The Evil Within is an extremely well crafted experience that puts you in the shoes of a detective by the name of Sebastian Castellanos who is dispatched to investigate a brutal crime scene. Upon arrival he witnesses the murder of a few officers on a security monitor and is quickly thrown into an obscure, twisted world in which he must fight tooth and nail for every breath of blood-stenched air to solve the mystery of his surroundings and try to escape the madness. The story of The Evil Within, while not being overly complex and won't win any awards, achieves what it sets out to do; the game itself tells it's own story as you progress through it's twisted, nightmarish plains filled with hellish creatures which will stop at nothing to maim and slaughter you.
The gameplay mechanics are pretty solid as far as survival horror goes, requiring you to use every scratch of resources you stumble upon to aid you in your survival, ammo is scarce so conservation, stealth and strategic thinking is key in part of your survival, you will need to use brutal, unforgiving traps placed around the map against the blood thirsty hordes of abominations that seek to end your career as a detective in a violent manner.
The games level design is impressive, while ultimately linear in terms of progression, the actual areas are well designed consisting of multiple paths that allow you maneuver past hordes of enemies in a non-linear fashion and reward exploration dearly. Without spending a little time exploring each area you will likely run out of ammo or necessary items which will aid you through this nightmare.
The sound is great, the weapons feel and sound deadly as they should, the voice acting is good but leaves a little to be desired in some sequences, the music featured in the game is really fitting and suites the atmosphere impeccably, they did an excellent job picking some eery music to go along with this obscure world. The enemies make twisted groans as they wonder around the map looking for something untainted to slaughter mercilessly which adds to uncertainty and tension this game oozes.
The art direction and atmosphere is where this game strives heavily, the creature design is twisted and extremely obscure, some monsters, especially the bosses left me in awe at how evil they looked and was achieved in a non-pretentious fashion, they were genuinely repulsive and twisted. The environments mix medieval/gothic areas with dark modern hallways which have obviously seen better days extremely well, no matter where you are in this game you're bound to feel uncertain and tense about further progression.
The pacing in terms of difficulty is pretty decent and fluctuates at times to build tension, in most situations you have the choice between fight or flight, remember ammo conservation is key, if you waste all your ammo on a horde of enemies you'll be left at a disadvantage later in the level. The combat situations leave you to overcome disadvantages and will require not only skill but wit to progress. Some boss fights are incredibly challenging and require more thought than just mindlessly plugging rounds into them but the sense of reward when you overcome these challenges makes you feel like a bad-♥♥♥, after defeating a few tough bosses I literally pulled the middle finger at the screen and yelled 'F*** You!'. This is not an easy game by any means and will spit on your hand if you stick it out expecting the game to hold it.
The port itself is very disappointing but I got over that in little over an hour, the game itself overshadows the port and questionable ideology behind the 'cinematic experience' they were going for, I used the console commands to cap this game at 60 frames per second and sort of fix the aspect ratio, it ran beautifully at 60 FPS on my machine which consists of a Core I5-2320 @ 3.00 GHz and a GTX 580 1.5 GB, I'm not totally sure where they got the insane system requirements from exactly but this should run well on pretty much any modern PC.
Overall this is 60$ well spent for me, yes I payed the full 60$, as I rarely enjoy games from this era and am what people like to refer to as 'stuck in the past', but the truth is games from this era bore me as they offer little to no challenge and have as much depth as the first step in a kiddies swimming pool, The Evil Within offers an experience that delivers on multiple fronts; cinematically, gameplay wise, art direction, atmosphere, aesthetically and design choices. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys survival horror, as this was who the product was intended for, newcomers to the genre are welcome too but expect a hefty challenge as it is an experience that is the closest we've been to the genre in years and to those who enjoy a tense, challenging experience in general that will burn in your mind for months to come after completion, this is the massive leap in gaming I've been waiting for for all these years.