The Evil Within Review

The Evil Within Review
The Review Within

The Evil Within starts off with detective Sebastian Castellanos arriving at a mass murder in Beacon Mental Hospital. While investigating, Sebastian is looking at the security footage and sees the person who is responsible. We later learn that this individual is Ruvik and he is the game’s main antagonist. Ruvik looks up at the security camera and then teleports behind Sebastian and this is where the game starts.

            The game doesn’t hold any punches, and within the first ten minutes I am upside down hanging from the roof while a guy literally cuts someone in half. This quick transition to horror translates to the games difficulty curve as well. The game is extremely difficult (I played on the normal difficulty) and it actually feels unfair in the early game. The enemies are extremely durable and hit hard, so if you think you’re going to try and save ammo early game then you have another thing coming.  That being said, the enemies strength actually caused a real stress. This is both a good and bad thing, because early in the game I was genuinely scared of fighting enemies and I wanted the calm moments to last forever. However, by the end of the game I just felt exhausted.

            This brings up another point; while the gameplay is strong and can hold its own, the game is entirely too long. By the end of it I found myself fighting through waves of enemies just so I could get more exposition on what was going on in the story. The most stressful parts of the game were when Sebastian was forced to fight waves of enemies, because they could last over twenty minutes with no checkpoints.

            The development team was led by Shinji Mikama, who worked on the first four Resident Evil’s. The team claimed to want to bring back the original survival horror aspects of those early Resident Evil games. I will be the first to say that this holds true in some sense. The game really feels like the old Resident Evil games especially the fourth installment. Unfortunately, it seems that the strategic elements of those early games have been traded in for more difficult enemies. There is no inventory management which I felt was a strong strategic point in the Resident Evil games because it forced the player to plan their moves in the future, including when to heal and which weapons to use and save.

            On the bright side, this game is actually really creepy. There are a plethora of different environments, some of which are actually terrifying. A big props to the environment artists because I felt that was the strongest point of the game. Also the enemy design was fantastic and every boss felt new and more terrifying. All of this helps keep the game fresh even in the late game. The biggest problem was that I fought way too many bosses. Every other chapter there is another boss, which just ends up being a scary looking bullet sponge.

            The story was the strong point of the game for me. It started off strong and kept me interested throughout. Constantly Sebastian is in a different area and the player has a hard time figuring out what is real and what isn’t. Although it’s not a new story it was fun and exciting to unravel. Also, Ruvik is an extremely well designed antagonist, with a strong backstory that explains exactly why he is doing what he is doing. It also subtly leaves the question open to the player if they agree with him or not.

The strongest moments of The Evil Within were the chapters dedicated to exposition. This is because so many things would happen during these chapters, and I wasn’t stressed out from an influx of enemies. There is one moment that stands out to me, when Sebastian first meets Ruvik, he is led through a door, however when Sebastian gets to the door he is teleported back to the end of the hallway, and when he starts walking toward the door and tidal wave of blood washes him away, and he wakes up in a new area. Then, without missing a beat he says “Something fishy is going on here,” (I am a huge fan of cheesy lines in a horror game/movie). Moments like this are what make the sections of endless enemies worth it. The reaction of the player when something like that scene happens is the real payoff in The Evil Within. These moments can be seriously scary but don’t happen very often.

The game unfortunately does suffer from some pop-in during cut scenes and it only played in 30fps which is a minor problem, but in this day and age it should be better than that. They claim they wanted it to feel more lifelike but I feel they were just busy working on more important things than the frame rate and were scared of backlash from the PC community. Also there was one cut scene where one of the character models didn’t have any opacity maps, so I could see all the textures in his hair.

It is a shame the game fell flat in some sections because with portions of the game being so strong, especially the early game (ignoring the difficulty). The Evil Within could have been something amazing, and has potential to be Game of the Year. Hopefully in the inevitable DLC planned for the future, the problems with the game are fixed and the strengths are improved. I had a lot of fun playing The Evil Within and was actually scared during some portions of the game, but I feel the game adds a false difficulty by throwing waves of enemies that get bigger and bigger as the player gets stronger. I wish I could give this game a higher score because I feel like it deserves it for what it did right, but I cannot overlook the problems that this game has.

7.3/10

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor Review

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor Review

Fellowship of the Review

            Shadow of Mordor follows Tallion, a ranger posted on the outskirts of Mordor with his family. We start the game very tragically with him and his family being executed. Through some strange blood oath he is linked to a wraith that keeps bringing Tallion back to life forcing him to complete one task before returning to his family; stop the Black-Hand.

            The first thing I noticed while playing this game was how beautiful it was. The graphics were amazing, and the environments were lively, despite being set in Mordor. There was long green grass, and bright flowers that littered the landscape which added to the setting. The next thing I noticed was how similar this is to the Assassin’s Creed series. As I played more of the game though, I realized that it wasn’t just an Assassin’s Creed clone but that it had improved the formula and had substantial substance.

            The story itself is well written and respects The Lord of the Rings as much as it possibly can. Although it makes some bold moves that I’m sure will upset some of the die-hard fans of the series. I don’t believe that the game is considered canon and I felt as that without those bold moves the game wouldn’t be quite what it turned out to be. It is a very sad story, albeit a little predictable, and has some extremely interesting characters within it. Most of them are new to The Lord of the Rings and the developers rarely relied on any existing characters to help progress its story.

            The gameplay is the main draw of the game and the reason for that is simple, it’s fun. Though extremely similar to the Assassin’s Creed or Arkham series, it does something that both of them do not. It adds an extra layer of depth to the enemy AI. This is one of the strongest AI’s I’ve ever experienced in a game. There is a ‘Nemesis System’ implemented into the game, which allows the player to look at the Captain’s and War Chief’s within the army of Sauron.

Each captain and war chief has his own set of weaknesses, strength’s and fears which can all be used against them. Not only this, but each grunt within the army has his own life, and they can be promoted through the ranks to the point of being an actual threat to the player. The Uruk’s actually remember encounters with the player. For example if they flee battle they will remember this and will grow a fear of the player and continue to flee from battles with Tallion.

If a grunt kills you then they will get promoted to captain. If a captain defeats you or survives a battle without fleeing they will power up, with each level they gain there is a chance that they lose their weaknesses and gain strengths. This can make the difficulty substantially harder. I actually had a captain kill me over twenty times and the only reason I got rid of him was because of a Caragor killing him. The game literally got so hard that I was only able to defeat him because of dumb luck.

Some of the captains can even learn. I had almost defeated one captain by repeatedly jumping over him and hitting him in the back, unfortunately he survived and the next time I saw him I tried to implement the same strategy. When I tried to jump over him this time, he caught me and threw me to the ground. The Uruk captains almost never look the same, each time a grunt is promoted he adds a type of armour and a special weapon each which is unique to them. Their names are also unique to each captain. I believe all of these to be randomized, but I am still impressed with the sheer amount of selections given to the random number generator.

The Uruk’s also have their own lives aside from the player. If the player just lets time pass then the Uruk’s will fight each other and train which will have them automatically level themselves up. This is a nice touch as it gives the enemies a life that the player isn’t a part of.

Despite all this the game is not unfair, in fact it is quite the opposite. I am the reason that the captain had gotten so difficult because I stubbornly kept trying to beat him without any strategy. This brings up another point; strategy. This game is not a button masher (trust me) and actually requires that the player understand the combat, because although a few enemies are easy to take care, their numbers can rise exponentially. At one point I had almost a hundred enemies on screen at once, all of which were trying to kill me (sadly, I didn’t make it).

*This is a PRE-ALPHA image*

Racking up combos is super satisfying as it is quite difficult when you have fourty or fifty enemies trying to kill you. The game is also very gruesome, as any Lord of the Rings game should be, but be warned there are decapitations left and right. 

Unfortunately, sometimes when trying to run away from enemies Tallion will cling to walls and try to climb up them, resulting in my eventual death. This is a recurring problem. The music is well done and is similar to the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Tallion, although visually plain and uninteresting, is actually a well thought out and interesting character to follow. The strong story and fun gameplay come together to make one of the strongest games to come out this year. Once I beat the game I was no longer able to look at the Nemesis screen which really seems like an oversight and will hopefully be fixed in an upcoming update. Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor truly is the game that The Lord of the Rings has always deserved. Hopefully there are more to come.

8.9/10