Why The Evil Within Fails on Multiple Levels

This is an article by The Escapist. Pretty much took the words out of my mouth. Thought i'd share it with the community. It's a good read.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/extra-punctuation/12558-The-Evil-WithinTries-to-Be-Resident-Evil-or-Silent-Hill-But-Fail

it seems to embody the entirety of horror as a genre, reflecting aspects of so many different franchises that it has absolutely no identity of its own, just a patchwork quilt of imagery and concepts.

This is pretty much exactly how I felt about the game. I still enjoyed it, but it really did nothing to stand out from horror games before it.

There was a thread just after the game launch titled "Lets spot the influences in The Evil Within"

looks like people enjoy this level of failure.

Okay so I read the Article.... Not once did he say the game was actually bad, other than that one comment about stealth elements in non-stealth games. Its just like he said in his 1st Paragraph... The game has no identity, not even in its gameplay appearently... But he never once said it was actually bad or flawed, just generic and unoriginal.

This game is perfect for anyone wanting to try something new... You won't have the same complaints if this is a novel experience to you.

I don't really care what that hero says I got the game, finished it, enjoyed it and that's money well spent to me.

Hey! That was my thread! I was remembered... *blushes*

@JustPlainLucas

Reviewers are much more critical of these things because playing so many games as job kinda amplifies other wise minor issues. Its why he's so fixated on these issues... Infact I believe he already wrote an article about that already.... So I wouldn't take it to seriously. The Evil Within is good.... Wouldve been better with Co-Op though. :p

I do agree sadly, i think the biggest mistake was trying to push stealth into the game, it is a good game, but just that, decent.

FOUND IT ! :)

its Experience Points not Extra Puncuation.

www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/12193-Games-Journalists-Views-and-Tastes-Tend-to-Change-With-Age-and-M

"As for why I don't seem to think or act like the general buying public, it's because I'm a critic. Making the transition from playing games as a hobby to writing about them for a living will change your outlook."

Oh yeah, it's a good game. I don't view lifting from so many other games as a negative. It just don't do anything to boost the game forward. And.... I don't like co-op in my survival horror. It ruins the atmosphere. :P

@JustPlainLucas

Breaks my heart to hear you say that :( Luckily I can find Solace in President Evil Revelations 2, plus that one seems to have its Atmosphere fully intact... Kinda like Lost in Nightmares.

I actually love this game precisely because it's so interesting. And for me "interesting" is far more rewarding than simply being "good". The Evil Within both succeeds and fails in ways that are worth talking about critically.

I especially agree with his point that the game feels like a identity-less mish-mash of everything in the horror genre. (not gameplay genre). But I think that criticisms only addresses the setting/s of the game, not the gameplay which has a of unique quirks even though it borrows heavily from RE4 and TLoU. These days it's easy to play a brand new game and simply describe the game structure and interplay of mechanics as "like [insert game x]". Something that has become so true in recent times that Ubisoft: The Game has become a term.

But TEW was one of the first games in ages that made me feel I had to learn a lot from scratch. Not a few of the 150 deaths I experienced over the course of the game were the result of the learning process.

Take for instance the way the game uses randomness as part of its design: multiple playthroughs even on the same difficulty can throw interesting curveballs such as a door will be missing where it was before, the placement of items will shuffle around (the shotgun moving houses for instance) and even headshots and firing on canisters is dictated by a luck variable. I know I was gobsmacked when I shot a canister square-on only to have it to fail to blow-up. It was a brilliant moment of "oh shit, what now?!". This is fascinating stuff.

@Articuno76

The cannister thing is just stupid.... Its a nice novelty but ultimately its pointless, it wouldve been much more interesting if the baddies could shoot a cannister near you... People won't get bored by that as easily.

Perhaps. But interesting nontheless to think that some designer built that into the game along with a host of other choices designed to erode the players confidence in their tools. Surprised guns don't occasionally jam up in this game given that it would be line with the rest of TEW's design philosophy.

@Articuno76

I'm surprized the main character doesn't have a straight up heart attack and dies on the spot. It makes for great horror but its not a good gameplay design choice.

I'm not saying you need to have guarantees though.... Thats what blinds are for... They remove certainty without compromising the games integrity for the sake of a cheap panick scare.

@Articuno76

I just realised why I'm so touchy about the cannister thing...... It reminds me of "Critical Hits"...... Which are common in.... you guessed it.... RPGs.

It just snuck up on.

Again, all the more reason I find the game interesting. There's a whole debate it brings up on the fine line between hamstringing the player in a way that enhances the game, and in a way that is just plain bad design. The Evil Within is an interesting case study because no one who plays it is going to agree where exactly that line is.

Take for instance the way reloading animations lock you out of being able to interact with your surroundings. Want to defensively bat an enemy away with a melee attack or climb a ladder to escape an oncoming enemy? Tough. Once you reload you are locked into the animation and locked out of everything else. As far as I'm concerned this is a terrible design choice.

And that got me thinking. Why is this specific design choice rub me up the wrong way when many other parts of TEW's player-unfriendly game balance/mechanics don't? It's not just because it inconveniences the player that it's annoying. Perhaps it's something to do with the fact that it makes no logical sense. After all, in real-life a person would simply stop reloading and switch to another action. But then that got me thinking, you can't aim/fire weapons in this game from a crouching position... which also makes no sense. And yet I have no issue with that. In fact the inability to crouch and fire is even leveraged in that room with the room splicing giant fan.

Again. Interesting to dwell on all the design minutiae.

Well you don't have to be a reviewer to be able to spot the issues mate. I mean some reviewers fucking praised this game as the "Survival Horror Masterpiece", that totally annoys me, what the **** is up with that? I'm sure this game could be the most awesome horror experience if you're new to this genre. But in reality it's NOT that great. It's good though.

Co-op would have been fucking great for example. It worked pretty good in RE5. And what about Mercenaries Mode? I don't understand why they take away all these great content, especially if it's a game from the original creator of the RE series *ehrm*...

@Articuno76

My bad.... Just caught me off guard.... Randomizers suck.

@HXCE

Yeah but I was saying reviewers are more easily bothered by it. I mean imagine having to review one FPS every six months for 10 years.... Even Destiny won't get a rise out of you.

@Articuno76: Being locked in a reload animation does not really bother me because I have seen it sooooo many times. Ahhhh hay was my ultimate weapon

@cooolio

President Evil 5 had "Inventory Reloading"....

You can reload any weapon anytime in under 2 seconds.

I don't have time to read this article yet because I'm still at work and I haven't gotten very far in TEW, but my overall impression of the game is not great. I suspect that this is the kind of detail that tomorrow's episode of Extra Credits is going to get into based on last weeks forshadowing, but the game lacks what I call "ebb and flow" which is essential to an actual horror game. When you have a game that just drops you into a crazy situation and stays there for the duration of the game, there's no "scare" factor anymore because scaring someone is about imagination, anticipation, and pulling the rug out from you when you least expect it. Alien Isolation is a pretty slow burn, but some of the creepiest parts of the game were the very beginning, where at my pace I played for hours before I really even reached a situation where I could be killed. When I first encountered the synthetics, they were actually more scary -before- they were homicidal because I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Especially when playing on the Oculus, I would walk up to one and have this creepy glowing eyed head that felt like it was literally inches from my face and I was like "aaaah, **** that. He's going to bite me on the face, I just know it! DO SOMETHING ALREADY!!! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!!!!"

Once they went crazy it was business as usual, but before they were all muder-bot-ey I didn't want to turn my back on them for fear of what they -might- do when I'm not looking. The same goes for the Alien. Before he was a real threat he was much scarier because you know he's going to show up and ruin shit but you have no idea where or when or how to deal with him. Once he's been around for a while, it's more about learning how to avoid him. He's threatening, but far less scary.

In games like Silent Hill, some of the creepiest parts were in the "normal" town because it was like an uncanney valley. It was a normal town, but it was just off enough to make it really unsettling (all fog, no people, strange noises). The hell dimension was scary, too, but if you spent the whole game in there it would lose its impact pretty quickly. It's the fact that the game will take you out and put you back into the town that makes it so much more effective when it pulls the rug out again and drops you back into hell. Same goes for Alan Wake, where it mixed mundane and scary. TEW just feels like "hell dimension" all the time, especially when you consider what the story acutally ends up being.

-Byshop

@Byshop

Are there any other shows like Extra Credits ?

Once a week just won't cut it for me ! :(

It's pretty unique in my experience. I've been watching it for years, since the days of The Escapist and when Alison was still their artist and before their crowdsource campaign to cover her medical bills. I'm the Feature Architect for a software solution (non gaming related) in a corporate environment and I've been able to apply some of their principals to the work that we do, even. It's a great series and I recommend it to pretty much anyone who's interesting in software development theory. My wife's not a gamer but she loves it, too. The "Extra History" segments are even better because she's a history teacher.

-Byshop

@Byshop

I know right .... Thats why I want MORE ! ! ! :(

Meh don't care, it plays like what I wanted RE4 to play as so w/e.

I understand what the article is saying. We need to let Resident Evil 4 go. I know Shinji made it and The Evil Within.... but enemies have firecrackers like RE 4... torches... chainsaw people... Like, come on. We needed a new experience. The Evil Within was good. I liked it. Nice challenge, too... but Resident Evil 4 needs to go.

@Ballroompirate

You gotta take your craft much more seriously...

@Shmiity

Or they can just add Co-Op.... ;)

The can call it: "The Evil Between"

I would sooner replay RE4 yet again than play this game. I just got off work so I got around to the article and I totally agree, but I would take it one step further and say that not only the character lacks personality but the entire game is like a blank horror slate as well. It's competent, but it has no character because it doesn't even have a consistent setting. Hell, if it stuck to the asylum like the trailers suggested it might have been really interesting, but this whole "reality bending" aspect just acts as an excuse to go from horror setpiece to horror setpiece. Alan Wake had that good balance, especially with the brilliantly detailed environments that hinted at the open world game they wanted to make. The Last of Us was freakin' brilliant with the long portions of game where your characters would be exploring a completely safe area and they would just talk, reminisce about the world that was and just generally act like people. These parts scared me almost as bad as the scary parts because even though I had become accustomed to the mechanics and was pretty sure nothing bad was going to happen there was always that lingering, nagging doubt that you get when watching a show like The Walking Dead that the story is trying to lull you into a false sense of security just so it could throw something horrible at you when you least expected it. Like when you were exploring the deserted University of Eastern Colorado (cuz that's totally a real place, not like CU or CSU) I was just -constantly- on edge because the longer I explored with nothing bad happening the more likley I knew it was that something bad was going to happen.

With TEW and it's asyulm abatoir of rotating knives and plunging shafts and the constant thread of Hellraiser-ey danger, it's like the came is just trying way, way too hard. When it's nothing but setpiece after setpiece, I don't feel like I'm in a horror game or a real scary place so much as I'm playing a video game of a haunted house amusement park.

-Byshop

Stop with the co-op! That's what ruined Resident Evil 5. Yeah, I said it. Co-op ruined Resident Evil 5. You know what's great about video games? When you have no one around to play them with, you can still play them! Can't do that with Resident Evil 5, because the AI Shiva is utterly ridiculous. Zombie two feet from her? Let's have her fire from MY ammo cache and miss! She gets hurt instead of running away? Let's have her use MY herbs because she's a dumbass! Co-op ruins survival horror, and it would NOT have helped The Evil Within.

/rant.

Agreed. Co-op can be done will, but usually it's done at the cost of the overall game and RE5 is a perfect example of that.

-Byshop

@JustPlainLucas

Actually it sounds like AI ruined your Experience. As for the downfall of Survival Horror in the Presisent Evil series, that all started at President Evil 4.

As for finding someone to play with.... I empathize with you... I can't find nobody either. :(

+ on that mate.

Indeed it was.

Have really enjoyed it so far ....dunno maybe it's because i'm an "atmosphere fanboy" or sth , it just absorbs you to the hellish world i mean the level design is pretty good , gameplay is rather classic you run outta ammunition and stuff and i like the stealth mechanic being in such genre , it works , it's more realistic , they've done a pretty good job implementing that mechanic u know after all it's kinda subjective ...some ppl hate it some ppl love it, i'm in the latter category ..

He has a weird co-op fetish. I think co-op should be banned from games.

@Byshop

Actually its the Inverse way around. What makes for good horror doesn't always translate into a good game overall. Its kinda why the Horror gets worse as the Gameplay gets better. Its mine and Wiouds belief that Survival Horror depends on Questionable Game design, the P.T. Demo is excellent proof of that.

However Co-Op doesn't factor into this theory anywhere at all. Or atleast not enough to completely "Ruin" President Evil, Lost in Nightmares is proof of that and hopefully Revelations 2 will follow suite.

or The Evil We've Seen? Hope this derails far lol.

The atmosphere is pretty much the reason why I finished the game. I wasn't a fan of the stealth though, The Elder Scrolls Detection Eye pretty much destroyed that whole mechanic. Even if you picked Survival in your first play-through you could still re-enable the eye in the options lol... Just plain stupid.

@Gamerno6666

If Only.... Too bad thats not gonna happen.... Hell it might not even happen in the Survival Horror Genre... :)

What's that? , if u mean seeing through walls and stuff...didn't know the game has that feature ...generally i hate that mechanic in everygame !

Gotta admit this game is pretty challenging ...

@mjorh: No I mean the white eye on top of the screen that shows when you're hidden or not.

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agreed

the game was terrible

@hxce said:

@mjorh: No I mean the white eye on top of the screen that shows when you're hidden or not.

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Man i didn't know it :D never even thought about that ...have played for like 40 hours the Elder Scrolls ... how the hell i haven't notice that is just beyond me :D ..now i'm going nuts !

Thanks btw.

@hxce said:

@mjorh: No I mean the white eye on top of the screen that shows when you're hidden or not.

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TBF you can toggle it. And it is off by default on Normal and above. Having never played the game on the lowest difficulty I never saw it until I saw someone else playing the game.

No. NoNoNoNoNo.

@Articuno76: I know you can but I just don't think it belongs in the game at all. And as I said earlier, even if you bump up the difficulty and the eye has been removed, you can still re-toggle it without having to lower the difficulty.

How do you feel about the hearing-vision in TLoU? I felt that the way the game played/was approached by the player changed massively with and without out it. I had to pretty much learn to play the TLoU all over again again when I lost the hearing-vision crutch. With TEW though, from what I can tell, there isn't a significant difference between having and not having this crutch as it's generally pretty obvious if you've been spotted or not. The biggest design sin I can attribute to the eye-thing is it's unnecessary.

It's remarkably boring from what I've played of it. Nothing original and no hint of inspiration anywhere.