The Evil Within – Modern Horror Fails To Scare

Pixel Gate writes:

''The Evil Within has described by a number of sites as ‘terrifying’. A game that shakes the player to the core with fear, a true horror title…yet from what I’ve played it’s not even slightly unnerving. If there’s one thing The Evil Within does well, it’s represent the state of modern horror. ‘LOOK AT THIS, IT’S VILE!!’ seems be the games theme. Gore, gore and more gore. Gore is not scary, sure it’s a little jarring at first, but it’s never scary. The Evil Within leans onto gore far too much, and the horror is lost in a shade of pink mist.''

[Sneakybudda]

Yeah its not scary its just fun. Like soft little kittens meoww.

[DivoJones]

Horror seems to have been redefined to mean 'gore'. Many of the new horror games are just trying to out-gore their competition.. Soon they'll probably be calling Mortal Kombat horror. To me the term should mean fear, creating anxiety and distress for the player.. Outlast, Alien: Isolation come to mind.

[mandf]

. The game for me has some very tense and scary moments. From chapter 6 on it's scary and has gore. It also stops being like resident evil 4 after chapter 6. I beat the game 3 times.

[redraider2011]

The main reason it's not scary, among others of course, is because of the stupid checkpoint system. Death means nothing in this game because you can always try again from the last checkpoint which are quite often. Alien: Isolation makes you find save points and if you die it could mean a huge setback. For a game like 'The Evil Within' that's supposed to be focused on death, it sure does a good job of taking it out of the picture for the player.

[IGiveHugs2NakedWomen]

There are several other reasons why The Evil Within isn't scary;

The way Castellanos sprints. It's like he has shoes with springs in them.

Too many weapons

Too much ammo

Upgrades are pretty useless and pointless

The traps are easily seen. They should have used actual traps like pitfalls, collapsing walls, quicksand, ect, ect, ect.

Don't get me wrong, I think the game is a solid 8, but it isn't a survival horror game. It's a psychological action game with zombies, demons, and buckets of blood and guts. That isn't scary at all.

[svoulis]

I am kind of over these articles about how this game fails to deliver blah blah blah.

I have had far more tense moments in this game than I have in many other games in this genre over the past few years. The ammo being scarce and the enemies being formidable make you tense.

In my personal opinion the correct term for survival horror is pretty simple.

"Have horrific elements and gore, but give the players the feeling of constriction as they try and survive each scenario. Limiting ammo and health on top of slower moving when hurt, with good/smart AI is survival horror to me."

The reason people don't get as scared anymore is they are simply desensitized by the genre. I have played these games since Resident Evil and Clock Tower before that and I enjoyed this game.

Just my opinion though.

[Odoylerules000]

But... what if I want people to know how edgy and jaded I am? I want people to know that no game scares me... What better way to do that than become a glorified blogger er.. I mean game journalist and tell everybody how unscared I am? Sorry, svoulis, I just can't understand your point of view.

[svoulis]

Bubble + for Funny :D

[IGiveHugs2NakedWomen]

Outlast is scary

PT is scary

The Clickers, Runners, and Stalkers from the Last Of Us are scary

The Evil Within reminds me of a "return of the living dead" movie. Not scary at all.

[PixelGateUk]

So you complained about a opinion with your own opinion. Thanks

[svoulis]

So you're telling me that people don't formulate their own opinions against others opinions on this site?

Hi, you must be new here..

Welcome to N4G.

[The_Devil_Hunter]

Well said, the only games that have made me feel so tense and pushed to the edge were The Evil Within and The Last of Us. I have never felt that before I played the Last of Us and thought I would never get that feeling again, thank god I was wrong and got that same tense feeling after playing The Evil Within. Just to be clear I have played other games like RE4 and RE1, Outlast that didnt really give me that feeling.

Off Topic: PT is on a whole different topic, that game was just pure horror and I loved it, I just hope that Kojima is able to implement the same horror elements from the teaser to a third person perspective. I have always been more fond of TPS than FPS.

[PixelGateUk]

i did not say that. You chose to come onto our post to whine, we chose to whine about your 'I'm so over these' posts...so over them you keep coming onto them. Just confused by your logic is all lad

[andrew171994]

it wasnt even scary, cause you your juggin everywhere it made it feel like you can just run through the whole game n not kill anything but the bosses. They should have slowed everything down to anticipate the next enemy. You dont even need to hide unless your just fuckin the a zombie. But i have to admit playing the mansion level was my favorite part

[ShowGun901]

really sick of all these complaining articles, lets get something new around here... nothings good enough for some people...

[PixelGateUk]

Then don't read them, no one forced you too, nor did we mislead with the title? I don't like cheese, but I don't whine about all the cheese on sale

[ShowGun901]

nah, its just the crying mentality the last few months. it seems people think its the only way to get hits, havent seen a positive article on here in a while (or its so outnumbered it cant make the front page at least!)

so, i guess nobody here gets sick of all the crying, complaining and entitlement? just me?

[Odoylerules000]

If you don't like people criticizing your story, don't read the posts. See how your logic works? GTFO.

[jc48573]

From what I read, it creates a sense of fear through atmosphere like past Silent Hill games did.

[Morgue]

Don't really care if there was no scare factor, I liked the game. It's a 10 for me.