My preview starts with hero Sebastian exploring the grounds of an infected estate along with a squirrelly doctor. It's dark, creepy and the game's stellar sound design is doing a fantastic job of making investigating every shadowy doorway a singularly unpleasant prospect. Controlling Sebastian in classic Resident Evil 4 over-the-shoulder style, you can see enemies shambling to and fro in the distance, muttering and shaking, or doing something unspeakable to a corpse. The game doesn't explicitly call the main enemies zombies, but let's be honest they absolutely are. Or more accurately, I suppose, they feel like the ganados of RE4. If they spot you they'll howl and charge, swinging weapons or grasping at you with filthy claws. Not intelligent, exactly, but slightly more capable than your typical rotting undead. In groups they're deadly.
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| “I don't want to alarm you madam, but I think you may need to see a physician.” |
But you've got an arsenal of weapons to defend yourself, right? Well sort of, but I've got some bad news on that front, old chap. Ammunition is very, very scarce. Much closer to the original Resident Evil games than the reimagining that took place after RE4. Every single pistol round and shotgun shell is a precious resource that must be expended only in times of utmost need. Seriously, they're like gold-dust. Aside from conventional rounds you've got a badass crossbow that you can scavenge scraps of metal for in order to create ammunition. There's several different types of ammo to create, including explosive rounds and stun bolts, but again it's a matter of using them at the right moment, because it's hard to scrounge up enough material for a decent stock.
If you're expecting The Evil Within to let you charge about mowing down bad guy after bad guy, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. Remember that grinding sense of dread you felt in Resident Evil 1 or Silent Hill 2 as your paltry resources were slowly ground down? Yeah, well that feeling is back, and with a vengeance. You don't have a lot of health to spare either, so every medkit and and every dodged attack counts, and every stealth kill you can pull off (not an easy prospect as enemies are typically grouped close together, and one mistake can get you swarmed in short order) saves you precious time and gear. Even if you take an enemy out, unless you blow their head off they can get straight back up. You'll need to keep a supply of matches handy to light up downed foes, which ensures once and for all that they aren't coming back. Personally I think this more measured approach ramps up the tension and marks a welcome return to putting the 'survival' in survival horror, but fans of the current trend for action horror might disagree.
That's not to say there's no shooting at all, but fights in Evil Within tend to be less run and gun and more of a desperate, makeshift scramble to find absolutely any way of taking out the enemy. One set piece I played took place in a flooded chamber with several different tiers and ledges, upon which lay a series of booby traps. After a brief cut-scene, all Hell broke loose, and I had to fend off a wave of enemies with whatever came to hand. With only a few shotgun shells and a couple of pistol rounds, a straight up scrap wasn't an option. Leading the snarling masses straight into those traps I mentioned before absolutely was. A couple of tripped demo charges and a few punji-sticks later and I'd thinned out the horse enough to finish the survivors off more traditionally. You have to play smart, and that's a good thing.
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| On his first day on the job Derek discovered why the IT Specialist position paid so well |
Of course, some fights you can't win straight up. On your way through the game, at least in the two areas I played, you're pursued by a mysterious hooded figure who stalks towards you implacably, taking off most of your health bar if he manages to land a hit on you. He's the foe you can't blast into pieces with a shotgun, the game's Nemesis if you will. You hear that discordant note, see the flash of blue across your screen and you're off, scrambling into rooms you haven't fully checked out in a desperate attempt to get away from what's coming. It's very effective, at least for the first few times it happens. In fact, one of the most memorable moments in my playthrough was when I cowered in a wardrobe, peering out through the cracks to see his wizened face cross by mere inches in front of me. A classic horror movie jump scare.
You can tap a button to hide behind various objects in the game, and one thing I'm hoping is that hiding from the 'big bads' in the game is an effective tactic, because it seems to me that scrambling around looking for somewhere to cower every time you hear a tell-tale sound cue would be more effective than simply having to run away or blast them. Unfortunately every time I tried to hide from the hooded pursuer he zapped me into goo with his psychic energy blast thing. Hopefully this was just my general incompetence, and weeping in a cupboard is actually a viable tactic.
Like any horror monster, repeated exposure dulls the terror, and even in my short time with the game I noticed creepy hooded dude's appearances becoming a little too familiar after some mightily effective early moments. That said, there's plenty of variation in the scares from what I've seen - hell for leather chases, creepy nightmare sequences, action horror shoot-outs in the vein of Resident Evil 4 – so I'm hopeful that Evil Within won't rely on the same trick. This is a game that contains both a chainsaw wielding cannibal and a man with a box on his head who hits you with a meat tenderizer after all. Not to mention the creepy spider woman made of clawed hands (just as horrific as it sounds) that doggedly chases after you in one section of the game. Evil Within's monster design is bizarre and terrifying, and it has an unpleasant death for every occasion.
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| Number 36 on my list of '1,000 things I never want to see appearing round the corner' |
So how about that other staple of Shinji Mikami games, the illogical puzzle? Present and correct. The second level I played took place in the very definition of a classic Gothic horror mansion, all creepy statues, bizarre pictures and unwelcoming lighting. To open the main vault in the entrance hall and pass through I had to head in three directions, completing a puzzle in each area. These puzzles involved sticking a needle into a disembodied brain, which... drained amniotic fluid or something? I'm not sure. Anyway, the goop travelled down a pipe to the main vault, which then unlocked. Deeply odd, and completely convoluted. As per tradition.
The Evil Within mixes the smoother controls and more open levels of later Resident Evil games with classic series staples; ammo conservation, devious (and often nonsensical) puzzles and a terrifically creepy atmosphere. It might not be trying anything particularly innovative, but if you're a fan of Shinji Mikami's previous work you'll find a distillation of everything you loved about that here. Remember to pack an extra pair of brown trousers when the game hits this August 29 in Europe, and August 26 in North America.
Most anticipated moment: Encountering some of the game's more bizarre and deadly enemies, then running out of bullets and hiding under a bed.
