The Evil Within Review - Psycho Babble

[Jimothy Sterling]

The Evil Within Review - Psycho Babble

An attempt to resurrect survival horror that doesn't quite live up to its promise.

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[Furioso]

I suspected as much, I had heard from various people who had gotten to play the demo builds about some of the bad design choices. Still, sad that the game isn't very good. At least we just got Alien: Isolation though.

 

[AmberSword]

From reading the review, the thing that irks me the most is that sprint metre though, its like game developers don't know the concept of adrenaline at all!

I guess forced combat sections are sometimes necessary, and the game doesn't want to make you overpowered, that's why your whole kit feels week, but ancient mechanics have no excuse.

 

[RavingSturm]

Not surprised! Survival horror never really evolved. Once you remove the helplessness in the game it stops being survival and becomes action horror. Makes me question the amount of actual involvement Mikami had in this game.

 

[Evonisia]

Is this note leaving tactic a common one? It seems bizarre to me that publishers would actually tell you how to play the game once you've bought it (rather than in the previews or after we realise the game is crap).

Edit: Well it's a review copy but still, reviewers are still consumers in this case.

 

[AmberSword]

Is this note leaving tactic a common one? It seems bizarre to me that publishers would actually tell you how to play the game once you've bought it (rather than in the previews or after we realise the game is crap).

Edit: Well it's a review copy but still, reviewers are still consumers in this case.

It has happened before, and Jim (or maybe someone else) has been blamed for dissing a game in their review because they didn't play it "the way it was intended".

It doesn't happen in the final release though, only someone of astronomical stupidity could pull that off (maybe Ubisoft next *wink wink).

 

[Ragsnstitches]

And again no one said anything about the made up moronic system requirements

Anyways... bad, I really was hoping it would turn out better. If there is a deal soon in my country, I hope to still try it out.

This is the PS4 version.

OT: This is disappointing. Was hoping to see a return to classic "resident evil" without falling into archaic design.

The fact that the game sounds needlessly frustrating bothers me the most. The Alien in Isolation can be harsh but you didn't feel it took away from the experience, so this must be something especially aggravating to make it actively damaging to the games appeal.

Oh well as Furioso said we got Alien Isolation. At least that's one decent horror game for this month of scares.

EDIT: Tim Turi over at Game Informer gave it a 9. While not a great reviewer, he has a very similar bond with the resident evil franchise as I do and his appraisals lessen my reservations about this game. He mentions the frustrating aspects and says they are by far the worse aspect of the game, but that everything else, for what it is, does what it does well.

But regardless of this the PC port is apparently getting trounced by user reviews. The game is just not optimized for PCs at all. I'll put this game off until a patch addresses some of these issues, or until a mod (which is unlikely) improves the games performance. Such a shame... and ultimately typical.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

Wasn't I preaching from the beginning this would be shit?

Oh, I hate it so much when I am right...

 

[SilverUchiha]

That's really disappointing. I mean, sound like it's still competent enough to be fun, but not amazing enough to warrant a day-one purchase. So, bad news is Bethesda will probably wait for my purchase here. Good news, more money going towards the two Platinum games next week. I can live with that.

 

[Metalrocks]

good thing i didnt care much for it. good read and informative. just hearing about bad controls i lose immediately interest. i have high values for a game to have good controls. thats where the original pc version of RE4 fails miserably in my book. but at least it was improved in the HD version that you could use the damn mouse, which should have been included since day one.

well, i will get my self alien soon. after watching angry joe playing it, this alone made feel tense. still have to wait for the retail version since sega doesnt want to offer it on steam due "not available in your region".

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

From reading the review, the thing that irks me the most is that sprint metre though, its like game developers don't know the concept of adrenaline at all!

I guess forced combat sections are sometimes necessary, and the game doesn't want to make you overpowered, that's why your whole kit feels week, but ancient mechanics have no excuse.

Funny enough, that's something that the original Slender of all things got right. Normally, your character can do what's pretty much a jog. However, once you spot ol' Slendy, trying to run makes your character go into a full-on sprint that iirc burns you out in the long term (permanent stamina loss) in order to get you out of trouble right away.

In all honesty, it's surprising how few games actually do play to the concept of adrenaline, especially in the horror market.

On Topic: Meh, didn't expect much for EW, nor did I really care. Nothing about it ever stood out to me as anything I'd ever be interested in as someone who loves the Fatal Frame franchise. Sucks that it's overall a very meh game, but at least we have Alien: Isolation to prove that AAA horror can work.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Wasn't I preaching from the beginning this would be shit?

Oh, I hate it so much when I am right...

We live in a strange time when a rating of 3 out of 5 is shit. The game is niche, which was always to be the case since horror in games is a niche genre, but it's made even more so due to being needlessly archaic and (if your on pc) poorly ported. It misses the mark which will put some people off, which is bad for a game which has a limited audience to begin with.

Which is about what was to be expected by a Bethesda published game that isn't part of the companies flagship franchises.

EDIT: One thing I will say against the game. From what I've seen it's certainly not worth the ?60 price tag.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I played a few hours of it, and it is painfully run-of-the-mill with controls that would make David Cage shake his head. Jim states in his review that the Resident Evil 4 sections play just like that... Fuck, if only.

And each time you die you get a frikking load screen, and there's texture pop-in all over the place. And this, people, is on the PS4.

My trust in Shinji Mikami made me partially ignore the mediocre footage I'd seen before the release, but I should've gone with my gut.

 

[Jimothy Sterling]

I hate to compare one very different game to another. and I haven't played this new "resident evil" for too long.
But it feels like a lot of the same criticism you make can be raised about alien Isolation. I too felt that game was archaic in many ways, and almost broken in others. Particularly the movement and backtracking in alien I found extremely frustrating, since even a 5 inch step that isn't designed for you to move through will become an insurmountable obstacle. Not to mention the terrible pacing issues.
So considering this, Jim, it felt that the Alien score was half deserved half fandom.
Now I'm not saying that the criticism here isn't true, but it just seems you were harsher to this game.
We all have our preferences, for sure, and that's unavoidable. But it makes me wonder.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

And again no one said anything about the made up moronic system requirements

Anyways... bad, I really was hoping it would turn out better. If there is a deal soon in my country, I hope to still try it out.

This is the PS4 version.

I really dont see how that changes what I said... at all.

Just saying what Jim played it on. The information on its requirements is free online.

But this isn't a review pieced together from external sources (that's not what reviews do after all). The scope of this review is focused on the game as it is presented on the PS4. If you want a review that acknowledges the downsides of the PC version, seek a PC centric review.

However, therein lies an issue, as apparently there are no PC reviews... which looks remarkably suspicious, and pretty damnable when you consider how it's getting panned by user reviews.

This brief update over at Destructoid implies a deliberate effort on the part of Bethesda to suppress a PC centric review:

http://www.destructoid.com/where-s-our-review-of-the-evil-within--282467.phtml

"Over the past week or so, Bethesda has been fairly sparing with giving out copies. A number of my peers were unable to procure the PC version, and in other cases (ours included), any version at all."

This is why you don't pre-order folks.

 

[shrekfan246]

Maybe so.
However...
One does not need to play a game to know that these here:
* i7 or an equivalent with four plus core processor
* 4 GB RAM
* (For Recommended) GeForce GTX 670 or equivalent with 4GBs of VRAM ...

Are made up Bullshit.

The point is that, being a review of the game that is not on the PC, the requirements for the PC version of the game bear no relevance to anything Jim is saying. So there's no reason for him to bring it up. If this were an op-ed piece, a Jimquisition, or a review of the PC version, then sure. But it's not.

OT: From what I've heard from people who played the pre-release versions of the game, I'm actually surprised it's getting as positive a response as it has. Sounds like it still has all of those problems they were complaining about, but they're not constantly and endlessly dragging down the entire game through repetition. Too bad I wasn't really interested in it in the first place, though, because the fact that it still does have all of those little annoyances does nothing to sway me toward wanting to buy it.

EDIT: Derped the quote.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

And again no one said anything about the made up moronic system requirements

Anyways... bad, I really was hoping it would turn out better. If there is a deal soon in my country, I hope to still try it out.

This is the PS4 version.

I really dont see how that changes what I said... at all.

Just saying what Jim played it on. The information on its requirements is free online.

But this isn't a review pieced together from external sources (that's not what reviews do after all). The scope of this review is focused on the game as it is presented on the PS4. If you want a review that acknowledges the downsides of the PC version, seek a PC centric review.

However, therein lies an issue, as apparently there are no PC reviews... which looks remarkably suspicious, and pretty damnable when you consider how it's getting panned by user reviews.

This brief update over at Destructoid implies a deliberate effort on the part of Bethesda to suppress a PC centric review:

http://www.destructoid.com/where-s-our-review-of-the-evil-within--282467.phtml

"Over the past week or so, Bethesda has been fairly sparing with giving out copies. A number of my peers were unable to procure the PC version, and in other cases (ours included), any version at all."

This is why you don't pre-order folks.

Maybe so.
However...
One does not need to play a game to know that these here:
* i7 or an equivalent with four plus core processor
* 4 GB RAM
* (For Recommended) GeForce GTX 670 or equivalent with 4GBs of VRAM ...

Are made up Bullshit.

The rest of your post is very interesting though. It IS odd .

Yes very odd.

I still disagree about Jim needing to make that point, even if I agree that those requirements are bull. Heck, the Minimum is bull... you still demand an i7? Fuck off with that nonsense.

It's an issue that needs to be addressed, but the only people who need to hear it are PC gamers. Considering that the bulk of the reviews seem to be the PS4 version, that's a problem in and of itself. There are 24 professional PS4 reviews on Metacritic (score average of 76) and only 12 Xb1 reviews (score average of 84) ... and no PC. Shady shit.

Hey Jimothy? Can we get a Jimquisition on this? Both the hardware malarkey and the restriction on PC reviews are becoming a trend and it sucks major ass.

EDIT:

From what I've heard from people who played the pre-release versions of the game, I'm actually surprised it's getting as positive a response as it has. Sounds like it still has all of those problems they were complaining about, but they're not constantly and endlessly dragging down the entire game through repetition. Too bad I wasn't really interested in it in the first place, though, because the fact that it still does have all of those little annoyances does nothing to sway me toward wanting to buy it.

EDIT: Derped the quote.

At the moment the reviews on Metacritic are leaning more positive on consoles, but there are plenty of mixed reactions there too. User reviews are the typical binary responses of "its the best thing ever" to "this shit is literally Hitler".

I can't justify a cost of ?60... it's too much for what appears to be well below expectations. Still, I want to experience the world of Evil Within, and at least try out what Mikami thinks is "survival horror" even if it is obscured by archaic design.

I'll wait for a few price drops and then pick it up in a sale down the road. Somehow I doubt Mikami will be getting a series out of this.

 

[Irick]

I want to respect this game, so much.
I need to play it eventually. I need to sit down and actually play it... can't though, Bethesda are on my shitlst right now.

It's gotten me angry a few times, but I want to see what he is going for. Locking the framerate to 30FPS always gets me in a tiff. I'm okay with games trying the old mechanics out again, but as you mentioned it seems like they don't control well...

But arrrgg, that could just symbolize the feeling of helplessness in a horror situation! I can't really... critisize the controls without playing.

Mmmph...

Jim, I'm inclined to agree with you, but I was biased against it before, so I don't know how well I can trust myself without getting some taste of the experience first hand.

Either way, I think you encapsolated your experience of the game quite well.

I'm still really sore that they took an iDtech engine and then decided to make a purposefully janky, low framerate game out of it. It nearly seems like an intentional slap to John Carmack... Which, given their current legal battles, i wouldn't disbelieve it ;3

 

[shrekfan246]

Maybe so.
However...
One does not need to play a game to know that these here:
* i7 or an equivalent with four plus core processor
* 4 GB RAM
* (For Recommended) GeForce GTX 670 or equivalent with 4GBs of VRAM ...

Are made up Bullshit.

The point is that, being a review of the game that is not on the PC, the requirements for the PC version of the game bear no relevance to anything Jim is saying. So there's no reason for him to bring it up. If this were an op-ed piece, a Jimquisition, or a review of the PC version, then sure. But it's not.

EDIT: Derped the quote.

This is not the first time this has happened. Look at CoD Ghosts, Wolfenstein TNO, Watch Dogs...
Only truly beautiful games (like Metro or Crysis 3 and BF4) actually dont lie about their requirements... and surprisingly, devs that actually PUSH graphics dont lie about them...

No one has talked about this. It has gone long enough. Someone should start to. PS4 version review be damned. IMO it bears relevance to the game either way.

Yes, I know that...

But the subject of inflated system requirements and/or really poorly optimized PC ports is not something that needs to be brought up in a review for a console version of a game. It's a topic for -

Otherwise, I do agree mate. I want a Jimquisition on this shit.

- a Jimquisition.

It's not relevant to the review because it provides no useful information for people who are reading the review in the interest of purchasing the console version of the game. It's not useful, informative, or entertaining to the reader, so there's no reason for it to be present. And again, if it were a review for the PC version of the game then by all means, I'd love for the terrible optimization to be brought up, because that's relevant to my interests as somebody who prefers to game on PC. But a review is only supposed to be about what the person has experienced first-hand.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Not surprised! Survival horror never really evolved. Once you remove the helplessness in the game it stops being survival and becomes action horror. Makes me question the amount of actual involvement Mikami had in this game.

That actually sounds pretty run of the mill for Mikami; when you get down to it, the man wasn't all that great at horror. Sure, the RE games could be tense at times and do the occasional jump scare, but those aren't the same things as horror. Mikami was at his best when he dropped all pretense of horror and went for relentless action. RE4 is the best game of the series solely because of its well paced action set-pieces married to great level design and Vanquish was my favorite shooter of last gen due to its incredible, nail-biting encounters, creative boss design, fun weapons, and unique design choices. Mikami's calling was for action games, not horror. Even as far back as the first RE you could see that as while it was horror at first the games increasingly encouraged just getting rid of enemies due to getting more powerful weapons and plentiful ammo. Trying to go back to horror at this point for Mikami was never going to end well.