The Evil Within Reviews
The Evil Within is a firm bet with details that attribute to it the succession of nostalgic moments experienced with the first titles of the Resident Evil series.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
If you want to experience the crazy fear you're looking for, The Evil Within may disappoint you after a while. But if you're interested in playing a good game, The Evil Within is a quality production that will help you.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
I like to look at [The Evil Within] as a meaningful love letter to pure survival-horror with gameplay that demands you to take your time and conserve your resources against aggressive foes in devilish settings. While a small portion of the design and features are rough, the majority of this game is a rock solid title sure of itself with a beautifully desolate world to explore and an insane story that's a fun albeit slow ride to watch unfold.
The Evil Within has all the elements of a great survival horror game. There’s a great story… eventually. There’s satisfying tactical combat… sometimes. The world looks suitably grim and foreboding… when it’s not breaking apart before your eyes. It’s a game that needed another twelve months to meet the developer’s vision. That’s what sequels are for. I can’t wholeheartedly recommend The Evil Within, but I can encourage you to keep an eye on the sequel. It could be something special.
The Evil Within takes the survival horror genre back to its roots and executes it in an extremely cinematic fashion with great atmosphere. Slightly jarring bugs and frustrating camera angles can be totally overlooked as you bask in Mikami's excellence.
The Evil Within is an enjoyable horror experience that ultimately suffers from lack of confidence. While it boasts many original moments of psychological suspense other sequences like the early village raid feel ripped straight from Resident Evil 4.
The long awaited next survival horror experience from the creator of the iconic Resident Evil series is here with The Evil Within from the mind of Shinji Mikami
The Evil Within's biggest sin is that it just isn't particularly scary.
Over the course of the lengthy, ill-paced campaign, one thing really stuck out for The Evil Within. It's not really a horror game. Yes, there are areas where you are often subjected to intense imagery and situations but they are more shocking than anything else. To put it simply, the game is more like the Saw film franchise than what we have come to expect from a good survival horror game.
The Evil Within is, deep down, the work of an old industry master who has achieved a high skill in his art, but who cannot surprise us and catch us like his previous works. It's a cleanly executed game that will certainly give nightmare moments to those who aren't used to the countless series of stereotypes that make up it, but that doesn't bring something really new or memorable to survival horror veterans.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
At the end of the day, The Evil Within is a good Resident Evil game from 2005, but a below average third-person action adventure game in 2014. Silly design choices and just plain awful decisions manage to hold back what could be a fantastic experience.
While The Evil Within never quite terrifies, it has plenty of moments early on where it threatens to wrap you up in its gory world. However, it never really delivers a completely engaging experience and by the end goes totally off the rails.
For all the games' narrative themes of consciousness-probing, identity-subsuming science, the reordering of the psychic self for a greater application of the flesh, I needed to look no further than my own pathological gameplay in its honour. The rage quits, the restarts, the late nights, the infinitesimal adjustments to my thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth attempts, all part of my drive to survive to the end, no matter how many hours of hell it took. That is the essence of survival horror. Those are the roots around which The Evil Within is so expertly entwined.
I don't know how the developers did it, but they have the horror game experience down to a tee. One thing is for certain, no vido game is perfect, but for me this is as close as you can get in the horror genre.
I've been a fan of the horror genre for the majority of my life. From books and comics, to movies, video games, and board games, I'm always on the lookout for something to give me a good scare. However, I've never been a huge fan of the survival horror style of video game. Don't get me wrong, they're good fun, but I've always enjoyed those games that attempt to balance horror and action set pieces more. 'Dead Space 2', in my opinion, is nearly perfect. I was even a fan (albeit, in the minority) of 'Resident Evil 6'. While 'The Evil Within' walks a tightrope that straddles these two types of horror games, it occasionally leans a bit more toward the survival horror side of things. By mixing in some frustratingly difficult boss battles, the games veers off in the other direction. Although both styles of gameplay can be exceptionally fun and exciting, I would have ultimately preferred the game remain exclusively focused on one or the other. The gore and violence reaches a boiling point very early on and people who either take offence or have a weak stomach for such experiences should avoid 'The Evil Within' at all costs. Those looking to test their skills and enjoy an all-out blood bath need look no further.
The Evil Within is a good game, an assembly of Mikami's best work and a rather pointed lesson in classic survival horror that Capcom would do well to note, but it's also unashamedly rooted in bygone years. As such, it'll pleases nostalgic fans yearning for a shinier, bloodied love letter to the creepy classics of yesteryear, but it doesn't really deliver anything particularly new. Greatest Hits albums are usually stuffed with goodness, and The Evil Within certainly has its moments, but they're also usually put out by bands with nothing more to say, I can only desperately hope that's not true of Shinji Mikami and Tango Gameworks.
The Evil Within is an example of a great idea that lacks execution. There are scares a-plenty and very often, the fear factor is sky-high. The pacing and variety we see in this adventure are worthy of praise as well, and I appreciate how the atmosphere continually drags you into the experience.
Despite The Evil Within's attempts to mimic RE4, it plays like a game that preceded RE4 instead. It has many minor flaws, annoying problems and nagging issues that its spiritual predecessor didn't have. There are times it comes so close to brilliance, and those moments make the game worth playing, but the frustrating portions can easily eclipse the rest of the title. You have to be willing to work with it to see the good within. Many of the design decisions make the player want to give up rather than work past the frustrating elements to reach the fun.
This game is not what was originally promised, but that's not a bad thing. While many were hoping for the next Silent Hill 2, it became the next Resident Evil 4, instead. With The Evil Within, Mikami has taken the highlights of a number of his other games and combined them into one terrifying amalgamation of gore, horror and action. The Evil Within is a great game. Survival horror fans will find it a great addition to their collection, and even for those with little experience of the genre it's well worth a play.