The Evil Within (2014)

Here we gooooo.... my horror game fix needs to continue with this series, after recently finishing the incredible RE9. I was told NOT to skip Evil Within 1, despite the 2nd being superior to most folks.

So.... diving into the PC version of The Evil Within..... I'm scared already....

And HOLY GOD, this game has terrible PC optimization. RTX 5070ti, absolute beast of a CPU/RAM, and I'm getting 39 fps on 4k, with very few graphics options even to begin with. Wow.... Well it looks like I'll have to try to do some tweaking. Unacceptable. Here's to hoping Evil Within 2 doesn't have this issue, when I get to it.

Oooooo thankfully I just found an amazing program from a youtube poster that allows the ability to increase performance 10 fold!! Low Specs Experience app is amazing!!! From 39 in game FPS to 120!!!!!

And in more "Adventures in Awful DLC" I'm sad but not surprised to report that The Evil Within DLC is also absolutely awful, and somehow worse than the base game. While the base game has its issues - primarily its completely impenetrable "plot" being the crux of most of its problems - the core gameplay is enjoyable enough and the atmosphere and monsters are top notch, and despite it being incoherent story wise it has cool ideas.

But the DLC is lacking all of that (okay, the light monster is pretty cool, I won't lie) and it's stealth. Ugh. I quit the DLC and just started the second game. I'll likely finish the DLC at some point, but I just needed something better to cleanse the pallet and thusfar I'm pleased to report that the second game is so fucking good.

Halo 4 has a ridiculously dumb, unnecessary story.

Every Assassin's Creed game is over the top and often riddled with holes.

Red Dead is perhaps the single most boring thing I've ever tried to endure.

But, and I say this with the upmost confidence having beaten it now, The Evil Within is, bar none and hands down, the single worst, most convoluted, most incoherent narrative - if you can even stomach calling it a narrative - I have ever experienced in any medium. If it weren't for the neat monster designs, the decent gameplay and the overall tone and atmosphere, this game would be one of the worst of all time. But that story is, no joke, the worst I've ever gotten.

Holy. Shit. That was AWFUL.

Dropped

The controls are painful, the difficulty is all over the place and gets very frustrating when you keep dying for reasons outside your control, and all in all it's just a deeply unenjoyable experience. I tried it because free game is free game, but it really, really hasn't given me any reasons to give it more time than I already did.

Man I payed money for The Executioner lol. It sucks because if it was just in the game as a post-game mode, I'd be all about this. But wow as a DLC trying to go toe to toe with the actual story of the game? It's rough lol. The Executioner has nothing to do with anything and it basically a Mercenaries mode with an alternate playstyle and a 2 sentence Wikipedia summary of a story.

All the DLC for this game is kinda rough and should have been in the game to begin with. The Assignment and The Consequence aren't just recontextualizing the main story of the game, they are the context and that, quite frankly, shouldn't be DLC. It would have worked better if the chapters were just spread out through the main game or as just a mode that unlocks imo. Less than 1% of players on my system completed chapter 4 of The Consequence, which is the lead in for the sequel, as far as I know from watching my roommate play it.

Also The Assignment and The Consequence are kinda rough because it's just pure stealth and the stealth in this is... Well it's not great. And to compare it to a certain other game that came out around the same time that currently has the number 1 show in the world rn? Oh boy it's bad. It's really bad stealth. It's better in the DLC than the main game but it's still not great.

Overall I think The Evil Within main game is a solid 7.5 out of 10. Some jank that does not seem intentional (it is a horror game after all) holds it back,

The Assignment is 5/10. Kinda neat story but again, should have been part of the game. Stealth is meh and idk what the point of New Game + is if you don't have any unlockables.

The Consequence is 5.5/10 same as before but you get a gun at certain parts and that's nice.

The Executioner is... I dunno I didn't finish it I just didn't care lol. It was fine I guess. Nothing to do with anything. Weird alternate playstyle. Quite frankly I think a straight up Mercenaries mode with the normal game mechanics would have just been better. Play as your favorite characters, See-Bass, Juli, Joseph, and the Fast and the Furious ambulance driver.

Gonna start EW2 today.

This game is bizarre. It's a very solid horror game but... It's a psychological horror game where you are not dealing with your (Sebastian's) trauma what so ever. You deal with someone else's trauma and you're just a long for the ride. The story is just straight up absent. That's not entirely true. It's located entirely within the DLC where you play as another character. Dealing with her trauma, might I add. Hell I'd even say the DLC where you don't play as Sebastian deals with his trauma more than the main game.

Also what is the DEAL with Sebastian. He straight up does not give a shit about anything that happens. He is stone cold the entire game while insane things are happening to him it is so funny. Like I know why he is the way he is, but I don't know what he's thinking.

I still have one DLC left to go but from what I've seen it just kinda doesn't do much. I'm very interested to play Evil Within 2. I hope I finish it before 24 March 2023 when RE4 comes out.

After I finish RE4R (haha rear) I should really tackle Silent Hill.