The Evil Within Review Roundup, How to Unlock Frame Rate and Debug Consoles, Cheat Codes

Check the reviews for Shinji Mikami's survival horror title, The Evil Within.

The Evil Within, the survival horror title from developer Tango Gameworks and publisher Bethesda Softworks is set to release on 14 October 2014. This gaming title is directed by the father of the genre, Shinji Mikami.

The Evil Within is a story told from the third-person perspective where players will get to control Sebastian Castellanos, a detective. He goes to investigate a mass murder that eventually leads him to the den of mysterious and powerful creatures. Castellanos has to fend for himself scavenging for materials that will allow him to fight and to survive the engulfing horror.

The game will be rolling out for PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One platforms.

Below are some reviews from various websites:

Polygon - 6.5/10

"The Evil Within has great moments where the excellent combat and creepy environmental design come together. But those moments are fleeting, inevitably sapped of their delightful terror by design choices that feel trapped in the glory days of a decade ago. There's something to be said for respecting your past successes and building off of them, but The Evil Within is only ever completely successful at half of that equation."

GameInformer - 8.75/10

"The Evil Within excels at keeping your palms sweaty while delivering a harrowingly rewarding gameplay trial. Watching the credits roll with a sigh of relief doesn't feel like winning; it feels like surviving."

The Escapist - 3/5

"The Evil Within is a noble attempt at bringing back classic survival horror, but it could have learned a thing or two from games that aren't almost ten years old. It has its moments of brilliance, scattered through periods of antagonizing design."

Joystiq - 2.5/5

"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."

IGN - 8.9/10

"The Evil Within is a brutal, challenging, and remarkably fun game... It keeps the odds stacked against you to the point that they often feel insurmountable, yet it's finely tuned to ensure that they never really are, as long as you can keep a cool head and a steady aim in the face of building panic. While its story ends up buckling under its own ambition, there is little here that takes away from the joy of experiencing survival horror under the steady hand of a master of the craft."

IBTimes UK - 9/10

"An intelligent, authored, and consistently entertaining game which combines loving references to the horror genre with the distinctive personality of its director."

Hardcore Gamer - 4/5

"The Evil Within marks Shinji Mikami's triumphant return to horror, cementing his status as a mastermind of the genre. Smartly aiming for psychological horror over cheap jump scares, it gets under the skin and effects the psyche. Unfortunately, it falls into the modern trappings of boasting too much firepower (Sebastian can look more like Rambo than a detective) at the cost of stealth and intelligence."

CVG - 8/10

"Forget about the Resident Evil connection: The Evil Within stands alone and still manages to feel relevant, despite far more sophisticated contemporaries."

GameTrailers - 9/10

"The Evil Within is a survival-horror masterpiece. Anyone concerned this is just another action game soaked in blood needn't worry. Tense pacing, stunning atmosphere, and terrifying enemy encounters come together to create a journey you may never forget."

Videogamer - 8/10

"At times it feels like a Mikami megamix: it has the village with the chainsaw-wielding dude, another mansion, etc. But Mikami does this so well it's difficult to get annoyed. It's not unusual for directors in either film or games to recall past glories, and few do it better than Mikami. Even though this isn't his best, The Evil Within has enough magic to make it a worthy investment."

How to Unlock Frame Rate and Debug Console?

A set of console commands and cheats has been released by Bethesda to be used in The Evil Within. This will allow users to remove the 30FPS cap and change the aspect ratio (IncGamers).

In Steam, right click on The Evil Within and select "properties" then under the General tab, hit "set launch options."
Put this in to unlock the console: +com_allowconsole 1
Once the game has launched, hit the Insert key to bring down the developer console.

Here is the full list of commands to unlock the debug console (VG247):

R_swapinterval

Sets the FPS lock. Note that the numbers below are negative.
-2: This is the default, set to 30 FPS. This is the officially supported frame rate
-1: This sets the FPS limit to 60. Fully playable, although there may be quirks (we're going to fix these).
0: This fully unlocks the FPS. We do not recommend playing above 60. We will not fix any issues above 60.

God

God mode. You are effectively invincible, and certain enemy kill moves will not be used against you (Laura, for example, will not jump on you)

Noclip

Allows you to walk through walls

G_infiniteammo

- Unlimited ammo (provided you have at least 1 bullet when you enable this)

G_stoptime 1

- Stops time. Note there is a bug right now where using this command causes a UI element to appear on screen. We're looking to fix that in the near future.

- Re enable time with g_stoptime 0