It was either Alien Isolation or The Evil WIthin. After reading and watching some videos of Alien Isolation it seemed too much like a stealth game with little actual gameplay so I decided to go for The Evil WIthin. I enjoyed the Silent Hill games so I thought this may be interesting. But was it a wise purchase?
The game's story unravels little by little keeping the player guessing, an aspect that keeps me coming back to it. Currently, I am on chapter 5 and I still don't fully understand what is going on so I have to trek to the end just to see what happens. The gameplay itself can be a frustrating experience. There are bear traps and sensor bombs littered all over the place which can catch you off guard frequently resulting in frustration. But in a way I guess it is a good thing since most games virtually guarantee that the player will see the end.
Your character, a cop, has bows and guns to rely on to defeat the hoards of zombies that comes his/your way every so often. The letterbox format of The Evil Within is not something I am particularly keen on, especially when there is inadequate lighting. There are times when I am struggling to see what is happening on screen. Every now and again the player gets the chance to upgrade his attributes via a magical mirror that transports him to an alternate reality, a place you don't get to spend too much time in.
The graphics are okay, full of blood and gore as one would expect in this genre of game. There are definitely better graphic designs in many other games and I would not say that the graphics are the game's strong point. There isn't much to look at, especially when you take into account the low lighting. Everything looks smoggy overall, reminding me of a game that would have been designed for consoles of yester year. The audio is serviceable. There is also a lack of dialogue put into the game and characters can often say the same thing over and over when the player gets stuck in a particular part.
What I did not realise is that there are many stealth areas. I thought that The Evil Within was going to be more of an action shooter but the player will only get the chance to use their weapons every now and again while cut scenes attempt to piece together what is going on around them, and the player skirts around carefully, avoiding ground traps to avoid blowing themselves up. And for this reason, once upon completion, I highly doubt that I will be going back to this game again.
The Evil Within seems like a missed opportunity in that so much more could have been put into it, but it feels like something that I will only feel like experiencing once and since it is one of the last several games to grace the last gen console it is as if the legacy of the PS3 is ending on a whimper.
Let's hope the new Assassins Creed game can will give something to the players to remember the console by.