Portly Adolescence

Rating: B+

I only recently got a PS4, mostly to play Bloodborne, so I’m currently playing catch up on a lot of games. The Evil Within’s trailers and imagery struck a chord with me last year and while it was released on the PS3, I wanted to wait to play it with the best graphics. After finishing the game, I found the story was overly confusing and the characters poorly developed, but I did enjoy the gameplay and atmosphere of the survival action horror game.

The Return of Shinji Mikami

My gaming knowledge is pretty limited, so I missed a lot of the hype surrounding this game which was centered on Shinji Mikami—the creator of the Resident Evil Series—returning to the survival horror genre after his split with Capcom under his own Tango Gameworks studio. A lot of people were really excited for this game and that contributed to some mixed reviews over the end product.

Story and Character Development

The big problem here is the story and character development. You play as Krimson City detective Sebastian Castellanos who is investigating a multiple homicide at a mental hospital with his two partners.  He sees video of a mysterious pasty, burned man dispatching all the people, gets knocked out, and wakes up in a grimy butcher room where a scary Leatherface-esque guy with a chainsaw is chopping up bodies.

The story isn’t overly complicated when read on Wikipedia, but is presented in a convoluted way. Mainly the pasty man was wronged and now is wreaking havoc using his mind hooked up to a bunch of bathtub looking things…and maybe it’s not that simple.

A lot of video game stories aren’t very clear or overly complicated, but strong characters help to brush that off. That’s not the case here, either. Sebastian’s back story is only presented through notes you find and has little connection with the events going on. That’s the only character development and most of the game has Sebastian saying stuff like “What’s going on?” and “This is really stage” in a hilarious deadpan that actually breaks up some of the tension (likely unintended by the game). His two other partners seem more interesting, but there’s very little info on them provided. The game also seems to be holding out on info for the DLC, which is kind of annoying.

Game Play

Fortunately the game play and overall atmosphere largely make up for that. You spend the game in pasty man’s mind where any number of horrible things can happen. You’re constantly being transported to different parts of his memories mixed in with the real world. Areas are fairly linear, but you’re always in a different type of environment from creepy mental hospitals to spooky houses to destroyed cityscapes to parts where you roam a European countryside in the middle of the day. You really have no idea where you’re going next and the game’s unpredictability is definitely a strong suit.

Along the way you encounter a number of horrifying creatures. These creatures start with mutilated zombies wrapped in barbed wire and get more disgusting as you go on till you’re fighting things that look like they got turned inside out and mashed together. There’s not very many jump scares, but all this stuff makes you feel uncomfortable at all times.  

The game is very difficult early on as you only have limited tools at your disposal and everything is out to get you. Besides the enemies, there are traps everywhere and the game is kind of doing everything to kill you. You’ll be using a pistol, shotgun, and crossbow for the most part, though more weapons like a sniper rifle and .44 magnum become available later in the game while some don’t show up until new game plus. Generally I’m not one to replay games, but Evil Within lets you play through again with new tricks while increasing your stats so that’s pretty cool.

While the guns are a little basic, the Agony Crossbow in particular provides a new depth to how you play the game. It’s totally unrealistic—perfectly fine since you’re in pasty guy’s mind—and can be uploaded with all types of ammunition like harpoons, bombs, and freezing darts.

Though fairly linear, I loved that Evil Within really gives the player a lot of freedom for how they want to tackle combat. You can try to go in shotgun blazing, electrocute a guy and sneak kill him, disarm a trap for crossbow bolt parts, or lure a zombie through a trap and watch him explode in gory goodness. There are also some optional paths and tough enemies to challenge that can provide great rewards or cause you to lose all your resources before a next boss fight.  

The rest of the time, you’ll be journeying back to a mental hospital to upgrade or fighting bosses. The mental hospital is where you have to save, which is kind of annoying, but you can also upgrade your character specs with green goo. Kind of similar to how The Last of Us worked with collecting junk to use at workshops, here you can either scour dark corners or take down enemies to get the green stuff.

Sitting at this horrifying, fetishistic-looking chair, you can upgrade weapons, run longer, boost health, improve aim, etc. There’s not enough to upgrade everything so you have to pick and choose, causing you to craft a character that meets your needs whether that’s a Sebastian that’s quick and ready to get away to use a sniper rifle or a shotgun and magnum-wielding bruiser.

In terms of boss fights, I was generally impressed with these. The monsters are increasingly horrific, and they mix up the situations quite a bit. Some of the highlights were fighting the Keeper, this guy with a safe on his head that can resurrect in other safes, a fight with this giant mutant in a parking garage, and the final multi-stage battle that is absolutely bonkers. There are some letdowns like certain bosses getting reused way too often as regular enemies and fights like the one with pasty man’s scary sister that require you to figure out some puzzle/activate something in a few seconds while you’re getting chased down.

Final Thoughts

At the end, this was a weird game where the story and characters became a total turnoff, but the fun action game play, horrific creatures, and always unsettling atmosphere kept me engaged. That said, and not having a Markiplier/Pewdiepie-size following, I don’t think I’ll be shelling out another $30 to play through the three DLC episodes.

-James P.