What’s the Key to a Good Horror Story?

Question: How good is Bayonetta 2?

Answer: Too damn good.

I’m not the type to tag scores and numbers to my opinions, but I can see why people would give Platinum’s latest such high marks (including a hyper-rare ten out of ten from Gamespot!).  There’s plenty of good stuff in the game.  And even if the ride’s destined to end -- albeit after a healthy play time -- it strikes me as the sort of game I can and WILL play through again.  I did the same with Devil May Cry 3, after all.  Dat Vergil battle…

Still, I’ve had The Evil Within on my mind for a while now.  I…didn’t care for it, so you can chalk it up as yet another disappointment in the eighth-gen library.  But while I don’t have any problems heaping hate on stuff like Watch Dogs or Destiny, a part of me feels bad for being unable to like Shinji Mikami’s latest.  It could have been the one, man.  But it wasn’t.  And the more I think about it, the more I realize that there’s a reason for it.  TEW may have been botched, but it made me realize how much potential and how many possibilities there are when you make good use of horror elements.

Too bad I have no idea how to do that.

The Evil Within: The Super Halloween Suplex Post

Sadly, this post has nothing to do with wrestling.  But it is Halloween-appropriate, so there you go.  That’s one match won.

Now then.  Let me start by saying this: I don’t have a lot of experience in “survival horror”.  Or horror in general, if you don’t feel like subdividing into smaller categories.  I’ve played my share of games, but there are still huge gaps I haven’t put much effort into filling.  How big are these gaps?  Well, let me put it this way: the first Resident Evil game I played from start to finish was Resident Evil 5.  I’m not much in the way of the horror genre, and with the Month of Pumpkinpalooza almost over I can’t help but feel like I’m missing out.  I should try to broaden my horizons.

So that’s why I tried out The Evil Within.  Not finished, mind, because I never would have done that in time for this post.  But I’ve taken strides with it.  And conceptually speaking, there’s no beter game to start out with.  It’s by the guy who practically made survival horror a thing (plus helped with Killer7)!  It sounded like a nightmare come to life thanks to a couple of previews!  It’s a bold counterclaim against the mindless power fantasies that are trying to strangle the medium into submission!  What’s not to love?

It turns out there’s a lot.  I’ve spent a LOT of time waiting for the game to get scary -- and, you know, good.  And right now, I doubt it ever will.