Science and Philosophy of the Evil Within (MILD SPOILERS)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Episode Notes:
I'm not gonna delude myself. The Evil Within is a FLAWED game. While it does have an interesting narrative, it's fractured, requiring two paid DLCs to make sense of its story. While it's got interesting encounters, a good number of them are ruined by a zero-margin for error design philosophy (*cough cough* Laura *cough cough*). While it's got striking visuals that make great use of lighting, many of its designs are admittedly derivative. However, the Evil Within is a game I like, despite it trying very hard to make me dislike it. I thought about writing a retrospective, but ultimately realized I had nothing new to contribute to the conversation (which makes sense; it's almost four years old. What more can be said?). Instead, I opted to do this: a sojourn into the real world science and philosophy which permeates the narrative. This was initially part of a lore video which I'm still working on, but I decided to dedicate a separate episode to this. I hope you enjoy.
Patreon Stuff:
A big thanks to all of my patreon subs, who have helped in making this possible. As a token of my gratitude, they are granted early access to my videos, and have the ability to vote on what game I cover next. To those who are interested, and would like to donate, feel free to visit:
www.patreon.co...
Your donations go a long way, even if it's just a dollar. If enough people give, I might be able to do this full time and get some serious production value in these movies.
A Declaration:
Welcome to the Gameological Dig, a channel devoted to playing games with obtuse and interesting stories. The aim of this channel is to treat these game worlds like an archeological site, meant to be unearthed and studied, so that we may better understand their plots, characters and themes.
I've been interested in the science of dreams and consciousness for a good while, so i'm very pleased you approached the game from that angle rather than a narrative one. I'm in halves about the sequel myself. I enjoyed seeing Sebastian's growth and conclusion, and how it tied in with the first story, but other aspects felt way too blunt and straightforward. I also liked how they handled the more open world, mechanically at least, but feel like the environments suffered aesthetically because of it. They're both flawed games that I enjoy for different reasons, and whatever comes next, I hope it's more in line with the original in tone and setting while expanding on the mechanical innovations of the sequel.
I agree when you say both games are flawed. Part 1 suffers from one-hit kill bosses, cheap deaths, a terrible stamina system, and a save area which does everything it can to prevent you from doing things quickly; while part 2 has bad writing, an illogical plot, watered down mechanics, almost no tension, and pacing issues. But I enjoy both for different reasons, and I also hope that part 3 manages to capitalize on the strengths of both games.
Gameological Dig the best thing they can do is bring back Ruvik and have the game go full circle although a few more Stefano like psychos wouldn’t hurt as bosses
You, sir, are criminally undersubbed. You do have a small upload count as well, but still, this content is great.
This is hilarious, i'm a 3rd year neuroscience undergrad, and multiple of these studies ; both the Hasson et al. and reconstructed movies (Nishimoto et al.) we studied extensively in my cognitive neuro class this year. Good summarization; I appreciate it the groundedness!
A 2015 study you might enjoy, pretty philosophically gross if you ask me: deBettencourt et al. ; they did a study with fMRI readings and a sort of machine-learning program. The program learned to recognize when a participant was not paying attention to the task, and would be subsequently punish the participant in real-time by turning up the difficulty of the task. The idea of an AI reading your mind and punishing you is potentially super terrifying lol
I would say that I am particularly late to this video. However, The Evil Within 1&2 continue to stand up as a series devoted to entertaining uncomfortable ideas. Thanks for taking the time to put some of the ideas that this series is trying to convey into a coherent format. I would argue that some philosophical arguments and ideas have lost steam as we enter a more Post-Modern age. However, Science and the Philosophy behind it continue to press on our present world more than ever. There is a whole bunch of hard work still needed to be done in those fields.
The Evil Within should be appreciated because it pushes those complex ideas into a very accessible format. Thanks again!
Never thought to look at the tech behind the Evil Within this closely. Really enjoyed the video as always!
BluncheonMeat I didn’t plan to focus on it; it just kinda happened. Same with the Descartes stuff. Turned out to be pretty interesting. Thanks for watching!
Im glad somebody understands how good this game actually is.
Yells at 3 AM
I have a suggestion for one of your next lore videos to make a video of the lore around we happy few.
I was disapointed by the sequel, because it didn't answer any of the questions I had... it just added more questions.
Don't get me wrong, I like both games! They're fun, and entertaining! It's just that I have questions that I'm not gonna get answers to.
Fun fact: In Japan, it's called psychobreak.
Great video. I very recently took a Neuroscience class and one of my papers specialized in sleep disorders, so learning a little more about dreaming in the context of this video was super interesting.
I'm gonna have to agree with you on this game trying very hard to make me hate it. I finished it very recently and I'm playing through The Consignment DLC right now, which I think tilts the scales in the direction of making the game make SO MUCH MORE SENSE as well as improving hugely upon the main game's tactics/gameplay/storytelling. I'm interested to see where the rest of the DLCs take me.
Karinabob Haha, glad I covered a topic you specialized in and didn’t get it wrong! Have you gotten to the second Kidman DLC yet? Overall, they’re pretty good. I mean, it’s bullshit that they’re necessary to make sense of the story, but aside from that (*shrugs*).
Gameological Dig Still in the first Kidman DLC right now, but really looking forward to getting to the 2nd one. Seriously, the 1st 10 minutes of The Consignment were about 100x better than the main game. So frustrating.
Maybe you should try to talk about Prey, I'm currently playing it, it's a really really nice game with deep and interesting story !
He's already covered the most recent Prey. It's worth a look
What the F... UA-cam, I was not notified of this video at all!!!!!!
Regardless, it was a good video as always, keep it up.
Well i've been Monitoring Sheepling for quite a while now, looks like they are indeed a Natural Lucid Dreamer. And a Intense one at that, i dont have the details as i have yet to invent a Monitoring Machine cabable to decipther Sheeplings thoughts, let alone Dreams. (Its an Enigma, whenever i do the scan unlike Normal Entities i get Error Messages or simply Scrabled Bullshit. And it doesnt help that i have nothing to compare it to)
Sorry for nitpicking, but shadows aren't really one dimensional. They're not even 2D, because there is also the space between the object casting the shadow and it's drop.
Apart from that (which for some obscure reason resonated in my mind) I love your videos (especially the SOMA lore series, but I'm slowly catching up with the rest as well)!
Also I didn't realize you have a Patreon account, I'll definitely look into it :)
Never gave The Evil Within Much thought before, but watching this video makes me want to give it a second look.
It's a lot of fun being able to control your dream. It's almost like being in another world but what you can do is pretty much limitless. Only had few of these.
Never had a dream where I wake only to still be in a dream.
Have had dreams so real they may as well have been real. Quite mundane, with no hint of anything unusual.
I don't know why but you should at least have a million view for this video, I am strongly motivated to medical science by this video game, what I hope for is not just having lucid dreaming where you as you said on the video, you are putting one feet in the reality and the other in dream, but to make the dream itself, the same way computer engineering developing Games, if we succeed to make this happens we will help many people suffering from anxiety, family lost, even for soldiers training. Human Can play God if this invention made. I truly believe that this is possible, but it requires both understanding and testing of true brain cells, meaning that it will not cost Cheaply.
Thank you for The inspiration, ❤️
Amazing video as always!
Fascinating, Keep up the good work :)
I would, without knowing anything about it, advise against using devices that mess up with your sleep/dream cycles. So I second your caution.
I miss your story dives in games. If you hve any intrest of doing a soma kind of video again like your first few I suggest prey.
I toyally agree.
there's a bunch of games I would love to see on this channel? Dark Souls, Mass Effect, Bloodborne
What's the music that plays in the beginning?
Great review.
"Motor spirit".....
Machine Spirit
*PRAISE THE OMNISIAH!!!*
Should I play this game or not? I bought it but never bovered playing it...
You bought it, but never bothered to play it? Lol. Why even buy it then? If you're interested in a 3rd person, linear horror game with an intricate story then you should probably play it. There's a number of issues with the game that other reviewers have already discussed, but it there are redeemable factors.
I bought it along with many other good games during a steam sale probably, or when it was in a Humble Bundle. I have over 200 games on steam so it happened to me with many games.
Ah, I see. I've gotten to a similar state. I stopped buying games once I realized how much I was buying but not actually playing. Now I have a bunch of games on wishlists to play someday in the future.
The boss fights are pretty jank, with far reaching hitboxes and their lack of vulnerabilities but otherwise it's a fun game that hasn't been done before.
Good shit
Ps
Solipsism