Inside Review (Annalog)
Lot to say about this game.
I think the first thing I have to note though is the brutality. Because while the game is gorgeous, the world building is spectacular (with no dialogue! Show, don't tell), the puzzles are clever, and the escape sequences are so tightly timed that I tensed up every single time, I HAVE to warn you that it's unapologetic in its gruesome story telling.
INSIDE is not a happy story. It's depressing, dark, and twisted, but most importantly: It's terrifically done. INSIDE had my skin crawling like few games dared to try. But that meant going through with the graphic content to back up the stakes.
I'm going to list a one of the death animations and describe it, but under a spoiler tag. That way if you need the extra info to decide, it's there, but I'm not spoiling anything for somebody just scrolling by. But to note: Some of these wouldn't be as bad if you weren't a child being killed.
When a dog catches you, there's a full death sequence. It bites you, some tear at you, others snap your neck. And you watch for a couple seconds after you die, so it's just dogs eating your body, or your now limp body hanging from the dog's mouth.
If adults catch you, you get a couple different ones as well. Strangulation seemed to be the most popular, but I was also beaten with a stick/bat once. Again, disturbing to see an adult beat a child like that.
ALL THAT SAID:
It's incredibly well made. The world-crafting is terrifically done, as they make every scene you go through count. Watching the people march along, realizing what this factory does to people here, all through phenomenal visual storytelling.
And the puzzles fit the world perfectly. INSIDE does what LIMBO did, where you create a gorgeous puzzle game with no UI, except INSIDE did it cleaner. I loved LIMBO, but some of it was tough with it being all black. Through INSIDE, they're able to take full control of color design to make the entire puzzle even better. It's easier to tell what you can interact with and what you can't, the context clues are more fleshed out, and the whole experience flows better for it. Mess up a puzzle and you'll be able to catch what went wrong from your first death. It's great that I only have to mess up once, and the death again gives you clues on what went wrong. I stood somewhere too long, I should've let go sooner, whatever it is.
The flow of the whole game feels terrific. I didn't realize how jarring it was to go from a desert to the sewers to ice capped mountains, when suddenly I ran into a puzzle game that flowed the whole way through. There were varied environments to work through, giving you a diverse array of puzzles, but it wasn't just abruptly changing scenery all the time. INSIDE's visual design is on a whole separate level in this regard. The enemies that appear, how you dealt with them, and how that progressed the game were beyond brilliant as well. I'm going to talk about a part from the trailer, so no spoiler tag here: The part where you have to lock-step with other people was AMAZING mid-game. It happens, you have to go through with it, and eventually you make your way out the other side. But I wasn't ready for it, and it felt like such a fun part of the puzzle to do and experience. It's nerve racking, despite being one of the simplest parts of the game!
Every facet of this game is finely tuned and crafted to make the most of a video game that you can. The dogs barking, the chain link fence jostling, the silence, the loud bangs, all entirely uninterrupted by flimsy stories to justify you changing from the sewers to Paris france even though you were on a mountain. No UI prompts, no minimaps, no score, no timer, no health bar, to bring you that much closer to the piece of art and not the "video game" portion of the format.
Sincerely recommend, it sets a ridiculous bar for video game story telling as a format. Other games would do well to learn from INSIDE. Not copy it, but learn from it.