Inconsistent is a word that I'll use to describe some games on a rather regular basis (I should play less Sonic games), this brings me to a little conundrum of sorts when it comes to The Evil Within because after just throwing around that word all willy nilly all this time I've come face to face with the embodiment of Inconsistency within a videogame, it's like a need a new word to truly summarise this game...
Yeah, inconsistent is easily the word of the day with this game. Playing through Chapter 3 at the moment, and I'm still fighting the game's systems more than the enemies. It's a mess.
The reticle system is designed to deliberately not operate the same close up as it does at range, due to the lack of spatial awareness that the player is given. This is obviously to create tension as enemies get closer. Ok, cool. Resident Evil 4 addressed the issue of fairness of this mechanic with a laser sight, showing the player what was happening. The Evil Within says fuck you.
The sprinting system is also wildly inconsistent. Sometimes, you're puffed and suffer a movement penalty when the meter runs out. Ok, make sense. Except, sometimes it happens before the meter runs out. The lack of feedback to the player in this regard is deafening.
The stealth systems are good 75% of the time, which just isn't good enough. Sneak, and the enemies can't hear you, except when they can. The Last of Us featured very similar stealth gameplay, but its rock solid systems enabled a degree of predictability that ensured that it was fair. Joel died because you messed up, and didn't think things through. In The Evil Within, you died because fuck you.
The camera gets stuck on objects in one situation and not in others, seemingly at random. Sometimes it'll move through a bale of hay, sometimes it gets stuck. Trying to work through an encounter, I'm finding myself just stealth killing bad guys to avoid having to deal with the camera in a firefight. That's the wrong kind of incentive.
Virtually all of the above could be forgiven however, except that the FOV and aspect ratio issue is ruining the game. Frustrating to the point of buyers remorse.
I looked into it last night, comparing it to several other third person games, and it appears that the FOV works around something closer to a 16:9 aspect ratio. However, the black bars create an aspect ratio closer to 2.35:1, without increasing the FOV. Getting used to the black bars requires the the player to perceive the black bars as part of the image, rather than the edges of the image, using spatial reasoning to fill in the blanks. I'd go as far as to say that the aspect ratio feels non-deliberate, and the FOV was never corrected once the change was made.
At range it's not an issue, however anything closer than 6 or so meters, and it becomes difficult to follow the movement of the objects and characters in 3D space. The FOV is just wrong, and it's borderline game breaking for me. Fighting against the aiming, the crushed blacks, questionable collision detection, questionable stealth mechanics and inconsistent camera is more than enough, but fuck it - I can put up with that crap for a solid survival horror experience. But the FOV creates issues with my basic ability to play the game.
I should've grabbed it on PC, so I could mod it out. Such a disappointment.
