The Evil Within 2

[Multidirectional]

I know you can put it to use, but who the fuck would seriously want to past first couple of levels? It's so tedious to use and firearms are so satisfying.

 

[Average Manatee]

Never said that you should (beyond intentionally challenging yourself). The point was that RE4 gives you so much ammo that you never need to even think about melee or try to become proficient in its use. It's not really a survival game as much as a generic shooter.

 

[Master]

They drop ammo often but after a point tentacles come out of zombies when you headshot them and they need 2/3 times more ammo to kill. So even if you did everything right an encounter can still drain you. Of course all you have to do is knife some crate nearby (its better if you have to shoot it, even if its one bullet it creates some irrational fear that you will run out) But then snakes start jumping out of crates. Theres definitely something retarded about the game but i wouldnt call it a generic shooter.

 

[Multidirectional]

All you need to do about snakes is slash with knife second time immediately. And snakes drop eggs if I remember correctly. Fuck, you must've really sucked at that game.

Theres definitely something retarded about the game but i wouldnt call it a generic shooter.

It's a japanese game, you know? At least it's a genuinely fun one. Even QTEs are not enough to change that.

 

[Ash]

They drop ammo often but after a point tentacles come out of zombies when you headshot them and they need 2/3 times more ammo to kill.

The chances of a parasite bursting from a head are not influenced by headshots. They will burst forth even if you kill the enemy with shots to the chest. You're not punished for doing things right.

 

[Master]

All you need to do about snakes is slash with knife second time immediately. And snakes drop eggs if I remember correctly. Fuck, you must've really sucked at that game.

Okay but i didn use the knife. And chickens drop the eggs. Maybe snakes do too, cant remember (but i dont see how that would make sense for snake eggs to restore your health). Maybe i sucked at it, maybe the knife makes a difference, i dont know. But the survival element is there and you cant seriously deny it. What about the chainsaw dudes? They insta kill you and require a ton of ammo. They dont drop any themselves but drop gold instead(right?) and with that you cant buy ammo, only upgrade the guns. Thus the game forces you to become better at it, not to rely on being well stocked on ammo.

They drop ammo often but after a point tentacles come out of zombies when you headshot them and they need 2/3 times more ammo to kill.

The chances of a parasite bursting from a head are not influenced by headshots. They will burst forth even if you kill the enemy with shots to the chest. You're not punished for doing things right.

Hm maybe. But they dont drop ammo either only gold if i remember correctly.

 

[Multidirectional]

Okay but i didn use the knife. And chickens drop the eggs. Maybe snakes do too, cant remember (but i dont see how that would make sense for snake eggs to restore your health)

I know dude, it's really weird that they would put such a nonsensical thing in a game where everything else makes perfect sense. What the hell were they thinking??

 

[Master]

Mostly RE4 made sense except some minor things. So how does TWE fare in sensemaking department? Not that i care much. I may play it but i read its set in a village like RE4 yet i see some giant sewers that not even big cities have. Shit like that kills my immersion.

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

They drop ammo often but after a point tentacles come out of zombies when you headshot them and they need 2/3 times more ammo to kill. So even if you did everything right an encounter can still drain you.

That's what the flash grenades are for, they insta kill the head monsters, don't tell me that you just used them for free qte hits, or worse sold them. Not like that matters since you can one shot them with the sniper rifle.

Mostly RE4 made sense except some minor things. So how does TWE fare in sensemaking department?

Very little, however they attempt to justify it by revealing you got trapped a matrix/inception thing that doctor turned on in the beginning of the game. The bad guy get keeps warping you random locations, most of the time by making you fall into a pit, until you get back to the city.

 

[Multidirectional]

TWE is basically RE4 type game mixed with some Silent Hill ideas. Hence constantly changing environments that don't make any sense.

 

[Average Manatee]

There's actually precisely zero things that make sense in TEW. I counted. There are plotholes inside plotholes ontop of every character acting nonsensically.

Hm maybe. But they dont drop ammo either only gold if i remember correctly.

Gold which you use to make your weapons much stronger. The point is that if you aren't incapable of reading the game's tutorial (or just randomly pressing a few obvious buttons/keys) you'd know not to waste hundred of bullets opening barrels, leading to lots of left of ammo that you use to kill everything and get tons of money, snowballing you into stronger weapons that do all of the above better.

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

Also you every time you upgrade the capacity of your guns it also gives you a full free reload. Which I used to stretch my magnum ammo supply. Which I think TEW does this too.

 

[Multidirectional]

Also you every time you upgrade the capacity of your guns it also gives you a full free reload. Which I used to stretch my magnum ammo supply. Which I think TEW does this too..

Might be wrong but I thought it didn't do this. Dead Space games did this though.

 

[Average Manatee]

Also you every time you upgrade the capacity of your guns it also gives you a full free reload. Which I used to stretch my magnum ammo supply. Which I think TEW does this too..

Might be wrong but I thought it didn't do this. Dead Space games did this though.

It definitely does. It's one of the things that blatantly signal the fact that Dead Space and TEW are RE4-clones.

 

[Multidirectional]

Alright then, must've been thinking about some other game that didn't do this.

 

[Edward The Mediocre]

Just booted up The Evil Within, turns out when the free ammo when you increase magazine capacity doesn't happen in this game, but it does indirectly increase your total ammo cap. Anyway the issue with The Evil Within is not ammo is hard to come by, it's that you can't bring it with you because of your low ammo cap and the sheer amount of one-way points, so you can't backtrack to get that ammo you found.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

I had no idea this was releasing soon. Anyone been paying close attention to it? Does it look like shit? I enjoyed the first game as I do most Shinji Mikami titles but this one is apparently directed by some nobody so I'm not sure about it.

 

[Morgoth]

Does it look like shit?

 

[Morgoth]

 

[Average Manatee]

Ehh, open world and side missions sound horrible. Like the game is going the Dead Rising route of being a joke game with zombies.

Also fuck these shitty reviews that spend 10 minutes talking about graphics/sound/anything other than gameplay. We can see and hear the fucking game from the video, stop wasting our time.

 

[Ezekiel]

Ehh, open world and side missions sound horrible.

Yeah, that's disappointing. Seems no game is safe from the open world fad now.

 

[Machocruz]

I haven't played either of these games, but from what I've seen the first game has better atmosphere.
Can't say anything else because I don't know how the game plays, but something about stealth takedowns in a horror game seems antithetical and the stealth itself looks really low risk/trivial.

 

[flyingjohn]

Bethesda:We are gonna include Denuvo because we care strongly about anti piracy.
One hour later and a couple of denuvo cracks:
Bethesda:Fuck denuvo,here is your free game pirates.

And i am sick and tired of games with crafting and upgrade systems shoehorned into them.
No game,i don't care about 15 percent more chance for a critical shot.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I haven't played either of these games, but from what I've seen the first game has better atmosphere.
Can't say anything else because I don't know how the game plays, but something about stealth takedowns in a horror game seems antithetical and the stealth itself looks really low risk/trivial.

Stealth is supposed to be low risk. Trying fighting enemies openly in Thief 2.

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-10-12-evil-within-2-review

The Evil Within 2 review
Assassin's creep.

Resident Evil 4 meets the Truman Show in an entertaining but unremarkable follow-up, held back by tepid stealth and warmed-over scares.

By Edwin Evans-Thirlwell Published 13/10/2017 Version tested PlayStation 4

The scariest thing you'll hear in The Evil Within 2 isn't the sound of your very own daughter burning alive, or the paralysing roar of an alerted zombie, or even that witchy refrain through your PS4 controller's speaker as one, especially tenacious apparition shadows you from room to room. It is, in fact, a single dialogue line: "I'll mark its location on the map for you." Another throwback horror escapade from Shinji Mikami, albeit with DLC designer John Johanas in the director's chair, The Evil Within 2 takes cues not just from the legendary Resident Evil titles but also, rather terrifyingly, from open world tactical shooters.

Set in a collapsing, monster-plagued VR simulation of Union, a picturesque American town, the game's 15-20 hour plot includes extended tours of three generously proportioned urban maps - each packed full of crafting resources, upgrades, collectibles and backstory documents, and pegged down by safehouses where you can assemble weapons and ammo, save the game and accept optional missions from conveniently useless side characters. While roaming and foraging you'll call upon a chunky Communicator that lets you track objectives and tune into recordings of past events, in echo of Tom Clancy's The Division. You'll also contend with a greater emphasis on stealth and terrain tactics than in the previous game: there are now AI awareness indicators to help offset the higher risk of ambush, a glowing silhouette effect for when crouching in vegetation, and tacit "base" layouts where you might, for instance, use your trusty crossbow to lay tripmines between parallel crates, or throw bottles to create a distraction.

As in the original, Sebastian can access a sort of inner sanctuary via broken mirrors that resembles his old detective's office, there to upgrade stats like health recovery speed or aiming wobble with the aid of Tatania, a mysterious nurse.

These are ideas the likes of Ubisoft Montreal have long since bled dry, and initially, their presence here feels abominable - like asking the Babadook to wear a ghillie suit, or handing Freddy Krueger a sniper rifle. Factor in the omission of some of the original's weirder intricacies, such as burning corpses to stop them resurrecting, and it's hard to avoid the suspicion that The Evil Within 2 is an awkward cash-in - a forced reconciliation between Mikami's eccentric vision and a "safer", more callous species of action game. That sense of dismay never entirely dissipates in the course of the story - it doesn't help that the basic zombie/mutant AI is far too braindead to support this kind of open-ended tactical horseplay, peering at its surroundings with pantomime caution as you squat 10 metres away, aiming a flamethrower. But fortunately, the open world parallels only go so far.

For one thing, the ground-level maps are linked by a dozen or so nicely wrought corridor horror episodes - laboratories dotted with tactically advantageous cannisters of liquid nitrogen, for example, and velvet chambers hung with monochrome close-ups of body parts. As with the original, the scare tactics are all secondhand - think fiends gate-crashing your character's reflection, corridors mutating when not in view or doors that slam shut as you near - but there are some gorgeous motifs and scenarios that betray Tango's appreciation for peers in horror at large. In one cavernous hall, opulent red drapes recall the Red Room of Twin Peaks, shifting like jellyfish tendrils as you pass. There's a stairwell haunted by the swing of a massive pendulum, and a bungalow that slowly morphs into something rather less homely as you search for an exit. The game is stronger on this count towards the beginning, both because you're less capable and because later sections opt for drearily industrial and/or Gothic aesthetics, but Tango's atmospheric range is impressive. I was seldom scared by what lurked around each corner, but I was always eager to lay eyes on it.

There are a couple of escort missions, but you'll spend most of the adventure alone with your demons.

The exterior areas, meanwhile, aren't quite the mounds of filler content they may resemble. At The Evil Within 2's most insidious, it uses the association with busywork-driven open worlders to lull your suspicions, building complacency ahead of a traumatic encounter. You'll stop to investigate a garage en-route to a safehouse, expecting nothing more dramatic than a few chunks of pipe to fashion harpoons with, only to find yourself mysteriously locked in. Then the screen assumes a blue tint, and something starts to bang on the door. Most buildings harbour a surprise or two, even if it's just a regular zombie waiting to crawl out from beneath a car, and if trundling around in a crouch to avoid attention grows tiresome, there are, thank the gods, no fetchquests.

As with the new world structure, the story leaves a bit of a sour taste. It's another tale of Sad Dads vs Mad Lads & Hags, with Sebastian entering the Union simulation in search of his daughter Lily, stolen away years before to serve as the core of a neural networking experiment that has taken a turn for the diabolical. Much of the drama consists of helping Sebastian face down manifestations of his fatherly guilt and grief - the thrust of many a psychological horror game from the original Silent Hill to this year's Outlast 2, and not explored with much wit or swagger here.

Though well-performed and deftly written, the characters are cut from tired-out archetypes. Lily is that special flavour of bright-eyed innocence that has you fumbling for a crucifix. There's an all-action soldier girl who exists to remind you that girls can be Tough Guys too, some scientifically unsound meditations on the habits of psychopaths, and a foppish serial killer who says things like "flesh is the ultimate canvas". The game might have gotten away with all this nonsense if it were more self-aware, a la Bruce Campbell's performance in The Evil Dead, and the writing does occasionally border on parody. "There's a lock on this door," Sebastian muses at one point. "It looks like if I had a key I could open it." Later, on discovering the key: "Where there's a key there's a lock. Wonder where it could be?"

This is also yet another horror game that likes to make a spectacle of the butchered female form, though it has a go at interrogating itself in certain lore documents.

If he's a mopey leading man, Sebastian scrubs up well enough in a fight - no thanks to a clumsy new lock-to-cover mechanic (annoyingly mapped to R1 by default) that is extremely choosy about which surfaces you can hide behind, occasionally teleporting you through objects in a fit of pique. You're slower to move and turn than in most contemporary third-person games but dealing with this is, of course, part of the thrill, and if your adversaries make for wonky stealth fodder, they're slippery skirmishers, lurching and wobbling theatrically as they approach to throw off your aim.

Resident Evil 4's greatest contribution may yet prove transforming the zombie from a shuffling, bovine bullet-sponge into a kind of improv circus tumbler - stressfully hard to read, even in the throes of death. The Evil Within 2 lives up to that tradition, though I think Resident Evil 5's mutating infested have the edge. Sturdier threats include a giggling juggernaut that squidges itself together from scattered hunks of flesh, and a boss that is, in fact, a nicely reimagined compilation of bossfights from the original game. There's also a balding girl in a night-dress who - well, let's just say you should think twice about stabbing her in the back of the head.

The original Evil Within was hailed as a sort of alternate-history exercise, a game from a timeline in which Shinji Mikami carried on working with Resident Evil after shipping the revolutionary fourth instalment, released when Resident Evil itself was deemed to be at low ebb. Though far from a deranged new breed of monster it was an intriguing mutation, blurring Resi 4's pace and direction with the cerebral menace of a Silent Hill. The sequel is another curious outgrowth, but its changes and additions often feel more wayward than fascinating, and in key respects - the story, certain levels, those niggles in stealth and combat - it falls rather flat. Still, there are thrills and chills enough here to sate most patrons of the bloody arts. Whether a third game is warranted at this point is another matter.