[The Evil Within] Bethesda's new game from RE creator Shinji Mikami (AKA Project Zwei)

Krathoon

They are definitely supernatural zombies. You can blow off half their head and they keep going. This has a bit of a Siren vibe to it.

The way the enemies easily burn and disintegrate is highly suspicious.

Beezel

So basically what I'm hearing on twitch and elsewhere is that this game is basically the RE5 we should have gotten. I get home in roughly an hour so we'll see

Absalon

Damnit, I still have this thing to do for work by tomorrow so I don't want to even start it up in case it draws me in. Better get this done quick.

lodian

I played a solid 5-6 hours up to (iirc) Chapter 6. Despite the letterbox nonsense, the game is really good. I'm not blown away, but it's got my attention - plenty of mystery, the gameplay is good, the graphics are great in some places and meh in others. I completely uncapped the framerate on my system and it's silky smooth for me, no stuttering or mouse lag.

Another criticism is that they probably should have tossed out checkpoints in Survival difficulty and restricted it to manual save points - would have been more interesting. Because of the checkpoints, it's not as tense as it should be...
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The game over all, is basically a liberal amount of Resident Evil 4 lightly sweetened with Silent Hill.

Magic Pink

I played an two hours and I don't see any reason to go back to it. There's absolutely nothing I can point at in this game and say "Look how well they did this". It's all either average or poorly implemented. The set pieces are busy and bloated, the frame rate is bad, the characters are that bizzare "Americans as seen through the Japanese lens" thing, and the tutorials are poor or missing altogether.

The two biggest mistakes? It's not scary at all; they confuse copious amounts of silly gore with being frightening and go with the "more is more" idea which fails every time. Personally, the "chased by big brute" mechanic that has been used to death ever since Amnesia tried and failed to scare me with it has never worked anyway. And holy crap, when was the last time I actually complained about a game's camera? I can't remember but this one is completely horseballs. It's constantly rushing up and making my character block the whole screen whenever I try to go into stealth and it does that horrible horrible thing where the longer you push in a direction the more it speeds up.

Game is absolutely a skip.

Emperor_Z

Looking at Gamerankings, what's the deal with the reviews with the PS4 and XBO versions of the game? No sites have scores listed for both versions of the game, creating the appearance that the two versions are of dramatically different quality.

In any case, I was pretty interested in this game, but I may pass on this for the time being and pick it up when it's convenient and cheaper. I'm interested in seeing how opinions coalesce though.

urahonky

Oh man it's going to be a tough wait on this game. Christmas can't get here soon enough.

SyphonBlue

Lanrutcon wrote: »

The black borders are a fuck up, and obviously there to curb framerate issues (design choice my ass). The PS4 version can't even maintain 30 fps WITH the black borders easing the amount the console has to render.

Which is patently ridiculous.

Beezel

"Here's six bullets. Don't fuck up!"

Yeah this is definitely a Shinji Mikami game

SyphonBlue

The GB Quick Look has me interested in this game, just probably not on PS4.

azith28

Hum. I'm actually kind of awed. You mean the xbone is the preferred console choice? Thats a first.

Also torn...PS4 xbone or pc version....i preordered ps4 but thats easily rectified.

SyphonBlue

azith28 wrote: »

Hum. I'm actually kind of awed. You mean the xbone is the preferred console choice? Thats a first.

Also torn...PS4 xbone or pc version....i preordered ps4 but thats easily rectified.

No, it seems like PC is the preferred choice, but it doesn't seem like it runs well on anything.

Beezel

ID tech5

well there you go

SyphonBlue

Yeah what a shit engine that is.

Krathoon

Yeah, it is Bethesda. They own Id Software now. So, not really surprised that they are using their engine.

wirehead26

Damn the negative reviews, I'm getting this today. I just hope the PS3 version isn't a bug riddled mess.

azith28

Eh, i wouldnt say the reviews are negative exactly mostly its a 7-8.5/10 game with maybe one guy bringing down the average. still surprised the xbone review score is almost 9-10% higher on average then the ps4 one

lionheart_m

Apparently, Xbone has better performance than PS4.

So..question. Is there any point in burning bodies? I just did it in Chapter 2 to avoid a potential Crimson Head scenario.

azith28

Fire is always the answer.

Beezel

apparently downed bodies aren't really dead until you burn them or blow their heads clean off. They can get up and start shambling after you again someone told me

Viskod

Turns out "The Evil Within" actually refers to Bethesdas code.

Absalon

It feels and looks right for the most part, and the unforgiving design is pretty just and refreshing in the same way that Campari is refreshing, but it's a shame they plainly had to spend a lot of time making the engine work.

Here's hoping it makes bank, at the very least.

ED!

Given the performance issues, I think I'm going to hold off on full price for this one.

kaliyama

I'm never going to play this, but curious on plot spoilers. Anyone have a link to a good plot summary? Googling has failed.

wirehead26

I'm getting my ass handed to me so far. Only really irritating game mechanic for me is the camera but at least this is a very challenging game so far.

Emperor_Z

Wow, Steam hates this game, mostly due to the visual handicaps and the generally terrible optimization. Still, I wonder if my computer, which is fairly new and high-end, can handle it fine. Though, some of the complaints I see are from people with similarly good specs, so maybe it's just a mess no matter what

Absalon

Basically any quantity of enemy above 1 can make a deado of you on normal. Yet, despite the niggles, it feels satisfying to sneak your way to victory while finding all the goodies.

Also, great save area.

Gaming-Freak

So just for the record, if I stealth kill/blow a zombie's head off, I don't have to worry about burning their corpse, right? I heard that they don't always get back up, and some people said it's related to whether you blast their head off or not.

Chance

Beezel wrote: »

So basically what I'm hearing on twitch and elsewhere is that this game is basically the RE5 we should have gotten. I get home in roughly an hour so we'll see

Yes! It is Resident Evil 4-2: New-gen and No Silliness.

lodian wrote: »

The game over all, is basically a liberal amount of Resident Evil 4 lightly sweetened with Silent Hill.

Yes it is!

Magic Pink wrote: »

And holy crap, when was the last time I actually complained about a game's camera? I can't remember but this one is completely horseballs.

Okay, that's fair. It's seriously hard to make out where the bad guys are when you're sneaking.

Lanrutcon wrote: »

The black borders are a fuck up, and obviously there to curb framerate issues (design choice my ass).

Wait, wasn't RE4 letterboxed too?

Lanrutcon wrote: »

The PS4 version can't even maintain 30 fps WITH the black borders easing the amount the console has to render.

Hm... maybe that's true, but I hadn't noticed it. All I noticed was fucking Resident Evil 4-2: Extra-Trippy SuperGore yeeeeah!

wirehead26

Chance wrote: »

Beezel wrote: »

So basically what I'm hearing on twitch and elsewhere is that this game is basically the RE5 we should have gotten. I get home in roughly an hour so we'll see

Yes! It is Resident Evil 4-2: New-gen and No Silliness.

lodian wrote: »

The game over all, is basically a liberal amount of Resident Evil 4 lightly sweetened with Silent Hill.

Yes it is!

Magic Pink wrote: »

And holy crap, when was the last time I actually complained about a game's camera? I can't remember but this one is completely horseballs.

Okay, that's fair. It's seriously hard to make out where the bad guys are when you're sneaking.

Lanrutcon wrote: »

The black borders are a fuck up, and obviously there to curb framerate issues (design choice my ass).

Wait, wasn't RE4 letterboxed too?

Lanrutcon wrote: »

The PS4 version can't even maintain 30 fps WITH the black borders easing the amount the console has to render.

Hm... maybe that's true, but I hadn't noticed it. All I noticed was fucking Resident Evil 4-2: Extra-Trippy SuperGore yeeeeah!

Oh my shit THIS. They really needed a hug the wall system to fix the camera. I don't care if most find that gameplay mechanic bad, it was needed here.

Preacher

I'm enjoying the game once I got out of chapter 1, the end section of that area pissed me off royally.

Wyborn

That bit of stealth isn't so bad if you hoof it over to the second locker and use it to scope out the pattern.

Still took me like three tries.

It's not a great section for a lot of reasons, but it still taught me a lot about the game.

On the other hand, the cutscene after that is nuts

Preacher

Took me a lot more than 3 tries to get past that guy, and it was just a bad section to start the game off with. Hell it would be a bad section hours into the game, artificially limiting player speed, giving no indicator and instant death? Yeah that was just a bad dumb section.

DesmondPfeiffer

More than anything else, this game is reminding me of The Last of Us. It might just be how I'm playing it though, sneaking around and stabbing zombies in the head. Although, to be fair, it doesn't seem like any other way of playing would be very viable.

Preacher

Yeah I don't know how you'd be able to play outside of stealth at least starting out.

programjunkie

So, I had nothing to do today, and I beat it. 15 hours, 84 deaths on Survivor (Normal).

Here's my short summary / review:
* Got PC version, played with 360 controller. Ran steady 30 FPS (didnt bother to set it to 60) on 1080 with all settings on high or maxed. i5, AMD Radeon R9 280X.
* I found the camera mostly good, actually. It can occasionally be a bit finicky with sneaking, but I'm happy with it as is.
* Shooting is fun, and stays fun. Apparently I missed a bunch of weapons, so there's a good number. Typical RE style unlocks for beating it too.
* I really like the enemy design. There are tougher enemies, but nothing that makes me say, "What the fuck were you thinking?"
* Trap design is also consistently solid. Bomb disarm seems to be negatively impacted by not being 60 FPS though, because you have to lead the arrow way more than you should.
* This game plays a lot like Resident Evil. Mostly like 4, but a touch of 5 sprinkled in.
* What the fuck is with ID Tech 5?
* Chapter 15 overstays its welcome. Needs a 25%-33% length trim.
* Leaves too many mysteries unsolved in the end. It seemed like everything was going to come together in a nice cohesive storyline, and then it doesn't. I'm guessing season pass content? They still could have had a cliffhanger with that person they have a cliffhanger with, but resolved the other plot threads.

TLDR: Resident Evil with more barbed wire. Recommend if you like survival horror, though heard PS4 version framerate is shit.

Lowlander

Krathoon wrote: »

Yeah, it is Bethesda. They own Id Software now. So, not really surprised that they are using their engine.

There was a quote from a guy who worked at an un-named Ubisoft studio in an e-mail on the Giant Bombcast who said that the procedure for submitting game proposals in house has nothing at all to do with game engine. They were free to use any engine they chose, and were not restricted to say, the Assassin's Creed's engine. Supposedly it has everything to do with the cost/benefit analysis of what your team can do with an engine. Having said that, he did say that there were benefits to using an in-house engine, in that there is a broad knowledge base to help you out if you need it. I can't imagine that Bethesda is any different, not if they're really into the business of making money.

I could see how Bethesda would want to make an Idtech engine game to try to promote it, but using an engine for a game that isn't going to utilize it effectively isn't really a good way to promote your engine.

Zxerol

There's nothing to promote. For developers: they've decided a while back (before Rage was even released) that idtech 5 was only ever going to be used by Zenimax titles, so there's no licensing motive for it, unless they're hedging on using it as a carrot to get stuff published under their label. But no one is going to trip over themselves to get signed up just to use that sweet, sweet megatexture technology when they could use something that's, you know, actually widely used, supported, and documented like Unreal. And for players: the days of an id engine being the hottest shit that you just have to see like now woah buy this game was a looooooong time ago...

Bubby

Id tech 5 was used wonderfully in Wolfenstein, the devs for this game are to blame more than the engine.

Lanrutcon

I just want that engine to die. I mean, yesterday I got the new Borderlands game. Does it look as spiffy as Wolfenstein out of the box? Nope. But I can downscale the living shit out of it, edit the ini to remove all texture streaming and supersize the LOD on assets/shadows AND run Sweetfx with extra shaders on top of it to make it look absolutely pristine. All at a glorious 60 fps, without gutting PhysX.

By the time PCs exist that can do that with Tech 5, it'll have been thrown away for another engine.