I was quite hyped about The Evil Within over a year ago and finding out that Shinji Mikami was developing the game and was also the mastermind of the original Resident Evil series back in the 90's. The last big horror game he released was Resident Evil 4 back in 2005 but since then there hasn't really been a good horror game on a next-gen console; even though I found Resident Evil 5 disappointing due to the lack of horror and more action, The Evil Within does make up for the loss on with it being a good horror plus it does make it feel like that you are playing an alternate version of Resident Evil 5 if Shinji Mikami was working on it all those years ago if it happened.
Taking the role of a veteran police detective Sebastian Castellanos who is investigating the scene of a gruesome mass murder at Beacon Mental Hospital, his partner Joseph Oda and Detective Julie Kidman encounter a mysterious and powerful force; After seeing the slaughter of his officers by a man wearing a white hood with burned scars, Sebastian is ambushed and knocked unconscious. After awakening and escaping from the hospital, he finds himself in a deranged world with Krimson City undergoing massive earthquakes, unreal shifts in terrain and hideous creatures called Haunted wandering among the dead. Facing unimaginable terror, and fighting for survival, Sebastian embarks on a frightening journey to unravel what is behind this evil force.
Most gamers and fans who have played Resident Evil series in the past will likely to get Deja vu moments when it comes to gameplay playing in a 3rd-person spective around this when it comes to gameplay does remind me an awful lot on Resident Evil 4 using weapons such as a revolver, shotgun, knife, grenades, and the Agony Crossbow, a projectile weapon that fires bolts capable of freezing, blinding, electrocuting, or exploding enemies. Ammunition for weapons is scarce, but mechanical components can be harvested to craft additional bolts, so you might want to use your ammo wisely later on in the game but that would depend on what difficulty you plan on playing it on. Plus when you shoot enemies you think aiming for the head would work on them, no you have to burn them alive in order for them to not come back from the dead again, but if you waste all of your matches you are pretty much stuck and outnumbered if more than 5 enemies appear out of nowhere. You can sneak up behind enemies and take them out quietly if you don't get spotted by anyone it does try to have a stealth moment making it feel like you’re taking out zombies from behind like in past horror movies and TV shows. This would depend on what difficulty you plan on playing it on the higher the difficulty the harder it'll be getting around and defeating enemies but can be very rewarding where you can pick up from certain enemies or see jars lying around as you go through the game you can use Green Gel to upgrade your health, stamina, ammo and weapons.
However there are a few problems with The Evil Within one of them is that the autosave system has a mind of its own after getting to each checkpoint once you've used all of your bullets you’re pretty stuck on what to do next. The story can drag a little bit later on as your progress through and its characters aren't that memorable they do try to keep the story go going but its bosses are pretty much the star of the game; most of the bosses you encounter do give you multiple choices and options on ways to taking out your enemies if you are low on ammo or use a different strategy to take them out. Don't get me wrong that some of the bosses can be a little frustrating at times but the more you think about it carefully you can beat them. Its visuals and layouts can textures and odd layouts for its landscapes and surrounding environments during gameplay do have the odd textures and frame rate drops on both characters and cutscenes but future updates could well be patched later in the future. Making it feel a little gritty including lack of detail when you come across empty halls or buildings and are often recycled again in later chapters. When I mentioned that it feels more like a Resident Evil game there are in fact Resident Evil references in various chapters making it giving you a little trip back down memory lane but some fans will feel that they have seen all this done before in past horror games especially with Resident Evil 4.
Do feel like this game could have been better overall can take you up to 15-20 hours on completing the main story but there are extra hidden items and keys scatted around each of the chapters including trophy support. It does try too hard on being a horror game in general this would appeal more to the hard-core horror fans and Resident Evil fans out there.