The Evil Within - Playstation 3

If you loved Resident Evil 4 you should also love The Evil Within. RE4 for PS2 was the first game that I ever played on the PS3 (release 60GB PS3s were backwards compatible). I had heard that RE4 was *that good* and worth playing before any of the PS3 games that were out at the time of the console's launch. And, man, were they ever right. RE4 blew me away, and it still stands as one of my top 5 favorite games. Many elements of RE4 are as fresh in my head today as they were way back in 2007 when I finally beat it after logging 30 hours into the campaign.The Evil Within was created by the same guy that did RE4, so I entered the game with great expectations after getting it on Amazon for just 19 bucks on Black Friday 2014. Were my expectations met? Mostly. It was definitely worth the 19 bucks!!! But these days I hold Dead Space up as the pinnacle example of Horror/Survival. Dead Space did everything correct from gameplay to story to mechanics to graphics to scares...everything was top notch. The Evil Within was great fun, but it disappointed in a few places.So first let me reiterate before I speak to my whiny complaints: The Evil Within was GREAT FUN. It's scary and tense with 15 very challenging chapters. It took me over 20 hours to beat. You will die (a lot) in Evil Within (on normal or higher difficulty). You will not beat certain enemies before a trial and error learning period (which can sometimes take more than just several attempts). There are some puzzles but it's not puzzle heavy. The challenges come by way of making it to the various chapter checkpoints via levels that are made insanely difficult at times by enemies driven by smart and accurate AI. I have no problem with smart and accurate AI, but when you add in that almost ALL enemies are walking bullet-sponges and ammo is scarce you are in for a challenge that requires more than just blasting your way through the game.And indeed there should be more than just blasting my way through a game, but in Evil Within when you're lucky enough to collect a decent amount of ammo in order to get through a chapter, it'd be nice if the ammo worked. 4 bullets to take down a human-haunted? Folks...aim for the head in this game and sometimes that doesn't even give you a 1-shot kill. Two grenades to take out the human-haunted with the machine gun? Ridiculous. Remember, I said accurate AI earlier and by that I meant that the enemies with guns in this game don't miss if you let them get a shot off.The creatures in Evil Within range from creepy to scary to disturbing. And almost all are viciously ruthless in their pursuit of you if they see you, so a lot of the Evil Within strategy will be to stay stealthy. The story and the dialogue are a bit whacky, but that's made up for by a game that has you in tense levels for the most part with a limited amount of cutscenes.I'm very late to the game with this review so I'll get this wrapped up by AGAIN saying that The Evil Within was great fun. I am excited to do a Survivor Difficulty New Game+ second playthrough. One thing's for sure about the second playthrough though: I will NOT be increasing the difficulty to Nightmare (unlocked after beating the game on Survivor difficulty). You can't raise the difficulty and use New Game+ anyway.Overall Rating: 4 ½ Stars

Now before I begin I want to make somethink clear. This game was made by the studio which is ran by the same guy who did RE 1-4, that means it is going to feel alot like RE 1-4, and I'm getting really tired of people saying it's trying to copy and paste The Last Of Us.The story is some what bland and hard to follow, until you start progressing through the game and fing side text that explains alot of the stuff going on, along with back story for characters. In my personal believe, as the game says that all the characters and other victums have a linked to all their minds, this is the reason as to why the story is every where. There isn't much character development, and the voice acting is a little off for the game but it hasn't effected my enjoyment of the game. With the scares, though falling through at points, are well done. The majority of scares are in the games hud, with a mixture of uncomfertably close camra angles, complete darkness, and unsettling audio.The combat is well done, giving the player a varried set of tatics to use while fighting large or small groups of enemies. The sealth is somewhat laughable at times, but it didn't take away from the intensity of the situation, even making me feel it was a god send they didn't notice me. You can use some of the enviorment around you to your advantage with bolts that have different effects on enemies (fire, ice, poison, ect) along with using bottles to destract enemies to get past them or to stealth kill them. The AI for enemies is somewhat weird because they will focus in on you from a long distance, and will continue to look for you until you are entirely out of the area. The comabt is handicapped enough to the point of where the game felt it was almost impossible at points. For example, I was fighting a boss and I had little supplies. No healing items, no ammo in stock, or parts to make cross bow bolts, with only a double-barrle shotgun fully loaded off to the side and 5 pistol rounds. It took 7 tries until I beat the boss and continue to the next chapter. It feels impossible, but it's not, so perpare to grow a pair. It also helps to have prior experience with the Dark Souls games, learning to conserve resources and when to be agressive or passive.The game shows off some impressive machnics, with completely invisable enemies in the first couple of chapters and solving pussles by examining the entire area for small details, while it could focus on them a little bit more, there is no doubt they put a lot of work into this game and it shows. As for the frame rate, however, I haven't run into any bugs and I'm playing on a PS3, the only one I have ran into was when I was going up a ladder and had my lattern out but it has only happened once.I would recommend this game to both people who loved Resident Evil 4, and to people looking for a challange. An even though I have a list of improvements for the game, it gave me exactly what I wanted from a horror game in the late 2013 era.