The Evil Within - How Mikami Got it Right

Some time ago when Resident Evil's original creator, Shinji Mikami said he was going to take survival horror back to its roots we were hopeful, but kind of felt like "whoa it will be a lot of time until that happens". Well, that "far away" day finally arrived and it turned out really well. The Evil Within has a perfect mix of different game play mechanics and details that make the game to be the return of the old school survival horror we had been waiting for.

First of all, be aware that if there ever were a golden rule for survival horror games that rule would be:

A survival horror game must never be perfect. 

This is because if a game claims to be a survival horror title it must have its share of intentional "defects" so it gives the correct atmosphere or else it will feel too clean and sanitized. The Evil Within has a lot of those "defects" as effects like a grainy image, awkward camera angles, controls that seem to break at some times and even non nonsensical happenings that seem to be glitches at first just to realize a few moments later that it was part of the scene itself. These are the kind of game play elements that made legendary horror games like the old school Resident Evil games or the Silent Hill series and fortunately for us, The Evil Within follows this to the letter.

Will that lump in the end stand up or not? That is the question...

Another aspect in which the vision behind the game was right on the money is the fact that it mixes various type of situations into a horror environment that feels solid. You can find yourself ambushed, racing against the clock, running from an enemy who can kill you with just one hit or just find the occasional enemy while exploring the place, avoiding traps and solving puzzles. You see, this is the kind of environment that comes from the result of good game design. Instead of coming up with a bland "shoot your way through" approach, the people behind this game gave us a game world that is balanced between linearity and dynamic game play. Yes, the game moves through the story line in linear fashion, but the way to survival is entirely up to you by choosing how to explore, engage the enemy and develop your character.

This picture makes it look complex, but it is not.

Speaking of character development, this gaming element as used in survival horror games has become a modern trend that has enhanced the overall experience and The Evil Within implements this very well. As a hardcore survival horror fan you may be thinking that strengthening your character will make the game easy and dull, but that is not the case if such system is made in a balanced way. For example, in this game you can make your character to be stronger in some aspects, but the points required to do it are scarce, so you will never be able to create an invincible warrior. Instead, you will have to carefully upgrade the things you use the most in order to create your own style of playing, like upgrading weapons if you want to use more firepower or enhancing your abilities and item stock if you feel like clever and risky tactics are your thing.

The past design look a little more chaotic, but it felt a lot more real.

The only element in this game that may leave some hardcore horror fans wishing it were different is the game flow. The Evil Within flows in chapters like many other modern horror games and this may be seen as an artificial approach to the exploration aspect of the game. Sure, the chapters are long and the maps are diverse and well designed, but some of us may still be missing the backtracking that characterized the survival horror games of old. An example of this been Mikami's own creation, the old Resident Evil series. Anybody who played those games can remember how one could basically go from the last parts of the game all the way to be beginning without any intermissions or at least been able to roam around the whole place before some turn of events made the place to be destroyed or forced you to escape. The lack of this whole backtracking element is not a deal breaker here, but it poses as a nice thing to have in Mikami's next game.

Puzzles are pretty straight forward in this game, but some are just awesome.

Wrapping it up:
In summary, The Evil Within mixes the best of the old and new to create an excellent survival horror game that lives up to the hype and to all the faith that survival horror fans have on Resident Evil's original creator. The team behind the game did a hell of a job and judging by the nice reception that the game had with the gaming community, it is to be expected to see a lot more from what that came from. If you are a survival horror fan this is a must buy and even if you are not, just give it a chance, you will not be dissapointed.

After Playing or Seen PT... What Can be Expected of Silent Hills?

If you have been keeping up with the newest blog entries, you know that 3 days after the Survival Horror Awakens, but Still No Silent Hill article, Sony and Kojima had this brilliant idea of using a viral technique to tell us that there is going to be a new Silent Hill game which is now called Silent Hills. That piece of news has generated a lot of hype between both the long time fans and curious gamers who haven't seen much about this horror franchise, which is very cool thing considering the lack of love that the series had been suffering since Silent Hill: Homecoming.

Now knowing that PT was a sort of a viral teaser for the new Silent Hill game, we got to see first hand how powerful the fox engine is. The setting of the PT game is on a small segment of a house and it looks astonishingly real also supported by a really good assortment of sound effects that were successful in giving the creeps to everybody who experienced it. Overall, the teaser was excellent, but all the questions are now directed at the final product. How will Silent Hills be?

Any fan of the franchise itches at the thought of exploring the entire city.

Will it be an exclusive?

The possibilities of this title becoming a PS4 definitive exclusive are very slim, even though it was first showcased on PS4. The reasons why a definite exclusivity deal seems unlikely is that the franchise is trying to get back on its feet again and in order to do so it needs to be available to as many gamers as possible. On the other hand we have stuff like the game's profile on IGN where it shows that Sony is one of the publishers along with Konami. So if this publisher thing is true, it means that some sort of exclusivity is on the way even if it is only for a limited time. Sony recently said that they were not interested in "buying" exclusives, but if they are indeed one of the publishers we may be seen something like the thing Nintendo did with Bayonetta 2. Now been things as they are right now, the safest bet on this aspect of the game is to think of it as a timed exclusive.

The power of the fox engine at work.

Graphics vs Content

A great deal of speculation has been going off regarding how this game will be, but nobody has a clear idea. There have been a lot of fan theories that try to predict how the story of the game will go, but have you ever asked yourself how will the game be displayed to you? The Fox engine did a hell of a job, grafically showcasing the interiors of a section of the house, but will it hold up to an entire town? Will this force developers to divide the game in chunks in order to maintain the visual quality? To have at least some kind of answer to these questions be aware that the final product will most likely be different than the teaser. If we take it from a business perspective we can tell that if they feature Norman Reedus in the game, it wouldn't be for him to stay hidden under a first person point of view for 90% of the game as that would be kind of a dumb thing to do if they want him to be part of the marketing efforts for the game.

So this points to the game been in a third person perspective with some first person parts that will play like PT and will serve to give the player some insights about the story of the game. Hopefully the beautiful graphic style presented in PT will not be affected.

My experience of the game was so unique, I didn't even saw this guy.

The "s" in Hills

It is a fact that people that played the PT game are still looking for a definite and logical way to finish it. Up until now there are still a lot of discussions about how to beat the teaser and it seems like everybody is having a different experience. This, coupled with the "s" in "Hills", give the impression that the "everybody has his own experience" thing will also be true on the final product. Maybe this time we wont be taking a personality test before the game starts, but have other things that will lead us to all sorts of variations that will make each experience to be unique. This can be done by changing the game through the player's decisions and/or making it a free roaming experience by featuring multiple paths and mixing those paths with various choices for puzzle solving and character interactions that serve as forks in the road (explicit and implicit) up to a point that they may even change the main objective of the game somehow. All this of course will lead to the classic multiple ending feature that many Silent Hill games have had in the past.

This Silent Hill 2 scene is still an ongoing topic within fans.

Philosophy and Psychology

Almost all of the Silent Hill games have deep psychological and philosophical roots. There is a lot of stuff to analyze and fans have been making theories ever since the first game was released and this is especially true with the second game in the series which seems to be the richest on this sort of thing. Now with Silent Hills we may have a lot of new material to twist our minds into. Evidence of this comes in the discussions that have started on the net, with fans already making all sorts of theories based on the PT game. Some fans have tried to predict the setting and time in which the game will be set on, the appearance of classic antagonists like Pyramid Head and they have also been talking about their ideas about how the story will be. The curious thing about it is that the fan theory mill is getting bigger and bigger and we don't even have the game yet. If you want to read some of these theories check out this Reddit thread and see for yourself.

Been grabbed by surprise and finding this thing face to face, its no wonder there were so many screaming videos.

Wrapping it up

Silent Hills doesn't look like a reboot to the series, but some sort of side story focused on bringing an unique experience to everybody. The powers of the cursed town called Silent Hill can move to pretty much everywhere as evidenced on Silent Hill 4, so we can have an terrifying and macabre experience in any place near it as long as the main character has some sort of relation to its messed up history. It all looks good up to this point and expectations are high, so let's just wait and see what Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro have in store for us.

Alien Isolation: Can it become a fundamental part of the survival horror revival?

We have already had some buzz, seen some game play and even know about the featured 15 hours of game play on the anticipated Aliens game that goes deeper into survival horror than any of its previous titles that range from platformer/shooters to beat them ups and action oriented first person shooters. Many gamers see this title with a lot of optimism, but some if us still have the same question. Can Sega impress us so much with this game that it will make the gaming community forget about Colonial Marines and at the same time turn their heads back to the survival horror genre? The hypothetical answer to that question is yes, because the Alien franchise itself is based on horror, which seems very straight forward in what they are promising with this game, but the only way to pass this test with flying colors is to basically make it an experience worth of the "survival horror" title while giving some fan-service at the same time which is easier said than done. Today, we are going to look into some aspects that could make Alien: Isolation be one of the games that will revive the survival horror genre on this generation, so let's begin:

Now this brings a lot of memories from the movies.

Diverse and complex level design

One of the things that make a horror game to excel is its level design. Up until now, what we have seen about Isolation looks gorgeous with a very detailed and dark sci-fi environment that ranges from eerie to claustrophobic. It is all looking real good, but it won't be of much help if the navigation through this nightmarish world is composed of smoke and mirrors with bland simple corridors and rooms (which kind of works for some environments, but not the one featured on this game). This is a space station we are talking about, so we need it to be complex as it was built by complex scientific minds. A good example of this would be the map design featured in games like Metroid Prime. It is obvious that we don't need it to be as complicated as Metroid, but Sega could take some tips off the good design practices made in those games.

A computer, a magazine and a log book...Can they be read?

Good use of game lore and plot devices

Once again the setting of the game dictates what it is needed. As a promised "survival horror" title, the game needs to have some lore in it. Be it in the way of logs, video footage or even holograms or dying characters (if they want to get a little morbid), these kinds of things have been adding up to the survival horror experience since the days of the first Resident Evil with the "Itchy... Tasty..." diary that everyone read back in the day. The trick with lore and plot devices is to avoid making them in a generic way. For a moment there, we must feel and imagine what was happening to the people involved, like the "Itchy...Tasty..." Resident Evil example that was previously mentioned. With that one we actually visualized was was happening with the person that wrote that diary as he was little by little turning into a zombie without even noticing, that kind of impact is what they should aim for.

This cutting mechanic seems to be becoming popular.

An imaginative use of puzzles

It is obvious that given the setting of the game, we won't see any esoteric or surreal puzzles involving switches on paintings or moving statues, but the sci-fi environment featured in this game serves as a good place for some technological/machinery or even normal appliance puzzles. It is expected to see a lot of buttons and levers in this game, but it would be best if they don't just consist of pressing the interact button a couple times or collecting x number of key cards. If the setting of the game is to be a futuristic technological place, then all sorts of devices could be used for various purposes, be it on a residential area, storage room, entertainment center or anything that the space station can offer. This will spice up the players exploration through the place and make them think for a while, looking for a way to solve the problem in order to keep advancing.

For instance, let's say that a Xenomorph trashed some big pipes that are now blocking your way. You then remember that there was a service robot in some previously visited area that could easily move those pipes away and you also remember that the password needed in order to activate it was cleverly put in an ambigous way in one of the documents (game lore) you read. Then you go figure out the password, activate the robot and use it to clear your way, there you go puzzle solved!

I know some people that will end up like hot dogs on a barbecue afternoon, instead of just solving the problem.

Extra hazards throughout the game that don't involve Xenomorphs

This is classic stuff from sci-fi movies, but it has also been present in various survival horror games like Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, Fatal Frame just to name a few. These are accidents or situations that can easily kill you and on a space station all sorts of things could serve for that purpose. When we think of hazards in the case of this game, we think about things like fire, been thrown in to the vacuum of space, lack of oxygen, security systems gone wrong, etc. The ideal way to go about this game play aspect is to avoid going the lazy way with mood killing "quick time events" and let the player save themselves instead of relying on some button combination. Of course it has to be a fair deal, but at the same time it must be challenging enough to demand some quick thinking.

Do I see a low gravity environment there? Can't imagine a Xenomorph just floating by.

Don't divide the game in stages

Dividing a survival horror game in pseudo-stages is something that can be associated with lazy game design in the same way than the "bland corridors and rooms" thing. The best thing to do is to keep the exploration mood going throughout all the game without suddenly pausing the game just to say that the player got to the end of an area. Doing so just ruins the mood and gives an artificial sense of safety that just takes away the "survival" in survival horror. Let the players decide where to go at any given time, let them backtrack, sidetrack and explore at their leisure as they little by little succeed in unlocking new parts in the game. There is this certain feeling of accomplishment when you revisit a place while looking for something and you catch a glimpse of the remnants of your previous visit (dead enemies, opened pathways, solved puzzles, etc).

Will she survive? That's up to us...

Wrapping it up

A wave of next-gen survival horror games is getting near and Alien: Isolation can be a very important part of it. Sega just needs to learn from theirs and other developer's mistakes and capitalize on the horror that comes as a given in the Alien franchise. Many of the things discussed on this article are things that have been missing from survival horror games for too long and need to come back in order to bring the genre back into full strength while making it evolve at the same, spelling success not only with the old hardcore survival horror crowd, but also with the newer generations. Alien: Isolation already shows that it has what it takes, but that can only be truly seen when we actually play it and not just on videos and pictures. Let's just hope that we have a masterpiece in our hands people, the genre needs it.

Bonus Stage

Here is some video footage of the game, taken by IGN on the days of the E3 event.

Alien: Isolation Game play - E3 2014 (IGN)