#kind of in shambles the only control I have is my health. this caretaking is demanding my full days and I hate that

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Evil Within Review

Developed by Tango Gameworks

Published by Bethesda Softworks

Played on: PS3

Also Available on: PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows

Detective Sebastian Castellanos and his teammates Joseph Oda and Juil Kidman respond to a gruesome mass murder at the Beacon Mental Hospital. The security cameras show a mysterious hooded figure with supernatural powers quickly dispatching the security guards before moving to eliminate the patients and nurses. Who was that? Detective Castellanos is interrupted by an ear piercing noise before waking upside-down in a meat locker. After running for his life, Sebastian escapes the hospital. Sebastian and his teammates find each other and quickly escape in an ambulance with one surviving patient and caretaker as the entire city falls apart and reality itself seems to bend at someone's will. Find the truth, and discover who or what is truly in control.

Shinji Mikami returns to the triple A games industry with a new survival horror title. He already has great hits such as Resident Evil 1 and 4 as well Dino Crisis under his belt with this being his newest horror endeavor. The Evil Within was released in late 2014 in that odd coming-of-age period where 7th generation consoles still had large fan bases while 8th generation consoles were becoming popular but still lacked large, diverse buying groups. I thought I would review this game on the PS3 to see how the game holds up for those who never decided to upgrade or who find a good deal for an older device.

The Evil Within is a stealth-action horror game with many similarities to Resident Evil 4. Levels mainly consist of the player wandering through linear stages populated with enemies that are similar to zombies but aren’t zombies while in the third person camera view. These enemies tend to only have melee attacks but later in the game get guns and other weapons to attack the player. You in turn have access to a revolver, shotgun, sniper rifle, Magnum, and the Agony Crossbow which is a crossbow with custom arrows (i.e. ice, harpoon, explosive, electric, and flash arrows). You also have melee attacks but they don’t do much damage. You spend most levels taking out enemies with these weapons and slowly finding your way to the boss battle. The player can stealth kill an enemy by sneaking up behind them and performing a stealth kill. However, just stabbing the monster in the head won’t do the trick sometimes. To ensure that enemy doesn’t come creeping up on you in the next area you can burn bodies of the enemies you just “killed.” In addition to the regular shambling monsters you encounter in every level, you also have mini-boss opponents. These include massive, deformed beings with blades for arms that screech as they chase you around and masses of tissue with legs that lunge at you. These enemies may not sound scary now, but when you play the game they are absolutely terrifying.

The levels really compliment this by being claustrophobic and dark. Enemies lurk around every corner as they hit the walls and open doors to confuse you on where they are at. The real terror comes from two experiences in the game. Chase sequences and boss battles. I’ll talk about the chase sections first. These involve the player running away from some type of monster in cramped corridors. At first these sequences are heavily scripted but later in the game become far more user dependent. One time I was being chased by a humanoid spider through a factory and had to shoot valves to redirect flames to escape. This became incredibly frantic, as I had to aim carefully all the while avoiding this creature. Even after shooting the valve I had to wait 30 seconds for the flames to dissipate, making it a game of tag. Except if you lose you get your head ripped off.

Boss battles are probably the main selling point of this game however. Instead of the player simply running away from some horrible abomination now they have to fight it. Bosses are difficult but never feel unfair and always provide a unique challenge. Bosses in this game aren’t beaten through brute force, they are beaten through fast thinking and tactical decision making. For example, without giving spoilers, let me share one of my experiences. There is a boss that keeps coming alive after you kill him with traditional small arms. So how do you beat such a boss? You kill him by leading him towards a ceiling of spikes. You have to run through a disorienting, noxious gas room to get there however. As you navigate this room and try to turn off the gas, the boss chases you and strikes you down. It may be the scariest thing I’ve experienced in a video game having to deactivate a gas system as the camera angle turns to show the boss slowly walking up behind me just as I push through the last bit of resistance the gas valve is providing. These battles alone are the best reason to buy the game.

Now something that really shocked me about this game is that it lacks puzzles. This really caught me off-guard, as almost every relevant survival horror game has its fair share of puzzles. But after completing the game I feel this is a good thing, as it helps the game establish its own identity from horror games of the past and carve out a new realm in the survival horror matrix. Something else that may shock others is that this is a game where stealth, action, and running away from fights are all viable options. In most modern survival horror games stealth/running away or full on blockbuster action seem to be the only options the player has. But The Evil Within really blends these together allowing for all kinds of play. In the stealth sections you are given a small icon at the top of the screen. When the pupil moves back and forth and the eyelid is somewhat closed that means the enemy is nearby but hasn’t spotted you yet. When the eye is fully open that means the enemy has spotted you. In most horror games of our time you would either have to run and hide in the closest closet or pull out your fully automatic machine gun and mow down everything that moves. But with The Evil Within you can either pull out your gun and shoot the enemy or run away and find a place to hide and wait for them to stop searching to save ammunition. Both are viable options with pros and cons and you have the power to choose which tactic (at least most of the time).

During the game you will kill enemies and sometimes find piles of green gel you can collect. You can also find jars of green gel around the levels. You use this green gel to upgrade you weapons and abilities. You can upgrade the amount of health you have, how much health you get back from healing items, how many rounds your guns can hold, and so on. These upgrades are vital and are really the only way to beat the game without getting your ass handed to you every five minutes.

Graphically this game looks incredible, especially when you consider it is running on a PS3 and that the developers had to make the game on four other platforms. But when you look beyond the graphical detail the game starts to show cracks in its technical integrity. Textures can take up to 3 seconds to load even when staring directly at them up close. The load times are unbearable in this game. It takes an average of twenty seconds to load up the level after you have died. Even though the frame rate remains at a constant 30 FPS with six enemies on screen and with various actions going on in the background it drops considerably when nothing happens. Usually the frame drops occur when Sebastian is walking along a path as the wind blows leaves off a tree and there is a lighting effect from a nearby fire going on at the same time. I guess it's good that the frame rate stays steady during the action but why does it have to drop so often because of environmental effects? Something else that really pissed me off is that the game has lined up some great voice actors such as Anson Mount and Yuri Lowenthal but has each of them speak just a handful of lines. Most of the story is explained through in-game text but this is just stupid. Why hire top class talent and not use it?

As a tip to players let me remind you that this is a very, very hard game. Even while playing on easy mode I still got my ass kicked I died a total of 41 times. (I know because the game told me at the end). I would recommend playing on easy and unlocking new game plus before attempting any of the harder difficulties. When playing on easier modes you tend to find more green gel and ammo. You also take less damage from attacks and do more damage. But keep in mind that even on easy mode there are still multiple one-hit kill enemies and sections where one wrong turn could kill you. Once you have beaten the game on any difficulty you unlock new game plus. This lets you replay the game from the very beginning but with some new perks. You retain all the upgrades you got from your last playthrough in addition to two new weapons (machine gun and rocket launcher) and 50,000 in free green gel. You also unlock a model mode where you can look at the character models for every person in the game. This is cool but the ability to rotate the camera to see the full model would have been nice.

Overall The Evil Within is another great game from Shinji Mikami that will provide you with 10-15 hours of gameplay depending on skill level and difficulty. It brings all sorts of terrifying creatures into the fray and adds extra tension with its tight level design and ingenious boss battles. The gameplay is satisfying and always feels good no matter what section of the game you’re playing. But the game is held back by poor usage of the PS3’s CEL architecture. Even though I never encountered a bug in the game, I found all sorts of texture issues and infuriating load times.

I am giving The Evil Within an 8 out of 10

Pros:

Awesome boss battles

Tense, tactical stealth sections

Well done chase sequences

Cool upgrade system

Great level layouts

Cons:

Some texture issues

Long load times