The Evil Within

If you like old-school third-person action games with horror elements, I'd recommend picking up The Evil Within on a console, possibly at a price cut. It will definitely scratch the itch of someone who has been pining for a return to the older days of gaming, but everyone else who has come to expect that certain layer of polish likely won't be amused.

Instead of giving a new lease on life to the survival horror genre, Mikami, the creator of Resident Evil, produced a dud.

The Evil Within is an unoriginal but interesting concept that keeps the player on the edge of his or hers seat and makes the blood flow faster. It's a shame that outdated gameplay mechanics surfaces fairly quickly (and begins to frustrate shortly after). The game is quite easy to be memorized move by move, room by room - and that kills all the horror. The Evil Within is not bad at the survival part, it's quite good as a stealth game and mediocre as a shooter. It has an interesting story and dull characters - all of that can be fun, but I think expectations were much bigger.

To sum it up, The Evil Within is fantastic; or rather it would be if the PC version didn’t feel so sloppy.

Despite darkness being a horror game’s natural habitat, living so much in other game’s shadows limits The Evil Within from being the genre redefining classic it really should have been.

The controls are sluggish, the video options are limited, and the aspect ratio decision is utterly stupid. All of the above drags The Evil Within from enjoyably challenging to needlessly frustrating.

I’ve played a lot of decent horror games and out of all of the classics like Resident Evil, Silent Hill and the more recent ones like Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Outlast, I just cannot seem to find a place in my heart or in my brain for The Evil Within. It’s not worthy to tackle any of the aforesaid games. Not on any level.