So, it’s Halloween and you’re looking for a creepy game to play and, as luck would have it, the market has obliged us. Alien: Isolation and The Evil Within, from Sega and Bethesda respectively, both hit shelves within the last few weeks and deliver on the holiday-appropriate scares in decidedly different ways. One will have you clutching the controller in fear, jumping at sounds, while the other will have you mashing at buttons with your eyes closed. Both definitely deliver on the goosebumps and the frights, but which one is actually scarier?
Alien: Isolation is the survival-horror game that follows Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, as she tries to locate her mother following her disappearance fifteen years earlier in the classic movie Alien. Her search leads her to the decommissioned space station Sevastopol, where she struggles to stay alive against a deadly Alien. Scary stuff! Ditto on that for The Evil Within, another survival-horror game, where Detective Sebastian Castellanos finds himself trapped in a deranged world where hideous creatures wander among the dead. To save himself and his sanity, he must embark on a perilous journey to unravel what’s behind these evil machinations.
There’s a lot of fantastic work put into both of these titles and, if you’re a horror fan, you’re bound to get a lot out of them. Given how the horror gaming genre has progressively slipped into more action-oriented fare as of late, it’s nice to see two big games buck the trend and be rewarded thusly with great reception and solid sales. As I said, both games will give you the chills, but in the unending debate of “which game is better,” there can only be one.
To answer the question, I suppose it boils down to what you find more frightening – old school, white knuckle tension and fear, or walls painted red with blood and guts. Did Saw scare you, or were you more creeped out by the thuds and thumps of Paranormal Activity? Now, these examples are pretty much like comparing apple and oranges within the horror genre, I get that. They both aim to scare, but they do it in distinctly different ways. One lets your imagination do all the work, the other…well, doesn’t leave anything to the imagination – it’s all out there to see. Suffice it to say, Alien: Isolation and The Evil Within are both pretty terrifying, but one goes about it a little bit better.
The Evil Within starts out confusing and weird, and gets increasingly unsettling as you find yourself thrust into this hellscape of gore, blood, and disfigured foes eager to rip you limb from limb (and they will – repeatedly). Fear creeps in as you start to explore the twisted surroundings and have a few memorable first encounters with some of the disfigured creatures you’ll be dealing with throughout the journey. For most of the game you’re better off running away or trying to executive as many stealth kills as you can (and sometimes as quickly as possible, lest you be spotted). With scarce ammunition and pretty strong opponents, some who just need one hit to kill you, one wrong move can send you back to your last save point in the blink of an eye. And this helps keep the tension considerably high during most of the game, especially as you find yourself backed into a corner facing a swath of the undead-ish. And the threats keep getting bigger and bigger, so you have to adapt.
But adapting also works against the game and takes away some of the goosebumps. To beat most of the bosses in The Evil Within you need to execute a certain series of steps, and it will usually require you replay the same boss battle many, many, many times before you get it down. And this is where the tension tends to ease off after awhile. The more you work through the game, the more you see the mechanics behind it. You’re no longer frightened by a jump scare, but waiting for it so you can make your next move. Now, the game still looks mighty scary – the atmosphere is unsettling, the foes disturbing, and the gore and bloodshed unrelenting. There is some genuinely messed up stuff here, but it falls apart and becomes a little frustrating as you work your way through it.
It also doesn’t help that the game’s main protagonist, Castellanos, lacks any real personality and, all-told, is pretty blasé about having to deal with mangled walking corpses and giant, hulking monsters brandishing massive hammers and huge spikes. When his reactions are the basic equivalent to a shoulder shrug, it kills some of the mood.
This where I think Alien: Isolation takes it – the game has an engaging main character and suspense that never really lets go. The tension may wane and dip here and there as the story progresses, but it never really goes away like it does in The Evil Within. By the end of The Evil Within, the game’s story is all over the place, and you’re so busy concentrating on performing just the right moves to defeat a boss. However, in Alien: Isolation Ripley is talking to herself and freaking out for a good duration of the game, trying to remain calm all the while wondering what’s going to happen next. You never really feel safe. It’s through that uncertainty that Alien: Isolation provided one of my most intense gameplay experiences ever.
I was crouched behind a crate, one that wouldn’t be able to hide me once the alien came my way. Granted, he could turn around before he reached me, the AI is unpredictable that way, but I couldn’t chance it. I knew I was close to the end of my task. If I die now, I have to restart over, and I didn’t want that. So, gripping my controller as tight as could be, I decided I was going to run for it. I knew it was going to end poorly, but I could run and maybe make it or likely be killed the second that alien got anymore closer. I quickly looked around and saw a room I could run into, hopefully one with a locker inside. I could make it if I just ran. But… running is a death sentence in this game. Almost always, anyways. Without looking, I could hear the alien start to clomp his way around, likely in my direction. So, I pressed R3 to stand up… and ran.
Now, I’m sure this lasted the span of 2 – 3 seconds, but it felt so much longer. Like a slow-motion car crash, I could see myself slowly going off the rails, starting to freak out as I gripped my controller tighter and tighter. It was very, very possible I could make it. The alien knew of my presence and his pace picked up considerably. I just had to make it to the door, a door that was maybe ten – 15 feet away at best. The steps were getting louder. It was just then I realized… fire – I had a flamethrower! Now, I could keep running for the door and not worry about fumbling the controls on the remote while trying to access my weapon (I’ve been known to absolutely blow it in this regard once or twice in my time). Or I could just risk it. Now, keep in mind this is all happening in the span of just a few seconds. My mind is racing and I don’t want to die. Granted, I put myself in this situation, but I’ve come too far.
So, I manage to somehow nimbly access my flamethrower (without somehow selecting my wrench/tool thingie or a medkit) and I swing around and click the trigger. The screen turns yellow and orange as the face of the alien is lit up with fire. Miraculously, I managed to save my ass at the very last second. At this point everything becomes a little hazy. I can hear the alien screech as I run into the room and make for a locker. And there I stop, lean back, wait, and catch my breath. I press the PS home button to take me back to the menu so I can disengage for a moment. Without question, that had to be one of the most intense gaming experiences of my life, and it lasted no more than ten seconds. I’m getting warm and sweaty just thinking about it. For whatever shortcomings Alien: Isolation may have (the odd glitch, lots of backtracking), when it delivers … it delivers.
But the game can get frustrating. Like The Evil Within, it can get a bit repetitive at times, especially when Ripley has to cover the same ground on more than a few occasions. Or when you’re suddenly skewered, done in by an alien that managed to take you down with nary a sound. But it’s the not knowing that keeps it from being utterly boring or aggravating. You don’t know if that alien is going to pop out at you, or go for the cheap kill and spear you from behind. Now, if you play it safe and slow, there’s a good chance you’ll barely see the alien, but still… you can’t be 100% sure.
Still, I never had an experience like the one I mentioned above in The Evil Within. Yes, there were a few moments where dread washed over me and I realized I was utterly screwed, but nothing that got me that frazzled. Imagining that beast barreling down on me as I ran for safety freaked me out far more than any zombie-esque creature or blood-soaked room. The Evil Within had some good scares but, to me, the winner between which game is more frightening is clearly Alien: Isolation. Both are fun romps, though. They look fantastic, play well, and have lengthy campaigns to keep the player plenty engaged. These are two games that horror fans will unquestionably eat up, but Sega’s ingenious spin on the Alien franchise takes the pumpkin for me.
“Alien: Isolation” and “The Evil Within” are both available on most major consoles. For this article, final retail copies of the games were played on the Playstation 4 console. For more information, visit the official websites for The Evil Within or Alien: Isolation.
