Developer: The Farm 51
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Release Date: June 23, 2017
MSRP: $29,99
ESRB: Mature, PEGI 16
Players: 1 (Single Player Only)
Available Platforms: PS4 [Reviewed], Xbox One, PC
Genre: First Person Shooter / Horror / Psycho Thriller
Horror, Shooter, Action? Get Even blurs the lines between all those genres, or rather it jumps between them with every chapter. In its roughly 7 hour long story you will play different characters and memories. Your starting character, Cole Black, finds himself trapped in an insane asylum against his will. A weird apparatus called the “Pandora” gets strapped around his head through which he can relive old memories.
What’s both fascinating and confusing is that you go through these memories in the wrong order. That may be the reason why the developers have built in a chapter select with timestamps of the memories, so you can replay them chronologically if you desire. The length is perfectly adequate for a game like this. After finishing Black’s campaign I thought the game was over and it looked like the end. Imagine my surprise when the next story path began (although I won’t go into more detail here for spoiler reasons).
Throughout the game there are glowing picture frames on the walls. Interacting with them teleports you into a dark empty room from where memories can be replayed. This way you can also mop up collectibles and trophies. Speaking of collectibles, there are lots of them (camera recordings, documents and voice recordings). If you ever played Outlast they will feel familiar to you.
Equipped with a phone and gun you go through the memories (past) and asylum (present). The phone’s camera is for taking pictures. When a photo collectible is nearby the controller will vibrate and green dots show up on-screen. Find all of them to earn codes for otherwise inaccessible doors that lead to hidden memories and new weapons. The phone also comes with an infrared camera, mini-map, and flashlight for solving puzzles. The puzzles in Get Even are relatively easy, I was never stuck for more than 5 minutes. For example, you have to figure out keycodes by looking at the environment or interact with junction boxes in the correct order to turn on electricity.
Your gun arsenal consists of a silenced pistol, assault rifle and corner gun. The corner gun is special because it allows you to shoot around corners, thus opening up possibilities for more tactical gameplay. Too bad the enemy encounters are so unchallenging — the AI just can’t deal with those silenced corner shots. Especially when paired with the phone’s infrared it turns into a point and click target practice and less of a gun fight. You don’t even have to look out for enemies because the infrared marks them for you.
The game’s atmosphere is changing very abruptly sometimes. One minute you are running and gunning through a garage with action music playing, the next minute you are back in the asylum with crazy people trying to lynch you. It’s a unique concept but doesn’t always work so well. If you want to play a horror game you might be turned off by the gunfights; and if you want to shoot guns you might get bored by the slow-paced exploration sections. Out of everything, the asylum was my favorite part by far. There are mad people banging on doors from all sides and others trying to kill you in the hallways. Sadly, it’s the only spooky part and I would have loved to see more of that. The problem in my opinion is that Get Even tries to be so many things but doesn’t bring them together well enough. To repeat the earlier question: is it a horror game or is it a shooter? It’s both and it’s neither, at least not really. Get Even dances between both genres and whether intentional or unintentional, never tries to do more than the bare minimum on either side. Probably the best way to describe it is a “psycho thriller”.
The one thing that deserves a special mention is the soundtrack. I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard such phenomenal sound design. The game is not much to look at visually but it makes up for it with the music. It also helps in delivering the whole “psycho thriller” vibe because at times it genuinely made me feel nervous. The music is getting faster and louder with every step you take and there’s always the looming threat of another psycho jumping at you with a knife or crowbar.
To my surprise, I found that there’s quite a bit of replay value. Your actions impact the outcome of the story. So replaying the game and killing / leaving alive / helping / ignoring certain people will give different results. The trophies & achievements embrace these possibilities and require you to do different scenarios. Props to the developers for including a decent collectible tracker. This is important because you can only access hidden memories if you’ve found all collectibles in a chapter. Obtaining the platinum isn’t hard but the trophy descriptions very vague and require some experimentation.
| Gameplay *Overall Enjoyment Factor, Fascination with Game World, Level Design, Variety, Playability, User-Friendliness (Ease of Use / Readability / Controls / in-game Tutorials / Menus) |
| 4/10 – Underwhelming Gunfights – Not the least bit scary |
| Story/Multiplayer *Quality of the Singleplayer Story, Cutscenes and/or Multiplayer Modes (whichever is available). If a game has no Story or no Multiplayer it won’t be rated (thus no negative effect on score). |
| 7/10 Story: 7/10 – Tries to be many things and doesn’t always deliver, but at least they are attempting something new. It’s unlike anything I ever played. Multiplayer: Not available (not rated) |
| Technical Aspects *Graphics, Texture Quality, Character Details, Lighting, Weather Effects, Animations, Loading Times, Number of Loading Screens, does it run smoothly |
| 5/10 Mediocre. Does not make use of the PS4’s power, looks like a PS3 build. |
| Value *Amount of Content, Production Quality, Replay Value, is there enough content to justify a purchase |
| 7/10 + Unexpected Replay Value (your choices affect how the game plays out, collectibles unlock codes to otherwise inaccessible doors) – Not particularly long (7 hours) |
| Trophies/Achievements *Rates how much fun the Platinum / 1000 Gamerscore is to achieve: Are trophies fun to do? Do trophies restrict freedom of gameplay? Missable trophies? Multiple playthroughs required? Luck-based trophies? Pointless farming/grinding? Glitched Trophies? Are stats/trophies tracked correctly? |
| 7/10 I like that the trophies push exploration. Many of them are for trying different story choices (stuff that you would otherwise have missed). I’m all for collectibles but they did squeeze too many of them in the game. If the game would at least look nice and run well this would be more bearable. |
| Extraordinary Score Increase or Deduction *Reserved for extraordinarily good or bad features that the other categories don’t cover (such as game-breaking bugs). This score is directly added/subtracted from the final score. |
| +1 Point: Phenomenal Sound Design |
VERDICT:
So what is Get Even you ask? It unites shooter, exploration and horror elements into a new psycho thriller experience. Its biggest strength is the phenomenal sound design and a unique story with decent replay value. The weak points are the unpolished gunplay and lack of scary material for which there was a lot of potential.
FINAL SCORE:
7/10
Played on PS4 Pro using a retail disc version (bought the German USK version). Played through the game twice (once in default story order and once in chronological order via chapter select).