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.