The Evil Within

Superb gameplay, a breakneck pace and terrifying enemies makes The Evil Within a wonderful survival horror experience.

The Evil Within is a captivating return to the glory days of survival horror whose various issues keep it just short of greatness.

Shinji Mikami has yet to make a poor game, and The Evil Within does not blemish his record. But neither does the game enchant and disrupt in the way that Vanquish and the others managed. This is Mikami revisiting his past glories and, as such, it's both a delight and a disappointment.

A challenging blend of stealth and action, but relies on gross-out rather than real fear. Poor design choices leads to technical shortcomings.

The Evil Within has a strong foundation in the past but fails to build on it

Despite letting some of its most compelling aspects die off, The Evil Within is still worth a shot for bringing some unique ideas in the first place, and giving us a new way to think about survival horror.

Is feeling completely unnerved for 15-plus hours your idea of a good time? Then you're in for a treat

The upshot is that The Evil Within will give survival horror purists a rare contemporary pleasure fix. But be warned: if you prize smooth, silky action above all else, it will drive you insane.

Creepy, surreal, intense and occasionally very clever indeed, The Evil Within isn't undone by its ludicrous setting – it embraces it to wonderful effect, always ready to add another layer of bizarre hand-stitched horror. But the overall experience is frustrating, never managing to fully escape that narrow field of view, making me feel as boxed in as the game's posterboy.

If you like old-school third-person action games with horror elements, I'd recommend picking up The Evil Within on a console, possibly at a price cut. It will definitely scratch the itch of someone who has been pining for a return to the older days of gaming, but everyone else who has come to expect that certain layer of polish likely won't be amused.