Inside (spoiler-free review)

A friend of mine recommended me this game called "Inside". From the few screenshots I saw, I was a bit prejudiced against the game, due to its game genre.

Inside is one of these "2.5D" games. The kind where everything is modeled with 3D geometry, and all scenery is fully in 3D (usually going way back "into" the screen), but the movement of the playable character is strictly restricted to the 2D plane. In other words, you can only move left and right, and climb up and down. In other words, it's essentially a 2D platformer with 3D graphics.

I have absolutely nothing against 2D platformers, when they are well made. Some of my all-time favorite games are 2D platformers (such as Ori and the Blind Forest). However, I have always found these "2.5D" games on the boring side. They tend to lack that beauty and charm of well-made 2D games, but at the same time they never fully utilize the possibilities of 3D geometry, artificially restricting movement to the 2D plane.

Man, was I wrong in this case. Inside is, without any exaggeration, one of the best games I have played in my life, and I have played quite many games.

Somehow the developers succeeded in making the 2.5D mechanic work amazingly well with this game. Rather than looking artificial and restricting, it feels surprisingly natural. The controls are really fluent and comfortable, and the gameplay is very polished.

And another thing that's extremely polished is all the character animations. They look amazingly natural and believable. I do not know if they used rotoscoping to make them, or whether they were developed manually, but they look extremely fluent and natural, but without that "uncanny valley" effect that rotoscoping often has (especially when it was used decades ago). It's hard to describe; you really have to play the game to see it. If you go against a wall or glass window, the playable character will lean against it; if you are running away from a chasing enemy, he will look behind him while running; if some enemy sees him, the enemy will run to and restrain him, in a very realistic animation... Verbal descriptions can't make it justice; you have to experience it yourself to appreciate it.

But what really makes this one of my all-time favorite games is the ambience. The graphics use this strange mix of somewhat simplistic design with almost cell-shaded quality to it, with some almost photorealistic graphics (such as photorealistic water, fire and atmospheric effects). This might sound like they would clash with each other, but surprisingly they don't; they work surprisingly well. They create this almost surreal semi-noir style, which is just marvelous.

Of course graphics alone don't make a game, but what they do with them, ie. what the graphics convey. And it's just marvelous. This is one of those of those games that you have to experience yourself. It's more about the experience than the story.

I couldn't recommend this game higher. It's well, well worth its current price (ie. 20€ on Steam and PSN.) I have paid significantly more for much, much crappier games.

Invisible Inc, a surprisingly addictive game

Invisible Inc. was one of the complimentary games for PlayStation+ subscribers in the PlayStation store in December of 2016. Like so many other games given there, I get them into my game library, and then from time to time I download a bunch of them and try each one to see if there's anything good. A good portion of those games end up being on the boring side, but sometimes there are real gems among them.

Invisible Inc. is a turn-based tactical stealth game with procedurally generated levels.

Yes, that last part sounds like a real turn-off. I'm one of the biggest skeptics in terms of procedurally generated content in video games. They tend to be boring, and usually suffer from a lack of design, a lack of a core idea behind the level design. When people design game levels manually, they tend to have some higher-level ideas about what the level should be like; there might be some kind of theme, there might be some story, there may be some fitting puzzles. Especially things like buildings tend to look like designed by humans, and be functional. Or at the very least show some level of intent and purpose. If there are puzzles of some kind within the levels, they show clear signs that they have been thought out by somebody.

Procedurally generated content, however, tends to be too random and pointless, without the creativity and ideas that a human designer has.

Thus I was quite skeptical about and prejudiced against this game. But like all the games I get from PS+, I wanted to give it a fair try. At least 10 to 15 minutes of play. I was expecting to be just bored with it in that time, delete it, and move to the next game in the list.

However, I found myself still playing the game two hours later.

The next day I was thinking if I should continue. Maybe the beginning was ok, and somewhat addictive, but it didn't feel like it could hold that interest for much longer. I was seriously considering just deleting it. But I gave it another try. And several hours later I was still playing the game.

This game is surprisingly addictive. And the levels are really, really surprisingly good.

The procedural generation in this game is something out of this world. I have never seen anything of this level ever before. If somebody told me that the levels were fully designed by somebody, and that there was no procedural generation of any kind, I would have believed them.

In retrospect there may indeed by quite a lot of randomness in the level design. It's just that it doesn't feel random. Somehow the gameplay, the enemy behavior, the tactics you have to use in order to pass the level... they fit just perfectly in these levels. It feels exactly like the levels were designed intentionally for the kind of gameplay that this game uses.

I have no idea what kind of procedural generation this game uses, and how random the levels really are. Oftentimes it feels like there is an intentional overall design to a level, decided by a developer for that particular level. I don't know if that's indeed so, and that only the details inside the rooms, and some of the overall map layout is procedurally generated, or whether the entire level is just one big product of random chance, but oftentimes I have a hard time believing it's just the latter.

For example, in one level the mission was to find a laboratory where the agents could get a couple of augmentations for free. Said laboratory was right at the beginning of the level, right next door to the starting room. Thus I got the augmentations right away. However, the real challenge was that the exit was on the other side of the level, and there were tons of guards, drones and cameras along the way, and I had to tactically devise a way to get through all that alive.

It really felt like the level was purposefully designed like that. In other words, you get the mission target right away, and the real challenge is to get out alive. I have no idea if the level was intentionally designed like that (with just the details being randomly generated), or whether it was just by pure chance that it was like that.

Another level started with a guard facing away from your agents, apparently just using a console. And the direction he's facing is the only path to advance. While there were some covers here and there, it was impossible to avoid him seeing the agents if they just tried to walk past him. And, of course, the guard was armored so he couldn't be taken out. It was a real challenge to figure out how to proceed in the level without getting killed. Again, it really, really felt like it had been purposefully designed like that, rather than being randomly generated.

You also quickly grow emotional attachment to the two agents that you control. They can die, if shot. And they will be permanently dead if not saved. I grew so attached to them that I really didn't want them to die, and in some levels went to extreme lengths to have both reach the exit safe and sound. And when I succeeded, it felt like a real accomplishment.

Overall, the level design, as random is might be, just fits the gameplay perfectly, and doesn't feel random and pointless at all. And the game itself is enormously addictive. It might not be for everybody, but it certainly was for me.

Xbox One controller ingenious design

I recently decided to purchase an Xbox One controller to replace the old Xbox 360 controller I have been using for PC gaming for years. (I have an Xbox 360, which I haven't used for a couple of years. I don't have an Xbox One, but I like using the Xbox controller for most PC games.)

I have been using both an Xbox 360 and a PS4 controller for quite many years. The Xbox One controller immediately felt like a really well-designed and sturdy product, especially compared to the Xbox 360 one. The analog sticks felt less stiff and easier to use, as well as the triggers. The d-pad is a lot "clickier", making a quite clear click when any direction is pressed.

There was one thing, however, that at first felt like a massive disappointment and a huge design blunder: The massive shoulder buttons. This image compares the size of the shoulder button compared to the other two controllers (click on any image for a slightly larger version):

Of course size is not the problem, but the way they are positioned and how they work. Comparing the Xbox One and the PS4 controllers in profile shows how much higher the shoulder buttons are in the former:

In the image, the baseline (where the bottom part of the controller, where you hold it with your middle and rest of your fingers) as well as the shoulder button lower and upper edges have been marked. As you can see, in the Xbox One controller they are enormously higher.

This makes the shoulder buttons quite awkward to use, if you try to use them like with the other controllers. Not only that, but there's another problem: If you try to press them with the tip of your finger, as demonstrated in the picture below, they don't actually work! That part does not trigger the button (or, more precisely, it triggers it very poorly).

At first this felt like a huge disappointment. The entire rest of the controller felt really, really well designed, high quality, sturdy and easy to use. The shoulder buttons, however, were positioned very awkwardly, and were hard to press.

However, after a while of using the controller, I realized the actual idea behind the design. And it's quite ingenious!

You are actually not supposed to use the trigger button like above. Instead, you are supposed to press it with the part of your finger around the second knuckle, like this:

Why is this an ingenious design? Because it actually allows you to, if needed, press the shoulder button and the trigger at the same time! And you have full control of how much you squeeze the trigger.

If you compare this to how you press the shoulder button in the PS4 controller, you'll see that there it's just not possible to press both with the same finger:

Of course it's perfectly possible to use your middle finger to press the trigger while you use your index finger to press the shoulder button, and this can be a completely viable and comfortable way of playing. However, if you are using both fingers like this, then you'll be holding the controller itself only with your ring and pinky fingers, which is slightly less firm. Not that it can be a huge problem, but it can be less comfortable.