The Evil Within is latest survival horror game from director Shinji Mikami. His previous directing roles brought us Resident Evil 1 and 4, so it is fair to say this most recent addition to the genre was highly anticipated.
You play as Sebastian Castellanos, a detective investigating an apparent murder scene at Beacon Mental Hospital, things go from bad to worse as you step into a nightmarish world where survival is key. Expect only half full clips of ammo and a health bar that will rarely if ever be full.
Better, stronger, faster
After beginning the game I braced myself for disappointment, the first two chapters have an arduous amount of cutscenes and are so easy the scariest part is you might have spent your money on a game that is pressing up on a joystick for 15-20 hours. Really this first hour or so serves as a tutorial for the rest of the game and after this it really opens up.
The game has a third person, over-the-shoulder perspective. Sebastian’s default movement speed is a light jog, that sometimes feels more like a brisk walk; featuring a sprint button, a sprint that at the start of the game lasts around three seconds.
Whilst I’m sure the fitness test for being a detective requires applicants to be able to run for longer than three seconds, this gives way to a great upgrade system that will force the player to make tactical choices that should affect which strategy you adopt. Green gel (which can be dropped by dead enemies or found in little jars dotted around) is the currency used for upgrading Sebastian’s weapons, abilities and stock capacity.
With weapons, ammo and health being in such low supply and high demand, I was often forced to find alternative solutions to completing a chapter. One very nice mechanic is that all downed enemies can be lit with a match, making sure they stay dead; but also if another enemy is close enough, the flames will ignite them too. This two-birds-one-stone approach is a lot of what makes this game unique. It is a satisfying experience to shoot a creature in the leg, staggering it, then setting it alight whilst another group of enemies that are lunging towards you become engulfed in the flames. Not least because it doesn’t always feel as though it works as it should.
Dont’ look back
Defeating what The Evil Within throws at you is no easy task, after those initial chapters mentioned, the learning curve is steep. In fact The Evil Within is the most frustrating game I have played on the current generation, but for all the right reasons. When the game does hit its stride it reminds players what survival horror is all about. Surviving.
This game is challenging, punishing and sometimes extremely unfair. Walking into a new room and discovering that a stage is littered with traps in the forms of trip wires, pressure plates, spikes, and remote mines designed to kill you can be daunting; but successfully figuring out how to use them to your advantage is where the real fun begins.
Action sequences and enemy encounters are never stacked in favour of the player, making some sections seem impossible, but they never are. This is what the Evil Within manages to accomplish so well most of the time, the sense of achievement gained from completing a level is just getting to the next section. It’s so satisfying because it was difficult to get through. The game holds your hand for such a small amount of time that when it really starts you feel like Dustin Hoffman let go of your bike only to throw his shoes at you.
All too frequently I find myself playing a game that gives me an objective, then tells me how I accomplish that objective, and then shows me what buttons to press and in what order, leaving me with the feeling that I didn’t really do anything but press the buttons that Simon told me to. The Evil Within doesn’t do this, instead it opts to push you in a situation you don’t want to be in and forces you to find a way out.
Swings and roundabouts
Where The Evil Within really falls down is its scripting, voice acting and plot. For at least two thirds of the game we don’t really know what’s happening or why, which wouldn’t be such a problem if the player didn’t feel obliged to watch cutscenes that do very little to
progress the plot or develop any of the characters. There’s a few twists and turns in the story that either didn’t make sense or were to dull to fully engage with.
Sebastian is so un-emotive that most of the time it’s laughable, I’ve never seen a character so nonchalant about waking up to be greeted by a chainsaw wielding sadist. It’s so over the top that it almost seems intentional. I ended the game not really knowing how Sebastian felt about anything. Hopefully at least some moments should give players a laugh, albeit the type of laugh you get for humiliation and failure. The story and the acting is bad, but at least it serves as a welcome break in tension between chapters.
However the aesthetic of the game is fantastic. Where zombies have stopped being enough to scare the average person not living under a rock, some of the creature design in The Evil Within pushes the limits. I found myself genuinely creeped out by Laura, one of the major bosses in the game. Improving on the classic tropes and cliches we are so used to seeing, the monsters in this have obviously had a lot of time and attention. It is the perfect mix of American and Japanese horror design that makes the enemies so scary.
Instead of shuffling around aimlessly they seem to always be actively searching for Sebastian or maybe some other hapless victim. It feels more of a cross between the Evil Dead and Invasion of the Body Snatchers than it does Night of the Living Dead.
Replayability
I am not the most skilled of hardcore gamers, so I have no doubt that for some the regular game will be easier than it was for me, but having died 84 times over the course of a 17 hour campaign I felt like beating the game on its ‘survival’ difficulty setting was an achievement in itself. The hardcore survival horror fans will be pleased to know that a ‘nightmare’ mode exists, with fewer resources, stronger enemies, improved A.I. and additional obstacles. If that’s not enough there is AKUMU mode, a special mode where everything kills Sebastian in only one hit.
These modes, although becoming standard for games (undoubtably to provide something for everyone, from the casual to the hardcore gamers), give The Evil Within immense replay-ability. Almost immediately after finishing the story on ‘survival’ mode I couldn’t wait to go again on ‘nightmare’ to see if I had what it took.
Verdict
Minor issues and story aside, this game is a well thought through and highly engaging. It ticks all of the crucial boxes, and whilst it has it’s flaws it is still survival horror at its best. A game that makes you think about how you’re going to play it and keep you on
the edge of your seat. For any survival horror fans this is a must have. Combining many different elements of classic and recent takes on the genre well, it’s an experience worth having.