by Joseph Carlson
Inside is a game made by Playdead, the same people who made the game Limbo that came out in 2010. Although Inside shares some of the design decisions of Limbo the overall narrative and color palette(Limbo was monochromatic, Inside instead uses many muted colors) have changed. This is not a study looking to make a knock off of it's last great game, instead they used a solid set of building blocks to make Inside something else entirely.
It's very difficult to review this game without giving away some of the story so I'll do the best I can at just telling you about the beginning of this game: You are a very young boy running from people that mean to kill you.
Not only is the tone and color unique in the game but also another jarring thing: There is no dialogue of any kind in this game. People yell and you hear dogs bark when they are on your tail, but that's about it. You have to explore your environment and escape capture navigating puzzles and avoiding people.
So this is the part when I tell you how great the game is and if you've been reading anything about it then you know it's getting a lot of attention lately. I will say this I completely recommend Inside if only for the fact that the more people play the game then the more people can talk about it. It is definitely one of the games that you can go out with your friends have a beer or a coffee and talk for a very long time about.
That's probably the best compliment I can give a game. This review will go up Monday morning and I beat the game on Sunday afternoon and I still am thinking about it. Why did the main character do this? Why were people looking for him? Did he finish the task he sent out to at the beginning of the game? My lord the possible questions I could sit and talk about this game for much longer.
Please let me know in the comments below if you played Inside. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Inside is available for PC and Xbox One. At the time of this review it retails for $19.99.