The Evil Within

There's nothing particularly satisfying in the explanation of why Monsters Are Happening, but there never really is, and frankly, I don't think there needs to be. Monsters Are Happening. Deal with it, detective. ...The controls are sluggish, the video options are limited, and the aspect ratio decision is utterly stupid. All of the above drags The Evil Within from enjoyably challenging to needlessly frustrating.

The Evil Within has great moments where the excellent combat and creepy environmental design come together. But those moments are fleeting, inevitably sapped of their delightful terror by design choices that feel trapped in the glory days of a decade ago. There's something to be said for respecting your past successes and building off of them, but The Evil Within is only ever completely successful at half of that equation.

In the end, The Evil Within was a game that reeked of needing a better overall design philosophy and suffered because it didn’t. There’s fun to have here, but it will start to wear on you as you play the game. It’s a good game to try to rent or borrow from a friend, but in the end, it’s a title that didn’t live up to expectations, and is another disappointment in the “horror” genre. There’s some good elements to build off here though for future titles, the question will be if future iterations will be as muddled as this one was.