The+Evil+Within

The Evil Within Video Game Review



This is a truly creepy video game. It is also a very gory video game. If excessive amounts of blood, guts and horrific looking monsters bother you, you might not want to scroll through this wiki page.

This game is of the third-person shooter/survival/horror genre. It is very reminiscent of the Resident Evil video game series and just so happens to be directed by the same creator, Shinji Makami. It was published by Bethesda Softworks, the same video game juggernaut that was behind the incredibly popular Fallout and Elder Scrolls series. From what I know, this is their first venture into the Horror genre. In my opinion, they did a very good job.

The Evil Within tells the story of an protagonist police officer named Sebastian Castellanos, who is called to a murder scene at an insane asylum with several of his colleagues. While investigating the blood-splattered asylum, he encounters a paranormal entity in the form of a man with a white cape who proceeds to knock him unconscious. When he "wakes', he finds himself in a nightmarish, post-apocalyptic dreamworld that is filled with horrific monsters.

Throughout the game, Sebastian is stalked by "Ruvik", the paranormal entity that knocked him out at the insane asylum in the beginning of the game. He appears randomly and has the ability to shift gravity, induce hallucinations and completely change the environment that the player is surrounded by.



One of the scariest parts game occurs near the very beginning. You come to consciousness and realize that you're hanging upside among dozens of dead corpses. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice a giant figure that is taking the bodies down one by one and chopping them into pieces. With very little instruction, you have to find a way to get yourself down and sneak around the butcher without being noticed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fch_U4fUdA0

Dispersed throughout the game are bathrooms with broken mirrors, that can transport Sebastian to a "safe house"in the asylum where he can upgrade his attributes and collect useful gear like additional ammo and upgrades. This safe house doubles as the site where the game player can save his/her game.

In order to progress through this game successfully, you must learn how to survive in a number of ways. The player must conserve weapons/ammo, learn how to use weapons as well as strategies to kill specific enemies, know when to fight or flight, solve puzzles, interact with the environment, sneak and avoid traps. When I first started playing, I was incredibly frustrated by how easy it was to get killed during every minute of game play. At the beginning of the game, the player has no weapon, very little health and almost no stamina. It becomes obvious very quickly that that the odds are greatly stacked against you. One of my biggest learning difficulties included sneaking around and using the environment. As a gamer, I personally like to go in guns blazing so I can kill players quickly and efficiently. This option is only possible later in the game once you have collected weapons and amassed a healthy cache of ammo. As a result, I kept dying over and over again because I was confident I could find a way of beating the monster to death with my fists while maneuvering their attacks. It wasn't until I tried this about a dozen times that I realized it was much easier to sneak around them in the dark and throw bottles as a decoy to get them to move out of my path. The other unavoidable learning lesson you have to go through in this game is trial and error. There are so many ways to die while you play that it is impossible to avoid all of them on the first try. Some of the deathtraps you find yourself in only give you seconds to find a way out before you meet your demise. There were several instances where I would find these traps, analyze them and still die about four of five time until I could successfully find my way through them.

One of the big teaching points of this game is that it pays off to explore all of the in's and out's of the terrain instead of rushing right through it. There are scores of hidden locations throughout the levels that house valuable and interesting items that can support the story and help the players in multiple ways. There are Sebastian's personal logs, detailing his life as a detective and his life with his wife and daughter, The personal logs other other characters, pieces of the game's map, newspapers detailing events concerning or involving Sebastian, posters of characters Sebastian encounters throughout the game who have been reported missing and tapes containing recordings that can be played which are recorded by characters through the game. There are also jars of green gel and keys that can be used to collect ammo and other useful items in the safe house.

There are many online sites, forums and wikis for this game. Below are just a few of them:

http://theevilwithin.net/ This website focuses on news, tips, cheats, glitches, exploits, hacks and walk-throughs

http://theevilwithin.wikia.com/wiki/The_Evil_Within This is the most comprehensive website i could find for the game. There is an incredible amount of information there regarding all aspects of the game: characters, weapons, development, secrets, etc.

Over all, I think this is one of the scariest, goriest, engaging and difficult horror/survival/shooter games I have ever played. Even though the plot is very fragmented and difficult to follow, the graphics, cut scenes, characters, dialogue and pacing more than make up for that small downfall. At times, the game can feel like it is too hard. I literally had to set the game on an easier mode several hours in so I could find more ammo and first aid kits for health and get to the next level. All that said, I would give this game a strong 9/10 rating. I recommend it to anyone who has a strong stomach when it comes to blood, gore, monsters, zombies and other forms of violence. Just don't play it by yourself in the middle of the night. You might not be able to go back to sleep!

Below is a link to the video game's trailer to give you a better taste of what the game is like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxlo67zhOWc