The evil within - how did the game turn out?

[Kazlofski]

The Evil Within is a rather humourous horror game that requires you to use stealth for a large portion of the game (expect a load of crouching and skirting around to kill a single enemy from behind/avoid instant deaths) to conserve ammo for guns and healing syringes (which will end up being used if you're caught) in addition due to your melee attack being fairly weak until you stack melee upgrades in the games rather limited RPG upgrade system. 6/10 for dropping you in what seems the middle of the story that is unexplained at all at the start before quickly becoming ridiculous and also requiring to manually change the launch code to reduce FPS lag and get rid of the unskippable splash screens that would otherwise cause the game to take 5 minutes to load. Also encountered an Audio bug fairly early on that would cause music to pop in and out and lose the vocal track which required a game restart to fix.

Is the story explained by the end at least? Or main Villain? Both?

Don't need the spoilers, just yes or no :P just find the story actually interesting but heard it's unclear until the end... Hoping it is as I find it very disturbing (What went through their heads to create such creepy abominations in game) but fascinating :P

[Waaldo]

The vomit inducing FoV tells me this game is shite.

Also, the fact that the death animation is the same every time you die is kinda infuriating. Considering how it's a horror game where you die a lot, you would think they could come up with a few more ways for someone to kill you with a flippin' chain saw.

[Rucati]

That's excellent, good horror games are hard to come by. Thank you I might pick it up.

It's not really a very good horror game tbh.

It startles you, but it doesn't really scare you. I've been scared by a squirrel jumping out next to me when I'm walking down the street, that doesn't make squirrels horrifying. If you just want stuff to jump out and startle you go for it, but don't expect any true horror.

[Kazlofski]

What's a good horror game then? I am genuinely curious about the difference.

Aren't horror games supposed to startle you? What's the difference? :O
Thought it's just supposed to be both interesting and very tense, making you feel uneasy all the time.

[Shinzai]

I think the game is pretty good. It recreates the feel of three specific 'horror' films for me down to a T: It has the appearance of Saw in the opening area, then moves into In The Mouth Of Madness territory with its homages to all sorts of Stephen King and HP Lovecraft writings and also winds about in Jacob's Ladder's presentation and otherworldly feel.

I think if people go into this expecting another Amnesia, they'll be barking up the wrong tree. I define games such as Amnesia as 'Terror', rather than 'Horror'. If you go into this, expecting a game with a Resident Evil (4 specifically) kind of feel, then you'll get what you're after.

As I noted, the game pays homage to a lineage of various 'horror' icons and it does it well. The areas feel like they're ripped straight out of various Stephen King, Clive Barker and numerous Eastern horror stories and films. Which is kind of the point in the end; it's a complete blend of Western and Eastern 'horror' tropes and head-nods. I like it a lot for what it is.

It's also brutally hard compared to a lot of games these days, where getting too close to a normal enemy can rip away 70% of your health or cause you to waste your ammo in a volley of misses.

Addendum: As far as a port goes, it's not bad at all. The problem lies with the weird cinematic approach to the entire thing's presentation. I do appreciate the claustrophobic style they're creating with the 21:9 aspect ratio and all, but I don't feel that it translates particularly well to a PC monitor. It's fine on a 36"+ size screen, where everything's pretty sizeable, but it's just too cramped on anything less.

They should have included the option for R_forceaspectratio 2.0, just because searching some areas is really tedious when squashed down to a letter box and trying to survey your surroundings, where as in a film, the camera would draw back as the director presents the situation to you as a viewer. If the game had a more dynamic camera design, the default presentation could have been acceptable, as I insinuated previously, it shares a lot with Resident Evil 4 in this manner. I have no real issues with close-up over the shoulder camera styles, but they tend to allow the player to view more of their surroundings than they do here - Resident Evil 4, Gears of War and Dead Space come to mind in this aspect.

[Heathy]

i thought i'd comment on this since i've been playing it in small doses probably about 1/3rd of the way through my only gripe so far is probably the camera position although its manageable it feels a tad too close to the guy you have to do 3 point turn dance to get him to peek around the right corner properly or you get him going back and forth pointing in the opposite direction. 'turn around dammit!' had the camera spaz out a couple of times and had a shot from inside the guys groin at one point.

apart from that it is genuinely weird it kind of feels like a game you'd get from a RE and SH love session. can't help but think the player character looks a little like solid snake (or maybe max payne perhaps a combo of them both). the story is unfolded bit by bit i'm kinda guessing where its going but the dialog is peculiar, i just can't help but wonder why noone has asked the obvious yet, like 'WTF is going on!' seriously that would be my first question. but nope all the characters must get stuck in nightmares everyday because they seem completely oblivious.

the creatures are quite disturbing, the upgrade system / safe room offer some sort of temporary sanctuary but i feel as though my trips there break the immersion quite a bit. all in all i'd say the game reminds me of playing silent hill the first time on the ps1. mainly because of the scenery changes and the creatures are more than simply zombies or mutants its all deformed cadavers and barbed wire which pushes it more toward a silent hill than RE.

there seems to be a few different ways in which you can tackle the larger areas, the stealth mechanic is kinda meh, your either seen or your not, since i have only done about 5 of the supposed 15hr play through i don't know if you get to return to some of the areas, i'm sure there were a couple of places i didn't loot or check out but progressed the story and ended up missing the opportunity to nab extra stuff. the weapons feel quite powerful, the ammo is quite scarce but i haven't run out completely yet, playing it on the medium difficulty you do have to use all the weapons and spread the ammo usage out a bit if you want to have some for the 'omg' moments. the shooting itself is fine until the mobs are right on you then its awkward so you have to keep a bit of range between you and them if you want a chance at actually hitting any swaying heads.

as for the performance i'm playing it on an a8 6600 and an r7 250 it runs fine i used the tweaks, 1.8 aspect ratio completely removed the black bars and felt way too zoomed so i have it at 2.0 which gives me about 1.5cm top and bottom black bars, and moved the frame rate cap to 60 i don't think it gets to 60 for me but its perfectly playable i think its probably jumping between 30 and 50. honestly i can never really tell and i haven't bothered running fraps or anything to check it but i've not had any serious slow down or jittering just the odd random crash thankfully it autosaves at checkpoints so you don't actually need to do hard saves if you don't want to. and thats about all i have to say it runs on my toaster so if anyone was on the fence now you know. hard to rate it without at least 1 full clear but i'd give it a good 7.5/10 only because its been done before so its just another take on the survival horror genre. some times i feel it would be amazing if there was an amnesia machine so you could play a title with no memory of past experiences to dilute it.

edit: thought i'd try out the FOV cheat engine fix and at 90 its much much much better being able to play it like this i'm upping my 7.5 to an 8 :P.

[Yassy]

It felt like a copy and paste of all the best traits out of other horror games. It's a good game. That is all it is though. You wont come out of it and be wowed. There are so many "easter eggs" in the game that they stop being easter eggs and it just feels like it has no original content.

[DiscoGhost]

looks like a harder resident evil with a different skin. was not expecting so much fighting that was shown in reviews by ign and gamespot.

i saw some clipping and camera issues.

[Verdugo]

Game has some freaky loading screens you have to agree with that one. Especialy one that started appearing since chapter 10.

[WarpedAcorn]

Bought the game awhile back, but just started playing it. I'm about 2.5 Hours in (Chapter 4 or 5 I think, "The Patient").

My biggest gripe thus far is, although the game looks and animates great, I have no fucking connection to the main character. I suppose his backstory is fleshed out throughout the game, but for a character without memory loss, I think this is super poor. I have no sense what sort of guy this is, where he comes from, and what sort of shit he's seen. I mean his lack of reaction to most of the horror he sees makes me wonder. If I at least had a few scenes of this guy freaking out and breaking down I think I would be a little more into it. In fact, if they had incorporated some sort of "tension" meter where you would freak out based on the crazy shit you see, I might be more invested. Right now I feel just feel like I'm playing a very bloody Stealth-Action game.