarely felt frustrated. To the contrary, it was actually somewhat relieving; it functioned as a way to then let out all of that built up tension and terror. The Evil Within however isn't scary in the slightest, so falling into a loop of instant-kills during the Laura boss in particular imbues nothing but frustration.

This is very interesting to hear, especially about the part that dying in alien:Isolation feels like a relief. I've been reading some articles about Frictional Games new horror installment SOMA, and in one of these articles they stated that (it wasn't a criticism) that they did not enjoy the fact that some players could finally rest once they had been killed in Isolation. So, they also said that they've been working on ways to prolong the process of death in order to increase the fear some players experience when they finally get killed.

I didn't really pay much attention to it, but having played Amnesia, and reading your post kind of made realize what an important factor it is in horror games.

Well I beat the octopus boss guy on my first attempt after giving the game one more shot. And I'm not sure why I did that. Now I'm in the end game sequence (I believe) where you are basically playing Resident Evil's Mercenary Mode minus any of the fun. Is this the last part of the game? Should I press through? I'm honestly hoping that is the last combat I have to do and there is no boss after.

@handlas: It's the last hurdle basically and no it wasn't much fun. It's like 15% of the game is incredible, 35% is ok and the rest is bullshit. I wish we had a whole game of the parts in the mansion and the village in the beginning.

Man those first two chapters... Jesus it was like someone just tried to remake last of us without giving you any situational awareness and then cutting the screen in half. Hopefully it picks up in chapter 3 like I've heard all over because that was just frustrating.

@theacidskull: So the loading screen tip that essentially says "you can fight her but you don't really want to" isn't joking around. Laura is resilient and a long, long fight where she can kill you instantly if she touches you. You can actually fight her off every single time you meet her, however it takes so much ammo that it's not really a great idea unless you're crazy like I am or running New Game+ with all your heavy hitters. I used most of the environmental weapons on the second encounter and almost all of my agony crossbow junk for harpoons and bombs. I added a dash of shotgun and rifle shots for good measure.

But let it be known that I died a ton of times. It's probably why I dedicated a whole section to the instant kills of the game. But that's on me I guess, haha.

Maaaaaaan if I had known this I'd have killed her too. I had all the heavy stuff on my second play-through, like the Bazooka and machine gun. But then again, I needed that ammo for something more useful, like the two immortal keepers in the last level, so I guess I did a good thing. Though this just motivated me to replay the whole thing just to kill the damn bitch :P

Though I never found the instant kills frustrating, unless it came from a regular character like the Fat Haunted. Big bosses are big bosses, so I was expecting to die right away if I got too close.

I actually found the difficulty to be quite fair in the 7-8ish hours I've spent with it so far. That's probably because I'm aware that these games are meant to be sort of combat puzzles and you're supposed to die. I never felt the situation was insurmountable, though.

Never felt hard or anything just annoying near the end game to me. 7-8 hours sounds about the length that I enjoyed the game. My end time ended up maybe being 17 hours :o. Not sure how you could get that "beat in 5 hours" achievement that I think I saw.

I just beat it finally. I never got a machinegun or a bazooka... wtf? When was I suppose to get that? The last gun I got was a magnum I think. I only used it once. My main weapon was always the regular ol' pistol unless I got into difficult situations I would break out the exploding arrows or the shotgun.

edit: Okay... looking at a wiki I apparently missed 4 weapons? Damn. The game seemed fairly linear so I'm not sure how I managed that.

edit again: Okay I guess I should of let the credits roll all the way through cuz I got the machinegun and bazooka now :). Still missing a couple others tho.

17 hours... 179 deaths. Yeesh.

The 5-hours thing can be done on any difficulty, so obviously the best course of action would be to play on Casual in NG+ and just slaughter through everything.

Also, you get the machine gun and bazooka for completing the game, not during the playthrough itself.

Yeah, after beating it in 13 myself (and 30 deaths, most of them Laura) the under 5 hours thing is probably best reserved for New Game+ on casual mode. You really have to sprint through a lot of the game and only fight the necessary enemies.

I didn't complete the game, should've specified that. :P

Evil Within seems alright to me so far. It has the same appeal RE4 does except the controls are worse and it's not as tense or exciting... and it looks worse? But there's still the hoard as much shit as possible, upgrade 50 billion things for questionable reasons, die intentionally on difficult encounters so you can do it the next life without wasting as many resources; all that good survival horror shit (granted Alien did a lot of these things much better). Hell there's even reload your safe opening until you get the goop or whatever else you wanted. Yessssss... all the stupid mechanics I wanted. Mediocre to Okay RE4 clone is still solid.

There's a difficulty that's built around saving after every other enemy/explosive trap, fantastic! I may or may not have had 120 saves the first time I went through RE4.

Oh man, I never thought about saving and reloading for the item safes. Don't know why, since it seems natural. Haha.