The Evil Within: Deadly Dull

[Jill Scharr]

Resident Evil fans may enjoy it, but with a convoluted plot and clunky controls, new survival horror game Evil Within is mediocre at best.

The Evil Within: Deadly Dull : Read more

 

[turkey3_scratch]

No surprise, probably a game that focuses on everything on graphics resulting in poor gameplay and a deceitful game overall.

 

[Samantha Mcdoograh]

I think no matter what horror game comes out people find a reason to bitch about it. I am currently playing the game and find it creepy and entertaining. Lighten up people.

 

[JeckeL]

I think no matter what horror game comes out people find a reason to bitch about it. I am currently playing the game and find it creepy and entertaining. Lighten up people.

Yea I've found that with horror games (much like horror films) it depends on what state of mind you're in when viewing/playing. If you go in completely immersed, lights off, no background noise, focused on the game or the film, you'll get a lot more out of the experience than if you go into it intending on reviewing the game on a scale from 1/10 and reporting your findings to the citizens of the internet. It's like when you get a group of friends together in a living room watching a horror film with the lights on chances are you'll be talking to your buddies and joking around the whole time and be completely disengaged from the experience. If you watched it alone, lights off, no one around, right in front of the TV, it'd be MUCH more frightening

Take the original dead space for example. For me, it's one of my favorite games of all time... but if I were reviewing it using the standard criteria (i.e. gameplay, story, etc) I'd give it a 6/10 at most. The combat is slow & sluggish, level design is pretty much the same throughout, etc... this is the flaw with reviewing games, do you give an opinion based on your experience with the game and how it made you feel personally, or review the game factually using scales and measurements

 

[Jill Scharr]

Hi JeckeL, this is Jill, the writer of this piece. I think you're really right about the fact that there are two approaches to reviewing something: how a game made you feel personally versus how the game stacks up against "standard criteria." I think an interesting review balances both approaches. For example, last month I gave Hyrule Warriors a 3.5 out of 5 even though I love it, because I was balancing my genuine enjoyment of the game with the game's own limitations according to "standard criteria." With Evil Within, it was kind of the opposite--my personal experience of the game was largely negative. I didn't like the overdependence on gore and jump scares, and a story as jumbled as Evil Within's is enough to turn me off of a game. But by using the "standard criteria" I can tell you that Evil Within does do some things really well, like environmental and sound design, and creating something close to a Resident Evil feeling. That's how I arrived at the score I did.