A serious discussion of why EW2 is bad (also long like hell)

[cheshire.panther]

My oh my there is so much wrong with this game.

I know this review will frustrate and offend some people, so let's start with a disclaimer: you may like this game.
It's perfectly fine. Sometimes people love bad games. I can even say that the fist Evil Within might be arguably bad game that I really liked.
I would not mind people highlighting the flaws in EW1, because, boy, did this game have a lot of them.

I don't see much of the same critique of the EW2.
So before you would start downvoting this review without even reading it, let me note that the goal of this review is not to criticize whether you should like EW2 or not, but to highlight all of the stuff that is wrong with it.

Disclaimer 2: there was always a certain trend of common opinion about games, a certain consensus of what is good or what is bad driven by a game journalism and media.
For example EW2 is considered as a good game, while, say, Dead Space 3 was considered as a bad game. Why do I think there is a trend and it is relevant?
Because, honestly, EW2 and DS3 have almost identical set of gameplay problems and narrative issues.

It is very difficult to go against this kind of trends. It's very difficult to say, that, let's say RE6 was good or RE7 was bad because pretty much everyone arround you saying exactly the opposite and fueling this self-sustaing loop of self-conviction and conformity.

I don't mind going against common consensus, because, frankly, I don't really care what other people think and Bethesda is not paying me.

===============
This review assume that you played the first game and liked it, or at least tolerated it.

Q: I did not play the first game and I don't care, second one is good.
A: It is incredibly tricky situation. The big problem about EW2 is that it is not a standalone game. It's not even a reboot like RE7 was. A lot of stuff in EW2 or gameplay elements will make you scratch your head if you did not play the first one. The whole cast of characters and their motivations would make no sense to you if you did not play original.

1. Introduction

Let me repeat that EW1 was not a perfect game. It was incredibly difficult and frustrating and suffered from a huge pacing issues. However if it could not be the only thing, than it was not DULL.
Secondary, the game was made by a Shinji Mikami, a guy who designed almost all clasic Resident Evils (RE1, RE2, RE4). While he is listed as a producer and supervisor of EW2, I think he was about as much of a supervisor as Hideo Kojima was a supervisor for Castlevania. I.e. not related to game at all.

This fact is important because EW1 was a game made in a genre that the creator of the game established in a first place. EW1 is not just a Survivor Horror, it's Mikami Survival Horror.
Imagine watching George Romero movie and discovering it's a documentary war drama. Or magine playing Silent Hill 3 and discovering it is a flight simulator. This is a kind of thinks you usually don't do and for a reason, continuity of the genre is really important.

So we have a flaved game with a lot of good ideas. All what Studio Tango should've done is to take it and to fix the problems and iterate on them. So basically do what RE2 did to RE1. Fix what is broken, keep what is working.

What a♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥it turned into.

2. Story and setting.

How did it happened? EW2 is directed by John Johanas, the guy who directed EW1 Kidman DLC. It was not perfect, not quite EW1, but an interesting and refreshing derivation from the original. I was not happy of him being director of the sequel, but I hoped that at least he can immitate the style of Mikami. I can imagine him sitting at night full of hatred to the original work. "I will make the thing that will mock and humilate your work, Shinji, that will destroy the very spirit of it, and, worst, people will *love* it".

What is a first word that comes to your mind when you think of EW1? *Nightmare*

The world of EW1 is essentially the collective uncontiosness of different people merged in a single reality that is slowly transforming into a horror world.
We don't know what is happening in the game. For the 75% of the story we don't even suspect that the world around us is not even /real/.

This is a nightmare that does not have rules and structure, that is formed and shaped in a dreamscape panorama by deep fears and desires of game characters. Why do we stuck in land of decaying villages and abandoned mansions? Because this was a kind of chilhood Kidman had. Why there are pieces of almost mundane clarity where everything looks normal and stable? Becasue this is the kind of reality Sebastian and Leslie would expect. Why everything is getting corrupted and destroyed? Because the main antoganist is an incredibly psychotic and unstable person.

The is nothing like this in EW2.

What is a first word you would use to discribe EW2? "A videogame". Or "a virtual reality".
I think the only biggest crime EW1 did is to introdeuce the concept of STEM. Maybe they though the story would be too confusing for people, so they did give some explanation that there is a machine that link minds together. EW2 is all about trying to explain how STEM works and establish it rules.

The nightmare turned into a huge hollow predictable open world, where monsters respawn in animated cuscenes and game points exactly where and when it happens.
Every item is glowing, no GLOWING so you wont miss it. Every active zone is highlighted or marked with icon. The game constantly breaks the immersion with cutscenes or intermissions, the first enemy in this game is not even _introduced_, it's just "Hey, look, there are zombies, go hit them with knife or something".

(I found it peculiar that the story, in a nutshell, is a tale of soulles burecrats lackign any imagination who turned the world of endless possibilities and incredible depths into a hollow formalistic husk that falls apart around the seams, which, is, if you think about it a bit, ironically what happened to the game itself.

I don't know if it is a clever shoutout of the game aware of this meta nature, or just a random act of divine serendipity.)

-

3. Design and writing

The problem with setting is hugely reinforced by a design.
EW1 was released in 2014. EW2 three years later. You would never guess by the game graphics, EW2 looks at least five years older than the original.

Every single location in EW1 was very detailed, unique and beautifully crafted. EW2, now facing the challenges of the open world, replaced it with a bunch of empty tunnels and boxes connected together.

Evil Within 1 monsters were unusual and interesting. The first zombie you met are glitchy and corrupted humans with missing limbs and barberd wire coils growing from their faces.
Ewil Within 2 mosters are zombies with glowing eyes. Just zombies.

The boss designs of EW2 are either lazy or just a copy from the other games. Laura in EW1 was a Grade A nightmare fuel. EW2 replaced here with a ghost lady that just sings and floats, because, ghosts are apparently shpooky. Camera lady is a weak copy of Warden.

Characters have no story or motivation or any depth around it.

Existing characters were turned into completely opposite versions of themself. Sebastian is now a whiny ♥♥♥♥♥. Kidman is not a naive Jill Valentine-style newcomer, but an edgy teen listenign to the nightcore. (Also she seems never washing her head or sleeping in the last 3 month).

New characters are so generic that I don't even remember their names and roles. They are either shown for 2 seconds in some cutscene as a plot device to completely disappear for the rest of the game, or just keep annoying you as an NPC in a safe zone. (But they don't have anything interesting to say or give you).

Their dialogs are also very badly written. Speaking of dialogs, I found the game to be very badly written. It's not even bad videogame level of writing, it's Twilight or anime fanfiction level of writing. The writing is full of cliches. Characters do not speek like a human beings. They don't have human personality or motivation. You, technically speacking, don't even have a single living human in this game. Instead you have Concerned Mother, Covardly Medic or Tough Lady (x2) who are trying to Heroically Sacrifice themself of Tragically Die.

The game breaks the rule "Show, don't tell" every single second. Why do we know that Myra or Sebastian worries about Lily? Because the game never shuts up about it. Every single dialog is either about Lili missing or how guilty everyone are or how they want to save her. Mind you, no character evern ACTS or display any EMOTION of a concern, they just SAY it. Hell, _Lily is not even really shown or say a single word_ in this game.

The villain of EW1 was replaced with two lesser vilians. You would think that the game about serial killer a villain would be interesting? Well, sucks to be you, because the serial killer villain would be killed in a first quarter of the game. I'm not even consider it as a spoiler, given how lazy half♥♥♥♥♥♥♥dissapinting pretence of a plot twist this is.
Instead we are given another character who is also very EVIL. Why is he evil? I guess you can figure out, it's because game NPC keep mention this all the time, just in case, because the actual character does not have any development or significant role in the game at all.

The end game scenes were so boring it was a literal phisical pain to listen to them. You could not even alt-tab from them because the game will pause, to the only remedy for me was to open steam overlay and browse reddit. I find it very sad, because I genuinly enjoyed the story and characters of the EW1.

4. General problems.

So here is a general motive in the game. Game does not know what and why it is doing.
You have a assault rifle in this game. Why? Because fisrt game had it. Who cares that the first game was about *twice* as big and second half contained a non-stop combat. In EW2 you don't even have the ammo for the assault rifle. You have upgrade path for it, but in my game I never really used it.

Why this game have a broken mirrors that act as a save points in the same room that has *ANOTHER* save point? There is literally no gameplay or thematic reason to do this, it's just the same stuff that was in the first game.

Why Myra's boss have no eyes? No one knows. Who is a ghost lady? No one knows, we just need a monster. Why Mobius scientists perform scientific and biological experimetns in a world that technically have no *physical laws*? Why did Mobius decided to build the world of "absolute freedom where are no wars or pain" if in EW2 lore it is just a virtual simulation with exactly the same people having the same psychology? How exactly you can program a phusical reality in someone's imagination?

The game doesn't even try to answer this or pretend it's trying.

I have not found this whole openworld gameplay so interesting or compelling. Mostly because it was never fully developed or utilized. You could achieve the same gameplay with a hand-crafted locations minus the abysmal level design.
The setting is much less of the EW1 and more of a Sileng Hill 1/2-style (to the point of some bosses like Flamethrower Guy being almost a carbon copy of SH2 bosses in terms of combat and design), but it does not have nearly a yota of the SH2 atmosphere and mystery with all this dead seriousness and Call of Duty'ish NPCs.
There are some MGS-style open world stealth sections, but if I want a modern combat stealth I would rather play metal gear than EW2.

The game is basically a mess of the half-finished and not really working ideas mixed together in hopes they would work. I wish they would be eithere cut or game would develop them more, but then, on the other hand, EW2 would be twice as longer, lord save us all from this.

[JocularJosh]

Oprindeligt skrevet af cheshire.panther:

@The Metal, discussion is when you are providing arguments and listening to feedback.
That's what I did and I found feedback really interesting so far.

Your response? "Hurr durr you arh stupid".
Riiiight.

He didn't even call you stupid once.

[Dumar]

Oprindeligt skrevet af The Metal:

Let's have a serious discussion about something you already made up my mind about?

Honestly you write tons of text, to proof your point, but you don't leave any room for any doubt. So why even start a discussion? You leave everyone with a heavily subjective speach, that you treat as a manifest.

You do not like the game for your own reasons and want a discussion. But in the same moment you try to make your opinion the only right one. That is hardly the case, nor a proper way to start a discussion.

The point of a game is to entertain and that, in my humble opinion, is given by TEW 2. Games, as well as movies or music do not have the main point of being factual, in all possible ways of reasoning consistent or perfect. If that was the case, nobody would have played any RPG, nobody would have watched a horror movie nor would anybody listen to Punk.

For whatever reason you felt urged to write a wall of text about something you do not appreciate riddles me more than what you are actually saying.

^ well-said. Lol

[Lt.Col. Anon Xer0]

Oprindeligt skrevet af cheshire.panther:

@The Metal, discussion is when you are providing arguments and listening to feedback.
That's what I did and I found feedback really interesting so far.

Your response? "Hurr durr you arh stupid".
Riiiight.

To be fair, he said nothing of the sort that comprises "Hurr durr you arh stupid."

[cheshire.panther]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Lt.Col. Anon XerØ:

To be fair, he said nothing of the sort that comprises "Hurr durr you arh stupid."

This was metaphorical reference to a quality of arguments that are essentially ad homineum, the length of review and the fact that it's fine to have bad games.

[Lt.Col. Anon Xer0]

Oprindeligt skrevet af cheshire.panther:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Lt.Col. Anon XerØ:

To be fair, he said nothing of the sort that comprises "Hurr durr you arh stupid."

This was metaphorical reference to a quality of arguments that are essentially ad homineum, the length of review and the fact that it's fine to have bad games.

This was a, "It's fine if I ad hom."

[byteme]

cheshire.panther
These are not facts, but sophistry. I'm sorry.

[HAPPY]

long and boring is your comment... 2/10

[TastyPillows]

As a big fan of the original. This is better

[TastyPillows]

"The world of EW1 is essentially the collective uncontiosness of different people merged in a single reality that is slowly transforming into a horror world.
We don't know what is happening in the game. For the 75% of the story we don't even suspect that the world around us is not even /real/."

Are you serious? You didnt see the "we were inside STEM the whole time" coming?

[Iceraven99]

I agree with you completely, chesire.panther. I have searched for critical reviews of EW2, and I've found very few with constructive criticism other than glitchy gameplay mechanics. It is hard to go against what the media is saying about it. But everyone can have an opinion, right? So I agree with you on the majority of your review here. Most of the reviews I see praise EW2, and more power to people who love EW2, but like you, I wasn't a huge fan of EW2. I wrote a comparative analysis review of EW1 and EW2 recently if you're interested. If not, that's perfectly fine too.

I agree that EW1 ain't a perfect cupcake. It is a little rough around the edges in terms of gameplay, but it's better than EW2 on that note. I do disagree with you on the pacing though. I think dividing the game into chapters and having it be more linear helped keep this chaotic game organized, and each chapter was concise. Together, they had a nice cohesive plot going. I think the pacing may have felt off because you are thrown all over the city whenever Ruvik gets creative. The changing setting can be disorienting. But yeah. Very difficult and frustrating. Pacing good, gameplay hard. But it's a horror game. We don't get an A for effort. If only, right? I agree that it was anything but dull. There was never an end to something wanting to eat your eyes for jujubes, ambush you around a corner, or teleport right in your face. On the topic of game developers; I guess I seldom if ever look at who made a game unless it's made by Scott Cawthon or Scriptwelder. But I have heard good things about Shinji Mikami's games.

When you talk about story and setting, I agree. The EW1 DLC's were pretty good. Despite how much I hate Kidman. Watching her get eaten by the lamp monster, scared to death by Ruvik, mocked by Ruvik via a scattered letter and permanent scar on her hand, and blown to bits were fun times. So yeah, why was EW2 lesser by comparison if it had the same director? I suppose we'll never know. The first words that comes to my mind when I think of EW1 are Death Tag, Nightmare Party, and Ruvik. I love the premise too. Gifted but eccentric child born on a wealthy charitable estate likes to experiment with the brain. Parents are either too busy to pay much attention to him or he doesn't agree with them. Sister dies tragically in a fire. He's burned painfully as a result. Doctor Jimenez is a bad influence on him, and only encourages Ruben's grisly experimentation. After the traumatic barn fire, Ruben's father locks him away in the basement for fear of public appearances, and Ruben is left alone to stew in his grief and resentment. He mourns his sister, and devises a plan to be with her again. He kills his parents, takes over the mansion's money and privacy, and with Jimenez's help and the hospital's resources, he runs experiments on patients supplied from Beacon Mental Hospital. Mobius catches wind of what he's up to thanks to Jimenez, and they force Ruben to work for them. He is close to completing his work, and refuses to recalibrate the machine so it can be used without his brain waves. Mobius takes drastic measures and dissects him down to a husk of a body, placing his brain in a jar, stimulating an artificial body to keep the brain alive, and uses his brain waves to use the machine. This backfires, since Ruben's consciousness is manifested as a humanoid entity within the system. Now called Ruvik, he corrupts STEM and kills or corrupts any and all minds that are connected to his brain in the system. Mobius learns of Leslie, the only person compatible with Ruvik's brain waves due to a similar childhood trauma. They wish to use Leslie to replace Ruvik, and because Leslie is easy to manipulate and control, Mobius wants to use Leslie to purge Ruvik from STEM. But Jimenez found Ruvik's research on a wireless STEM, and used it to enter the system with Leslie, inadvertently dragging anyone else nearby into STEM, hence Kidman, Joseph, and Sebastian are also sucked into the system. Then it's all about escape and survival as Kidman tries to fulfill her mission with Mobius and 'bring the boy back.' Ruvik just wants to escape the nightmare of his own creation, and poor Seb and Jojo just want an end to it all, and have no idea what is going on. Jimenez, meanwhile, tries to use Leslie to escape STEM, fails, and is killed by the amalgamation monster. Everybody is drawn to the lighthouse. Even Ruvik has stated he doesn't know why everybody flocks to that lighthouse, since Ruvik himself has no memory of it. Stuff happens, Ruvik escapes via Leslie (confirmed in Executioner DLC), Seb destroys what he believes is Ruvik, and Kidman is faced with her own demons. Everybody except Jojo and those killed wake up, and we see Ruvik has perfected hiding in plain sight within Leslie. I wonder if he ever played Assassin's Creed.

What I loved was how intricate and scattered this plot was. It was up to the player to explore and find audio tapes, documents, letters, symbols, and solve puzzles and easter eggs to understand the entire gist of what was going on. We were a detective! And it was fun. EW2 was all tell and no show. EW1 made us work for the story, and it created a sense of accomplishment when exploring for every easter egg and secret in EW1 because the story and plot itself was the reward. EW2 had an open world with collectibles and secrets, but EW1 managed to do much more with a linear game and less open world areas.

I knew this game was trippy when Conelly started to wig out in the ambulance, and when the ground split apart and started shifting about. I knew something strange was going on at that point, that this might not be real, that it was in their minds. You mention this:



*This is a nightmare that does not have rules and structure, that is formed and shaped in a dreamscape panorama by deep fears and desires of game characters. Why do we stuck in land of decaying villages and abandoned mansions? Because this was a kind of chilhood Kidman had. Why there are pieces of almost mundane clarity where everything looks normal and stable? Becasue this is the kind of reality Sebastian and Leslie would expect. Why everything is getting corrupted and destroyed? Because the main antoganist is an incredibly psychotic and unstable person. The is nothing like this in EW2. What is a first word you would use to discribe EW2? "A videogame". Or "a virtual reality".*



I agree with you entirely here. EW2 doesn't speak nightmare or horror. EW1's bizarre nature had a clear explanation behind it, so it made sense why everything was crazy and didn't obey the laws of physics or mental limitations. Ruvik's got quite the imagination... And everyone else's is pretty vivid as well.

You talk about how introducing STEM was a crime in EW1, and that maybe the team thought people would be confused, hence an explanation. I think introducing STEM was necessary in EW1, but what I like is that they didn't reveal Mobius until the DLCs. STEM was a large part of Ruvik's backstory, so it made sense. It was his life's work, his precious that got stolen like the ring from Lord of the Rings. So I think explaining STEM was essential. But they didn't mention Mobius until the DLCs. I think that was smart. Before the DLCs, we were left knowing Jimenez and Ruvik made a terrible machine called STEM that linked minds together and created nightmare fuel cuz Ruvik's a psychopath. But we never assume someone else was behind it until we see Ruvik get cornered in one of his flashbacks by men in black once STEM was close to completion.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on EW2. It was boring, predictable, and felt way too open. EW1 was very claustrophobic, which made it scary. In EW2, you can just run away and back up in circles to avoid enemy attacks. Or sneak by them. It's too easy. And because it's so open, it ain't scary anymore, and while there are lots of easter eggs to be found, it became tedious to go search for them all. In EW1, all the secrets were easier to find, and were always 'on the way' as you headed in the direction of your goal. And the glowing enemies in EW2. Could it not be more obvious? Shoot the glowing thingy! Bull's Eye! EW1 be like 'shoot me a million times and I'll come back to life and kill you.' And no lighting people on fire in EW2...sad. They aren't interesting zom-zoms either. EW2 seemed like it was trying so hard to diversify the generic enemies, but in doing so, made them boring and OP. There was no creativity in killing them besides a knife or a bullet. In EW1, you could blow off a bomb when they walked by, light oil spills on fire for them to walk into, shoot them with different kinds of arrows to get an advantage over them, etc. It also made them more scary when you had nowhere else to go and got cornered by them in a dead end. In EW2 Union, you can just run as far away as possible to get a better angle. There was no tension or pressure to hurry or kill them quick so you wouldn't die with your back against the wall like in EW1.

I agree with you that the game graphics were off. EW2 looks worse than EW1. EW1 had a rustic, classical look to it. It had lighting glare, shadows, disgusting noises around every corner, soothing Claire de Lune in the save room (at least Ruvik lets us listen to music...), great blood and gore graphics, etc. The only critique on EW1's graphics was that sometimes Sebastian's movements felt a little stiff. But in EW2 his movements aren't as realistic. And his stamina in EW1 was ridiculous. Sebastian needs to stop smoking and get out more, I guess. He can't run worth a darn. All Jojo has to do to survive is outrun Seb. EW1 was beautiful to look at albeit the blood and gore decorating every surface like paint. The smell of blood is the new perfume, huh? It had a gruesome charm to it, dark and 'detailored' for stark, raw horror. EW2 was boring to look at, and everything looked and felt the same. In EW1, we took the smelly slide to bloodborne diseases in the beginning of the game, and fell into a giant pool of crimson in Krimson City! But in EW2 we just get dark tunnels, and every single one has a light at the end of the tunnel that ends up being a train sooner or later.

The beasties in EW1 were fearsome foul oddities. Poor corrupted barbed wire souls. All groaning and wheezing, barely clinging to life. Some wear masks. Others are fat. Some explode. Ya get to light 'em on fire when they refuse to die underfoot. Great fun. EW2 enemies are OP people with rabies who ate a lot of glowsticks. The ghost lady, Anima, was interesting, but I still have no idea why she needed to be there. She never amounted to anything significant. The only cool thing about it was that Anima sections allowed us to see EW1's cool rustic artstyle again. I do like the camera lady, though. The Obscura. The constant moaning, and the yucky fleshy body...I immediately had images of it rush through my brain when I saw the projector monster from 'Bendy and the Ink Machine.'


I also agree that the characters in EW2 felt hollow, plain, boring, and unsatisfactory. We never learn why they do or say what they do. Plot convenience. Sebastian and Kidman aren't cool anymore, and have regressed into a whiny man child and an infuriating receptionist. I didn't like Kidman in EW1, but I liked her character development. There's a difference between disliking a character for who they are versus disliking them because they were written badly. In EW1, I just didn't like her, but she was written well. In EW2, she was written badly, I hated her new voice, and she made me dislike her even more. Cool detective Seb was reduced to whiny self-loathing depressed Seb. He went from determined loyal detective to incompetent confused man who never stops asking dumb questions like "Where am I?" "What was that?" "Where's Lily?" "What the hell?" He should know better by now that STEM is STEM. I think Sebastian needs to sober up a bit and remember bizarre is considered normal in STEM. If it's trippy, it's normal. He should this ten times over, and yet here he acts naiive and worried all the time. EW2 Seb is not the real Sebastian. EW1 Sebastian would have seen the EW2 STEM and would have plowed on through it like a knife through butter. "I've dealt with spider ladies, teleporting lunatics, armed zombies who need fire to die right, and men with safes for heads that beat you to a bloody pulp with a bag of nails. Come at me, bro!" He wouldn't be afraid of Theodore at all, and he wouldn't have guilt. More like rage and vengeance. He'd scoop his daughter into his arms and jog off to the save room no problemo.

EW2 dialogue is just weird. The dialogue option trees don't fit in in this gam, and it's badly written like you said. And the clichés...ugh. The game tells us everything, never lets us figure it out, never shows it to us through the characters (except for the characters mouthing off about it every single time...). Lily might as well be a sugar cookie everyone is vying for. We don't feel any connection to her. Therefore, there are no stakes in EW2. We know Sebastian is eventually going to save her and drag others to their deaths along the way. Way too predictable. The only villain I liked was Stefano. "Philistine!" Classic Stefano. He was great, and I wanted to know more about him whilst also hoping Ruvik would show up sometime soon. Theodore and Myra were awful, not to mention Myra's outfit was a Ruvik rip-off...

It would have been awesome is Stefano and Theodore went up against each other, and Seb was caught in the middle of the crossfire. Obscura vs flamethrower dudes. Stefano trying to knife Theodore, who tries to roast the art fanatic alive. Dinner and a show. And while Stefano and Theodore are fighting, Sebastian slips in all quiet-like and steals Lily away from the maniacs. Hooray! Myra's maternal instinct thing is pretty lame. They couldn't have been more original?

It was hard to watch Sebastian and Kidman fall so far beneath their EW1 counterparts. They used to be so cool (even if Kidman is a giant meany towards the gang). It'd be cool to have the same song, Claire de Lune, and maybe Sebastian recognizes it and is therefore drawn to the mirrors. I still like the idea of it being a mirror, but maybe different sizes and shapes, and maybe each new save room has some kind of Beacon Mental Hospital message written in blood on it. It would make the mirrors more interesting, and people would enjoy finding a new mirror to read the newest message.

In my EW1 and EW2 Comparative Analysis, I mention ways they could redevelop the game to make it much more interesting and fun to play. And no Lily or Myra. Sheesh. Check it out if you're interested in reading. I really enjoyed your EW2 critique, and wanted to show my support.

[mw00]

Oprindeligt skrevet af The Metal:

Let's have a serious discussion about something you already made up my mind about?
The point of a game is to entertain and that, in my humble opinion, is given by TEW 2. Games, as well as movies or music do not have the main point of being factual, in all possible ways of reasoning consistent or perfect. If that was the case, nobody would have played any RPG, nobody would have watched a horror movie nor would anybody listen to Punk.

You get entertained by TEW2 that's fine, but don't try to nullify other people's criticism on the game. Different people have different standards, again: fine. You got entertained by a cheap product, but other people that played more games that you ever did might expect something more out of the game.

[Uryon]

You should have made your post shorter. Especially since you complain. No one wants to read a novel like that all about complaining.

[Stigma]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Iceraven99:

I agree with you completely, chesire.panther. I have searched for critical reviews of EW2, and I've found very few with constructive criticism other than glitchy gameplay mechanics. It is hard to go against what the media is saying about it. But everyone can have an opinion, right? So I agree with you on the majority of your review here. Most of the reviews I see praise EW2, and more power to people who love EW2, but like you, I wasn't a huge fan of EW2. I wrote a comparative analysis review of EW1 and EW2 recently if you're interested. If not, that's perfectly fine too.

I agree that EW1 ain't a perfect cupcake. It is a little rough around the edges in terms of gameplay, but it's better than EW2 on that note. I do disagree with you on the pacing though. I think dividing the game into chapters and having it be more linear helped keep this chaotic game organized, and each chapter was concise. Together, they had a nice cohesive plot going. I think the pacing may have felt off because you are thrown all over the city whenever Ruvik gets creative. The changing setting can be disorienting. But yeah. Very difficult and frustrating. Pacing good, gameplay hard. But it's a horror game. We don't get an A for effort. If only, right? I agree that it was anything but dull. There was never an end to something wanting to eat your eyes for jujubes, ambush you around a corner, or teleport right in your face. On the topic of game developers; I guess I seldom if ever look at who made a game unless it's made by Scott Cawthon or Scriptwelder. But I have heard good things about Shinji Mikami's games.

When you talk about story and setting, I agree. The EW1 DLC's were pretty good. Despite how much I hate Kidman. Watching her get eaten by the lamp monster, scared to death by Ruvik, mocked by Ruvik via a scattered letter and permanent scar on her hand, and blown to bits were fun times. So yeah, why was EW2 lesser by comparison if it had the same director? I suppose we'll never know. The first words that comes to my mind when I think of EW1 are Death Tag, Nightmare Party, and Ruvik. I love the premise too. Gifted but eccentric child born on a wealthy charitable estate likes to experiment with the brain. Parents are either too busy to pay much attention to him or he doesn't agree with them. Sister dies tragically in a fire. He's burned painfully as a result. Doctor Jimenez is a bad influence on him, and only encourages Ruben's grisly experimentation. After the traumatic barn fire, Ruben's father locks him away in the basement for fear of public appearances, and Ruben is left alone to stew in his grief and resentment. He mourns his sister, and devises a plan to be with her again. He kills his parents, takes over the mansion's money and privacy, and with Jimenez's help and the hospital's resources, he runs experiments on patients supplied from Beacon Mental Hospital. Mobius catches wind of what he's up to thanks to Jimenez, and they force Ruben to work for them. He is close to completing his work, and refuses to recalibrate the machine so it can be used without his brain waves. Mobius takes drastic measures and dissects him down to a husk of a body, placing his brain in a jar, stimulating an artificial body to keep the brain alive, and uses his brain waves to use the machine. This backfires, since Ruben's consciousness is manifested as a humanoid entity within the system. Now called Ruvik, he corrupts STEM and kills or corrupts any and all minds that are connected to his brain in the system. Mobius learns of Leslie, the only person compatible with Ruvik's brain waves due to a similar childhood trauma. They wish to use Leslie to replace Ruvik, and because Leslie is easy to manipulate and control, Mobius wants to use Leslie to purge Ruvik from STEM. But Jimenez found Ruvik's research on a wireless STEM, and used it to enter the system with Leslie, inadvertently dragging anyone else nearby into STEM, hence Kidman, Joseph, and Sebastian are also sucked into the system. Then it's all about escape and survival as Kidman tries to fulfill her mission with Mobius and 'bring the boy back.' Ruvik just wants to escape the nightmare of his own creation, and poor Seb and Jojo just want an end to it all, and have no idea what is going on. Jimenez, meanwhile, tries to use Leslie to escape STEM, fails, and is killed by the amalgamation monster. Everybody is drawn to the lighthouse. Even Ruvik has stated he doesn't know why everybody flocks to that lighthouse, since Ruvik himself has no memory of it. Stuff happens, Ruvik escapes via Leslie (confirmed in Executioner DLC), Seb destroys what he believes is Ruvik, and Kidman is faced with her own demons. Everybody except Jojo and those killed wake up, and we see Ruvik has perfected hiding in plain sight within Leslie. I wonder if he ever played Assassin's Creed.

What I loved was how intricate and scattered this plot was. It was up to the player to explore and find audio tapes, documents, letters, symbols, and solve puzzles and easter eggs to understand the entire gist of what was going on. We were a detective! And it was fun. EW2 was all tell and no show. EW1 made us work for the story, and it created a sense of accomplishment when exploring for every easter egg and secret in EW1 because the story and plot itself was the reward. EW2 had an open world with collectibles and secrets, but EW1 managed to do much more with a linear game and less open world areas.

I knew this game was trippy when Conelly started to wig out in the ambulance, and when the ground split apart and started shifting about. I knew something strange was going on at that point, that this might not be real, that it was in their minds. You mention this:



*This is a nightmare that does not have rules and structure, that is formed and shaped in a dreamscape panorama by deep fears and desires of game characters. Why do we stuck in land of decaying villages and abandoned mansions? Because this was a kind of chilhood Kidman had. Why there are pieces of almost mundane clarity where everything looks normal and stable? Becasue this is the kind of reality Sebastian and Leslie would expect. Why everything is getting corrupted and destroyed? Because the main antoganist is an incredibly psychotic and unstable person. The is nothing like this in EW2. What is a first word you would use to discribe EW2? "A videogame". Or "a virtual reality".*



I agree with you entirely here. EW2 doesn't speak nightmare or horror. EW1's bizarre nature had a clear explanation behind it, so it made sense why everything was crazy and didn't obey the laws of physics or mental limitations. Ruvik's got quite the imagination... And everyone else's is pretty vivid as well.

You talk about how introducing STEM was a crime in EW1, and that maybe the team thought people would be confused, hence an explanation. I think introducing STEM was necessary in EW1, but what I like is that they didn't reveal Mobius until the DLCs. STEM was a large part of Ruvik's backstory, so it made sense. It was his life's work, his precious that got stolen like the ring from Lord of the Rings. So I think explaining STEM was essential. But they didn't mention Mobius until the DLCs. I think that was smart. Before the DLCs, we were left knowing Jimenez and Ruvik made a terrible machine called STEM that linked minds together and created nightmare fuel cuz Ruvik's a psychopath. But we never assume someone else was behind it until we see Ruvik get cornered in one of his flashbacks by men in black once STEM was close to completion.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on EW2. It was boring, predictable, and felt way too open. EW1 was very claustrophobic, which made it scary. In EW2, you can just run away and back up in circles to avoid enemy attacks. Or sneak by them. It's too easy. And because it's so open, it ain't scary anymore, and while there are lots of easter eggs to be found, it became tedious to go search for them all. In EW1, all the secrets were easier to find, and were always 'on the way' as you headed in the direction of your goal. And the glowing enemies in EW2. Could it not be more obvious? Shoot the glowing thingy! Bull's Eye! EW1 be like 'shoot me a million times and I'll come back to life and kill you.' And no lighting people on fire in EW2...sad. They aren't interesting zom-zoms either. EW2 seemed like it was trying so hard to diversify the generic enemies, but in doing so, made them boring and OP. There was no creativity in killing them besides a knife or a bullet. In EW1, you could blow off a bomb when they walked by, light oil spills on fire for them to walk into, shoot them with different kinds of arrows to get an advantage over them, etc. It also made them more scary when you had nowhere else to go and got cornered by them in a dead end. In EW2 Union, you can just run as far away as possible to get a better angle. There was no tension or pressure to hurry or kill them quick so you wouldn't die with your back against the wall like in EW1.

I agree with you that the game graphics were off. EW2 looks worse than EW1. EW1 had a rustic, classical look to it. It had lighting glare, shadows, disgusting noises around every corner, soothing Claire de Lune in the save room (at least Ruvik lets us listen to music...), great blood and gore graphics, etc. The only critique on EW1's graphics was that sometimes Sebastian's movements felt a little stiff. But in EW2 his movements aren't as realistic. And his stamina in EW1 was ridiculous. Sebastian needs to stop smoking and get out more, I guess. He can't run worth a darn. All Jojo has to do to survive is outrun Seb. EW1 was beautiful to look at albeit the blood and gore decorating every surface like paint. The smell of blood is the new perfume, huh? It had a gruesome charm to it, dark and 'detailored' for stark, raw horror. EW2 was boring to look at, and everything looked and felt the same. In EW1, we took the smelly slide to bloodborne diseases in the beginning of the game, and fell into a giant pool of crimson in Krimson City! But in EW2 we just get dark tunnels, and every single one has a light at the end of the tunnel that ends up being a train sooner or later.

The beasties in EW1 were fearsome foul oddities. Poor corrupted barbed wire souls. All groaning and wheezing, barely clinging to life. Some wear masks. Others are fat. Some explode. Ya get to light 'em on fire when they refuse to die underfoot. Great fun. EW2 enemies are OP people with rabies who ate a lot of glowsticks. The ghost lady, Anima, was interesting, but I still have no idea why she needed to be there. She never amounted to anything significant. The only cool thing about it was that Anima sections allowed us to see EW1's cool rustic artstyle again. I do like the camera lady, though. The Obscura. The constant moaning, and the yucky fleshy body...I immediately had images of it rush through my brain when I saw the projector monster from 'Bendy and the Ink Machine.'


I also agree that the characters in EW2 felt hollow, plain, boring, and unsatisfactory. We never learn why they do or say what they do. Plot convenience. Sebastian and Kidman aren't cool anymore, and have regressed into a whiny man child and an infuriating receptionist. I didn't like Kidman in EW1, but I liked her character development. There's a difference between disliking a character for who they are versus disliking them because they were written badly. In EW1, I just didn't like her, but she was written well. In EW2, she was written badly, I hated her new voice, and she made me dislike her even more. Cool detective Seb was reduced to whiny self-loathing depressed Seb. He went from determined loyal detective to incompetent confused man who never stops asking dumb questions like "Where am I?" "What was that?" "Where's Lily?" "What the hell?" He should know better by now that STEM is STEM. I think Sebastian needs to sober up a bit and remember bizarre is considered normal in STEM. If it's trippy, it's normal. He should this ten times over, and yet here he acts naiive and worried all the time. EW2 Seb is not the real Sebastian. EW1 Sebastian would have seen the EW2 STEM and would have plowed on through it like a knife through butter. "I've dealt with spider ladies, teleporting lunatics, armed zombies who need fire to die right, and men with safes for heads that beat you to a bloody pulp with a bag of nails. Come at me, bro!" He wouldn't be afraid of Theodore at all, and he wouldn't have guilt. More like rage and vengeance. He'd scoop his daughter into his arms and jog off to the save room no problemo.

EW2 dialogue is just weird. The dialogue option trees don't fit in in this gam, and it's badly written like you said. And the clichés...ugh. The game tells us everything, never lets us figure it out, never shows it to us through the characters (except for the characters mouthing off about it every single time...). Lily might as well be a sugar cookie everyone is vying for. We don't feel any connection to her. Therefore, there are no stakes in EW2. We know Sebastian is eventually going to save her and drag others to their deaths along the way. Way too predictable. The only villain I liked was Stefano. "Philistine!" Classic Stefano. He was great, and I wanted to know more about him whilst also hoping Ruvik would show up sometime soon. Theodore and Myra were awful, not to mention Myra's outfit was a Ruvik rip-off...

It would have been awesome is Stefano and Theodore went up against each other, and Seb was caught in the middle of the crossfire. Obscura vs flamethrower dudes. Stefano trying to knife Theodore, who tries to roast the art fanatic alive. Dinner and a show. And while Stefano and Theodore are fighting, Sebastian slips in all quiet-like and steals Lily away from the maniacs. Hooray! Myra's maternal instinct thing is pretty lame. They couldn't have been more original?

It was hard to watch Sebastian and Kidman fall so far beneath their EW1 counterparts. They used to be so cool (even if Kidman is a giant meany towards the gang). It'd be cool to have the same song, Claire de Lune, and maybe Sebastian recognizes it and is therefore drawn to the mirrors. I still like the idea of it being a mirror, but maybe different sizes and shapes, and maybe each new save room has some kind of Beacon Mental Hospital message written in blood on it. It would make the mirrors more interesting, and people would enjoy finding a new mirror to read the newest message.

In my EW1 and EW2 Comparative Analysis, I mention ways they could redevelop the game to make it much more interesting and fun to play. And no Lily or Myra. Sheesh. Check it out if you're interested in reading. I really enjoyed your EW2 critique, and wanted to show my support.

+10 000

EW1 - Old School Survival Horror, for the elite
EW2 - Open World Action Adventure, for the casual gamers
This is not meant to be offensive in the slightest, it's the truth!

[bro]

Dirty Hippy the gas leak was not a gas leak at all but the gas monster you encounter saying that it changed as these monsters starting showing up and they thought it was a gas leak at least thats what i made of it

[NECROCANNIBAL]

Second one is disappointing generic zombie survival game.

To The Metal:
Behemoth suck a bag of dix after 2004 and Eva was a start of a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Deal with it