AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Limbo playdead unsatisfied1/14/2024 ![]() ![]() You feel connected like you are the boy running scared. While the gameplay is linear like the studio's previous game, Limbo, it bring a whole other level to this experience. Was one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had. There’s an ambiguity to it that leaves room for various discussions about the meanings behind it, even if that might leave some feeling a bit dissatisfied because of that perceived lack of a solid, set message.Just finished Inside. There’s a wickedly playful subtlety to the story’s unfurling, with much of its finer details easy to miss if you don’t pay attention to the details of the environments. It was certainly not what I had expected, in fact I couldn’t have foreseen the weirdness of those last fifteen minutes with a hundred guesses, but in retrospect, it makes perfect sense.Weird, perfect sense. By the time you reach the final stages of Inside, things have gone very, very odd indeed. Things escalate from the relative normalcy of the opening twenty minutes into something that becomes moodier, grislier, and definitively stranger as you progress. Inside’s atmospheric, muted world is highly effective at getting its talons into you, presenting you with scenes that disturb and disgust whilst still keeping you engaged in the hunt for resolution. These moments are fantastic for the storytelling, using nothing more than what’s on screen ooze into your mind and sit there, festering for hours after you finish playing. Earlier set piece moments are slightly more bombastic as they focus on the boy being chased, and that provides some chilling and tense encounters, but some are quieter, more ominous and foreboding, using that aforementioned silence expertly to punctuate the point. That freshness is also kept up by Playdead smattering some set piece moments in here and there to break up the game into recognisable segments without truly signposting anything. The use of light and shadow is especially enthralling, while character animation is exemplary in its twisted mix of human movement and the slightly puppet-like. Inside’s world is bleak, disturbing even, but finds a ghoulish beauty in it. ![]() The overall mantra of Inside seems to be simplicity made engaging and captivating, and the art style is one such area where that is delivered expertly. Inside has splashes of color unlike Limbo, but washes them out to fit the overbearingly bleak nature of the game and its visual style. This immediately brings to mind developer Playdead’s previous hit Limbo, which starts in similar fashion, and also looks similarly gloomy and monochrome. You begin by evading your pursuers and solving physics-based puzzles. Where that journey takes you is they mystery. The basic story to Inside, and all you really need to know going in, is that you play as a young boy on the run. All the same, I can at least try to give you a vague enough outline of why Inside is something rather good indeed. It is a game that bores into your skull with its uncomfortable, oppressive bleakness, and pulls off the darkly comedic without breaking stride. It’s a game where the core mechanics are simple, almost secondary to the unspoken narrative that weaves its way through the few hours you’ll spend in the game, but also manages to be clever and intuitive. This is one of those games that really does benefit from the player going in with as little knowledge as possible. ![]() It truly is difficult to write about Inside without allowing for spoilers, and spiralling into a series of wishy-washy descriptors. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |