At times, The Evil Within comes off as simply mean-spirited in its interactions with the player. From instant-death traps that rely on trial-and-error surprise, to a sprinting meter that's pathetically small pre-upgrade and causes Castellanos to stop for breath even when chased by a lunatic with a chainsaw, the game's attempts to be difficult really stretch one's notion of fairness. It'll punish you for using resources and ammo you couldn't have predicted you'll need, it'll lock you into a pre-boss checkpoint with no way of healing, even if your health is so low that sprinting has become disabled (yeah, that happens). It introduces mechanics and new ideas quietly, not informing the player, waiting for them to replay tracts of game multiple times and dying until they get it.

It's bad enough that Bethesda even knows it. Alongside my review copy of the game was a note asking that reviewers play on the Casual difficulty setting, not the standard Survival setting (I went with the standard, by the way). Not only that, but each copy came with a sealed envelope containing advice and obscure tips for every single level of the game. Due to embargo restrictions, I cannot repeat those tips, but they provide sometimes crucial insight that the game itself never communicates. It's clear that those presenting the game know it's either imbalanced or does a terrible job of interfacing with the player.

Evil Within just plain doesn't give you a fair chance to succeed. It doesn't provide enough information for you to make good decisions and it handicaps your ability to fight well. It requires so much repetition that it can't possibly maintain any sense of tension or unease, and its story is told so aimlessly that you'll likely forget the plot between scenes. It manages a few moments of inspiration, but their scarcity makes them feel like fortunate accidents rather than deliberate elements of the overall design. It's covered in blood, but the only thing truly horrifying about The Evil Within is how disappointing it is.

In Matt's reaction piece, he said The Evil Within feels like a PS2-era game. That's kind of correct, in that it certainly feels like it could be a direct sequel to Mikami's last horror game, which released for GameCube in 2005. It has been said over and over again, but it bears repeating: The Evil Within is old school survival horror. It feels like Mikami picked up his tools from where he dropped them a decade ago and went right on with his work, iterating here, tweaking there, adding some new features there. If you feel it all went rapidly downhill after Resident Evil 4 and haven't found anything to fill the void, this is the game you've been waiting for. Some fans will have found something to fill the void, and they may not be tempted back. Last time I wrote about the comeback of old school survival horror I mentioned my dissatisfaction with our industry's embrace of “more of the same”, even while acknowledging the fact that fans have been starving for these experiences.

The Evil Within has scored big with reviewers - mostly. The positive voices sang its praises, citing its faithfulness to a genre we rarely see implemented well any more now that the Fatal Frame, Silent Hill and Resident Evil glory years are behind us. The negative voices grumbled about its constraints and lack of modern gloss.

When I say gloss I don't mean graphically, although it's not the prettiest game I've ever seen (and the widescreen aspect ratio drives me nuts). I mean that sheen of ease and accessibility of recent triple-A: the way Call of Duty games play themselves, and difficulty adjusts downwards, and the tension of potential failure is replaced by the excitement of constant explosions. That slick, frictionless experience.

Resident Evil 5 - sorry, The Evil Within - doesn't have that. Instead, it has that awkward, difficult gunplay; unforgiving inventory management, and non-regenerating health that has you sweating on every encounter, well aware that a mistake will come back to haunt you sooner rather than later. In our nostalgia, we miss that, but I must admit in these time-poor adult days of stressing about my tax bill and house lease deadlines I personally would prefer something a little more brainless and less likely to send my blood pressure so high my doctor stops threatening and actually locks me up in hospital.

To reiterate, if you've been gagging for resident Evil 4-2, then here it is, and that's great for you. For me personally, I've moved on from survival horror and onto horror simulation.

This is a division I picked up recently from Thomas Grip, creative director of Amnesia: The Dark Descent developer Frictional Games. Grip keeps a thoughtful, informative blog about his own games as well as others, and his latest entry, a discussion of Alien: Isolation, is a great read.

Grip makes a distinction between two kinds of horror game: games that attempt to simulate the experience of horror, and games of various genres with a horror “wrapping”. In the former category you find games like Clockwork Tower and Amnesia, and in the latter you find The 7th Guest, Resident Evil and The Evil Within.

What I don't understand is the internet slating it for being RE4. If it's RE4, that's bloody awesome, because it's been nearly ten years since we've had anything close to it.