The Evil Within II Hands-On: Scared Silly
The original The Evil Within, when it came out a while back, managed to introduce a new direction [...]
Upgrading And Getting Around
The Evil Within 2 makes improvements over the original, first starting with the game's world design. It's more open world this time around, though your mission objectives are still fairly easy to see, whether you're walking along on the map or using a communicator to track down a signal in distress (the cries of your daughter, possibly). But there's also a little more room to improvise here.
For instance, there's a situation where you can attack a bunch of creatures that are standing in public, or you can take the sneaky away around and quietly pick them off one by one, so as not to draw attention to yourself. Obviously, sneaking is the quality play here, but you can go however you choose. Just remember that you're not exactly carrying a machine gun here. You've only got a handful of bullets at a time, and your melee weapon is dependable, but not entirely a means of survival (although picking up an axe doesn't hurt, we'll tell you what).
The game's combat has improved quite a bit as well. The controls feel a little more balanced this time around, though you'll still be battling for survival in some cases, especially when you become immediately surrounded, or jumped upon by weird dog-like humans that come at you in rabid fashion. Fortunately, things are responsive enough that, at the very least, you can regroup and try to get off those precious headshots to end the threat. You could try running, but your stamina can only go so far before you gasp for air and have to eventually face your fears. (That may be the point of the game, after all.)
Luckily, there are more than enough items to help out. Along with ammunition and occasional weaponry, you can also build your own via crafting tables, though you'll need to pick up a few ingredients along the way to effectively put them together. You can also store herbs and medical syringes to give yourself a boost if needed, and collect some rather weird green goo from the enemies you kill. It may look useless at first, but when you come upon upgrade stations, you can actually soup up your character in certain ways as trade-off. It's a neat system, and actually motivates you to kill more enemies than you normally thought you would.
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The Evil Within 2 is available to pre-order now (Amazon Prime members can save 20%), with a release date slated for October 13th, 2017.
prevnextThis Evil's Looking Good
I got through a pretty good portion of the demo, and was surprised how much better the game looks over the first Evil Within. The environments are really well done, between the open world design and the dark, moody design of some of the interiors. For instance, there's one house you come across where you see some warped mother force feed her large child with a bunch of food, only to charge at you with weird feelers coming out of her face. Between the haunting design of the house (with flies all around, mind you) and the strange creature design, this game has "Mikami classic horror vibe" written all over it.
The dialogue's okay as well. The voice acting is far more serious than you'd find in a Resident Evil game, but it's still pretty leveled when it comes to its characterization. For instance, one character you come across threatens to kill you at first, but then shows his nervous side and admits he's nothing more than a tech – though that doesn't make him completely useless. And he's certainly a lot more reliable than the priest you come across, who stops at nothing to exude a demon from his body – and then transforms anyway as others come crashing into the building. Dang it.
The Evil Within 2 has a great deal of promise over the first game, thanks to a more open-ended design, better combat and some other great ingredients that bring it all together. It's sure to be another classic Mikami hair-raising experience when it arrives for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on October 13th. Hit the lights before you hit the start button, though. So much better.
Disclaimer: Bethesda did provide accommodations to QuakeCon for this hands-on.
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