The Evil Within Comic Review

Dazed and confused after my play through of The Evil Within, I seeked answers wherever I could find them. Wikipedia evidently sorted things out for me even though parts of the story still didn’t make sense to me. But that was after I tried seeking clarity through the official comic book mini-series of the game published by Titan Comics.

If you were hoping this book could provide some answers as to what is actually going on, you should really just save your $7. The book is just as disjointed and random as the video game, although those who have completed the game might be able to make sense of parts of this story.

The plot centers around Dana, a college girl looking for her kidnapped sister. She eventually finds herself at a diner where she meets Paul a doctor who also finds himself at the diner under mysterious circumstances. The pair is then chased by “The Haunted”, zombie like monsters, into an abandoned mental asylum where horrible things happen.

Told you it was random, which isn’t really the problem. The problem with EW’s story is that it isn’t grounded in any strong characters. It feels completely unfocused and the random events lose their context when you don’t really care about any of the characters who are perpetually put in danger. In this aspect, the book shares the same problems as the game.

Those zombies look way better and more detailed than the actual characters.

The art looks fine, although some of the human faces, particularly Paul’s, just appear bland and undetailed. I cannot conceivably imagine someone who has never played the game to read this book and want to pick up the next copy, and to all those people out there who did enjoy the game and it’s story, save your money for the DLC.

The Evil Within Review

The Evil Within is not the game I hoped it would be. Parts of it aren’t terrible, in fact there are some pretty cool moments and boss fights. But there are so many technical faults and bad design choices that really hinder the game’s ability to truly stand out as a shooter or even as a horror game.

The game puts you in the shoes of Sebastian Castellanos a rugged and worn out cop who stumbles onto the site of a mass murder in Beacon Mental Hospital where he is knocked unconscious and proceeds to awake into a realm of horrible nightmares and monsters. Got it so far? Great because this story gets really crazy really quickly, and if you’re not paying attention to the diaries and audio tapes littered around the game, you’ll quickly get lost and end up as confused and clueless as our dear detective as he stumbles into one horrible situation after another. The story itself, after you piece everything together isn’t anything very compelling, and probably nothing you’ve never seen before if you have any experience with horror or mystery novels or TV shows at all. The characters in the story barely make an impression on you as well. Sebastian is the embodiment of every single veteran cop on TV, has a wife and kid, breaks up with wife but still loves the kid and drowns himself in work or alcohol. The other characters aren’t exactly anything new either.

The game is played from a third person over the shoulder perspective, and is pretty much similar to one of the most classic horror shooters of all time, Resident Evil 4. (No surprise since Shinji Mikami is responsible for both projects.) The shooting itself is…… a real mixed bag. On the one hand, pulling off head shots is really satisfying. It’s rarely a one hit kill, you’ll have to upgrade your critical hit for that, but the chunks of brain and skull blasting off as your shot connects feels great.  You can also shoot enemies in the foot while running to knock them down for a quick kill with a match by lighting them on fire.

The environments are pretty great. This one near the beginning of the game is incredibly reminiscent of the village in RE4, down to the psycho with the chainsaw…..

On the other hand, it doesn’t feel very precise. You can upgrade your aiming ability to prevent your weapon from swaying too much, but it doesn’t change the fact that you might be fighting the controls form time to time. It’s not a huge problem, but it does get a little tiresome in tight corners which may force you into a position where you might use melee attacks which are highly ineffectual even when fully upgraded. My advice? Put those precious points into something else because it honestly won’t make much difference. Enemies can also carry melee weapons which can sometimes be picked up by Sebastian. These items are one use only but they do tons of damage, and it’s a one hit kill to the basic enemies in the game.

Weapons in the game are pretty standard fare. Pistols, shotguns and a magnum later in the game don’t do much in the way of mixing up gameplay. The crossbow however allows you to craft different types of ammo for your needs, and provides players with more flexible ways to play. These arrows can deal massive damage, stun or freeze enemies depending on what you need, and are crafted by scavenging for parts around the game. These come in especially handy in boss fights where you will more than likely be out or running low on ammo.

Instead of fighting enemies straight on, you can also choose a stealthy route, when the game lets you. Sneaking up on enemies provides you the opportunity to instant kill them. Unfortunately, it’s rarely the most viable option. Enemies are often too close together to do it, and often times areas are separated by doors or traps that take forever to open leaving you completely vulnerable to all those guys you just sneaked past. It’s pointless at times and incredibly frustrating when it happens.

Speaking of frustration, the one thing that makes my blood boil more than anything in this game is the controls and movement. Parts of this game require you to make precision movements which are fine, but the game’s controls just aren’t up to task. Sometimes it’s the camera angle that puts you in an awkward spot, or sometimes your character just moves a little too much triggering a trap that blows you to smithereens. Checkpoints can also to pretty scarce and replaying parts of the game because you screwed up for one second just isn’t any fun at all. Coupled with the long loading times this game has, it’s a recipe for disaster.

The game isn’t a looker either, the letter box resolution the game is stuck with on consoles really hinder the view and just looks really jarring. You’ll get used to it after some time but I’d much rather a full screen game still. The environments themselves are very well designed. It’s incredibly eerie, gruesome and dreadful, and they look interesting and induced my sense of exploration. However, texture issues really bring down the visuals on what could have been a great looking game. Texture pop ins and low resolution textures on surfaces are a real let down especially since the environments are so well executed.

Parts of the game are genuinely unsettling, but I wouldn’t call it a scary game.

The Evil Within is a great tragedy. On paper, it looks like a great game. The legendary creator of the revolutionary Resident Evil 4 returns to offer a similar product, but it’s just nowhere near as polished as what I expected it to be. It has some great aspects, but everything else about it just brings it down and at the end of the day, you’re better off not making that effort.