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I can't figure out why The Evil Within isn't scary.
- Thread starter Astral
- Start date
I wish that it was understood a little better that throwing more and more gore doesn't necessarily make the game scarier - if anything, it has completely the opposite effect. Gears of War was similar, where sometimes your character transformed into meaty chunks after being shot by a turret. It loses all impact when there's too much of it.
I must have seen Seb cut in half in a bloody explosion hundreds of times, and not a single one of them had as much impact as the first time I saw Leon Kennedy's head chainsawed off.
I must have seen Seb cut in half in a bloody explosion hundreds of times, and not a single one of them had as much impact as the first time I saw Leon Kennedy's head chainsawed off.
And even that is nothing compared to watching Leon get stabbed in the face, lifted up into the air, and then stabbed again in the stomach as if he wasn't already dead.
Aztechnology
Member
I truly believe one of the big things for fear. Is that fear of losing something. Whether it's losing progress, or items, or teammates to permadeath etc. Part of what made older Resident evil games frightening was that saves were more infrequent, and the game became tense for it. I'm not saying that holds up as well nowadays, but I truly believe you have to have that amongst all the jump scares, creepy environments and so on. That buildup of anxiety in a game like Dark Souls, while not necessarily fear, can really help to propel fear as a part of your game in a synergistic way with all the other traditional pieces.
CouchMaster
Member
I bought the game last year and played through the intro section upto the part where you hide in a closet while running away from chainsaw monster. Noped the fuck out and haven't touched yet, I think the main guy is still in the closet. I hope he's alright.
Because you are a badass with a bunch of weapons, just like the RE games or most horror action games.
Its also why i shrug when everyone says that the manor level / quest in Vampire The Masquerade was scary.
Like, dude, im a telekenetic badass blood mage, im not scared of anything they throw at me.
I dont even mean that as a diss btw.
Its also why i shrug when everyone says that the manor level / quest in Vampire The Masquerade was scary.
Like, dude, im a telekenetic badass blood mage, im not scared of anything they throw at me.
I dont even mean that as a diss btw.
Combichristoffersen
Combovers don't work when there is no hair
i liked it better than RE4 (and any other RE I've played, for that matter). But it's not really scary. At best it gets kinda tense when you encounter those invisible enemies and when you have to fight Laura. Other than that it's more action than scary.
You mean that lady with a lamp or whatever for a head? Fuck that thing. Hated it.
You mean that lady with a lamp or whatever for a head? Fuck that thing. Hated it.
The horror is masked by a bit too much gore right off the bat that really desensitizes you right out of the gate, combined with a very stale protagonist (with a cool design but Jesus the entire cast is boring).
It's a good game but it does have some weird flaws. Not to mention finding out that it's all just a nightmare really made me care a lot less about the story.
Fuck the long haired lady though, they nailed her design and she freaked me the fuck out.
I totally agree, losing progress because you have to go back to the last typewriter really made the older Resident Evils have a lot more tension, even with RE4 since it retained the mechanic, albeit modernized.
It's a good game but it does have some weird flaws. Not to mention finding out that it's all just a nightmare really made me care a lot less about the story.
Fuck the long haired lady though, they nailed her design and she freaked me the fuck out.
I totally agree, losing progress because you have to go back to the last typewriter really made the older Resident Evils have a lot more tension, even with RE4 since it retained the mechanic, albeit modernized.
grandwizard
Member
I avoided all these by playing the PC version. While not a perfect game by any means I think it's reception was really tarnished by poor console versions.
ffejeromdiks
Banned
Playing through it now, I really, really dig it. Yeah it's rough around the edges but it's filling the void that's remained unfilled for too long for me. Haven't felt this way since playing through Dead Space 1 for the first time, and RE4 before it.
You could nitpick the hell out of the game but I'm really enjoying it. It feels like a loveletter to RE4 and REmake. I've heard it goes off the rails later on but...hell to me it was off the rails from the 2nd or 3rd cutscene and I'm totally on board for some crazy detached narrative romp through spooky environments with excellent enemy designs, sign me up.
Do feel like with a little more time in the oven it could have reached a masterpiece status, but right now it just feels like it's undisputably rough/janky, but it's heart's in the right place and that can go a long way when it's riffing on exactly what you look for in these kinds of game.
You could nitpick the hell out of the game but I'm really enjoying it. It feels like a loveletter to RE4 and REmake. I've heard it goes off the rails later on but...hell to me it was off the rails from the 2nd or 3rd cutscene and I'm totally on board for some crazy detached narrative romp through spooky environments with excellent enemy designs, sign me up.
Do feel like with a little more time in the oven it could have reached a masterpiece status, but right now it just feels like it's undisputably rough/janky, but it's heart's in the right place and that can go a long way when it's riffing on exactly what you look for in these kinds of game.
Jawmuncher
Member
You know that's something I disagree with. I see it mentioned a lot. "Oh this is the real RE we should have got, or it feels like that". I never got RE vibes playing the game. I think if I had, I'd enjoy it more. About the only RE thing I can say is that Juli reminds me of Ada
It's a pretty divisive game,it fluctuates between great/amazing to piece of shit when it comes to opinions.
It was more tense than scary but i loved the game minus that disgusting ch12,the fuck was mikami thinking?
Anyway, i think they did a great job considering that it was Tango's first game and the team was not that big,let's hope they improve the formula if they announce the sequel.
It was more tense than scary but i loved the game minus that disgusting ch12,the fuck was mikami thinking?
Anyway, i think they did a great job considering that it was Tango's first game and the team was not that big,let's hope they improve the formula if they announce the sequel.
Fancy Clown
Member
I don't think its scary, but it can be really really stressful, which is like a cousin of scariness. I did feel a lot of dread in chapter 10 though, I must say.
Magic Mushroom
Member
Exactly this.
Indeed! I hated it too, in a great way though haha. Scared the SHIT out of me.
SomedayTheFire
Member
Because it's a horribly designed game.
UpDownLeftRight
Banned
I doesn't help that it came out right alongside Alien: Isolation, a survival horror game done right.
TheSpaceBetween
Member
One of the best games of the generation. I don't know if I would describe it as scary, but it was INTENSE as fuck. I remember playing through chapter 3 and and mechanics and design of that level felt like a way more intense, varied version of The Last of Us. It did kind of lack any particular focus, and was kind of a mishmash of a variety of different horror cliches. I really dug the recurring boss fights though... Laura and The Keeper being my favorites. I can't wait to see what Mikami and Tango do next...
Neff
Member
I'll just go right ahead and say that I love The Evil Within, I think it's a brilliant game, full of fantastic encounters, enemy types and weapon strategy.
But in terms of actually being scary, it doesn't cut the mustard. The enemy designs were a bit too 'try hard' imo (although I like the Keeper, and his regenerating encounters), and the game just didn't have the right atmosphere of suggested threat vs present threat. Plus, when you're unfamiliar with the game, you just die, a lot. In my experience, a good horror game instils fear by upping tension, by threatening you with the only significant thing it can- your time. It's one of the reasons RE was, and still is, so damn good. Save points are few and far between, and limited at that, so a Hunter leaping out at you when you haven't saved for a good half hour or so really does shoot a jolt of ice down your back. With TEW, and most modern horror games, death is frequent, and without dire consequence, due to infinite auto-saves/checkpoints. I never felt my heart beating with trepidation or narrow escapes like I did with RE1/REmake/RE4. It all just sort of unfolds like the ghastly, contemporary, super-fun roller coaster ride it is.
But scary? Nah.
I'd hesitate to call Isolation Survival Horror (technically nothing outside of RE is), but it was a whole lot scarier than TEW, that's for sure.
But in terms of actually being scary, it doesn't cut the mustard. The enemy designs were a bit too 'try hard' imo (although I like the Keeper, and his regenerating encounters), and the game just didn't have the right atmosphere of suggested threat vs present threat. Plus, when you're unfamiliar with the game, you just die, a lot. In my experience, a good horror game instils fear by upping tension, by threatening you with the only significant thing it can- your time. It's one of the reasons RE was, and still is, so damn good. Save points are few and far between, and limited at that, so a Hunter leaping out at you when you haven't saved for a good half hour or so really does shoot a jolt of ice down your back. With TEW, and most modern horror games, death is frequent, and without dire consequence, due to infinite auto-saves/checkpoints. I never felt my heart beating with trepidation or narrow escapes like I did with RE1/REmake/RE4. It all just sort of unfolds like the ghastly, contemporary, super-fun roller coaster ride it is.
But scary? Nah.
I'd hesitate to call Isolation Survival Horror (technically nothing outside of RE is), but it was a whole lot scarier than TEW, that's for sure.
UpDownLeftRight
Banned
Yeah that's true, though it does capture some of that feel by giving you very little ammo that is practically useless against everything anyway and employing a save point system etc. The main problem for me was I bought both on the same day and started with Alien. As a result TEW felt completely hollow on the horror aspect. Perhaps had I started with TEW I would have been at least a little more fond of it.
Neff
Member
I bought both day one (a couple of weeks apart IIRC), so I played Isolation first, and while I was incredibly impressed by the atmosphere, detail and reverence for the movie, I didn't really get on with the Alien itself, which started off as being one of the most absolutely god damn terrifying things I'd ever experienced in a game, ending up being completely dull and familiar due to a very outstayed welcome and frequent but annoyingly inconsistent kills.
Then came TEW and it rocked my world. If I'm being honest I didn't really go in expecting a horror game, I went in expecting another great Mikami game, and that's what I got.
Isolation = scarier, TEW = ten times better.
RE1 = scarier and better than both.
Kabuki Waq
Member
Most dissapointing game of the generation. So very unpolished and I don't just mean due to the performance.
So hyped as it was from the maker of RE4.
So hyped as it was from the maker of RE4.
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
People actually said it's better than RE4, one of the greatest games ever made that is full of great tension?
Really?
No, really?
tassletine
Member
I'm betting most people here haven't played it on one of the harder difficultly levels. On lower difficulties it comes across like a Resident Evil clone, but on higher difficulties it's a different beast.
The items are far fewer and the stress comes from the item management.
In certain segments you know that one missed shot means death. The scene where the house burns down is especially tough. You certainly don't feel overpowered like some people are saying.
Also hiding under beds etc. becomes a legitimate tactic and changes the gameplay quite a bit as you sometimes have to wait for minutes to time your escape - a gameplay element that doesn't exist on lower difficulty levels.
Several times you have to run from enemies as you haven't the ammo, forcing you to rely on traps. These require you to calm yourself and act with a hundred percent efficiency. The terror comes from this pressure and avoiding those traps as you're running.
Having said that, I've never actually been scared by any game, but this is one of the tensest I've ever played. I do love the atmosphere. It's morbid, but not without a sense of humour.
The items are far fewer and the stress comes from the item management.
In certain segments you know that one missed shot means death. The scene where the house burns down is especially tough. You certainly don't feel overpowered like some people are saying.
Also hiding under beds etc. becomes a legitimate tactic and changes the gameplay quite a bit as you sometimes have to wait for minutes to time your escape - a gameplay element that doesn't exist on lower difficulty levels.
Several times you have to run from enemies as you haven't the ammo, forcing you to rely on traps. These require you to calm yourself and act with a hundred percent efficiency. The terror comes from this pressure and avoiding those traps as you're running.
Having said that, I've never actually been scared by any game, but this is one of the tensest I've ever played. I do love the atmosphere. It's morbid, but not without a sense of humour.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
It's tense as hell and often thrilling and I think that's good enough. In terms of actual horror, fear, and being unsettled in a Silent Hill sense... very early on it becomes clear that what's happening probably isn't real. Plus that is confirmed in the plot long before the end-game.
As such, it removes a lot of the mystery from what is happening and the anxiety over what is real and what is being caused by fear, which is an essential element IMO to traditional horror.
It's still good, it just ends up being Inception inside the head of somebody who watched a lot of horror movies, rather than directly being horror itself.
As such, it removes a lot of the mystery from what is happening and the anxiety over what is real and what is being caused by fear, which is an essential element IMO to traditional horror.
It's still good, it just ends up being Inception inside the head of somebody who watched a lot of horror movies, rather than directly being horror itself.
darkslayer101
Member
Exact opposite experience for me. TEW didn't do jack for me with the horror. There was nothing I can recall that scared me, Laura was poorly design and her not so subtle scream just threw whatever Grudge vibes they were going for. Not even the boxguy was intimidating. Oh don't get me started on the stalker villain... jeez that was just so pointless and not scary at all, especially when he just touches you and you break down into blood goup....yea definitely not scary.
The second chapter where Sebastian has to go through the hospital genuinely oozed survival horror, especially with the face hugging invisible enemies... but 15 mins... yup its over... that is it... non of that for the rest of the game. Not to mention the jumping from locales failed to develop and give time to an area to start the horror. Before you get acquainted and the actual atmospheric horror vibes of an area start...oooopppss.... we jumping to another locale so the player has to start all over again to build tension. And before you know jumping to another area.
Played Isolation after TEW and it took me at least half way through the game to click, but boy did it click. Having to go back the hallway that the alien just went through is super terrifying and the size and intimidation is pure and not washed out like in TEW.
Did play it on Akumu mode and it didn't elevate the horror for me. Just became a trial and error sort of thing with the checkpoints, luckily the gameplay was engaging enough for me to complete it.
I have to say, while the DLC stalker was marginally better than the base game, I still didn't quite land for me especially with the boring kill animation. Not to mention the design was rather...lacking in terms of scare department... I feel like I would be more scared of something out of creature/biohazard design rather than sci-fi
I think there's a number of factors that make TEW not so scary, but I don't think the game was meant to be a very scary endeavor either. TEW was like RE4 in the sense that there are scary elements but it's an action game foremost. I haven't played it since launch so by what I am going by what I remember.
TEW has a very powerful protagonist so there are very rare moments when you're actually vulnerable. However, when you are vulnerable, the game is unforgivable in your mistakes. Because of this dynamic, you don't even have time to be scared, you just end up using every second thinking about what to do against that vulnerability.
Actual horror also requires some great pacing. The slow build is just as important, if not more, for a frightening experience and in TEW the slow moments that I remember are either a stealth part or the "safe house". Since the game quite never builds up horror, you're not going to be scared when the next gore show comes up. The levels in TEW might be visually disturbing, but I rarely felt they were meant to scare the player.
TEW has a very powerful protagonist so there are very rare moments when you're actually vulnerable. However, when you are vulnerable, the game is unforgivable in your mistakes. Because of this dynamic, you don't even have time to be scared, you just end up using every second thinking about what to do against that vulnerability.
Actual horror also requires some great pacing. The slow build is just as important, if not more, for a frightening experience and in TEW the slow moments that I remember are either a stealth part or the "safe house". Since the game quite never builds up horror, you're not going to be scared when the next gore show comes up. The levels in TEW might be visually disturbing, but I rarely felt they were meant to scare the player.
Because the game doesn't give a fuck. It keeps tossing you into such different locales that any sense of reality is thrown out of the window and any attempts to craft atmosphere are given a reset button. This keeps happening until you too stop giving a fuck.
Not to mention the gameplay is cheap with its one hit kills and bad checkpointing.
Behold.
Not to mention the gameplay is cheap with its one hit kills and bad checkpointing.
Behold.
Masterspeed
Member
The Evil Within isn't scary because Resident Evil 4 isn't scary.
NinjamicWZ
Banned
The only other game that ever scared me was Silent Hill 1 when I was a teenager.
Horror is a personal thing, based on a person's experiences, fears and thought processes. I've seen some shit and Evil Within absolutely unnerved me my first time through it. "You Will Suffer"
Horror is a personal thing, based on a person's experiences, fears and thought processes. I've seen some shit and Evil Within absolutely unnerved me my first time through it. "You Will Suffer"
Charlouie Jonesman
Banned
Videogames aren't really scary to me, period, as you're always thinking about the game mechanics first and foremost, horror in a videogame is just window dressing. In another medium TEW would probably work as genuine horror for me, as I'm not big into brain experiments and surgery and whatnot. That's a part of the body you don't just play with.
Anyway, what TEW manages to be is tense as you never know if you have enough ressources for the next encounter and throughout the whole game you're just barely scraping through and then there's all the things that take you out in one hit. That's what works for this game. And I always felt the same about classic RE. Actually scary they were not.
Anyway, what TEW manages to be is tense as you never know if you have enough ressources for the next encounter and throughout the whole game you're just barely scraping through and then there's all the things that take you out in one hit. That's what works for this game. And I always felt the same about classic RE. Actually scary they were not.
ThatStupidLion
Member
I blame the Convoluted scifi weird ass story.
Realy wnjoyed the gane though
Realy wnjoyed the gane though
While this isn't wrong, I don't think the Evil Within is really trying to be the same type of horror game as Silent Hill 2 or even trying to be as scary. While it took some cues from Silent Hill it's really closer to Resident Evil 4.
Most of the time it's still seemed to be aiming for B-movie action horror.
ffejeromdiks
Banned
Yeah I mean, RE4 wasn't scary either, it was just non stop tension and dread, not actual horror....except for the brief 5 minutes on your first playthrough when you don't know what to do about regenerators.
I still feel like one of RE4's biggest flaws is that it gave you a thermal scope not 5 minutes after you first encounter a regenerator, imagine how tense it would have been to have one of those suckers coming for you an entire chapter without you knowing what to do about it.
Anyway after getting a couple more chapters into TEW I'm still not seeing what exactly everyone hates about the game. It's a damn thrill ride on survival difficulty, the last chapter I played started with a spiritual successor to the farmhouse survival sequence in RE4 (it even comes around the same place in the game I believe) and afterwards the tension just kept getting ratcheted up more and more throughout the chapter as it threw bosses at me. I was on the edge of my seat for at least an hour lol. It's definitely flawed, but I think there's far more good than bad, not many games get me panicky like that.
I still feel like one of RE4's biggest flaws is that it gave you a thermal scope not 5 minutes after you first encounter a regenerator, imagine how tense it would have been to have one of those suckers coming for you an entire chapter without you knowing what to do about it.
Anyway after getting a couple more chapters into TEW I'm still not seeing what exactly everyone hates about the game. It's a damn thrill ride on survival difficulty, the last chapter I played started with a spiritual successor to the farmhouse survival sequence in RE4 (it even comes around the same place in the game I believe) and afterwards the tension just kept getting ratcheted up more and more throughout the chapter as it threw bosses at me. I was on the edge of my seat for at least an hour lol. It's definitely flawed, but I think there's far more good than bad, not many games get me panicky like that.
It happens ALL the time. Many many MANY beloved authors, painters and so on have themes, settings and motifs, character types and so on they keep coming back to time and time again.
Here' s a drinking game, go through Shakespeare's plays every-time a play has cross dressing, or a daughter fighting with her angry old father, or has a Play within a play, or uses acting based metaphors, or finical metaphors, or every time he has an idiot try and use language beyond them to show their stupidity, or, well you get the idea. creators blatantly reusing their old ideas in a slightly different context is like how 90% of all human creations have been made.
Lord of Ostia
Member
Except that's exactly why the game fails as a spiritual successor to Resident Evil 4...because it is trying to be the same type of horror game as Silent Hill 2, and Resident Evil 1, and Resident Evil 4, all at the same time.
Resident Evil 4 is never attempting to be scary. It's basically Die Hard with a zombie skin slapped on it. It's an action game through and through, with Leon making stupid yet hilarious one liners, the other characters like the Spanish dude and Ada trading quips with him, and super over the top scenarios constantly happening to the player. It's all ridiculous and unrealistic, but that's what makes it fun when combined with the masterful mechanics and encounter design.
The Evil Within attempts to do the action-horror of RE4 while also doing the psychological horror of Silent Hill, and ends up failing at both. It doesn't have the b-grade action flick charm that RE4 has, nor does it have the scares or tension of a Silent Hill game because it's too much of an action game (and a disjointed mess) to immerse the player or build tension and unease. There are more issues with the game that I've outlined in my previous posts and other posters have mentioned, but this kind of statement just isn't really true. It is trying to be actually scary, and employ psychological horror, and it fails miserably at it.
There was a thread about a rumored sequel and every reaction was a gushing excitement
I fell into that trap as well - the amount of positive reactions to the rumored sequel prompted me to hunt down a cheap preowned copy
Mistake.
meltingparappa
Member
I think RE4 (at the time) was terrifying because THE VILLAGERS KEPT COMING and hearing that chainsaw knowing it's a one hit kill, had me perpetually on the cusp of panic.
It's now 2017, and fighting that long haired woman was nothing but a reminder that I kept messing up the environmental traps I'm supposed to use, and then have all my momentum killed by a long load time.
I love the game, but it isn't a leap forward in the genre, and straddles a line of being too empowered for the enemies coming after you, yet being too weak to avoid deaths (if you're awful at the game like me) to reiterate how there isn't any penalty for them latching onto you.
It's not scary because the game doesn't rely on cheap tactics like jump scares to scare you, it tries to create tension through it's environments and enemy creature designs, and unfortunately sometimes it's a bit hit and miss. I think there were a few chapters that had some really great tension (there's one saw-like maze level) and some of the boss encounters were tense as, but otherwise yeah, it wasn't that scary.
Re4 was still often pretty tense and atmospheric despite being goofy a lot.
The Evil Within plays around with the psychological horror stuff, but ultimately still leans much closer to RE4 most of the time. And yes, it isn't as good as either of those (but almost no games are), being a mix of those two games is something that's hard to pull off, as the goals of both those games contradict each other to an extent.
â Narayan
Member
I found it as scary as Resident Evil 4. Basically not scary at all.