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DLC: The Executioner - finished.
Time taken 54 minutes.
Which is kinda amusing as I've just been reading IGN's review of it and they said the run time is about 3 hours. No. Fucking. Way. I'm calling bullshit on that since no matter how terrible you are as a gamer you'll never get 3 hours out of it. By illustration, once I'd completed it I noticed that there was an extra room unlocked so I delved back in to have a look since it looked like it might have been an alternative ending. Anyway, it wasn't, so I mucked about with se extra challenge rooms and defeated all the bosses but the last one. Time taken: 30 minutes. Thirty minutes. Including loading times and everything, and mucking around in two challenge rooms and the extra room. Thirty minutes. Three hours my arse.
So if you're interested this DLC here it is:
It's a first person "Condemned"-style brawler.
You heard me. You play box head on a mini quest to rescue his daughter. He needs to kill everyone to ensure her safety cause, well, who knows, cause it makes a cool game init. Plus it's something different at the very least.
So off you go with giant hammer to dispatch 7 bosses in 7 arenas.
That's it. Besides some roaming between boss fight, there's not a lot of space between fights just roaming about although you can do a little of that and save your game, upgrade your weapons, smash barrels (natch), and pick up letters from your daughter along the way.
Bad news: you're kinda overpowered so you can dispatch enemies fairly easily, the bosses are mostly cheap and there's running in and smashing their face in with your giant hammer will usually get the job done quick-sharp. Wade in, take damage, swing swing and eventually it'll be deadid.
Fighting is kinda visceral but it's not interesting enough. You've got about 4 moves which doesn't make for an interesting experience. Bash, running bash, throw and an execution move. The other weapons do a decent job of keeping it interesting but they can only be used so many times before you need to buy more ammo or whatever. Chainsaw requires fuel, you can only get a few dynamite sticks, floor traps (from the main game and are suitably ace), and the sword needs, um, why can I only use this for 10 blows again? Oh, because it degrades or something... This seems like a missed opportunity to me. Why not let the player use different tools for as long as they want? Just reduce the strength of each tool and let the player swap on the fly since the in-game menu is so easy to use to switch between them. For the majority of the game I was bashing with impunity since I didn't feel the need to switch to a weapon that would arbitrarily disappear after I used it more than a couple of times. I was saving those weapons for the big fight that never came since the last fight is solely about using environmental objects to dispatch the enemy and all of the weapons are useless by this time
There are some other bosses with environmental items that need to be used to defeat that boss - number 2 requires you to use a chain gun, the last one requires you to drop spike traps on his head, the fifth throws cars at you that you hit with your hammer to throw back. It's interesting that the second boss is probably the most challenging fight on pure skill alone.
That is, until you unlock the rocket launcher after the third fight. Suddenly if you need an easy way out the rocket launcher mashes the bosses health bars and leaves them stunned for more attacks. Every single boss (apart from the last) melts before the power of the rocket launcher. It's so ridiculously overpowered that I really do question the purpose of giving it to you before the mid-point. 2 rockets are enough for most bosses (and it comes with two) but then you can upgrade to six and never have to worry about facing a boss again.
The story, what little there is, is alright but when you see the form of the final boss you know how it's going to end. And you actually get a quite nice end screen after it all too. I was quite surprised. But if you read the IGN review you'll be expecting something to tug on the heart strings which will never come. It's good but since the whole premise is told through a series of increasingly bland bits of paper you find it loses its charm. There are ghosts of your missing girl but she only acts as a mechanism to lead you to the next area or show you which boss door you can tackle next.
So was it worth it?
It's reasonably good disposable fun I suppose (let's face it I've all but played it twice and upgraded all the weapons which I almost never do) but it has a wealth of problems and is nothing more than a curio in a trilogy of experimental DLC.
As an overall package of DLC for the £8 I spent it's been really good. Each DLC has its problems but each tries something completely different from the main game and must be applauded for that. The last DLC is a strange oddity that doesn't fit the rest of the game but if this has allowed the team to play with something different and learn for a future outing then so be it. There's far too little creativity in main stream gaming at the minute and it's amazing to see this fab little game take a risk.
I think that's it for The Evil Within and I'm torn between keeping it forever and trading it in. Oh hell, it's totally deserved to be kept forever. Well done The Evil Within, you made it.
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