Neff
Member
No, it isn't.
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Shinji Mikami's THE EVIL WITHIN |OT| Where's everyone going? Tango?
- Thread starter Nemesis_
- Start date
No, it isn't.
Markitron
Is currently staging a hunger strike outside Gearbox HQ while trying to hate them to death
Valkyri von Thanatos
Member
Sweet, thanks a lot! I guess I'll jump on that GMG deal, even though I'll still have very little money left over for games afterwards. Oh well, this game looks like it'll be worth it.
Edit: $4 more for the season pass would be a good investment, yes?
Although, actually a question I have is that I've been pumping a lot of upgrades to get Shotgun damage up to lvl.4 along with extra bullet stock...but there's not much shotgun ammo so I have this great weapon that can hardly be used.
What's the default strategy for taking down lots of normal enemies, especially if trying to conserve matches? Upgrade pistol crit and focus on head shots?
What's the default strategy for taking down lots of normal enemies, especially if trying to conserve matches? Upgrade pistol crit and focus on head shots?
-MD-
Member
Z
ZombieFred
Unconfirmed Member
Still not got the chance to come around to play this game yet but I have two quick questions; does this stand up to the same quality and experience Mikami brought us with Resident Evil REmake/4 and is the game selling well? Thanks guys 
iconoclast
Member
Finished Akumu mode earlier today. There are a few really tough spots, but overall it's pretty manageable if you try and play smart. I'm far from done with the game, but I'll post a review since I don't see my opinion changing much:
+ Combat is top notch. It's a bit like RE4 without the godly melee attacks and far more limited resources. You have to make every shot count and think about how you want to approach each encounter to try and conserve your ammo. Enemies can be dealt with in a variety of ways: you can throw a bottle at their face to blind them for a moment, giving you the opportunity to stealth kill them, you can shoot dynamite out of somebody's hand to kill everyone around him, you can shoot an enemy's leg when he comes running at you to knock him down, giving you the chance to light him on fire, you can use the traps that are scattered throughout the environment, you can use your crossbow to blind, freeze, stun, or harpoon an enemy, you can use an axe or torch as an 1-hit kill melee attack, or you could simply blast their head off (unless they're wearing a bulletproof helmet). Combat never gets boring because of the excellent feedback and because there are so many ways to deal with everything.
+ Sebastian is also more vulnerable than his RE4+ counterparts. His sprint is limited, especially at the start of the game. Hold it for too long and you'll start to slow down; let the meter drain and you'll be immobile until it fully recovers. He may have the cardio of a 500lb asthmatic, but it's obviously a design choice to stop you from feeling too safe. Likewise, his melee attack is only useful as a way to stun enemies for a moment when they get too close, giving you the chance to either run away or line up a shot. You won't be able to headshot somebody and run in for a followup german suplex, (un)fortunately.
+ The upgrade system seems smartly designed. Right now I feel like there's an ideal path to take through it, but maybe that's just my playstyle. Just about everything is useful.
+ Exploration. The stages are usually pretty narrow, but you are constantly rewarded with green gel, ammo, map pieces, or locker keys for thoroughly searching every nook and cranny. All of that stuff is incredibly useful (besides maybe the map pieces, I dunno what you unlock for collecting all of them).
+ The higher difficulties. Most of the encounters have been remixed, so you'll be fighting enemies that normally appear toward the end of the game in the first few chapters. Aside from that, the enemies are more aggressive, they have more health, traps are harder to disarm, and resources are more limited. I'm always glad when developers go the extra mile and rebalance the higher difficulties instead of taking the easy way out and simply changing some damage modifiers, even though only a small percentage of the audience will ever play them. I'd expect nothing less from Mikami & co.
+ New Game+. Always a great feature, and it's done perfectly in this game. You can't play through easy mode and carry your upgrades into the higher difficulties; you always have to start from scratch when moving up.
+ Good boss fights. There aren't a ton of them, but they're all fun to fight.
+ Good art and aesthetics. The environments are varied and are full of detail to make them look really run down and destroyed. The lighting also looks fantastic.
+ This game has one of the best sets of achievements I've seen in a long time. There's one for beating each difficulty, one for speed running the game, one for maxing out your character, one for completing the game without upgrading your character at all, one for finding all of the collectibles, and individual achievements for completing a specific task in each chapter. It encourages mastery and 100% completion, so I don't see much room for improvement.
= The story is alright. I like it as a way to transition between environments, but the characters and plot aren't all that compelling.
= The final boss
= There are several "walk slowly while scripted events unfold" sections in the game. They aren't frequent enough to be annoying, but it would be better if they didn't exist. Maybe they're just there to mask loading or something.
- Checkpoints are very frequent, which makes death pretty meaningless most of the time. It would have been great if the game had a Dark Souls-esque structure where the save room would act as the bonfire. Akumu mode would be brutal if it weren't for those checkpoints, though. Each one is a relief.
- The black borders. They aren't a big deal to me, but it does make the FOV quite narrow. It's easy to miss stuff if you don't search thoroughly.
- No bonus content. There are unlockables for beating each difficulty, but I wish the game had some type of challenge mode with a bunch of combat arenas, like Resident Evil's Mercenaries or Vanquish's tactical challenges.
- Chapter 1. There's absolutely nothing interesting about it from a gameplay perspective, it's only there as a tutorial and to setup the story, I guess.
- Chapter 2. It's too focused on stealth. You probably don't want to shoot every enemy you see since you're still extremely low on resources, so you spend most of the chapter slowly crouching through it. Stealth is fine every now and then for some variety, but this is just too much. (For reference, the only stealth games I've ever liked are Splinter Cell's multiplayer and the Metal Gear series. So that doesn't help.)
- Tech issues. The framerate isn't great (though it hardly ever bothered me) and it froze on me at one point. First the sound cut off, then a few minutes later the game crashed. Every time I tried restarting the game, it would crash at the start screen. I had to clear my Xbone's cache to get it to work again, so maybe that was just a problem with the console?
I thought the game was excellent overall and, for now, it might replace Dark Souls II as my #2 pick for GOTY (Crimzon Clover: World Ignition is #1). It's not Mikami's best work (that would be either God Hand or Vanquish imo), but it is yet another impressive entry on his resume. I don't think anybody else is even in the same league as far as current game directors go, to be honest.
Now I think I'll activate my "fighting chance" download and mess around with all of the new weapons in New Game+.
+ Combat is top notch. It's a bit like RE4 without the godly melee attacks and far more limited resources. You have to make every shot count and think about how you want to approach each encounter to try and conserve your ammo. Enemies can be dealt with in a variety of ways: you can throw a bottle at their face to blind them for a moment, giving you the opportunity to stealth kill them, you can shoot dynamite out of somebody's hand to kill everyone around him, you can shoot an enemy's leg when he comes running at you to knock him down, giving you the chance to light him on fire, you can use the traps that are scattered throughout the environment, you can use your crossbow to blind, freeze, stun, or harpoon an enemy, you can use an axe or torch as an 1-hit kill melee attack, or you could simply blast their head off (unless they're wearing a bulletproof helmet). Combat never gets boring because of the excellent feedback and because there are so many ways to deal with everything.
+ Sebastian is also more vulnerable than his RE4+ counterparts. His sprint is limited, especially at the start of the game. Hold it for too long and you'll start to slow down; let the meter drain and you'll be immobile until it fully recovers. He may have the cardio of a 500lb asthmatic, but it's obviously a design choice to stop you from feeling too safe. Likewise, his melee attack is only useful as a way to stun enemies for a moment when they get too close, giving you the chance to either run away or line up a shot. You won't be able to headshot somebody and run in for a followup german suplex, (un)fortunately.
+ The upgrade system seems smartly designed. Right now I feel like there's an ideal path to take through it, but maybe that's just my playstyle. Just about everything is useful.
+ Exploration. The stages are usually pretty narrow, but you are constantly rewarded with green gel, ammo, map pieces, or locker keys for thoroughly searching every nook and cranny. All of that stuff is incredibly useful (besides maybe the map pieces, I dunno what you unlock for collecting all of them).
+ The higher difficulties. Most of the encounters have been remixed, so you'll be fighting enemies that normally appear toward the end of the game in the first few chapters. Aside from that, the enemies are more aggressive, they have more health, traps are harder to disarm, and resources are more limited. I'm always glad when developers go the extra mile and rebalance the higher difficulties instead of taking the easy way out and simply changing some damage modifiers, even though only a small percentage of the audience will ever play them. I'd expect nothing less from Mikami & co.
+ New Game+. Always a great feature, and it's done perfectly in this game. You can't play through easy mode and carry your upgrades into the higher difficulties; you always have to start from scratch when moving up.
+ Good boss fights. There aren't a ton of them, but they're all fun to fight.
+ Good art and aesthetics. The environments are varied and are full of detail to make them look really run down and destroyed. The lighting also looks fantastic.
+ This game has one of the best sets of achievements I've seen in a long time. There's one for beating each difficulty, one for speed running the game, one for maxing out your character, one for completing the game without upgrading your character at all, one for finding all of the collectibles, and individual achievements for completing a specific task in each chapter. It encourages mastery and 100% completion, so I don't see much room for improvement.
= The story is alright. I like it as a way to transition between environments, but the characters and plot aren't all that compelling.
= The final boss
isn't much of a boss, it's just a cinematic setpiece battle. I suppose it's one of the best examples of that type of design, but a proper boss fight would have been much better.
- Checkpoints are very frequent, which makes death pretty meaningless most of the time. It would have been great if the game had a Dark Souls-esque structure where the save room would act as the bonfire. Akumu mode would be brutal if it weren't for those checkpoints, though. Each one is a relief.
- The black borders. They aren't a big deal to me, but it does make the FOV quite narrow. It's easy to miss stuff if you don't search thoroughly.
- No bonus content. There are unlockables for beating each difficulty, but I wish the game had some type of challenge mode with a bunch of combat arenas, like Resident Evil's Mercenaries or Vanquish's tactical challenges.
- Chapter 1. There's absolutely nothing interesting about it from a gameplay perspective, it's only there as a tutorial and to setup the story, I guess.
- Chapter 2. It's too focused on stealth. You probably don't want to shoot every enemy you see since you're still extremely low on resources, so you spend most of the chapter slowly crouching through it. Stealth is fine every now and then for some variety, but this is just too much. (For reference, the only stealth games I've ever liked are Splinter Cell's multiplayer and the Metal Gear series. So that doesn't help.)
- Tech issues. The framerate isn't great (though it hardly ever bothered me) and it froze on me at one point. First the sound cut off, then a few minutes later the game crashed. Every time I tried restarting the game, it would crash at the start screen. I had to clear my Xbone's cache to get it to work again, so maybe that was just a problem with the console?
I thought the game was excellent overall and, for now, it might replace Dark Souls II as my #2 pick for GOTY (Crimzon Clover: World Ignition is #1). It's not Mikami's best work (that would be either God Hand or Vanquish imo), but it is yet another impressive entry on his resume. I don't think anybody else is even in the same league as far as current game directors go, to be honest.
Now I think I'll activate my "fighting chance" download and mess around with all of the new weapons in New Game+.
Markitron
Is currently staging a hunger strike outside Gearbox HQ while trying to hate them to death
It it worth getting the final fire damage upgrade for the harpoon? I'm saving up for it now (it's 50,000), if it sets an enemy on fire will that spread to other enemies? I'd take it if it was useful for a few bosses.
-MD-
Member
Still not got the chance to come around to play this game yet but I have two quick questions; does this stand up to the same quality and experience Mikami brought us with Resident Evil REmake/4 and is the game selling well? Thanks guys
Don't think we know how it sold yet.
This is in my top 2 with REmake for my favorite Mikami games.
have any tips for CH.6
(beginning area basement) I can get past the top level with two windows fairly easily. Though the downstairs area is a pain for me. I've tried using flashes but I eventually run out of those..
-MD-
Member
Nope, if you pop a head off you don't need to waste a match.
Upgrade whatever you want (pistol crit is good), you'll have lots of gel to experiment with.
BIONIC-ARRRMMM!!
Member
I didn't recognize it from the short save room excerpt, but when the credits played the full thing I remembered it from the fountain scene in Ocean's Eleven. Beautiful theme.
Ein Bear
Member
Prioritise pistol crits first. Once it's fully upgraded you'll have a 50% chance of popping heads every time, which is enormously helpful.
The perfect Dark
Banned
In the end the game was a huge disappointment for me. If Mikami can't do Survival Horror right then the genre is pretty much dead. At least we have modern survival horror (Alien Isolation, Outlast, Amnesia, etc.) games.
The Evil Within is like Frankenstein's monster. The best and the worst parts of Mikami's work all in one game. The problem is, he didn't read the manual and he put all the parts together randomly.
The Evil Within is like Frankenstein's monster. The best and the worst parts of Mikami's work all in one game. The problem is, he didn't read the manual and he put all the parts together randomly.
AmethystEnd
Member
I won't pronounce it dead until I see whether or not Silent Hills is any good. As far as Mikami being this "last hope" for the genre, or something of that sort, I'm one of those people who never considered Resident Evil 4 to be survival horror. I love the game and it's absolutely amazing. One of the best of that generation. But it's not survival horror and I think the genre would have been better off if people didn't start trying to emulate RE4 for their "survival horror" games.
And I'm sorry, but Outlast and Amnesia? Ahaha. To each their own, I guess.
-MD-
Member
Yeah... you can't even fight back in those games.
AmethystEnd
Member
The AI in Outlast is so easily gamed that every section becomes a comedy. What sorts of ridiculous ways can I make the AI "lose track" of me in this segment?
Jobbs summed up how I feel the best, I think:
-MD-
Member
RIP jett in chapter 10.
beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
it's nice to play a game that actually compels me to come back to it. it's been so long since i played something hard to put down, and i'm enjoying the hell out of this.
patented shinji mikami gunplay and weapon economy in full effect.
patented shinji mikami gunplay and weapon economy in full effect.
TheSadRanger
Banned
I would say one of the most difficult parts on nightmare for me at least was Ch.2 because of lack of weapons and ammo. Ch.11
that stupid hoist thing you ferry across while dudes are shooting you from the sides, I was extremely low on ammo after the big cage with a bunch of dudes in it. I also wasted a shit ton of ammo to kill laura in ch.10, I honestly would have done much better on ch.11 if I had just ran from her. Trying to kill her just isn't worth it unless you want the trophy. The rocket launcher segment on the last boss was pretty rough for me as well.
Other than that though it wasn't that bad, 1-shot the ch.10 last boss and didn't have any problems with the keeper.
Other than that though it wasn't that bad, 1-shot the ch.10 last boss and didn't have any problems with the keeper.
I did.
iconoclast
Member
The area where you drop in from is a good choke point. You can run into there after a bunch of enemies have spawned and shotgun/crossbow them when they try to come after you. Just try to be sure that they aren't targeting Joseph first.
That's one of the hardest sections in the game imo.
slade
Member
Gotta get in the right mindset for this game so I'm setting it down for now. After playing Shadows of Mordor and then moving on to this game it seems like everything is at war with you including the subpar performance of the game itself. From the controls to the sluggish movement to the narrow FOV to the muddiness and darkness that actually restricts what you're seeing on screen and to top it all off, the game isn't even scary. I'm nowhere near ready yet to put up with all that at the moment. Anyway, got up to somewhere in Chapter 3 and decided to put it down for now. Will come back to it sometime in the future. This was Mikami's first bad game IMO.
The perfect Dark
Banned
Well, Outlast and Amnesia are modern survival horror games imo. And I don't consider RE 4 to be survival horror but Mikami said that he wanted to go "back to thee roots" with The Evil Within....so....I guess he failed.
And I have a feeling that Silent Hills will be similar to Outlast or Alien Isolation.
-MD-
Member
Conscience Falls
Member
Chapter 10
The second room with two of those big guys with the clubs, can I beat this? I have almost no ammo and it seems fairly difficult for the first time in the entire game.
TheSpaceBetween
Member
I think he did. The game was straight up modern action horror. It was a fucking awesome game, but in no way did it really remind me of old school survival horror at all.
-MD-
Member
AmethystEnd
Member
Outlast and Alien Isolation are pretty different from each other, as that quote from Jobbs illustrates.
If Silent Hills is like Alien Isolation, fine. But I have way more faith in Kojima to even humor the thought that it'll be like Outlast.
Agreed. It's closer to Resident Evil 4 than it is to Resident Evil Remake, despite what we were led to believe. Great game, though.
SlasherJPC
Banned
Honestly I don't think we can ever go back to the old ways. It's too dated. If people think TEW is dated feeling, I can't even imagine a game moreso like the classic survival horror. TEW does do the best job of combining the two imo. Will never get that classic RE feel again... unless we get really lucky.
The perfect Dark
Banned
I missed the quote. Yes, I would agree with him. But I didn't hate Outlast. It was a fun 6-hour-game for 18 .
Haunted
Member
I will say that I think they've gone completely overboard with the post-processing on this. I know they're going for a specific vibe (and simply removing it with r_skipglare 1 isn't an ideal solution, since a lot of the colour choices, texture work and even perspective effects (like 3D models and environments moving around the player) are tailored to the look they've gone for with post-processing).
But seriously, the sheer amount of post-processing, colour correction and filtering... it makes Codemaster's piss filter look like the height of restraint, its strength (and I'm not joking) is at times on par with the extreme near-death colourless/vignetting style you see in other first person games... but during regular gameplay scenes.
It's too much for me and actively distracts from what's there in many environments. I honestly think they've gone too far with it.
But seriously, the sheer amount of post-processing, colour correction and filtering... it makes Codemaster's piss filter look like the height of restraint, its strength (and I'm not joking) is at times on par with the extreme near-death colourless/vignetting style you see in other first person games... but during regular gameplay scenes.
It's too much for me and actively distracts from what's there in many environments. I honestly think they've gone too far with it.
well, in this game you are always near-death, it is all part of the mood of the game, can you imagine the game being the same with the color palette and art style of Mario Kart 8?
MikeBreezy92
Member
Yeah RE6's mobility can spoil you. So many moments where I just wanted to dodge out of the way.
But there are some RE6-like influences here and there. You'd probably have to like the game or even acknowledge the games existence beyond it being "trash" for you to notice it.
But there are some RE6-like influences here and there. You'd probably have to like the game or even acknowledge the games existence beyond it being "trash" for you to notice it.
TheSpaceBetween
Member
I feel like something is missing still. We'll see how Silent Hills turns out. We've managed to modernize 2D Platformers without losing the magic they used to hold. I think the same can be done for survival horror. As it is I found TEW to have way more in common with modern action horror titles like Dead Space than older survival horror games like RE, SH, AITD, and FF.
Spieler Eins
Member
wow, way to (once again) throw away so much goodwill from the final chapters with an embarrassing final boss sequence that completely contradicts the horror tones the game wanted to have. Should have stayed at Platinum, if you wanted to make Vanquish 2 that much, Mikami -_- Still though, 13-15 were pretty cool.
Oh, he absolutely failed. If the RE5-level shit from chapter 5, 6 and 11 in particular wasn't enough, then 12 going full into RE6 territory was the final straw within this failure. Other than that, only chapter 9 was survival horror. Many other chapters were decent action horror, but absolutely not ,,back to the roots''. Especially the beginning was a worse version of RE4, which also automatically dismisses it as a horror title in these chapters, as already suggested.
Cut away the generic 50% of the game (most chapters with a partner) and you'd at least have had a very good action horror game like Dead Space. And it would have still been long, no idea why there had to be crappy RE4-6 segments all over the place that don't even fit tonally with the rest of the game.
What you call the modern survival horror though really is more of a haunted house simulator to me, aiming for dumb youtube fame over everything else. There's no real substance and I also fear that Silent Hills will be like that. Amnesia was different though, that one actually still had layers of gameplay expected from the genre in it's classic form (puzzles, exploration, escape planing). Honestly, I'm looking most forward to Resident Evil Revelations 2. It's funny how some groups called betrayal on the ,,back to the roots'' promises of the first title, but the ship campaign really was closer to survival horror than anything in RE4-6 and anything in here that isn't chapter 9 (while also lasting longer than chapter 9). Mayday man boss also was up there with the most tense bosses in Evil Within. If they can (this one time) resist their urges to throw in random shootey bang bang chapters in Rev2, we finally might have a winner.
Other than that, to my surprise (as I don't like the console very much and the game looked utterly off putting to me) Zombi U really was the best survival horror title from a big publisher in recent memory. Best indie title after Amnesia imo was Lone Survivor - despite the 2D looks, this really felt like Silent Hill 5 to me lol.
Oh, he absolutely failed. If the RE5-level shit from chapter 5, 6 and 11 in particular wasn't enough, then 12 going full into RE6 territory was the final straw within this failure. Other than that, only chapter 9 was survival horror. Many other chapters were decent action horror, but absolutely not ,,back to the roots''. Especially the beginning was a worse version of RE4, which also automatically dismisses it as a horror title in these chapters, as already suggested.
Cut away the generic 50% of the game (most chapters with a partner) and you'd at least have had a very good action horror game like Dead Space. And it would have still been long, no idea why there had to be crappy RE4-6 segments all over the place that don't even fit tonally with the rest of the game.
What you call the modern survival horror though really is more of a haunted house simulator to me, aiming for dumb youtube fame over everything else. There's no real substance and I also fear that Silent Hills will be like that. Amnesia was different though, that one actually still had layers of gameplay expected from the genre in it's classic form (puzzles, exploration, escape planing). Honestly, I'm looking most forward to Resident Evil Revelations 2. It's funny how some groups called betrayal on the ,,back to the roots'' promises of the first title, but the ship campaign really was closer to survival horror than anything in RE4-6 and anything in here that isn't chapter 9 (while also lasting longer than chapter 9). Mayday man boss also was up there with the most tense bosses in Evil Within. If they can (this one time) resist their urges to throw in random shootey bang bang chapters in Rev2, we finally might have a winner.
Other than that, to my surprise (as I don't like the console very much and the game looked utterly off putting to me) Zombi U really was the best survival horror title from a big publisher in recent memory. Best indie title after Amnesia imo was Lone Survivor - despite the 2D looks, this really felt like Silent Hill 5 to me lol.
TheBlueBomber
Member
I honestly felt like this was close to what Leon's campaign was going for, His was the only one i actually enjoyed out of 6 so i was glad to see some similarities between them
Haunted
Member
Chapter 9 spoilers:
And it's not just colours, the post-processing oppressively crushes a lot of the details in many environments (yet also obscures obviously shoddy textures and smoke/mirror perspective tricks). They've made a conscious choice to go for this and I think they went too far with it - a bit of restraint would have enhanced the look of certain areas and increased readability without losing atmosphere. It's a bit like the black bars. Resolution savings aside, I can see what they went for - yet with the overly narrow FOV and constant need to adjust the camera just to fully grasp your surroundings at any point, it kinda fails.
I did like the RE1 throwbacks/references in chapter 9.
gustaf pls, there's a middle ground somewhere between those extremes.
And it's not just colours, the post-processing oppressively crushes a lot of the details in many environments (yet also obscures obviously shoddy textures and smoke/mirror perspective tricks). They've made a conscious choice to go for this and I think they went too far with it - a bit of restraint would have enhanced the look of certain areas and increased readability without losing atmosphere. It's a bit like the black bars. Resolution savings aside, I can see what they went for - yet with the overly narrow FOV and constant need to adjust the camera just to fully grasp your surroundings at any point, it kinda fails.
Conkerkid11
Member
Finally beat it first time, Survival difficulty, 11:36:54, 80 deaths.
Regarding the ending:
Regarding the ending:
So much went unexplained...
brandonh83
Banned
Got to play this for about 3-4 hours this morning.
Yeah. It's fucking good, and honestly some of the most intense and nerve-rattling scenarios I've experienced in a horror title. I get that I didn't play that much of it and that obviously my opinion could change based on the rest of the game, but it left a tremendous first impression on me.
Yeah. It's fucking good, and honestly some of the most intense and nerve-rattling scenarios I've experienced in a horror title. I get that I didn't play that much of it and that obviously my opinion could change based on the rest of the game, but it left a tremendous first impression on me.
TheBlueBomber
Member
Finally beat it: Casual (yeah yeah, im a bitch lol) 11:45:52 with 50 deaths lol