Tango Gamework's The Evil Within 2

Games
1

Coming out in 6 hours.

I enjoyed the first one very much, more than any RE4/5/6. Such imaginative design and well tuned gameplay and difficulty.

Hopefully the second can be even better.
Here is a really good cinematic trailer:

Some reviews are out, averaging around 8, which is good enough for me.

2

I’ve been tempted by the first as it has been pretty cheap, but I’m not a big horror fan. I don’t mind creepy / spooky but I don’t like jump scares and always thinking something is going to be right there in my face when I got around a corner. Does Evil Within have a lot of jump scares / in your face stuff, or is it more just creepy?

3

I don’t remember much jump scares. It is pretty actiony. Closest game to it is RE4.

4

It’s a mix. In fact people has said that if feels like a ‘grand hits compilation’ of their previous games.

It has some middle ground creepy survival horror parts where you have to care of your resources, it has other more psychological/mindbending survival horror parts with a few jump scares, and it has other levels which are more actiony, just with ugly monsters and zombies.

edit: also Paul, can you edit the title and add ‘The’ to The Evil Within? I searched by ‘The evil…’ on the front page, and of course, nothing appeared…

5

Done.

6

About 8 hours in, enjoying it a lot. It is quite different, more open, with focus on a single smalltown, USA. So far there has been less level variety than in the first, but the gameplay/atmosphere delivers.

Playing on Nightmare and it can get pretty hectic.

Technically it runs well, mostly 60fps, some stutter here and there but nothing too annoying.

7

8 hours 20 minutes, chapter 6, and I was wondering if continue or not. It’s decent but… there are other games out there that I have pending that could be better than this.

My complaints are

  • an atmosphere inferior to the original, where it felt more ‘thick’,
  • an open world element that make it feel like padding (slowly stealthing and backstabbing every zombie, taking every item, returning to the safe house to drink coffee, returning to repeat and do the same, for several hours) and acts against the better parts of the first game, where the tighter, more controlled experience served to highlight the horror. And the open world parts look a bit outdated, which doesn’t help.
  • Even in the better parts, the game also feels a bit a retread of the first game, there isn’t a lot new to experience in this game.
  • Really bad writing. I read here and there people excusing them saying it’s like B-horror writing and it’s supposed to be like that… .no, just no. The whole premise is hilarious, in fact: (spoilers of the first 15 minutes)

So the game starts and you learn you have a daughter! and 30 seconds later you learn she is dead! ok…? I really didn’t have time to assume my parenthood to really feel sorry for her. And then other 30 seconds later you learn she is still alive! Yay? Again, I didn’t have enough time to be happy for her sudden resurrection. But she was kidnapped by the evil corp and is the new core of the psychic mind-world of the game.
…
Really?
7000 million humans out there and the person they take for it happens to be the daughter of the guy who saved the day the previous time? Pfft.
and well, 8 hours in and there is no special subtlety on the plot or teases of a surprising twist. It’s just an excuse to have the MC returning to another twisted world as logically he should run away as fast as possible.
The bad guy is another hilarious point, a super typical serial assassin-artist guy, with good clothes and a penchant for doing ART though killing, capturing the ‘beauty’ of their victims in their deaths for all eternity.

8

Not much love for this game in these parts it seems. I started playing it a few days ago and I’m absolutely loving it, mainly because of the gameplay. Stealth and combat have just the right amount of jank (limitations on animation level) that make you think carefully about how you’ll approach a situation, and the resource scarcity seems pretty well balanced (playing on Survival). Skill and gear upgrades are also very significant so to me it feels a bit like playing an RPG, in a way. It actually made me start looking around for similar games, but I’ve already played (and loved) Alien: Isolation, and the next closest contender seems to be RE2, but I absolutely loathe score based games so I’m not sure if I’ll actually give it a shot. Dead Space 1 & 2 are also very very close to what I’m looking for in these games, but I’ve also played them. Same goes for Prey.

Any other suggestions?

9

The original game is one of my favorites and would rate it 10/10. The sequel was good but not as great, I’d give it an 8/10. I really hope they continue this franchise now that MS owns the ip.

10

100% in agreement with you. The Evil Within is one of my favorite horror games and something I’ve replayed several times.

I wish I could offer something, and would love to hear other’s ideas. Evil Within seemed to start as a spiritual successor to Resident Evil 4, but took that idea in its own confident and sophisticated direction.

11

Finished last night, absolutely fantastic game all around. The imagination of level and character/model designers is out of this world, and I genuinely liked the cinematic sequences between Sebastian and his family as well - really well done, and supported well by the excellent soundtrack.

I was a little disappointed in the end that I couldn’t do NG+ on a higher difficulty (played on Survival, wanted to do Nightmare) but I guess it makes sense because of the achievements. If it weren’t so I’d have started NG+ without even thinking, but I managed to upgrade all the skills I wanted and then some, so there’s very little incentive of me to replay the game on same difficulty level.

Looking forward to EW3 if it eventually comes.