Hello everyone and welcome to my review of The Evil Within. In honor of Halloween coming up I'm trying to think of some cool games and movies to talk about. Since there haven't been many scary, spooky games lately that I haven't already gone over, I figured this one deserves it's own review. Especially with the sequel, The Evil Within 2, coming out Friday, October 13th, 2017. The original The Evil Within, is a third person survival horror game. It was developed by Tango Gameworks, but published by Bethesda Studios, a very prestigious well known company. This one came out way back in October 2014 for Playstation 3 and 4, as well as Xbox 360 and One. I was excited for this when it first was released because it was directed by, Shinji Mikami, the creator of Resident Evil, one of my favorite franchises. You can definitely see a lot of resemblance between the two series, but also enough distinction to make it unique.
In The Evil Within you play as protagonist, Sebastian Castellanos, a detective called in to investigate a brutal collection of murders at the local mental hospital. The beginning of the game leading up to the mental hospital is really the only calm part you get. Right when you go in everything goes twisted and becomes almost like a hallucination or a dream. In fact before you even know what the hell is going on, you will find yourself being whisked away to all kinds of crazy places. You'll be hit with ghostly apparitions, nightmarish creatures and grizzly, gruesome locations, without much explanation of what is happening. That unknown quality to the game can sometimes add to the overall experience, but I wish the story and motivation were a little more clear and well defined. The plot, as well as Sebastian, can be pretty underwhelming. I never really felt any connection to him and his performance is a little wooden. But the rest of the game is great.
Where The Evil Within shines is it's atmosphere and gameplay, right off the bat you'll notice how detailed everything is. As you make your way through the game's 15 levels, you'll find yourself in a variety of different locations, each one disgustingly beautiful. You will also notice fantastic use of lighting and shadow effects that really help to create some spooky tones. Gameplay is very much like Resident Evil 4, since The Evil Within is made by the same man it's easy to see why. It's all over the shoulder third person shooting against creepy villagers and frightening monsters. The main difference is that unlike Resident Evil 4, ammo is a lot more scarce. I often found myself completing a chapter with barely any bullets left, but I like the survival horror aspect of it. As for guns you get the usual lineup, pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle. The most unique one would be the crossbow, which has a variety of different ammo types.
Throughout the game you'll be collecting this green gel, this can be saved up and used to level yourself, and your guns up. Every so often you'll get a chance to teleport to the games hub world, it's a safe area where you can use your green gel, then go back to the game. This allows you to beef up a certain stat, or make certain guns really powerful depending on what you like most, to help take out your enemies. There are all kinds of crazy enemies and bosses in The Evil Within, but two definitely stick out for me. The Keeper is a large man with a safe on his head, he stalks you throughout the game a little like Pyramid Head from Silent Hill. The other is Laura, a six legged creature who has the face of a woman with long black hair, she also will make an appearance more than once. Both are terrifying and so is everything about this game, in a good way.
Ever since Resident Evil 4 I've been fond of horror themed third person shooters. You don't see a whole lot of them anymore so if you feel like playing a good one, give The Evil Within a try. It's pretty old now so you should be able to snag a copy pretty cheap, or you can always wait for the sequel that's coming out in October. From what I've seen it's looking to be even better than the original. Some parts of this game have room for improvement and I hope that's what we'll get in the next one. But if you haven't tried the first one yet there's plenty of awesome survival horror goodness to be had here, as well as a few DLC's that are worth checking out. This is an underrated game in the horror genre and hopefully someday it might grow into the next Silent Hill, or Resident Evil, if we're lucky. I give The Evil Within a score of:
B-