The Evil Within...the plastic box you just payed 64$ for.

Disappointment is in the air, much like the bittersweet smell of delicious cookies who spent too long in the oven thus becoming overdone monstrosities. Then again, you like cookies right - I know I sure as hell do. So, do you know what you're going to do? You're going to take a bite out of that burnt to hell cookie, smile at the person who made them for you, attempt not to vomit, and then pretend you liked it. Who knows, you may even eat one or two more just for kicks later, cookies are cookies after all right?

I really could leave my review of The Evil Within with that paragraph, alas my verbose nature will not allow me to do so. Beware dear readers, that wafting smell of fresh sugar cookies being baked in the oven does indeed smell tantalizing - but the product...the product is something different all together.

 

There was so much promise to this title, allow me to explain. The Evil Within, while not a Resident Evil game, is a title that evolved from Shinji Mikami's long running series of survival-horror games. Not only that, it feels and plays much like my personal favorite title of the Resident Evil series, Resident Evil 4. This portion of the Resident Evil family tree is highly regarded as one of the best games to come out of the IP, I'm sure some will argue against that but it's hard to call RE4 a bad game. Is it scary? Maybe to some people, I was scared by the first Resident Evil - though I imagine only because graphics were so humble back then that my imagination fired up the fear engines for me. While definitely more action based that its predecessors, the game play was amazing.

Both The Evil Within and Resident Evil 4 boast a 3rd person camera hovering just behind the protagonist's shoulder, allowing for quick switches into aiming down the sights of your pistol at whatever monstrosity is lumbering your way. The game, while less about the scare, kept your heart rate up due to the visceral nature of the combat and the fact that bullets weren't just lying around everywhere - every bullet counts.

Now, Mr. Mikami has returned to the genre he helped define with his entry into the next generation of  gaming - The Evil Within. Normally I would have information set aside about characters, setting, etc. - but honestly after completing 5 chapters of the game one would hope that you knew the main character's name...I do not, I know I've been told but I honestly just don't care. The protagonist reacts to gut-wrenching changes in reality, walking corpses, and demonic monstrosities bursting out of the dead like it's a damned trip to Baskin Robbins. Slight spoiler ahead (if you care).

At one point I had just gotten done wandering through a room literally waist deep with the blood and viscera of a myriad of slain people when a beast with multiple long clawed arms bursts out of a body and begins to chase me down a hall - his reaction? "What's your deal?" Really? What's your deal Mr. (or Miss) horrifically brutalized demon, why are you being such a meanie? How about a little, oh I dunno, screaming or even cursing whatever divine beings allowed such a creature to roam the Earth? Nope, not Mr. Protagonist - he seems completely cool even while said beast is smashing his head against the tiled floor until it pops open like a cantaloupe. 

In all honesty, the game is beautiful. The artists had a ball and you can tell, the environments are absolutely amazing to just wander around in - if only all the shitty game play could be taken out. Don't expect much evolution from Resident Evil 4, in fact I can say that it takes a few GIANT steps backwards. Saving now requires you to enter some strange dimension through random ornate mirrors you find scattered about the destroyed ruins you wander, not only that you must enter "mirror land" (which is an empty psychiatric hospital, original!) in order to spend your upgrade points to make your protagonist more resilient to having his head torn off his body. Nothing like taking stupid amounts of time out of a game that is supposed to build suspense in order to find a stupid mirror to spend stupid points (I've been calling them brain points because as far as I can tell that's what they are, little weird green jars of brain fluid).

Granted I have not completed the game, though I doubt I will - and perhaps everything turns around and the game is amazing. I've read reviews ranging from a measly two stars on a five star scale to a shocking 9.0 on a 10 scale, so there are some out there who do in fact enjoy the title. I'm not going to attempt to explain the story because frankly I have no idea what the fuck is going on at any given moment in time - if this was meant to add to the atmosphere it did not go as planned. When a new chapter begins your guess is as good as mine as to where I'll end up, will I continue on the path I was on or be teleported to a strange new area with little to no explanation besides "things are weird"?

I get it, distorting reality and all that - it is a cool touch but only if you do it right *cough Eternal Darkness cough* and this most certainly does not. The strange effects are neat to see, but other than that they are just fluff - plus that and it's hard to be scared of things when I have a crossbow that literally shoots arrows that stick into your target and then emit jets of flame at different angles in order to fry entire crowds of the shambling dead. Its not scary when I can turn around and shoot off a one liner to my fiance before I blow someone in half with a shotgun - that is not survival horror. 

Are there cool things about the game? Sure there are, am I glad to FINALLY see a protagonist take the undead seriously with the inclusion of collecting matches to burn the corpses of the foes you've slain...you know, just in case they come back? Hell yes I am, I love that touch, if I were fighting things that drift between the veil of life and death you can be damned sure I'm gonna douse the thing in gasoline and light it up faster than you can say "What the fuck was that thing?".

I could prattle on for ages, but here is what you can expect if the title still tugs on your curiosity as it did mine. You'll be running around through dilapidated villages, gore filled dungeons, and other mainstay settings for horror games dodging traps, setting traps, and shooting zombie things in the face when you have to. Though the gripes with this title are massive and you should consider pocketing that 60$ or maybe spending it on something actually scary - may I suggest Alien: Isolation? Or actually any of the other games coming out this month?

The experience boils down to a half baked 3rd person shooter that doesn't follow its own rules. Corpses on the ground are able to be burned by matches in order to prevent them from rising up at an inconvenient time, yet you'll wander into a room chock full of bodies, matches at the ready, and the game will not allow you to torch them because they have to get up and try to kill you in a scripted event soon. Boom, all hopes of scariness gone. When I'm standing in an empty room full of ammo and only one dead body on the floor that I for some reason cannot burn I can't help but shake my head. Oh dear, I wonder what's going to happen with that weird body, oh wait it got up / exploded / turned into a boss. Yawn. Yawn x100000. Thumbs down.

 

Crew Expendable

Hello again world! Am I the most inconsistent blogger in the world? Probably! Nonetheless, here I am once more. I do fully mean for this blog to become a regular thing - once I find a nice balance between working on my various writing projects / actual paying work / and thinking of interesting topics to talk about I'll be here much more often.

Before we begin, allow me to shamelessly plug the amazing anthology my first short story was recently published in. Www.daylightdims.com - feel free to peruse the snazzy website, learn more about the anthology, and if you feel so inclined head on over to Amazon and pick up a copy - what's Halloween without great horror literature after all?

Now on to the matter at hand. I am an experienced veteran of the Horror genre - this includes nearly every medium from books and movies to video games and the like. Being truly scared while reading/watching/playing is not something that happens often these days - movies that people swear gave them nightmares for weeks leave me with nothing but a sense of wasted time and money. My fiance and I both have been long seeking something to feed the old horror furnace, but until recently nothing has caught fire.

Sure, movies such as The Conjuring were enjoyable and a little creepy at times - but scary? I'd have to say no. The last true movie to deeply frighten me and leave an indelible mark upon my soul that no amount of time will remove was Antichrist directed by the somewhat controversial Lars von Trier. If you are expecting a glowing recommendation of the film then I am sad to say you will not find one here. I can appreciate the beauty of the movie and the talent behind what I saw - but I am not lying when I say that film may have actually bitten off a piece of my soul never to be seen again. One thing is certain though, I will never be able to look at Willem Dafoe in the same light ever again. If this post piques your curiosity I am warning you, with as much gravity that I can muster, that the things you will see are truly disturbing. Now, I'm going to push on before my mind is completely taken over by the images I can still recall with crystal clear clarity from the movie.

Being October I find it only natural to talk about horror and all things macabre - though once more my discussion finds its roots in the depths of outer space in a world created by Ridley Scott.

Yes yes, I know - yet ANOTHER attempt to form a playable experience out of one of (if not my favorite) sci-fi horror franchises. Why you ask, why would I even give the title a second glance after the botched monstrosity that was Aliens: Colonial Marines? Well...this is why.

Finally, the perfect scenario. No huge guns, no horrible attempts to match the macho playfulness of space marines, and seemingly no hope of survival - much like our friend the Xenomorph, to me this title is perfection.

The story (I can't spoil anything even if I wanted to as I've been playing for hours and still have not gotten past the first few meetings with our Xenomorph pal without a giant spiked tail through my sternum) follows Ripley's daughter, Amanda, in between the first and second films. Naturally, when one's mother goes missing in space on a routine salvage mission you would be curious as to where she went. For those of us that have seen Alien in all of its glory, well we know what happened. After an offer from some higher ups, Amanda is given the opportunity to accompany a small crew in the hopes of discovering exactly what happened to her mother and the crew of the missing ship the Nostromo.

First of all, what makes this game scary? Well, where to begin. I purchased the title on Xbox One (against my better judgement) and was pleasantly surprised to see how the Kinect was used to enhance the experience. The Kinect not only tracks your head movement (allowing you to peek around corners and over objects in order to scare the shit out of yourself) it also detects noise in the room. Allow me to explain.

I sit crouched behind some type of metallic alloy crate. Somewhere around me the hissing breath of the alien echoes - it knows I'm near. I constantly steal glances at the ceiling, this isn't my first rodeo - I know the bastard can crawl on ceilings, but I see no threats. Tink...tink...tink....shhhhhhh - the sound of sharp chitinous claws on metal, and the telltale scrape of that horrific tail - it's getting closer. I hold my breath and hold down the button that allows the Kinect to transfer my head motion onto the screen, I peek over the stack of crates - OHSHITTHEREITIS. I release the button, crouching back behind the boxes, my heart hammering in my chest. Like I said though, this isn't my first rodeo and just like in every game if I wait long enough it'll wander off. I smile to myself, restoring some sense of calm - just play it cool daddy-o. Oh no. My right nostril twitches. Not now. I clamp a hand over my nose, my face contorts as I fight a sneeze. No no no no no no no no nonooooooACHHOOOO!! In a nightmarish blur of speed and mind shattering shrieks the Alien vanishes, it's over. Before I can even make a break for it I can hear it breathing behind me, I can imagine the long strings of saliva dangling from one of its many fanged mouths. A black clawed hand obscures my view and a spiked tail tears through my chest. Game over man...game over.

While there are various tools and even guns you came across during the title, standing and fighting your alien adversary is not advisable - take a pipe to all the people you want, but mess with the big dog and you get eaten. The feeling of utter helplessness in the face of such an overwhelming enemy makes this game a one of a kind experience. Where other games (such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent) have tread down a similar path, the focus here is completely on the environment and the experience.

Unlike the bastardized version of Aliens in Aliens: Colonial Marines - this game actually does look THAT good when you play it. No bait and switch here, play this game on a big enough television and you'll swear you could walk right into any hallway pictured before you. The ambiance is perfect, the sound is perfect, the lighting is perfect, hell even the horrifically difficult learning curve is perfect. This is not a game to play if you want to feel powerful, if you're the type that can only get by with a mini gun in his hands and endless ammo then you will not enjoy your stay here. You are going to die, you are going to forget to save and you are going to die. There are even streams of the game on Hard mode going just to see how long someone lasts during the first confrontation with the beast, spoiler alert - no one lasts long. 

I'm currently playing on medium, a difficulty level I usually ignore due to my long history of game playing - but here the beast confounds me at every turn. Every careful plan and every stealthy maneuver only seems to land me in the horrible arms of my hunter. 

If true survival-horror is your bag, then look no further. If you can put up with dying repeatedly without throwing a temper tantrum and enjoy being part of a truly terrifying atmosphere, then this is the right derelict space-station for you. Now, I believe I have an elevator to attempt to sneak into....