Although I personally love this game and have given it some very high praise myself, I really enjoyed hearing your argument for a different perspective on it. It was super well thought out and structured (similar to the rest of your content, dog bless) but I've accepted that this game is just not for everyone, and for valid reasons. I realize that sounds super condescending, but I just mean it's something that relies VERY heavily on just a couple aspects: the presentation and world-building. If neither of those aspects outshine the very basic gameplay and plot details given to the player - you're gonna have a bad time. Even though I personally had a pretty magical, enchanting time with the game, I can now fully understand why someone wouldn't. Love your videos, always enjoy catching up on your channel. Now excuse me while I go watch your 3+ hour video on Uncharted and The Last of Us.
Okay but the only reasons you give are presentation and world building, Surely if the game is as special as you say you could give much a much more in depth explanation as to why you enjoyed it. Tons of games present theirselves well and create expansive deep worlds but in my opinion Inside doesn't do either of those things, It looks bland/boring and the world isn't explained at all in the end neither is the sudden changes in how people or things react to you as shown in the video. What was so enchanting? The feeling of going from powerless to powerful at the end? The shallow symbolism of control or lack thereof? You might say that I just don't understand the game but I think that other people are trying to hard to create an understanding of the game because they think it has some deep hidden meaning when it just doesn't or atleast doesn't do a good enough job at showing it.
Inside doesnt do any of that stuff for you. i thought it was a beautiful game, despite how i can see someone thinking it's boring or dull. the attention to detail is what i loved about it personally. everything i interacted with reacted exactly how i thought it would in real life. dragging a pipe over blood makes a little bloodline that fades with distance, your character gets dirty and the rain washes him off, breaking walls with momentum feels satisfying as fuuuck. sure its all scripted and linear but the way its executed was good enough to keep me entertained. the animation is smooth and the graphic style they used alone makes this game stand over Limbo for me. i wont say you didnt understand the game because i didnt either, you just didnt find what i found to be cool in the experience. that doesnt make you wrong or right, thats just like.. your opinion, man.
ex Lightning Well the reason it looks bland/boring is the whole point. Your in a place where people are being mind controlled to be basically zombies. It's kinda like real life. You can search for answers on what's going on around you. Or you can be oblivious to the rest of the world. Continuing on your set path.
I think that's my new favorite line that I've written for a video, haha. I'll never top the Always Sunny In Philadelphia joke in TLoU though. I watched your video on Abzu the other day and thought it was a really interesting discussion topic--moreso by being a father. I hadn't even heard of the game either. Great job with it.
Thank you man! I appreciate it. You absolutely nailed it with this video though - as I talked about in my vid on it, I actually think Inside works best when it's trying to be a thrill ride. Like you say, there's not really much to a section when everything is programmed to very specifically *just* miss you. When I was able to suspend my disbelief, however, the stress I felt as I was running away from dogs was very real. It's a rollercoaster in those moments, but it produces thrills in a similar way - it's all based on the momentum of the experience. When it tries to jam more 'game-like' elements in there, however, it kills that essential momentum and falls COMPLETELY flat. It uses the language of film more effectively than most games, but fails to effectively incorporate the vocabulary of games within that.
Also, the idea that the game at once feels too short AND too long is one I agree with wholeheartedly. Worst of both worlds - far from concise, but over before it can really say anything to the player.
This game and Limbo are just pure vibes for me, especially Inside. I will never forget playing this game in the middle of the night by myself in one sitting, genuinely so terrifying and awesome.
I have a theory on why this game was praised so much, or at least, why I initially praised it so much: for starters, it's got great art direction, using simple geometric shapes and solid colors combined with a great use of depth and scale to create a cold, industrial, brutalistic world that's both huge and claustrophobic at the same time. That part in the bathysphere where you break through the floorboards and enter an underwater chamber so massive you can't even see the floor is positively _haunting._ So at least it has that going for it. Second, while the game does fail to answer pretty much all the questions it asks, up until the very ending it kept me going simply because I wanted to know more. The mystery and the facility kept getting deeper and deeper, and I had to know what it all meant. But once you turn into the Biggest Ball of Flesh in Minnesota and flop down on the beach, I was still left wondering what happened, so I tried to piece it all together, reading loads of theories and coming up with my own, and thinking _what does it all _*_meeeeean?_* But after reading the same theories over and over, I realized that this game didn't have any answers, and I was just trying to find the answers so I didn't feel cheated.
The game is an allegory. If you recognize that and have a decent understanding of classic literature you should be able to piece together what it is "trying to say." Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost. - Dante, Inferno - Canto I Not a bad place to start.
@@Epiousios18 dante's inferno? That's a bit of a stretch honestly. I can't see how it resembles dante's inferno in more that the most bare-bones fashion. Can you give me more examples?
The issue many people appear to be having is frustration with ambiguity. Inside is all about ambiguity. It doesn't offer closure and it doesn't need to. I understand the impulse to seek an explanation outside of whatever story you feel like you didn't get, but I think Inside wouldn't have worked nearly as well for me if it had taken the effort to explain every little thing. In the end, Inside is a series of images and inputs. It creates an atmosphere that will either resonate with you or it won't. Some people will be moved, others will think it's meaningless.
@@gentlemanscarecrow5987 I dont feel like its "meaningless" per se, it just feels like it tells an incomplete story. Theres a lot of themes and symbolism and mystery on display that keep you going, but the ending is so abrupt it feels less like the end of a book and more like a book with several pages missing.
@@Omnywrench I guess that's just the struggle with a game as many possible interpretations as Inside. It's difficult to say what made an ending feel abrupt or incomplete to you, while feeling emotionally impactful and fitting to me. Your feelings are as valid as mine and I don't blame anyone for feeling unsatisfied with their experience, but I'm not sure Inside had much left to add that would've been able to simultaneously provide closure and maintain it's particular atmosphere. It just felt natural to me to be left uncertain of anything, just like how things have been in every other part of my life.
Hey thanks for watching. I'm sitting here fretting over the title of this one so I wanted to add a couple of things. The "Inside Joke" is a pun related to how many 10/10 ratings the game got, and how I feel like I'm not a part of a joke because I don't understand them. I am NOT calling the game a joke. Despite its simplicity and short length, it's very well put together. I was probably too negative because of the insane praise statements the game received. I still should have added some points to balance what it does well. A few more minutes wouldn't have hurt the video length. That's my bad. The snippets of review quotes don't look that great in the video. They looked a lot better when I was editing the video on my end. I tried to fix it and produced the video a second time, but it's only a little better. I probably should have made them even smaller, but I wanted them to be readable. And I didn't want to weaken them by adding them onto my usual slides. No Man's Sky is up next.
Yeah probably. But I already wrote the script a few weeks ago. And a lot of people have told me they're looking forward to my take on it. I've missed the boat. Hopefully some subs enjoy it at least.
It's weird because when I played the game I didn't think much about the gameplay or the puzzles, I was pulled in by the atmosphere and art style, I was wondering what the hell was going on which is what kept me playing to see what would happen. Hearing it explained out I agree with the issues you had with the gameplay, but the difference as to why I liked the game and you did not I think just comes down to personal taste. I loved the setting and surrealism and the horror vibes and thats what kept me into the game, whereas for you (I assume in part because you're a critic and would look more closely at these things) the gameplay stood out more to you and you saw those issues first. So its odd but I agree with you completely as to why, in your view, it wasn't a good game, while at the same time I still like the experience I had with it. Oh and I also agree that the praise for the game is a bit overblown. It was a great game sure, but I'd have given it an 8.5 or something, it was memorable and interesting but I've played much better games even so.
Darron Pirtheesingh Which ones? I'm positive I beat the games u consider better n would probably give them 6s n 7s while giving inside a 10 so point being it all boils down to opinion which u already did state that's it's a matter of opinion so I'm not arguing your point
@DrTheKay yikes... i want you to consider someone you care about and respect reading some of the shit you spew online. its a game, and he has his own well thought out opinion whereas you got yours spoon-fed to you by this overrated reviewer. why are you watching a 30 minute opinion on a game you already know you hate?
Inside was pretty to look at, and the ‘world building’ was neat, as I am a sucker for apocalyptic(?) dystopian settings. But so much of it wasn’t explained, certain concepts like the grunge girl in the water felt oddly out of place, and that ending left me like ‘... that’s it?’ It was a huge escalation, only to literally deflate like you said. It wasn’t satisfying. It’s been years, but I still think back on this game and shake my head.
Yeah, that's it. You got inside. You were mind controlled all this time, just like other drones. There is a secret ending, where you use this acquired knowledge to (spoiler alert) unplug yourself from the mind control machine, but you die in the process, indicating that you were probably one of those reanimated corpses all this time. If that doesn't sound like powerfull conclusion, I don't know what does
@@LittleJohnnyBrown So the game purposefully made you realize that the game you played actually isn't interesting. And that realization is supposed to be akin to turning off brainwashing, and escaping? Maybe the game just wasn't that good. This is what we in the industry refer to as cope.
Why the HECK would you think that's a girl?! It's a guy who stayed underwater for years that why he got hair longer than himself. I don't see breats, yeah, no p either, but seriously. He doesn't move like a girl at all.
"It's too cool to tell you a story, you have to find some pieces and imagine your own." You said it! Boy am I sick of media that follows that cop-out trend. Don't get me wrong, I love some movies/games that don't have a clear plot. But it's incredibly lazy when creators use ambiguity as a shallow gimmick to impress you, or as a substitute for actual meaning. Literally anyone can write an ambiguous ending; it isn't clever or creative.
@@ML-eq4rx everything is NOT there if you want a story that doesn't explain everything and still tell a good story then hollowknight was better or little nightmare
@@ML-eq4rx I think that's the whole difference of enjoyement when it comes to these type of games. You probably enjoyed "trying to find" the answers. Just like how fans like to come up with fantheories. If you stretch things out enough, you can make everything fit, making our own truths is humanities greatest skill and downfall at the same time. But not everyone enjoys the same things. I don't agree with Oecobius33 that it's shallow and not clever. I think it takes skill to throw enough ingredients into a soup to make it tasty, but unrecognizeable enough to definitively describe the flavour. But I also know a lot of people are simply put off by not knowing what they are eating. Knowing wether it is meat or vegetable will mean the difference between disgust or delight. You probably found answers that were never there, but that was the whole point of the devs.
"Ambiguitis" That is the word I was looking for for all these kinds of games. Though Little Nightmares did a much better job and has a less severe case.
I'm three videos of yours in after accidentally discovering you while searching for Lady Gaga's "The Witness" (three guesses which video I found first) and you're RAPIDLY skyrocketting to my list of favorite game reviewers/talkers. You have a lovely voice and you are extremely well spoken; your comments are thoughtful and precise, concise most of the time and long-winded where necessary. I really like your content. Solid work.
I honestly believe that the intended experience was taking in the creepy atmosphere and dystopian imagery throughout the game, I do like Inside because frankly I’m a sucker for these types of aesthetics (the gray imposing crumbling cityscapes, futuristic sadistic technology, general misery felt throughout the game and the bow tie of a secret conspiratorial overarching secret government/apocalypse project, seen by the massive sonic blasts in the one section, the whole underwater horror aspect and even the secret collectibles that theorise that there is something even larger than what you actually experience throughout the linear story progression.) But that’s the thing, not everyone can jive with these aesthetics or atmosphere, a lot I suppose find it boring or drab, some might just generally be uninterested. But I can agree that the ending for the game is almost disappointing, it all builds up tension to this climatic finish which is a pretty good WTF? moment for the game that truly pushes the surreal ideas it presents, but not only does it putter out of steam for a very flat ending credits reveal but it compromises the semi-realistic horror it had been building with the science experiments, the human puppets, the underwater creature/human coupled with the intense, foreboding and frankly imposing and intimidating vistas in the game of huge structures only there to juxtapose your comparatively minor existence as this small child with no set goal or path except continue pushing forward, a child who was literally just dropped into the game the moment you press start. I find it very effective in that sense of tension and horror of dystopian, depressing futures. But it pays off to nothing all that special and I want to hope for an even better sequel set in the similar world but completely detached from anything that happened in the first, solely because I find the tone and atmosphere of the game to just be encapsulating.
100% agree. The gameplay isn't the focal point. It's silly to overanalyze the gameplay. The point of the game is to get lost in the dystopian world and feel the oppressive atmosphere. It's more of a visceral experience. The lack of storyline makes it better because it just leaves you wondering what it's all about. And I love that I can make up my own interpretation of how the events unfolded.
I'm happy I found you. I thought I was the only one who didn't appreciate the vague purposefully underdeveloped plots in recent games that everyone seems to be buying into because 'oh so deep so many interpretations'. I want real endings, otherwise it seems like I've wasted my time searching for answers to questions that don't have answers.
I don't think being vague is necessarily bad if you keep it simple, but with the amount of plot twists and shit they tried to pull that style just doesn't work
I just noticed that the guy who chases you at the beginning also trips on the log, which would explain why you have a bit of time to hide by the caravan
i actually really enjoyed this game... it was one of the most memorable gaming experiences i have had in a long time if i may go further. may be because I'm not really an avid gamer and perhaps i enjoyed the story/thematic elements much like a movie.
Really well done video. To me, the slowness and missing explanation was great in building the athmosphere of the game. I don't always need everything explained or think everything through completely on the sideline. I can enjoy going with the flow, having a vague feeling of what this is about instead of a flawless logical explanation. I think this is true for many other people, and this makes the game very enjoyable.
I love your videos but I think this is the first one that feels almost entirely subjective to a fault. I know it's a cliche to say you just "didn't get it," but I'm being completely genuine with that statement. I love this game and for all the reasons you don't. I love how quiet and atmospheric it is, I love the puzzles being simple for the sake of pacing, and I love that the story has just the right amount of ambiguity. I do think the praise for the game is completely overblown. But that happens all the time (Fallout 4) and it's nothing to get upset about. Games this strong in atmosphere don't come around often and that's why they get singled out for high praise even though it doesn't offer anything mind-blowing in terms of mechanics. The main reason I love this game and so many others appear to as well. Is because of it's atmosphere and it's mood. I really couldn't care less that the puzzles are simple and arguably repetitive, because I'm so engrossed in the atmosphere of the game that the mechanics are all just background noise to me. I honestly think these games are at their worst when they are trying to be a serious puzzle game. Running around for 5 minutes trying to figure out a solution takes me out of the experience and instead I feel like I'm playing a game instead of being immersed in the world. If all I wanted from games was mechanics, I'd be playing Tetris. Sometimes I want games to be immersive sims first and foremost and "video games" second.
The puzzles stages are silence, a break, like in Half-Life when in certains moment your only corcern is to solve the puzzle, not get killed (beyond the concept of die in this game and another). That is the moment when you think and.. you get it. What am i saying, did you remember the puzzle that you get sucked and enter in the mass chamber? Well, it is a vagina. Yes, you get a inverse-birth. Well, I see that in this way... I think you understand my point. The life is reppetitive, our's patterns and daily activites are like that puzzles (or simply the developers are lazy, 4 years to make the game). All puzzle and situation in this game is allegory. srry 4 the bad english
+Kolbe Howard No. The story isn't even ambiguous anymore at this point. It is just straight-up nonexistent. Any attempt to make a story out of this will end up causing contradictions that prove it to be false. The game breaks the rules it sets up, leading to an incoherent mess.
+theuncalledfor Mind explaining? Because I have no idea what you are talking about. Besides the actual, explicit, told straight to the player story isn't really the strong point, it's how it's told. How it's slowly, carefully revealed throughout the game. A lot of the time I really tend to dislike that kind of thing but Inside made it make sense and kept me intrigued enough all the way to the end. That takes a certain amount of artistry that most of these artsy minimalist indie games seem to fail at, Inside and Limbo are two of them that actually get it right.
For me, the tension in the game was simply in completing a puzzle as soon as possible. Also, some of the questions you asked were easily answerable, the people were helping the monster at the end because they were leading it to the trap, for one example.
I personally love this game, mainly because of the mystery it creates and for the strong atmosphere. The amount of ridiculously hard to spot easter eggs and hidden secrets in this game is mind blowing. There's bunch of people contributing their findings at Steam community section of this game and the rabbit hole just keeps on getting deeper, so definitely worth a check for all the ones interested about the mysteries of this game.
So I watched this video and was like; I guess I can do without played "Inside" I ended up "acquiring" a copy and started playing it; and I just loved it. Despite everything you pointed out, the game just felt ... like something special. So I just went ahead and bought it. Maybe it's the mood I'm in or whatever; but so far this game has been a joy to play.
I watched 4 playthroughs of this game and played it by myself and with friends 3 times and it was not boring for a single moment. I love the artstyle, the sounds and the mystery behind it. It's actually amazing. People as shallow as the review don't get it. Sounds like I am a deep idiot I know. But I also don't care.
I am in absolute love with this game. The mechanics might be simple, but the mood and atmosphere is amazing just has me intrigued. I regret watching this video till the end though as I spoiled the "twist" for myself, but even with that spoiler, this game left me in awe at the end. When people talk about games as an art form and experience, usually I just roll my eyes at them, but this game is truly an experience. I guess it's not for everyone.
I agree entirely, you need to play it. There is something unique and special about this game. Hearing this guys critiques are understandable if you haven’t played it, but playing it gives a nuance he seems to be missing
I think Inside suffers from "allegory for the sake of allegory". Inside's story does not work as a story alone, as there's very little to it, and a lot of it doesn't make sense from a pure story-perspective (for example the water creature suddenly making you able to breathe underwater). The world is intriguing, but trying to understand it from a non-allegorical perspective is futile, as it's clearly meant to be an allegory and little else. You're for example not meant to understand the giant shockwave-machine's meaning in the world. Why was it made? What's the purpose of it? None of that matters. But if you for example view the world as an allegory for the human body, the pulse-machine is clearly meant to represent the heart. A great storyteller creates a story that works as a story. Digging deeper to find allegorical meanings can be perceived as optional. Actually, an example of a game that does this well is Dark Souls. You can totally get the story or world of Dark Souls without digging for allegorical meaning. But if you do, there's so much depth that can be applied to it all.
rkrokberg does everything in life need meaning? Can't some things just be what they are, experiences, you can take whatever you want from it, it can be shit, it can be good.
I think you're conflating allegory with applicability. The game can't really be called an allegory for the human body, player agency, or anything really. There are too many things contraindicating those interpretations. It also just seems reductive to say that the game is an allegory for just that one thing because it becomes far less interesting when viewed from just one perspective. I would say the games problem is more 'applicability through ambiguity'. But like you said, it forgets to tell a story that just works as a a story. That's really the most important thing.
I think we're considering narrative to a higher standard of what it actually deserves. Not everything has to be narrative in order to be good. Inside is more about the experience and feel for me. Not about narrative. Just like music, or poetry, or plastic art. You don't sit to hear a symphony because of "the story". Games can be narrative experiences, or not. They're not obliged to be narrative, nor should.
At the end you say the game doesn't have anything going for it outside of its great visuals. I feel like you're doing a great disservice to the game and to yourself as a reviewer to completely and blatantly glossing over the masterful audio of the game. It's one of the best, if not the best indie sounding game out right now. It's regarded in the audio world as an audio masterpiece, both from a design standpoint as well as an implementation systems and technical standpoint, and it cleaned house in many audio awards based on that. Every footstep, every grab of a chain, every scrape of wood, every groan of metal that sounds like a dying animal, the water sounds, the explosions, the ambiences, etc were carefully curated and designed by one of videogame's most revered sound designers. I really enjoy your reviews, even if I disagree with this one. But it really disappoints me when a reviewer cares so little about a game's audio that it never even gets a passing mention at any point in time. Graphics are important, and I get why they get so much time in the spotlight, but audio is 50% of the experience.
"blatantly glossing over" i dont think you understand that theres this thing called a framework of analysis already laid out. also, creator's abilities and limitations.
7:28 Remember that part from Streets of Rage 3 where you're running away from a tractor? Well, apparently, in 2016 this was considered perfect game design, on par with inconsistencies in game's rules.
I had a very different experience playing Inside. For most of my time with the game I was fully engrossed. It was like I was on the same wavelength as the game. Death was rare for me, at least at first. A lot of the "trial and error" for me was passed on the first try. It made those moments I died feel more meaningful because the game had already proved to me that I can avoid them if I focus. The long stretches of walking or running forward were for me an opportunity to gaze at the gorgeous visuals. What really brought everything together for me was the animation. Like, in the torch section, I didn't mind the "threat management " because it was an excuse to see how the fire twirls around and the direction of the light changes each time The Boy turns. It might be easy to guess the I'm an artist. That also impacts how I perceive the "game's" "story", as I'm more used to enjoying a piece of media in how it warps my mind than what I can actually understand from it. That was worded poorly, sorry. Another thing is that thanks to the game being so gosh darn simple mechanically along with its abstract themes, grotesque concepts, inspired visuals and straightforward interface (no bugs, no graphics settings, no control options or inventory), it was a perfect candidate for being the first real game for my artist friend. I'm so happy to say they managed to finish it, as I had almost given up on getting them acquainted with this artform. I really love your videos, JA. I haven't watched all of them yet, and I'm already considering supporting your Patreon. You kind of remind me of Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame, if he would focus more on the critique than the comedy and actually considered other people's opinions. It looks like Inside was for me what you said the uncharted series can be for a lot of people. For me the magic was almost never broken, but I accept that this wasn't the case for you at all.
i grew up pretty much alone...i've always been sensitive and overly emotional...i also have a big interest in conspiracies and exploring the unknown. this game was like a love letter to me as a gamer. the game took me on a journey of the senses...the graphics/presentation paired with the sound design made this game worthy of a high scoring review. i get your opinion and understand you...i think. i'll be brave and say that i don't think this is a game that suits you psychology...you're hyper detailed and intelligent and kinda logical. you might be a dreamer and a sensitive soul but, to be honest, you certainly don't show these traits in your videos so...i feel your more in the logical/science/fact mindset rather than the dreamer/sensitive mindset which i feel the game was made by and maybe for... I've played through this game so many times and it still gives me tingles...the design is just sublime...i'm surprised to hear someone so critical but i do understand the mind quite well so can only put it down to differences in upbringing/surroundings and so on...art is very similar. i find people who have been through a lot of trauma look at art differently. it all depends on how sensitive we are. the more sensitive we are....the more we relate to others art who have also been through the same "things." I hope that makes some kind of sense to someone :) x
I don't think that being logic/science/whatever rather than magic/feeling/whatever is the point at all. Joseph is criticizing the game as a hole and not just for the stuff he would agree or sintonize for, as you seem to do. Through that way he can have solid arguments instead of using just his emotions, because he's aiming to a wider public instead to a limited public that could resonate with him on that level. Not that emotions aren't important, it is just that the medium by which an idea is conveyed should be well put together with all the mechanics in order to be effective on as many people as possible. Inside failed at it, and it happened to resonate with you due to a specific connection that not so many people has. Art is about craft and design as much as it is about emotion and spirit. It seems to me that you liked the game because it fit with your beliefs, and not because you found it potentially good for everyone. In order to find that, you would've had to analyze if it can communicate effectively whatever the main concept was, and you haven't done that here.
@@jesusmauryvargas8971 Art is more about feeling and expression. Its also about interpretation and experience. Some art falls under the category of craft and design others not so much. INSIDE and LIMBO are two games that are all about feeling, expression, interpretation and ultimately experience. The original comment is trying to say the video criticises the game in a very logically driven way and a less emotionally driven way coming to the conclusion that the guy in the video (Joseph I assume) falls into the more logical and less creative category of personality types. Its also very evident from his comments at the very start of the video. Creative people are generally higher in openness and empathy. To their dismay a times too making them overly emotional and over thinkers giving them a plethora of mental disorders. INSIDE resonates with a lot of those people because of its vagueness, the blank face boy/people are there for you to fill in. The 'story' is there for you to make your own. Few games have this ability. INSIDE is 90-99% about this and the rest about gameplay. Everything about INSIDE is masterfully crafted to achieve this exact goal and it achieved it darn bloody well. This is the reason it gets high reviews. This is also the reason Joseph doesn't enjoy the game at all and apparently doesn't understand where people come from when they say this game is a masterpiece. He is looking at it through his personalities lens, from a purely logical perspective in this case and through those lenses he filters out the point of the game entirely. Hope that clarifies the original comment. No disrespect meant by any of this btw, I respect your perspective and thoughts.
This game actually reminds me a little bit of illness. I didn’t actually play this game, but I did watch people play it on UA-cam several times, and that at a time of my life shortly after I had suffered a huge loss due to cancer. I think the heavy focus on tone over story or theme makes it possible to relate it to any experience that reflects the dark, sad, kind of inevitably hopeless feeling that the game evokes. The game starts in the forest, which is dark and scary, and immediately cut with violence and threat, but there is a general sense of freedom and anticipation. The area around the barn is suddenly safer and the sun in the background, although it seems far and cold, reflects a certain sense of hope. However, it is in this area that you start to learn about the fucked up mechanics of the game and the universe it takes place in, as you go deeper into the machine. The rest of the bulk of the game takes place within the closed space of the factory. It is back to the dark, menacing atmosphere of the forest, but now you know what kind of game this is, and you definitely do not feel free. The concept of a straight left-to-right scroller implies progression, but also an inescapable future, all within the claustrophobic confines of the factory. It’s called “Inside,” after all. The entire game has a sense of threat, of being within a body that wants you dead, a world that is turned against you, and has somehow turned against humanity itself, bending it under its will and depriving people from their humanity. The sporadic, surprising deaths keep you on your feet, aware that there is never a truly safe space, making it kind of impossible to relax. There is definitely a sense of a power way beyond your control being what ultimately defines your future; a desperate desire to escape it, by any means necessary, in any way possible, yet the subconscious knowledge that it’s inescapable. Probably one of the most compelling moments for me was the area with the radiation. The flashing light is almost divine or godly, coming from far behind, that third dimension that is inaccessible in this scroller world, and where all of the answers seem to be hidden. You see it come and wipe everything clean, bringing a huge deafening roar which silences every other sound and a light that makes everything around you into nothing but a shadow. But it’s painfully clear that you need to protect yourself from it, as any minimal exposure to it will destroy your body entirely. At the end, the boy turns into a bloated, deformed version of himself, which just bursts into anywhere it goes, destroying everything in its path, blindly trying to make its way out. And then, when it finally comes out, it rolls down the hill, and when it’s finally fully immobile, the sun shines again and it brings peace and freedom again. I really saw part of what I went through with my family member’s cancer here. The first days, when we’d just found out, seemed scary and shocking, a sudden threat had been added to our lives. But the future was definitely not set in stone, and the flickering light of hope still kept shining in our brains. However, the more we got into the healthcare complex, the more we learned at hospitals, the more the feeling of hope started to recede. We knew more, but we were had nowhere to go, we felt the mechanical development of the disease come almost exactly as anticipated, and always with a thirst of blood. It was her body turning against itself with all of the strength the human body can. Always with another new threat coming out from under the shadows, ready to attack, reminding us that we had to be alert, always something to make the going more uncomfortable for her. This stage was prolonged however, there were ups and downs, moments where she was practically fine, and moments where she definitely wasn’t. It’s almost as though this was the main bulk of the gameplay, the moment where you’re expecting the game to develop, where you make it part of your everyday life. The part with the flashing lights really made me think of the chemo though. I know chemo isn’t radiation; they are two different ways of treating cancer, but whatever. The point is they came once a week, with that sort of regular interval with which the radiation bursts came in the game. And it seemed so powerful, so blindingly powerful, and so strong. Like it could get through anything. It’s where you’re placing so much of your hope. What seems to destroy the user almost to death, but is actually making them better, that sort of raw, all-consuming power that destroys anything in its way indiscriminately. The way the game uses sound and light in this area is so compelling, and to me it had an almost spiritual effect on me. It’s kind of awe inspiring… But anyway, that moment passes, and you’re back to the same. At some point the game is undoubtedly coming to an end. You’ve managed to take control of the rogue cells at some points, juggling them all over the place, doing anything you can to be in control. But in the end, the cancer achieves its “ultimate form”, and starts destroying anything in its way. It’s painful and disturbing. It seems opposite to nature, perturbing on an essential level. But when the end finally comes, you can feel how the stress relieves itself. You’re tumbling down the mountain, destroying and subsequently being destroyed by the trees and rocks. But when the final relief comes, you can kind of feel the burden loosen up, and a sense of peace finally comes. I’m not saying the game was designed with this in mind at all, I still sustain that the focus of tone is the main focus of the game. But that’s exactly what lends the game to be received the way I received in that moment in my life. Making you spend time in that dark state of mind, but giving you a clear sense of progression, it has a certain therapeutic effect, or at least it did with me. Anyway, sorry for the impromptu essay, I just felt like putting in my two cents, because this game somehow managed to leave a very lasting impression in my life, for whatever that may be worth.
Very well done video. For me, this game was one of my favorites of 2016 for a few reasons.....It was gorgeous, it had great sound design, the puzzles were satisfying even though I agree they werent super varied, and the game just oozed vibes. I was constantly holding my breath and thinking about what I was seeing. I found it intense and thought provoking. I also loved it because it felt like interactive art to me. Some games just feel like wastes of time but this one did not it felt like I was discovering something.
Watched several of your videos in the last few days, got to say you do an amazing job with your analysis. Great to have someone who takes a truly objective in depth look at these games without blindly buying into what anyone else has told you you should think about a game. Thanks
Your voice and delivery of everything is so calm and beautiful it should be boring, but it's not. I keep watching thirty minutes to an hour of content that never fails to be entertaining! There is no channel out there on UA-cam that can keep my attention like yours. Your channel is amazing, keep up the fantastic content!
My overly long response to the written script, just reposting it from twitter to youtube. "My response to your script from someone with similar feelings about the game. First of all I think that trial and error gameplay is fine. It's not brilliant, but its fun just for the gore of it and I can't say I ever was bored. As long as you don't think about it too hard. I do agree, however, that puzzles are too inconsistent. Anyway I mostly want to talk about "story". I agree with you almost entirely and want to add a couple of things. The game is very "cinematic" but not order 1886 "cinematic" and I like that, but the tone is all over the place. I really liked the start of the game for the oppressing tone. It was almost like a black and white war movie about a Jewish boy or something. Side note: you said that it wasn't oppressing because your are not in danger, but for me its about the same level of suspension of disbelief as a conventional movie. I don't enjoy a lot of action scenes in movies because the main character is immortal pretty much, but I am in the minority and I try to enjoy the movie regardless. Inside is kinda the same way, but yeah it deflates if player gets stuck. Pacing is vital for that stuff. Then it shifts gears to that oppressing dystopian world with ruined cities, mind controlled people, masks and stuff like that. The WW2 allegory was still strong in my mind at that point. But then it shifts gears again and it stays like that pretty much until the end. Wacky abstract puzzles, over the top gore, over the top half-life 1-ish mega-structures with unkownn purpose. It was still interesting in a LOST kinda way, but I felt like the tone from the beginning was wasted. And the ending... I still don't know what happened. It's another tone shift and instead of payoff to all that mystery it gives you The Blob. Over the top bodyhorror, borderline comical puzzles, deaths and murders of random people and just pure Fucking madness. I was drawn to the screen for sure, but any serious stuff up until that point was deflated. I have few theories about why blob in the game: 1. Devs are hack frauds con artists who didn't know what they were doing (unlikely). 2. It is a very subtle and deep high art allegory that I dont get and that's why I am confused (also unlikely). 3. It's a meta thing about art. I will focus on theory #3. Kinda like what you said about witness and Blow Fucking with us. Devs made an artsy critically acclaimed game and in the follow up, they were just messing with people while disguised as high art. Think about it that way, game takes itself somewhat seriously and builds up mystery LOST style, but in the end instead of answers you get a "Fuck your answer and tone, here's a giant blob monster." they kinda say "gotcha, it isn't art and we tricked you into being invested in our schlock." I can't shake the feeling that was the case. Just them intentionally building up to nothing to Fuck with the internet. Imagine if citizen Kane ended with grand hotel Budapest style sled chase. It would totally deflate everything up until that point. Anyway, if you are still reading, I hope you found it interesting, cheers."
I've seen you complain about death being "meaningless" in other games too, but what exactly do you want? If the game gave you too much of a set back no doubt you'd call it "tedious".
Hey Joseph - I'm a big fan of your videos and this one is no exception. :) One thing I do want to look at more closely, however, is your argument that some kind of limited lives system would make the game more tense. While I agree that this is technically true and this is a very common strategy, I think it's important to note that tension created that way is external to the game, and thereby immersion-breaking. If you're worried about running out of lives or restarting part or all of the game, you aren't worried about the things that your character is supposed to be afraid of. You're worried about things that are outside of the game's world. While you make it clear that you don't think the best fix is to just slap limited lives on the game in its current state, I don't think limited lives would be the right fix in any state. The best-written case I've seen made for this argument is by Shamus Young, and he's trotted it out a few times: www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1828 and www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/6715-You-Don-t-Scare-Me and a little bit in www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/14776-Horror-Games-Are-Not-Scary I also discuss it myself a bit at the end of my own video about why Legend of Kyrandia: The Hand of Fate shouldn't have killed the player character: ua-cam.com/video/mL273U5SmBw/v-deo.html Anyway, thanks for this and all your other videos. I'm proud to be one of your Patreon supporters. :)
"Doctor Professor is the internet's leading authority on what Doctor Professor thinks about videogames." Haha. Shamus is good. I'm going through his Mass Effect series now. He follows me on twitter and patreon for some reason, the mad man. > While I agree that this is technically true and this is a very common strategy, I think it's important to note that tension created that way is external to the game, and thereby immersion-breaking. If you're worried about running out of lives or restarting part or all of the game, you aren't worried about the things that your character is supposed to be afraid of. You're worried about things that are outside of the game's world. Hmm. Well dying and then restarting at all is immersion-breaking in that sense. Although you could make the argument that having to constantly worry about how many lives you have left is more of a factor because it's on your mind even when you're not waiting for the game to reload. The solution could be the contextualize the limited lives in the game similar to how Dark Souls has respawns literally happen within the game's world instead of a level reset like in, say, Mario. Death being meaningful without being frustrating is extremely difficult. Maybe there's room for some frustration though. > While you make it clear that you don't think the best fix is to just slap limited lives on the game in its current state, I don't think limited lives would be the right fix in any state. This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Since I watched this video: ua-cam.com/video/alepXw5Cl9Q/v-deo.html Shamus gets into something similar to this in his article. I think limited lives *could* work in some games. But perma-death in a horror game with levels and threats can be scrambled would be better. Like I said I've been thinking about this a lot and I'd like to make a video on it eventually so I'm going to shut up. It's very interesting to me. Horror games especially. Try posting some of your videos over at r/videogameanalysis. I got a fairly good response there when I was first starting out. You can even ask for feedback in the comments. Sometimes you might get some. > Anyway, thanks for this and all your other videos. I'm proud to be one of your Patreon supporters. :) Oh cool, thanks! Wasn't expecting that at the end. It means a hell of a lot.
The game creates a convincing illusion of a tangible reality within itself. It *feels* real. That's why it's so magnetic. Additionally, it's less of a game and more of a thrill ride through a haunted house.
I can't really descripe why I love Inside that much. Maybe its the earie setting and the visual storytelling of it and usually the puzzles left me with a satisfying "Aaah, ok" moment. I do appreciate your opinion on it as I appreciate all your opinion pieces, it certainly made me think why I love Inside and why it wouldn't click with other people. Keep up the amazing job
This game reminds me of something ed mcmillan said in indy game the movie. When he first started developing games he made a game and made it artsy without meaning and so tons of people would be like "what do you think it means" or try to figure out what it meant and when asked ed would just reply "well what do YOU think it means" when in reality it meant nothing. This struck me as that kind of thing where they leave so much ambiguity just so that the people playing it can feel intellectual and come up with their own meaning when in reality it means almost nothing. Like they made the game just knowing that people go "oooooooh you were "inside the whole time and now your finally outside" and then their friend goes "but how do you know that you are truly outside now" and first friend goes "woah mind blown".
“Kept trapped on a horizontal plane for a reason that’s never explained...” I mean, it’s a 2D puzzle platformer, do you really need narrative justification for this?
Ironically, I think a simple attempt to address this would acknowledge the game's thematic interest with the notion of control. In that regard, the limited character movement, the "instinctive" idea of going right, is playing to the game's concern with an individual's agency
I only finished this game 2 days ago having not really known about it before hand. After completing it i was very impressed and was/am in the 10/10 gang but this video review is spot on. Cheers mate
I see this game as a Kafkaesche story about alienation and envirement, and I think its beautiful and fun. For me most things you complain about (like crafted suspense and ambiguous story) is what makes me love it so munch. Its art and game. Hope you can now, at least, simpathyse with those that liked this game.
I think playing any game without expectations will always give you a better experience since you're surprised by the good parts instead of expecting them. I genuinely enjoyed this game when I first played it because of this, and I presume other reviewers had the same experience? Hype will inevitably disappoint..
Oh I didn't read the reviews before I played it. I should have said in the video. I didn't even know the game was coming out until I saw a trailer on an E3 stream. You are correct with everything you say here.
Just found this channel and I greatly enjoy these vids, I appreciate the more critical approach you take to the games you play while still maintaining a humble and calm disposition. In a way, it helps me become a better storyteller in the writing I do and helps me become more aware of what makes good gameplay in the games I play (not to mention it helps me become a better critic of such artistic mediums). Keep it up.
I think of all the perfect 10s kind of how I think about the Academy Awards. Sometimes the work that receives the most praise does so not because it's genuinely the best but because it is important enough to be made an example of. Inside is a decent game with a lot of flaws, but what it's trying to do is such a departure from the current stale state of the industry that it needs to be on game of the year lists to make a statement that there's more to video games than combat, and that setting can be crafted through subtle things like character animations and lighting rather than narration. Your analysis is always spot on, and I think a more nuanced and fair approach to games is important. It's why I love this channel, and this video specifically. This is just my two cents on why Inside was given such high praise. Not because Inside is spectacular, but because it's goals are spectacular.
It’s the sounds and plops every movement is satisfying i don’t remember the story at all i just remember how it feels but unlike other story based games i think death just pissed me off like i would miss a little bit of the ledge and stop cause literally what was that i did it and for me it held/crashed a lot but i have a horrible device
I like hearing critiques with solid backing to their points. I know you aren't telling me to dislike the game, but saying you don't even understand how other people can enjoy it to the extent that they do seems purposefully inflammatory.
Now you've got me thinking about Gris, another 2D puzzle platformer with admittedly basic gameplay and an abstract story that's told entirely through the way the game is presented rather than any concrete information. Except I love Gris, partly because the art style is way more appealing to me, and partly because the intended message of the game is... more obvious? At least I believe so, since everyone seems to come to the same conclusion of what the game's about. I think the abstraction also works more to its favour, since its "story" is just the emotional experience of moving through the stages of grief. It's more akin to an interactive painting, which I know sounds pretentious as hell but I really appreciate the experience that game gives me.
The issue with the illusion of repetition is highly subjective since I thought the exact opposite. I found the conflict mechanics were dwelt upon in the right amount and not recycled too frequent that they overstayed their welcome. And while one can say that the fundamentals behind those are the same, the literal circumstances that contextualize these situations are varied in practice that it comes across as an incremental evolution of the said mechanic instead of the exact same puzzle. However, I would have to agree with the reliance on death for progress. There are indeed some sections where trial and error has be done in order to properly succeed. And this undermines some of the momentum the game expertly builds upon.
Watching this review 2 years later. This game is a masterpiece, is still the feeling I get. It's an art piece, and like any art installation it will not suit everyone's taste.
I enjoyed playing but quit about halfway through, so I can understand some areas of this video. My only complaint of the video is "if you are a drone, why can you control other drones?" *shows footage of the *drone* boy making a drone attach to another controller to control a third drone vicariously through the second drone*
Usually I agree with your opinion in many points, but not this time. Yes, the "story" is a mess, every interpretation I've heard contains either logical errors, or cherry picks details. But the gameplay is genius, and not boring at all. Inside uses only a few controls, starts with minimal interactions then combine those, each building on the previous ones, then introduce new mechanics just because it becomes too boring. Not every puzzle game needs to be hard, especially not when it is focused around a motion on straight line, creating an atmosphere via the constant moving of events in the background. Its the same with the trial and error approach. You say its cheap with infinite lives, but for me watching the kid get torn, get shot, drown etc over and over again made me hate this world. Not the game. Its world. With all inhabitants. Which turned my default reaction for turning into a nonhuman blob from frightening to satisfaction. Finally I can reverse the roles and be the aggressors. I was in the mood at that point that I enjoyed killing them, chasing them, destroying everything in my way.
2:57 I like that term you made, ambiguitis and wish it was spell-able related to ambiguous, I loved the shockwave hall less as a defense, and more of a "We turned this on and can't turn it off I guess this is our life now" area
I think you could have talked more about the things you liked about the game. It's kinda weird to hear you say "I liked the game, I'd give it a 6/10" then shit on it for 20 minutes haha. I still liked your review and think a lot of it was valid and made sense; but if you asked me what I thought you'd give the game out of 10 (and you didn't flat out say near the beginning) I would have thought a 2 or 3.
20:15 alright wait. I thought that this was the big reveal: the boy dies, but the host controlling his body lives on. Notice how after that scene the boy doesn't release any bubbles while underwater.
I've watched a bunch of your videos recently, and I really appreciate your perspective. It's clear that your bias is for games that reward careful, skill based play because you are a careful, skilled gamer. Essentially watching one of your videos is like saying "hey let's look at this game through the filter of Dark Souls", which is particularly hilarious in this case, a game I personally loved, because it is none of that. I for one felt the manufactured tension of every chase and death in this game, knowing it was manufactured. It's a lot like a movie, yes, but the slight gaminess made me just that much more invested. Also the 'mystery box' ambiguity didn't bother me either, because many things in life end in an ambiguous slump, and I much prefer the unraveled mystery to a bunch of over-exposition in an effort to explain something that was all about the journey in the first place. Either way, great take man. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I absolutely love this game mostly for the body & psychological horror component of it but your criticism is very fair and definitely made me reflect about gameplay especially, I even hope the creators might find this video because its legitimately very insightful for a game-making process. Good job & keep making smart content
Wow, watched your review of The Witness and agreed or at least understood most of what you were saying, but this feels like we were playing two different games. A few things that I thought were particularly baffling: 1. The story/atmosphere/experience. I think getting hung up on the specifics and having every plot/world detail logically fit together is going about it the wrong way. It's not meant to have a specific story. What I got about it is that it's generally about being trapped inside massive oppressive systems over which you have control. You're trying to escape, if not just survive, inside the systems while fighting back to the extent that you as an individual can. At the end, you free a collective of people (the blob) that have been grotesquely transformed by the system but still want to escape. Some of the scientists/people help you because they see the humanity in you. Others don't. Some are killed. In particular, the man at the desk who you slam out the window appears to be someone in power who is thus more responsible for what has happened in this world than many of the others, and thus it's reasonable that he meets a worse fate than others do. At the end of the game, you finally escape the facility, getting a bittersweet glimpse of life "outside" the system. It's possibly the first time you're actually outside in the whole game, as you can see in several points that there are natural looking areas with trees and grass that are definitely contained in the facility. Stray thoughts about other plot inconsistencies you brought up: - I don't think all the obstacles were necessarily put there to stop the boy from getting to the facility. I think many were just meant to be experiments or weapons tests meant to show that an extremely powerful and likely malevolent force is in control of this facility. For example, I never thought the sound blaster was deliberately trying to stop the boy. It was just a weapon being tested that could possibly be used for some nefarious purpose in this world by the people who built it. - If the blob had some control over getting the boy to come free it, maybe the blob was also able to assert some control or communication with the creepy water girl, and that could be why she changes from trying to kill you to saving you and granting you the ability to breathe underwater. 2. Boring/Too easy. Not every game needs to be challenging. For me, this game felt like an absolutely perfect balance of puzzles that require a bit of thought separated by action or quiet moments to take in the sights and ponder the world around. On a personal level, I played this game with a friend of mine who doesn't play games as much as I do. Many "hardcore" games push her away by being too difficult for someone who hasn't grown up playing games their whole life. This game allowed her to play through a much darker, serious, game than what would normally be possible without massive frustration from the difficulty. That's a good thing when games are accessible to people who aren't skilled at them. That's how more people get involved in playing games. I'm not saying there isn't room for deliberately very challenging games too, just that not being challenging doesn't necessarily make a game worse. On the other hand, if the world-building and atmosphere in the game wasn't enough to keep you engaged with the relative lack of complex gameplay, that's a reasonable complaint and the game might just not be for you. For me it was more than enough. 3. $20 is too much? I'll start by saying that I think judging a game's worth on its length is extremely insufficient, and reduces games to nothing but time wasters rather than the experience that can be gained from playing them. Nonetheless, Inside takes about 3.5 hours to complete (more if you look for all the secrets). That's about as long as two feature length films. An average movie ticket is around $10, and, unlike the price to play this game, that's to see a movie once and you don't get to keep it afterwards if you'd like to return to it. I respect your opinion but I was just very surprised because many of the things you pointed out as parts that turned you away were exactly why I loved this game and why it is probably my game of the year. If you have time I'd love to hear your thoughts on some of what I wrote.
Tegan Valo I agree, a lot of the complaints in this review weren’t even backed and had no explanations. How can you say the story was ultimately pointless if it had millions of people talking? I also disagree that the puzzles were repetitive, I’d say they were more of a build up on previously similar mechanics. The same way the mind control theme kept building up. Then he also fails to acknowledge how unique the puzzles were at times. His complaints on why some people helped the blob and others not were weak. To me it was obvious given every situation. The man at the door was obviously scared for his life. The other construction workers could have been curious or could have shown morals. Humans aren’t a hive mind so why should they act all the same? The trap at the end had no people in the scene, so the crane can be concluded to of been operated by someone in command, who wants to stop the containment breach. Oh and his complaint about the game just being boring because you just hold right all the way through is also pretty weak. First, a simple game should have simple controls. Second, that’s known as a side scroller, and a very artistic one at that. But I guess Mario Bros and Sonic games are pretty boring too then... Really? This review was just critically negative for the sake of being different and drawing attention. Don’t get me wrong, there are complaints to be had, but obviously none were found and objectively addressed in this video. The game is full of details and clues within its simple art style so the story is only as limited as your imagination. There’s so much else to say, but it’s obvious that not much thought went into this video as some of his others.
recently discovered your channel, and just wanted to say (while I disagree with this particular video, I LOVED inside) that I love your critiques. you kept me up until 4am the other night after I found your series on Bloodborne and dark souls 3. Really looking forward to your Bloodborne lore/story critique.
So, I’m very late to this but I just finished the game. I’ve been looking at theories on both Inside and Limbo and I wanted to comment on this one because there is something in this review that struck me (and I’ve run across to a greater or lesser extent elsewhere). There is a point in this video where the reviewer spends a great deal of time just listing out questions from the game that he felt were never answered. Now, I’m a fan of The Prisoner, which, if you’re not familiar, was a television series from the 60’s. My mom hates it. I once told her that The Prisoner tends to be less about what is literally happening in the plot and more about the thematic ideas, how the exploration of those ideas makes you feel and think. To an extent it’s less about the answers the filmmakers are given you and more about the questions you end up asking yourself. To use another example, the film Eraserhead by David Lynch has also been discussed at length. The last I heard Lynch had stated that he had still never heard anyone with the idea he had written the movie with. And he hasn’t told. I think that Playdead probably knew what the story behind these games were, but they made them intentionally vague because sometimes the answers are less important than the questions you end up asking yourself.
Agreed! I think it's one of these games where atmosphere is king and you play it for the feels and the cinematic experience, not because you expect concrete answers about anything. And if you haven't already, please also play GRIS from 2018 (by Nomada Studio), its an incredible experience that will be with you always.
I was obsessed for a while because this game supposedly had another hidden secret in the form of ciphers and codes hidden within the game files, and remnants of a secret elevator that had triggers in the game- like many people have pointed out below- I think I was just trying to justify my playtime- hoping there were more answers.
A lot of people say that he didn't get the game, because he wasn't immersed in the story, or atmosphere. The problem is that it's hard to get immersed, when what you are doing is repetitive, boring, and frustrating. It's hard to get immersed in the story. The game leads you to many questions, but doesn't answer them. It makes you craft your own story, that you're comfortable with, instead of presenting one to you that actually makes sense. The problem isn't that the plot doesn't make sense, but that there really is no plot to analyze. It's so loosely connected, and self contradicting. Like when the monster gives you water breathing, or when you unplug yourself even though it's been shown you are not a drone. You can always find explanations to these illogical events, but they always end with more questions that can't be answered without enough evidence. It feels more frustrating to analyze the narrative, then rewarding. All game deaths feel like the game is just randomly punishing you for playing the game. Trial and error can be fine, but when it lacks any depth it is frustrating. A key part in trial and error is also being go around it by spotting clues that could've lead you to a solution. The best way to describe the puzzles is repetitive. Too many recycled ideas, and very few interesting ones at that. This is what takes people out of the atmosphere. Even then though, is the atmosphere that good? I would argue no, because it has to be combined with gameplay to actually be good. Otherwise it's just a backdrop to a boring game. An overpriced back drop as well. You are either going through boring puzzles, or looking at spooky set pieces while thinking about how frustrating the game play section was. Maybe this should've been a movie or just a walking simulator with gameplay, because for me and many other people, the game ruins any atmosphere with bad puzzles and chase sequences. The tension, and atmosphere is lost because of repetition of game deaths, and annoying gameplay. Atmosphere can only be experienced when combined with gameplay, or else it is lost. Inside is a video game. It is on a video game distributing platform. It's under the adventure games tag. The game itself was made by PLAYdead studio, a self proclaimed video game development studio. Even they call both Limbo and Inside video games on their page in steam. It has to be critiqued as a game, and it is simply a bad game.
Zi I completely agree with this point. Personally I didn’t like inside although I haven’t played it I’ve watched others play it and reviews and I don’t get why it’s so praised. Sure some people got immersed but like you said it’s a video game meaning you have to take in all aspects of it. This means story, atmosphere, gameplay and other things that I can’t think of and don’t feel like listing. The point is if you wanna look at just atmosphere or story, then review movies, not games. Personally, I don’t believe there is a story, and the gameplay it boring and shit but that’s just me
Ik I’m late af (UA-cam recommended me this video, so I felt contractually obligated to reply lol), but I just wanna say you do a truly incredible job explaining your points, so I cannot commend you enough, but I disagree: 1. Imo, that moment you mention regarding the protagonist getting unplugged DOES have a rational and coherent explanation. The secret ending establishes that the boy IS a drone, so the way I see it, the Mermaid Girl imbued him with her unique ability to traverse the water without having to breathe. To me, this explanation works because it’s supported by what we see for the rest of the game as we see the boy no longer needs to breathe underwater, but also, for me, doesn’t raise too many new questions because it’s fairly clear to me that the Mermaid Girl was doing this to allow you to reach the Blob in an effort to take down this corrupt world. Imo, this makes the narrative rewarding to analyze rather than frustrating because you can use the bread crumbs given to you by the story to formulate rational conclusions. But that’s just how I feel and I can still absolutely see why you and numerous other players felt they weren’t given enough proper clues even if that’s not a sentiment I share. 2. I can definitely see why you say the game deaths felt cheap and unearned and I also think using that as a basis to argue that the gameplay takes the player out of the atmosphere is an incredibly fair and valid argument, but personally, I always felt the deaths were earned instead of feeling random, like they would sometimes in Limbo. For example, in one of the early chase sequences when you have the enemy who will shoot you if you run right into him, dying to this enemy felt earned because I quickly realized that if I just stay out of his headlights’ range, I’d be fine. Personally, this is how all the deaths I experienced felt. I died only because of my mistakes, mistakes that were quickly corrected by effective environment clues that alerted me to potentially repeating my previously fatal mistake. Personally, because of the varying environments, technical elements, general escalating atmosphere, and the fairness of occasional deaths, I didn’t find the puzzles repetitive, boring, or frustrating, but I can definitely see why this wasn’t the case for you and I think you make an outstanding case for that position. All in all, though, even if these are my feelings, I once again must reiterate you do an outstanding job explaining your harsh criticisms of the game, so I cannot commend you enough for that. Even if I personally found the non verbal narrative to be reasonably coherent and rewarding to analyze and contemplate and even if I personally found the puzzles visually/audibly interesting and engaging enough to avoid feelings of bore or repetition, and even if I found the deaths I occasionally experienced to feel earned enough to maintain my immersion in the atmosphere, I can absolutely see why those sentiments did not ring true for you. And all that aside, especially given how fantastically your criticisms are formed and articulated, I couldn’t be happier that you and so many others have zero hesitation in giving this game plenty of criticism because no matter how much I personally love it and regardless of the immense profound impact it had on me, I still very much believe Playdead’s work deserves plenty of scrutiny in the hopes they’ll learn from potential mistakes they may’ve made.
For me, thanks to the fantastic sound design, the atmosphere was catched me over the whole game. There wasn't a minute where I strived off to another game or to other topics. From the very first second to the very last, the game had my absolute focus. It's not the best game I''ve played, by far. But every other game has parts I don't like, parts where you just walk and get bored, overstretched parts that should have been shorter, and most longer games' atmosphere will get completely destroyed at least once as you can't play them in one go. Even though this game has a lot of "just walk" parts too, the audio and visual beauty of the game kept me completely under its spell and makes this the best game experience I've ever had. Also, the underwater thingies scared the hell out of me and the shock wave level is an absolute audiovisual masterpiece. The shock waves felt as if they had force in the real world.
@@trouper206 style over substance is such a cop out. Style can be substantive, they aren’t unrelated factors. There is a big difference between “I don’t get it” and “this is bad.” Tone poem is a term for a reason. But sure.
@@Tinyvalkyrie410 Yes they are unrelated factors. How you dress has nothing to do with your morals. There is a big difference between "I don't understand this" and "There is no understanding this". There is a big difference between instructions in a different language, and a bunch of scribbles on a piece of paper.
@@trouper206 you can absolutely make judgments on people’s morals based on their clothes. Is it always going to be 100% correct? No, but someone wearing a BLM T-shirt to a party has different substance than someone wearing a coat and tie. The language you speak literally changes the way you think. A large number of film (Hitchcock, Flanagan, all film Noir, most animated works, musicals) use style to create theme and emotional impact. Books like House of Leaves are exclusively style, but it would be ridiculous to suggest they don’t have substance. Games like Gris, Shadow of the Colossus, Soma, and Journey also would fit into this category, but man, calling those not art or not substantive is objectively wrong. What most people mean when they stay “style over substance” is “the style doesn’t fit the substance” which is clearly not the case here. Again, you can not like or not get a thing, and it’s often fun to crap on things that are popular, but dismissing it with a statement that doesn’t even take itself seriously is kinda a bad thing. Even this video understood that, and saw the missteps it made in approaching the discussion the way they did (see pinned comment.). Using “style over substance” as a real criticism is exactly what you are complaining about. It uses a catchy, well worn phrase to dismiss something without having to think about it too hard or acknowledge the nuance. I’d recommend going deeper into this comment section to read the responses of the huge number of people that elaborated much further on my statement, showing people who were genuinely moved by this game in unique and lasting ways. Dismissing that as invalid is not cool dude.
@@Tinyvalkyrie410 "you CAN absolutely make judgements on people's morals based on their clothes." I never said that you COULDN'T. I've played through Shadow of the Colossus, and Journey. Yes they are both works of art so stop putting words in my mouth. That's not cool dude.
As a guy who loves authors like George Orwell (1984) or Harlan Elison (I have no Mouth and I Must Scream), and a guy who just generally enjoys existential nightmare tales or weird twists on popular narratives, I adored Inside. Its not for everyone, for sure. But I am a firm believer that it is a must-play, even just once. I've looked up analyses, reviews, theories, even pondered writing an essay on it myself. There's definitely something far more profound going on with the developers that they can create something so simple but can squeeze out of it a wordless narrative that, to this day, I still can't wrap my head around. But the great paradox, or conundrum rather, of Inside is that its just a videogame, whose rules and goals and gameplay are the ultimate point of its existence, but its atmosphere and world are very clearly complex and rich with no real explanation for any of it. It raises so many questions and answers none of them intentionally because they are ultimately not what you play a game for. The answers are unimportant. And this is quite true of life in itself. The goal and rules are simple, survive and reproduce and get to the end. What surrounds this central simplicity is complex and confusing and puzzling to no end or seemingly no purpose, but there doesn't have to be a purpose. This is what frustrates most people about this game, and I completely understand. I was there too. Scratching my head wondering what the point was for months, only to come to the conclusion that there never had to be one.
Love contrarian views on games that I love. I never noticed the puzzle repetition when I played. I was just completely absorbed by the atmosphere, mysterious story telling and sheer bizarreness of it. I smiled the whole time I was playing because I was realising how absorbed I was. If I wasn't taken with the mystery and atmosphere I may have thought more along with your findings.
There's an immense amount of worldbuilding, creativity and willpower that goes into making a fictional reality for you to experience. Sometimes the character is just a platform to traverse the world because the world is the story.
I personally think what you describe as "boring" I see as great use of atmosphere, the quiet factory allows you to be immersed and really feel like you are in the world playdead created. While I don't agree with your critique, I understand where you are coming from.
I didn't need to know much about this game to conclude that although it looked really interesting, I had no interest in actually playing it. I'd heard it had a remarkable ending, so I watched it on UA-cam and was duly impressed. You pretty much confirm that I was right to save the time and money it would have taken to play through the whole thing.
I understand where he's coming from, though I hope he understands that all these mechanics and gameplay designs are kinda how platform puzzle based games work, usually. It's kinda based more around it's visual narrative and leaving much to interpretation, though there is a pretty solid idea what what is happening. Also, those questions about drones, the boy, and the people's reactions to the monster are pretty clear to me. The boy bleeds and dies easily because he's a younger, weaker model, that breaks apart easier. The people were helping you as the monster because they wanted to lead you to that trap, and you followed because there was no other way out. The sea creature didn't help you breathe. You happened to sink passed a thing that helps you breathe underwater, that you swallowed.
I 100% disagree with the “it’s boring” critique. I think Inside’s intrigue comes from its atmosphere, it’s immersion. I played the entire game in one sitting on the edge of my seat because the game’s atmosphere alone is so engaging to me, it made me stressed and anxious at times. While the game is very simple, fairly easy, and short, it’s world is so interesting and intriguing to me that I couldn’t put it down for the 3 hours I spent with it.
You know what's so crazy? Oddworld: Abe's Exodus had a quicksave system and despite that, it still had great challenge and dread in death because of the complexity and difficult of the puzzles and platforming. It also had a good story, too.
Despite the stigma attached to the phrase, I don't think that there is anything inherently wrong with trial-and-error gameplay challenges, especially when a game is properly designed around them, as you pointed out that this one is with its infinite lives and close checkpointing. I enjoy this form of gameplay, and in the case of Inside I do feel that just about every individual problem or threat includes enough visual hinting that I am confident that you could find players who got any given challenge right on their first try. I also enjoy the cinematic platformer format more broadly, with its emphasis on your performance as a continuous narrative. You called the threats on offer here bland whereas I felt that the dogs and spotlights and so on were grounded, which contributed to my reaction to some of the more extraordinary phenomena that you come across later on. I'm not going to pretend to be capable of defending the story (since that would require actually understanding it), but I did find it intriguing and awesome (in the classic sense of the word). There probably isn't a single factual statement in this video that I would say is false, and yet I disagree throughout with the opinions that you draw from them, which leads me to conclude that this is simply a matter of taste; this kind of game doesn't seem to be to yours. Since neither LIMBO nor INSIDE appealed to you, I wonder if you've ever played any other cinematic platformer that you did like? It simply might not be your genre. However, I still think that it's valuable to have dissenting opinions like yours out there for otherwise universally acclaimed games.
Hey Joseph Anderson ! I found your channel through this video and I've been avidly going through all your videos since. Your stuff is really good ! It's interesting because I actually loved Inside when I played it, I was completely seduced by the atmosphere and the general ambiance. I was also not really counting on the story as I found Limbo didn't really deliver in that respect, and so as a comparison I was pleasantly surprised by the story aspect of Inside. I thought they gave way more information on the universe and what was going on than in Limbo and was thus satisfied (I had done both the regular ending and "hidden ending" by the time I saw your video). However upon watching your video I had to agree with every single point you were making (it's true, the gameplay is repetitive and not that amazing in retrospect) and they do not ultimately deliver on the story as they didn't strongly commit to one strong narrative solution that could bring satisfying closure. This felt even more acute as I just finished the Talos Principle. Amazing game by the way, would absolutely love to see you make a video on it if you so feel inclined :). Without giving away any spoilers Talos promises a lot in terms of story and remains very mysterious for a really long time before getting to the final reveal. And bam, then they really deliver. This helped me see what you were saying about Inside's lack of a clear conclusion. Anyway, long story short, love your stuff, loved Inside and still had to agree with you on everything. Thank you for your hard word, and I'll keep watching and liking !
I see this game as an experience and not as a game. The intense atmosphere driven by top notch sound design, movement & animation and cinematic staging. I found enjoyment out of the sheer movement of the character, it's so smooth, realistic - they obviously spent allot of time refining every little detail. This, I can't find in other games so I gladly look past everything you said about the game because I rarely get so immersed in a game before.
Finally a reviewer that isn't a smug, or self-fellating hipster. I agree with review, and the lack of "story" or MUH ART isn't enough to save it. It was too short for the asking price and the puzzles were piss-easy. I think it was such a missed opportunity. Solid review, mate.
@@Rohishimoto what's his pretense? That games should have content when you buy them? The game clearly has puzzles, they are traditionally designed puzzles, and by traditional puzzle standards, they are shallow. The game operates on the same pretense of being a game with puzzles that this comment does. Your comment is about as reasonable as calling someone who criticizes a games skybox as being an unnatural color as pretentious for assuming it should be any particular color, even when the rest of the visuals are designed to be color accurate. You pretty much hammer home that this game is made for hipsters like you who have completely lost the plot and operate fully with nebulous feelings rather than reason.
This is just my opinion: I think the whole game is a test, I mean the corporation is testing this boy. What if the boy is a drone, but he is the first one with free will. Every single time you fail they send out a new drone. And one huge piece of evidence for this is in the last part of the game. In the facility there is an exact replica of the beach you escape to, you can see this at 20:58 this means that the scientists have some knowledge of your escape.
Great video! I disagree though. My interpretation of the story is so different from everything that I've read that I was shocked after beating the game and going on the internet to see what other people thought. Here's my interpretation. Spoilers: During the first hour of the game I started thinking about mind control and factories that use humans as experiments, but during the last hour I completely changed my mind. To me it's obvious that the whole game is a metaphor for child conception, from sperm cell to birth. The boy in red is the sperm cell (you can giggle now). There are parts in the game toward the end that visually represents a sperm cell's penetration of an egg. At one point you can see other people running into a huge building, in a hurry, which I interpret as other sperm cells trying to "win the race". The part where the girl drags you deep down in the water and attaches some kind of cable to the boy's stomach: umbilical cord. That gigantic room where you have to shield yourself from the huge blast that occurs every few seconds can be seen as the child developing a heartbeat. Inside the dome where people are watching you from the outside, the blob breaks the glass, releasing the water, and wreaks havoc. I believe this implies that the mother carrying the child has had her water break and labor is imminent. This is where the pace of the game picks up and other people help you along the way by opening doors and so on. Also, panic. While in blob form, if you listen closely you can even hear what sounds like a baby crying faintly mixed in with the grunts. The last part of the game before you end up on the beach, when you break through the wall represents birth to me. My god, the game's name is 'INSIDE'. I get all the mind control and supression theories, but I feel that INSIDE is a game that is not literal at all. Everything in the game feels like a metaphor for something else.
6 років тому+1
2 years later, I know... But thanks for interesting review!
Although I personally love this game and have given it some very high praise myself, I really enjoyed hearing your argument for a different perspective on it. It was super well thought out and structured (similar to the rest of your content, dog bless) but I've accepted that this game is just not for everyone, and for valid reasons. I realize that sounds super condescending, but I just mean it's something that relies VERY heavily on just a couple aspects: the presentation and world-building. If neither of those aspects outshine the very basic gameplay and plot details given to the player - you're gonna have a bad time. Even though I personally had a pretty magical, enchanting time with the game, I can now fully understand why someone wouldn't. Love your videos, always enjoy catching up on your channel. Now excuse me while I go watch your 3+ hour video on Uncharted and The Last of Us.
Great comment. You disagree but still understand, and even got something out of a different perspective. Wonderful. Thank you for saying this.
Okay but the only reasons you give are presentation and world building, Surely if the game is as special as you say you could give much a much more in depth explanation as to why you enjoyed it.
Tons of games present theirselves well and create expansive deep worlds but in my opinion Inside doesn't do either of those things, It looks bland/boring and the world isn't explained at all in the end neither is the sudden changes in how people or things react to you as shown in the video.
What was so enchanting? The feeling of going from powerless to powerful at the end? The shallow symbolism of control or lack thereof? You might say that I just don't understand the game but I think that other people are trying to hard to create an understanding of the game because they think it has some deep hidden meaning when it just doesn't or atleast doesn't do a good enough job at showing it.
Inside doesnt do any of that stuff for you. i thought it was a beautiful game, despite how i can see someone thinking it's boring or dull. the attention to detail is what i loved about it personally. everything i interacted with reacted exactly how i thought it would in real life. dragging a pipe over blood makes a little bloodline that fades with distance, your character gets dirty and the rain washes him off, breaking walls with momentum feels satisfying as fuuuck. sure its all scripted and linear but the way its executed was good enough to keep me entertained. the animation is smooth and the graphic style they used alone makes this game stand over Limbo for me. i wont say you didnt understand the game because i didnt either, you just didnt find what i found to be cool in the experience. that doesnt make you wrong or right, thats just like.. your opinion, man.
Well said 😀 personally love this game and I'd totally play more just like it
ex Lightning Well the reason it looks bland/boring is the whole point. Your in a place where people are being mind controlled to be basically zombies. It's kinda like real life. You can search for answers on what's going on around you. Or you can be oblivious to the rest of the world. Continuing on your set path.
"Terminal case of ambiguitis" is my new catchphrase.
Serathis nice max
"The game's surrounded by more perfect tens than Taylor Swift in a mirror maze."
Joseph, you're great, you know that?
I think that's my new favorite line that I've written for a video, haha. I'll never top the Always Sunny In Philadelphia joke in TLoU though.
I watched your video on Abzu the other day and thought it was a really interesting discussion topic--moreso by being a father. I hadn't even heard of the game either. Great job with it.
Thank you man! I appreciate it.
You absolutely nailed it with this video though - as I talked about in my vid on it, I actually think Inside works best when it's trying to be a thrill ride. Like you say, there's not really much to a section when everything is programmed to very specifically *just* miss you. When I was able to suspend my disbelief, however, the stress I felt as I was running away from dogs was very real. It's a rollercoaster in those moments, but it produces thrills in a similar way - it's all based on the momentum of the experience. When it tries to jam more 'game-like' elements in there, however, it kills that essential momentum and falls COMPLETELY flat.
It uses the language of film more effectively than most games, but fails to effectively incorporate the vocabulary of games within that.
Also, the idea that the game at once feels too short AND too long is one I agree with wholeheartedly. Worst of both worlds - far from concise, but over before it can really say anything to the player.
My only gripe with the game is the story
Taylor Swift aint a perfect 10
14:24 - Once you hear "with the man in the pickup truck that CHEW CHEW," you can never unhear it.
You monster.
what a beautiful duwang
The big green chew chew
This game and Limbo are just pure vibes for me, especially Inside. I will never forget playing this game in the middle of the night by myself in one sitting, genuinely so terrifying and awesome.
Honestly if I wanted to play a game where I control a pink blob monster running through a dystopian factory setting, I'd rather play Kirby 64
Or you know, play Katamari instead.
That earth zone changed me
LoL
Or Carrion
I have a theory on why this game was praised so much, or at least, why I initially praised it so much: for starters, it's got great art direction, using simple geometric shapes and solid colors combined with a great use of depth and scale to create a cold, industrial, brutalistic world that's both huge and claustrophobic at the same time. That part in the bathysphere where you break through the floorboards and enter an underwater chamber so massive you can't even see the floor is positively _haunting._ So at least it has that going for it.
Second, while the game does fail to answer pretty much all the questions it asks, up until the very ending it kept me going simply because I wanted to know more. The mystery and the facility kept getting deeper and deeper, and I had to know what it all meant. But once you turn into the Biggest Ball of Flesh in Minnesota and flop down on the beach, I was still left wondering what happened, so I tried to piece it all together, reading loads of theories and coming up with my own, and thinking _what does it all _*_meeeeean?_*
But after reading the same theories over and over, I realized that this game didn't have any answers, and I was just trying to find the answers so I didn't feel cheated.
The game is an allegory. If you recognize that and have a decent understanding of classic literature you should be able to piece together what it is "trying to say."
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
- Dante, Inferno - Canto I
Not a bad place to start.
@@Epiousios18 dante's inferno? That's a bit of a stretch honestly. I can't see how it resembles dante's inferno in more that the most bare-bones fashion. Can you give me more examples?
The issue many people appear to be having is frustration with ambiguity. Inside is all about ambiguity. It doesn't offer closure and it doesn't need to. I understand the impulse to seek an explanation outside of whatever story you feel like you didn't get, but I think Inside wouldn't have worked nearly as well for me if it had taken the effort to explain every little thing. In the end, Inside is a series of images and inputs. It creates an atmosphere that will either resonate with you or it won't. Some people will be moved, others will think it's meaningless.
@@gentlemanscarecrow5987 I dont feel like its "meaningless" per se, it just feels like it tells an incomplete story. Theres a lot of themes and symbolism and mystery on display that keep you going, but the ending is so abrupt it feels less like the end of a book and more like a book with several pages missing.
@@Omnywrench I guess that's just the struggle with a game as many possible interpretations as Inside. It's difficult to say what made an ending feel abrupt or incomplete to you, while feeling emotionally impactful and fitting to me. Your feelings are as valid as mine and I don't blame anyone for feeling unsatisfied with their experience, but I'm not sure Inside had much left to add that would've been able to simultaneously provide closure and maintain it's particular atmosphere. It just felt natural to me to be left uncertain of anything, just like how things have been in every other part of my life.
Hey thanks for watching. I'm sitting here fretting over the title of this one so I wanted to add a couple of things.
The "Inside Joke" is a pun related to how many 10/10 ratings the game got, and how I feel like I'm not a part of a joke because I don't understand them. I am NOT calling the game a joke. Despite its simplicity and short length, it's very well put together.
I was probably too negative because of the insane praise statements the game received. I still should have added some points to balance what it does well. A few more minutes wouldn't have hurt the video length. That's my bad.
The snippets of review quotes don't look that great in the video. They looked a lot better when I was editing the video on my end. I tried to fix it and produced the video a second time, but it's only a little better. I probably should have made them even smaller, but I wanted them to be readable. And I didn't want to weaken them by adding them onto my usual slides.
No Man's Sky is up next.
No man's sky is besting a dead horse at this point, everything's been said.
Yeah probably. But I already wrote the script a few weeks ago. And a lot of people have told me they're looking forward to my take on it. I've missed the boat. Hopefully some subs enjoy it at least.
Joseph Anderson Well I enjoy your Vids so I'm looking forward to it.
No man's sky??? oh my God, I'm pumped!
Hey, don't feel so bad if you missed a thing or there, the video is still great.
It's weird because when I played the game I didn't think much about the gameplay or the puzzles, I was pulled in by the atmosphere and art style, I was wondering what the hell was going on which is what kept me playing to see what would happen.
Hearing it explained out I agree with the issues you had with the gameplay, but the difference as to why I liked the game and you did not I think just comes down to personal taste. I loved the setting and surrealism and the horror vibes and thats what kept me into the game, whereas for you (I assume in part because you're a critic and would look more closely at these things) the gameplay stood out more to you and you saw those issues first.
So its odd but I agree with you completely as to why, in your view, it wasn't a good game, while at the same time I still like the experience I had with it. Oh and I also agree that the praise for the game is a bit overblown. It was a great game sure, but I'd have given it an 8.5 or something, it was memorable and interesting but I've played much better games even so.
Darron Pirtheesingh Which ones? I'm positive I beat the games u consider better n would probably give them 6s n 7s while giving inside a 10 so point being it all boils down to opinion which u already did state that's it's a matter of opinion so I'm not arguing your point
Darron Pirtheesingh,
Good, somebody finally gets it.
@DrTheKay
You can just enjoy a game without being a pretentious ass about it ynow? They had fun playing, you didn't. It's not rocket science
@DrTheKay yikes... i want you to consider someone you care about and respect reading some of the shit you spew online. its a game, and he has his own well thought out opinion whereas you got yours spoon-fed to you by this overrated reviewer. why are you watching a 30 minute opinion on a game you already know you hate?
@Max Roderick you sound like you don't know shit about poetry
Great video man. You've quickly become one of my favourite content creators on UA-cam. Keep them coming.
Also, do Bioshock. Now.
"Please"
Why do you think so? +McBlemmen
McBlemmen. Hes literally a content creator though.
Carbon7000. You are not using the correct meaning of "content".
Inside was pretty to look at, and the ‘world building’ was neat, as I am a sucker for apocalyptic(?) dystopian settings. But so much of it wasn’t explained, certain concepts like the grunge girl in the water felt oddly out of place, and that ending left me like ‘... that’s it?’ It was a huge escalation, only to literally deflate like you said. It wasn’t satisfying.
It’s been years, but I still think back on this game and shake my head.
Yeah, that's it. You got inside. You were mind controlled all this time, just like other drones. There is a secret ending, where you use this acquired knowledge to (spoiler alert)
unplug yourself from the mind control machine, but you die in the process, indicating that you were probably one of those reanimated corpses all this time. If that doesn't sound like powerfull conclusion, I don't know what does
@@LittleJohnnyBrown
So the game purposefully made you realize that the game you played actually isn't interesting.
And that realization is supposed to be akin to turning off brainwashing, and escaping?
Maybe the game just wasn't that good. This is what we in the industry refer to as cope.
Why the HECK would you think that's a girl?! It's a guy who stayed underwater for years that why he got hair longer than himself. I don't see breats, yeah, no p either, but seriously. He doesn't move like a girl at all.
"It's too cool to tell you a story, you have to find some pieces and imagine your own."
You said it! Boy am I sick of media that follows that cop-out trend.
Don't get me wrong, I love some movies/games that don't have a clear plot. But it's incredibly lazy when creators use ambiguity as a shallow gimmick to impress you, or as a substitute for actual meaning. Literally anyone can write an ambiguous ending; it isn't clever or creative.
you didnt uncover all the game has to offer which is why you think that...everything you seek is there you just didnt try to find it
@@ML-eq4rx Can't tell if this is satire or not
@@ML-eq4rx everything is NOT there if you want a story that doesn't explain everything and still tell a good story then hollowknight was better or little nightmare
@@ML-eq4rx I think that's the whole difference of enjoyement when it comes to these type of games. You probably enjoyed "trying to find" the answers. Just like how fans like to come up with fantheories. If you stretch things out enough, you can make everything fit, making our own truths is humanities greatest skill and downfall at the same time.
But not everyone enjoys the same things. I don't agree with Oecobius33 that it's shallow and not clever. I think it takes skill to throw enough ingredients into a soup to make it tasty, but unrecognizeable enough to definitively describe the flavour. But I also know a lot of people are simply put off by not knowing what they are eating. Knowing wether it is meat or vegetable will mean the difference between disgust or delight.
You probably found answers that were never there, but that was the whole point of the devs.
I think it was Hemingway who said that the author shouldn't explain everything. But he should know the answer to everything.
"Ambiguitis"
That is the word I was looking for for all these kinds of games.
Though Little Nightmares did a much better job and has a less severe case.
I'm three videos of yours in after accidentally discovering you while searching for Lady Gaga's "The Witness" (three guesses which video I found first) and you're RAPIDLY skyrocketting to my list of favorite game reviewers/talkers. You have a lovely voice and you are extremely well spoken; your comments are thoughtful and precise, concise most of the time and long-winded where necessary. I really like your content. Solid work.
Another great video.
I appreciate how articulate you are about explaining why you do or don't like something.
Thanks!
I honestly believe that the intended experience was taking in the creepy atmosphere and dystopian imagery throughout the game, I do like Inside because frankly I’m a sucker for these types of aesthetics (the gray imposing crumbling cityscapes, futuristic sadistic technology, general misery felt throughout the game and the bow tie of a secret conspiratorial overarching secret government/apocalypse project, seen by the massive sonic blasts in the one section, the whole underwater horror aspect and even the secret collectibles that theorise that there is something even larger than what you actually experience throughout the linear story progression.)
But that’s the thing, not everyone can jive with these aesthetics or atmosphere, a lot I suppose find it boring or drab, some might just generally be uninterested.
But I can agree that the ending for the game is almost disappointing, it all builds up tension to this climatic finish which is a pretty good WTF? moment for the game that truly pushes the surreal ideas it presents, but not only does it putter out of steam for a very flat ending credits reveal but it compromises the semi-realistic horror it had been building with the science experiments, the human puppets, the underwater creature/human coupled with the intense, foreboding and frankly imposing and intimidating vistas in the game of huge structures only there to juxtapose your comparatively minor existence as this small child with no set goal or path except continue pushing forward, a child who was literally just dropped into the game the moment you press start.
I find it very effective in that sense of tension and horror of dystopian, depressing futures. But it pays off to nothing all that special and I want to hope for an even better sequel set in the similar world but completely detached from anything that happened in the first, solely because I find the tone and atmosphere of the game to just be encapsulating.
100% agree. The gameplay isn't the focal point. It's silly to overanalyze the gameplay. The point of the game is to get lost in the dystopian world and feel the oppressive atmosphere. It's more of a visceral experience. The lack of storyline makes it better because it just leaves you wondering what it's all about. And I love that I can make up my own interpretation of how the events unfolded.
I'm happy I found you. I thought I was the only one who didn't appreciate the vague purposefully underdeveloped plots in recent games that everyone seems to be buying into because 'oh so deep so many interpretations'. I want real endings, otherwise it seems like I've wasted my time searching for answers to questions that don't have answers.
I don't think being vague is necessarily bad if you keep it simple, but with the amount of plot twists and shit they tried to pull that style just doesn't work
The taylor swift joke was 10/10
So was this one.
The Taylor Swift joke was 1/10 honestly
@@protonjones54 it was a good joke, I don't find her pretty myself but the mirror maze joke is a wonderful idea
@@Dorumin waiting for Anderson's 4 hour Taylor swift body and personality analysis to prove you wrong
Taylor Swift is a 10/10 joke. Country never wanted to be pop so badly. I wonder when people will wake up and see that they're just country nerds.
Joe, excellent work on all your videos. I'm busy making my way through them.
Oh they are great,and he has a very soothing voice,I tend to have his videos play in the background when I game.
I just noticed that the guy who chases you at the beginning also trips on the log, which would explain why you have a bit of time to hide by the caravan
i actually really enjoyed this game... it was one of the most memorable gaming experiences i have had in a long time if i may go further. may be because I'm not really an avid gamer and perhaps i enjoyed the story/thematic elements much like a movie.
Really well done video. To me, the slowness and missing explanation was great in building the athmosphere of the game. I don't always need everything explained or think everything through completely on the sideline. I can enjoy going with the flow, having a vague feeling of what this is about instead of a flawless logical explanation. I think this is true for many other people, and this makes the game very enjoyable.
I love your videos but I think this is the first one that feels almost entirely subjective to a fault. I know it's a cliche to say you just "didn't get it," but I'm being completely genuine with that statement. I love this game and for all the reasons you don't. I love how quiet and atmospheric it is, I love the puzzles being simple for the sake of pacing, and I love that the story has just the right amount of ambiguity.
I do think the praise for the game is completely overblown. But that happens all the time (Fallout 4) and it's nothing to get upset about. Games this strong in atmosphere don't come around often and that's why they get singled out for high praise even though it doesn't offer anything mind-blowing in terms of mechanics.
The main reason I love this game and so many others appear to as well. Is because of it's atmosphere and it's mood. I really couldn't care less that the puzzles are simple and arguably repetitive, because I'm so engrossed in the atmosphere of the game that the mechanics are all just background noise to me. I honestly think these games are at their worst when they are trying to be a serious puzzle game. Running around for 5 minutes trying to figure out a solution takes me out of the experience and instead I feel like I'm playing a game instead of being immersed in the world.
If all I wanted from games was mechanics, I'd be playing Tetris. Sometimes I want games to be immersive sims first and foremost and "video games" second.
The puzzles stages are silence, a break, like in Half-Life when in certains moment your only corcern is to solve the puzzle, not get killed (beyond the concept of die in this game and another). That is the moment when you think and.. you get it. What am i saying, did you remember the puzzle that you get sucked and enter in the mass chamber? Well, it is a vagina. Yes, you get a inverse-birth. Well, I see that in this way... I think you understand my point.
The life is reppetitive, our's patterns and daily activites are like that puzzles (or simply the developers are lazy, 4 years to make the game). All puzzle and situation in this game is allegory.
srry 4 the bad english
Your opinions are shit. They're fucking shit.
+Kolbe Howard
No. The story isn't even ambiguous anymore at this point. It is just straight-up nonexistent. Any attempt to make a story out of this will end up causing contradictions that prove it to be false. The game breaks the rules it sets up, leading to an incoherent mess.
I also think your opinions are stupid
+theuncalledfor Mind explaining? Because I have no idea what you are talking about. Besides the actual, explicit, told straight to the player story isn't really the strong point, it's how it's told. How it's slowly, carefully revealed throughout the game. A lot of the time I really tend to dislike that kind of thing but Inside made it make sense and kept me intrigued enough all the way to the end.
That takes a certain amount of artistry that most of these artsy minimalist indie games seem to fail at, Inside and Limbo are two of them that actually get it right.
The game doesn't exist. It was a dream your son had while he was napping. You were *Inside,* experiencing it.
Fucked up dream.
But where would the footage come from?
clever
@@ChongiFishing yeah, he keeps calling his fans "kittens"... kinda gross tbh
For me, the tension in the game was simply in completing a puzzle as soon as possible. Also, some of the questions you asked were easily answerable, the people were helping the monster at the end because they were leading it to the trap, for one example.
I personally love this game, mainly because of the mystery it creates and for the strong atmosphere.
The amount of ridiculously hard to spot easter eggs and hidden secrets in this game is mind blowing. There's bunch of people contributing their findings at Steam community section of this game and the rabbit hole just keeps on getting deeper, so definitely worth a check for all the ones interested about the mysteries of this game.
Small world! SURPRISE JUUTAS
So I watched this video and was like; I guess I can do without played "Inside"
I ended up "acquiring" a copy and started playing it; and I just loved it. Despite everything you pointed out, the game just felt ... like something special. So I just went ahead and bought it.
Maybe it's the mood I'm in or whatever; but so far this game has been a joy to play.
I watched 4 playthroughs of this game and played it by myself and with friends 3 times and it was not boring for a single moment. I love the artstyle, the sounds and the mystery behind it. It's actually amazing. People as shallow as the review don't get it. Sounds like I am a deep idiot I know. But I also don't care.
I am in absolute love with this game. The mechanics might be simple, but the mood and atmosphere is amazing just has me intrigued. I regret watching this video till the end though as I spoiled the "twist" for myself, but even with that spoiler, this game left me in awe at the end.
When people talk about games as an art form and experience, usually I just roll my eyes at them, but this game is truly an experience.
I guess it's not for everyone.
Your point is valid but I wouldn't call him shallow by any means
I agree entirely, you need to play it. There is something unique and special about this game. Hearing this guys critiques are understandable if you haven’t played it, but playing it gives a nuance he seems to be missing
You’re not alone on this. I love this game too.
I think Inside suffers from "allegory for the sake of allegory". Inside's story does not work as a story alone, as there's very little to it, and a lot of it doesn't make sense from a pure story-perspective (for example the water creature suddenly making you able to breathe underwater). The world is intriguing, but trying to understand it from a non-allegorical perspective is futile, as it's clearly meant to be an allegory and little else.
You're for example not meant to understand the giant shockwave-machine's meaning in the world. Why was it made? What's the purpose of it? None of that matters. But if you for example view the world as an allegory for the human body, the pulse-machine is clearly meant to represent the heart.
A great storyteller creates a story that works as a story. Digging deeper to find allegorical meanings can be perceived as optional. Actually, an example of a game that does this well is Dark Souls. You can totally get the story or world of Dark Souls without digging for allegorical meaning. But if you do, there's so much depth that can be applied to it all.
rkrokberg does everything in life need meaning? Can't some things just be what they are, experiences, you can take whatever you want from it, it can be shit, it can be good.
Edson Bitch nigga.
I think you're conflating allegory with applicability. The game can't really be called an allegory for the human body, player agency, or anything really. There are too many things contraindicating those interpretations. It also just seems reductive to say that the game is an allegory for just that one thing because it becomes far less interesting when viewed from just one perspective. I would say the games problem is more 'applicability through ambiguity'. But like you said, it forgets to tell a story that just works as a a story. That's really the most important thing.
rkrokberg we get it, you like saying allegorical
I think we're considering narrative to a higher standard of what it actually deserves. Not everything has to be narrative in order to be good. Inside is more about the experience and feel for me. Not about narrative. Just like music, or poetry, or plastic art. You don't sit to hear a symphony because of "the story". Games can be narrative experiences, or not. They're not obliged to be narrative, nor should.
At the end you say the game doesn't have anything going for it outside of its great visuals. I feel like you're doing a great disservice to the game and to yourself as a reviewer to completely and blatantly glossing over the masterful audio of the game. It's one of the best, if not the best indie sounding game out right now. It's regarded in the audio world as an audio masterpiece, both from a design standpoint as well as an implementation systems and technical standpoint, and it cleaned house in many audio awards based on that. Every footstep, every grab of a chain, every scrape of wood, every groan of metal that sounds like a dying animal, the water sounds, the explosions, the ambiences, etc were carefully curated and designed by one of videogame's most revered sound designers. I really enjoy your reviews, even if I disagree with this one. But it really disappoints me when a reviewer cares so little about a game's audio that it never even gets a passing mention at any point in time. Graphics are important, and I get why they get so much time in the spotlight, but audio is 50% of the experience.
"blatantly glossing over"
i dont think you understand that theres this thing called a framework of analysis already laid out. also, creator's abilities and limitations.
Right around 19:35 the blob pushes a table which phases right through one of the running men. Never noticed that before.
7:28 Remember that part from Streets of Rage 3 where you're running away from a tractor? Well, apparently, in 2016 this was considered perfect game design, on par with inconsistencies in game's rules.
I had a very different experience playing Inside. For most of my time with the game I was fully engrossed. It was like I was on the same wavelength as the game. Death was rare for me, at least at first. A lot of the "trial and error" for me was passed on the first try. It made those moments I died feel more meaningful because the game had already proved to me that I can avoid them if I focus. The long stretches of walking or running forward were for me an opportunity to gaze at the gorgeous visuals.
What really brought everything together for me was the animation. Like, in the torch section, I didn't mind the "threat management " because it was an excuse to see how the fire twirls around and the direction of the light changes each time The Boy turns.
It might be easy to guess the I'm an artist. That also impacts how I perceive the "game's" "story", as I'm more used to enjoying a piece of media in how it warps my mind than what I can actually understand from it. That was worded poorly, sorry.
Another thing is that thanks to the game being so gosh darn simple mechanically along with its abstract themes, grotesque concepts, inspired visuals and straightforward interface (no bugs, no graphics settings, no control options or inventory), it was a perfect candidate for being the first real game for my artist friend. I'm so happy to say they managed to finish it, as I had almost given up on getting them acquainted with this artform.
I really love your videos, JA. I haven't watched all of them yet, and I'm already considering supporting your Patreon. You kind of remind me of Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame, if he would focus more on the critique than the comedy and actually considered other people's opinions. It looks like Inside was for me what you said the uncharted series can be for a lot of people. For me the magic was almost never broken, but I accept that this wasn't the case for you at all.
i grew up pretty much alone...i've always been sensitive and overly emotional...i also have a big interest in conspiracies and exploring the unknown. this game was like a love letter to me as a gamer. the game took me on a journey of the senses...the graphics/presentation paired with the sound design made this game worthy of a high scoring review. i get your opinion and understand you...i think. i'll be brave and say that i don't think this is a game that suits you psychology...you're hyper detailed and intelligent and kinda logical. you might be a dreamer and a sensitive soul but, to be honest, you certainly don't show these traits in your videos so...i feel your more in the logical/science/fact mindset rather than the dreamer/sensitive mindset which i feel the game was made by and maybe for...
I've played through this game so many times and it still gives me tingles...the design is just sublime...i'm surprised to hear someone so critical but i do understand the mind quite well so can only put it down to differences in upbringing/surroundings and so on...art is very similar. i find people who have been through a lot of trauma look at art differently. it all depends on how sensitive we are. the more sensitive we are....the more we relate to others art who have also been through the same "things."
I hope that makes some kind of sense to someone :) x
Makes perfect sense to me
That is a beautiful way of putting things. Glad the game make you feel that way, it makes me feel a similar way when I play it.
I don't think that being logic/science/whatever rather than magic/feeling/whatever is the point at all. Joseph is criticizing the game as a hole and not just for the stuff he would agree or sintonize for, as you seem to do. Through that way he can have solid arguments instead of using just his emotions, because he's aiming to a wider public instead to a limited public that could resonate with him on that level. Not that emotions aren't important, it is just that the medium by which an idea is conveyed should be well put together with all the mechanics in order to be effective on as many people as possible. Inside failed at it, and it happened to resonate with you due to a specific connection that not so many people has.
Art is about craft and design as much as it is about emotion and spirit. It seems to me that you liked the game because it fit with your beliefs, and not because you found it potentially good for everyone. In order to find that, you would've had to analyze if it can communicate effectively whatever the main concept was, and you haven't done that here.
@@jesusmauryvargas8971 Art is more about feeling and expression. Its also about interpretation and experience. Some art falls under the category of craft and design others not so much. INSIDE and LIMBO are two games that are all about feeling, expression, interpretation and ultimately experience.
The original comment is trying to say the video criticises the game in a very logically driven way and a less emotionally driven way coming to the conclusion that the guy in the video (Joseph I assume) falls into the more logical and less creative category of personality types. Its also very evident from his comments at the very start of the video.
Creative people are generally higher in openness and empathy. To their dismay a times too making them overly emotional and over thinkers giving them a plethora of mental disorders.
INSIDE resonates with a lot of those people because of its vagueness, the blank face boy/people are there for you to fill in. The 'story' is there for you to make your own. Few games have this ability. INSIDE is 90-99% about this and the rest about gameplay. Everything about INSIDE is masterfully crafted to achieve this exact goal and it achieved it darn bloody well. This is the reason it gets high reviews. This is also the reason Joseph doesn't enjoy the game at all and apparently doesn't understand where people come from when they say this game is a masterpiece.
He is looking at it through his personalities lens, from a purely logical perspective in this case and through those lenses he filters out the point of the game entirely.
Hope that clarifies the original comment. No disrespect meant by any of this btw, I respect your perspective and thoughts.
@@matthewwoodmass4161 Ah yes, a videogame with basically no story, the last thing I expect to be focused on design.
15:15 I'm 25 years old and sometimes I still get that feeling.
This game actually reminds me a little bit of illness.
I didn’t actually play this game, but I did watch people play it on UA-cam several times, and that at a time of my life shortly after I had suffered a huge loss due to cancer.
I think the heavy focus on tone over story or theme makes it possible to relate it to any experience that reflects the dark, sad, kind of inevitably hopeless feeling that the game evokes.
The game starts in the forest, which is dark and scary, and immediately cut with violence and threat, but there is a general sense of freedom and anticipation.
The area around the barn is suddenly safer and the sun in the background, although it seems far and cold, reflects a certain sense of hope. However, it is in this area that you start to learn about the fucked up mechanics of the game and the universe it takes place in, as you go deeper into the machine.
The rest of the bulk of the game takes place within the closed space of the factory. It is back to the dark, menacing atmosphere of the forest, but now you know what kind of game this is, and you definitely do not feel free. The concept of a straight left-to-right scroller implies progression, but also an inescapable future, all within the claustrophobic confines of the factory. It’s called “Inside,” after all.
The entire game has a sense of threat, of being within a body that wants you dead, a world that is turned against you, and has somehow turned against humanity itself, bending it under its will and depriving people from their humanity. The sporadic, surprising deaths keep you on your feet, aware that there is never a truly safe space, making it kind of impossible to relax.
There is definitely a sense of a power way beyond your control being what ultimately defines your future; a desperate desire to escape it, by any means necessary, in any way possible, yet the subconscious knowledge that it’s inescapable.
Probably one of the most compelling moments for me was the area with the radiation. The flashing light is almost divine or godly, coming from far behind, that third dimension that is inaccessible in this scroller world, and where all of the answers seem to be hidden. You see it come and wipe everything clean, bringing a huge deafening roar which silences every other sound and a light that makes everything around you into nothing but a shadow. But it’s painfully clear that you need to protect yourself from it, as any minimal exposure to it will destroy your body entirely.
At the end, the boy turns into a bloated, deformed version of himself, which just bursts into anywhere it goes, destroying everything in its path, blindly trying to make its way out.
And then, when it finally comes out, it rolls down the hill, and when it’s finally fully immobile, the sun shines again and it brings peace and freedom again.
I really saw part of what I went through with my family member’s cancer here. The first days, when we’d just found out, seemed scary and shocking, a sudden threat had been added to our lives. But the future was definitely not set in stone, and the flickering light of hope still kept shining in our brains.
However, the more we got into the healthcare complex, the more we learned at hospitals, the more the feeling of hope started to recede. We knew more, but we were had nowhere to go, we felt the mechanical development of the disease come almost exactly as anticipated, and always with a thirst of blood. It was her body turning against itself with all of the strength the human body can. Always with another new threat coming out from under the shadows, ready to attack, reminding us that we had to be alert, always something to make the going more uncomfortable for her.
This stage was prolonged however, there were ups and downs, moments where she was practically fine, and moments where she definitely wasn’t. It’s almost as though this was the main bulk of the gameplay, the moment where you’re expecting the game to develop, where you make it part of your everyday life.
The part with the flashing lights really made me think of the chemo though. I know chemo isn’t radiation; they are two different ways of treating cancer, but whatever. The point is they came once a week, with that sort of regular interval with which the radiation bursts came in the game. And it seemed so powerful, so blindingly powerful, and so strong. Like it could get through anything. It’s where you’re placing so much of your hope. What seems to destroy the user almost to death, but is actually making them better, that sort of raw, all-consuming power that destroys anything in its way indiscriminately. The way the game uses sound and light in this area is so compelling, and to me it had an almost spiritual effect on me. It’s kind of awe inspiring…
But anyway, that moment passes, and you’re back to the same. At some point the game is undoubtedly coming to an end. You’ve managed to take control of the rogue cells at some points, juggling them all over the place, doing anything you can to be in control. But in the end, the cancer achieves its “ultimate form”, and starts destroying anything in its way. It’s painful and disturbing. It seems opposite to nature, perturbing on an essential level.
But when the end finally comes, you can feel how the stress relieves itself. You’re tumbling down the mountain, destroying and subsequently being destroyed by the trees and rocks. But when the final relief comes, you can kind of feel the burden loosen up, and a sense of peace finally comes.
I’m not saying the game was designed with this in mind at all, I still sustain that the focus of tone is the main focus of the game. But that’s exactly what lends the game to be received the way I received in that moment in my life. Making you spend time in that dark state of mind, but giving you a clear sense of progression, it has a certain therapeutic effect, or at least it did with me.
Anyway, sorry for the impromptu essay, I just felt like putting in my two cents, because this game somehow managed to leave a very lasting impression in my life, for whatever that may be worth.
Very well done video. For me, this game was one of my favorites of 2016 for a few reasons.....It was gorgeous, it had great sound design, the puzzles were satisfying even though I agree they werent super varied, and the game just oozed vibes. I was constantly holding my breath and thinking about what I was seeing. I found it intense and thought provoking. I also loved it because it felt like interactive art to me. Some games just feel like wastes of time but this one did not it felt like I was discovering something.
Watched several of your videos in the last few days, got to say you do an amazing job with your analysis. Great to have someone who takes a truly objective in depth look at these games without blindly buying into what anyone else has told you you should think about a game. Thanks
"the game is boring, so god damn boring" cut to amazingly moody clip
Your voice and delivery of everything is so calm and beautiful it should be boring, but it's not. I keep watching thirty minutes to an hour of content that never fails to be entertaining! There is no channel out there on UA-cam that can keep my attention like yours. Your channel is amazing, keep up the fantastic content!
My overly long response to the written script, just reposting it from twitter to youtube.
"My response to your script from someone with similar feelings about the game.
First of all I think that trial and error gameplay is fine. It's not brilliant, but its fun just for the gore of it and I can't say I ever was bored. As long as you don't think about it too hard.
I do agree, however, that puzzles are too inconsistent.
Anyway I mostly want to talk about "story". I agree with you almost entirely and want to add a couple of things.
The game is very "cinematic" but not order 1886 "cinematic" and I like that, but the tone is all over the place.
I really liked the start of the game for the oppressing tone. It was almost like a black and white war movie about a Jewish boy or something.
Side note: you said that it wasn't oppressing because your are not in danger, but for me its about the same level of suspension of disbelief as a conventional movie. I don't enjoy a lot of action scenes in movies because the main character is immortal pretty much, but I am in the minority and I try to enjoy the movie regardless. Inside is kinda the same way, but yeah it deflates if player gets stuck. Pacing is vital for that stuff.
Then it shifts gears to that oppressing dystopian world with ruined cities, mind controlled people, masks and stuff like that. The WW2 allegory was still strong in my mind at that point.
But then it shifts gears again and it stays like that pretty much until the end. Wacky abstract puzzles, over the top gore, over the top half-life 1-ish mega-structures with unkownn purpose. It was still interesting in a LOST kinda way, but I felt like the tone from the beginning was wasted.
And the ending... I still don't know what happened. It's another tone shift and instead of payoff to all that mystery it gives you The Blob.
Over the top bodyhorror, borderline comical puzzles, deaths and murders of random people and just pure Fucking madness. I was drawn to the screen for sure, but any serious stuff up until that point was deflated.
I have few theories about why blob in the game:
1. Devs are hack frauds con artists who didn't know what they were doing (unlikely).
2. It is a very subtle and deep high art allegory that I dont get and that's why I am confused (also unlikely).
3. It's a meta thing about art.
I will focus on theory #3. Kinda like what you said about witness and Blow Fucking with us.
Devs made an artsy critically acclaimed game and in the follow up, they were just messing with people while disguised as high art.
Think about it that way, game takes itself somewhat seriously and builds up mystery LOST style, but in the end instead of answers you get a "Fuck your answer and tone, here's a giant blob monster." they kinda say "gotcha, it isn't art and we tricked you into being invested in our schlock."
I can't shake the feeling that was the case. Just them intentionally building up to nothing to Fuck with the internet. Imagine if citizen Kane ended with grand hotel Budapest style sled chase. It would totally deflate everything up until that point.
Anyway, if you are still reading, I hope you found it interesting, cheers."
I think comparing a comedy sled chase to the ending of this game is a false equivalence.
I know it's old but doesn't that mean it's like pathologic?
I've seen you complain about death being "meaningless" in other games too, but what exactly do you want? If the game gave you too much of a set back no doubt you'd call it "tedious".
This system needs to be changed then.
This is forever since you commented... but he actually enjoys brutal difficulty. So I doubt it. He wants games harder than most of his audience
Hey Joseph - I'm a big fan of your videos and this one is no exception. :) One thing I do want to look at more closely, however, is your argument that some kind of limited lives system would make the game more tense.
While I agree that this is technically true and this is a very common strategy, I think it's important to note that tension created that way is external to the game, and thereby immersion-breaking. If you're worried about running out of lives or restarting part or all of the game, you aren't worried about the things that your character is supposed to be afraid of. You're worried about things that are outside of the game's world.
While you make it clear that you don't think the best fix is to just slap limited lives on the game in its current state, I don't think limited lives would be the right fix in any state.
The best-written case I've seen made for this argument is by Shamus Young, and he's trotted it out a few times: www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1828 and www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/6715-You-Don-t-Scare-Me and a little bit in www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/14776-Horror-Games-Are-Not-Scary
I also discuss it myself a bit at the end of my own video about why Legend of Kyrandia: The Hand of Fate shouldn't have killed the player character: ua-cam.com/video/mL273U5SmBw/v-deo.html
Anyway, thanks for this and all your other videos. I'm proud to be one of your Patreon supporters. :)
"Doctor Professor is the internet's leading authority on what Doctor Professor thinks about videogames."
Haha.
Shamus is good. I'm going through his Mass Effect series now. He follows me on twitter and patreon for some reason, the mad man.
> While I agree that this is technically true and this is a very common strategy, I think it's important to note that tension created that way is external to the game, and thereby immersion-breaking. If you're worried about running out of lives or restarting part or all of the game, you aren't worried about the things that your character is supposed to be afraid of. You're worried about things that are outside of the game's world.
Hmm. Well dying and then restarting at all is immersion-breaking in that sense. Although you could make the argument that having to constantly worry about how many lives you have left is more of a factor because it's on your mind even when you're not waiting for the game to reload. The solution could be the contextualize the limited lives in the game similar to how Dark Souls has respawns literally happen within the game's world instead of a level reset like in, say, Mario.
Death being meaningful without being frustrating is extremely difficult. Maybe there's room for some frustration though.
> While you make it clear that you don't think the best fix is to just slap limited lives on the game in its current state, I don't think limited lives would be the right fix in any state.
This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Since I watched this video: ua-cam.com/video/alepXw5Cl9Q/v-deo.html
Shamus gets into something similar to this in his article. I think limited lives *could* work in some games. But perma-death in a horror game with levels and threats can be scrambled would be better. Like I said I've been thinking about this a lot and I'd like to make a video on it eventually so I'm going to shut up. It's very interesting to me. Horror games especially.
Try posting some of your videos over at r/videogameanalysis. I got a fairly good response there when I was first starting out. You can even ask for feedback in the comments. Sometimes you might get some.
> Anyway, thanks for this and all your other videos. I'm proud to be one of your Patreon supporters. :)
Oh cool, thanks! Wasn't expecting that at the end. It means a hell of a lot.
The game creates a convincing illusion of a tangible reality within itself.
It *feels* real. That's why it's so magnetic. Additionally, it's less of a game and more of a thrill ride through a haunted house.
It makes you *FEEL* like Spiderman
It makes you *FEEL* like Batman
I can't really descripe why I love Inside that much. Maybe its the earie setting and the visual storytelling of it and usually the puzzles left me with a satisfying "Aaah, ok" moment. I do appreciate your opinion on it as I appreciate all your opinion pieces, it certainly made me think why I love Inside and why it wouldn't click with other people. Keep up the amazing job
This game reminds me of something ed mcmillan said in indy game the movie. When he first started developing games he made a game and made it artsy without meaning and so tons of people would be like "what do you think it means" or try to figure out what it meant and when asked ed would just reply "well what do YOU think it means" when in reality it meant nothing.
This struck me as that kind of thing where they leave so much ambiguity just so that the people playing it can feel intellectual and come up with their own meaning when in reality it means almost nothing. Like they made the game just knowing that people go "oooooooh you were "inside the whole time and now your finally outside" and then their friend goes "but how do you know that you are truly outside now" and first friend goes "woah mind blown".
“Kept trapped on a horizontal plane for a reason that’s never explained...”
I mean, it’s a 2D puzzle platformer, do you really need narrative justification for this?
Yes
Ironically, I think a simple attempt to address this would acknowledge the game's thematic interest with the notion of control. In that regard, the limited character movement, the "instinctive" idea of going right, is playing to the game's concern with an individual's agency
I do not agree with this at all but I admire the well crafted analysis.
Describes a fair percentage of his subscribers.
@@gumbiman3350 How so?
I only finished this game 2 days ago having not really known about it before hand. After completing it i was very impressed and was/am in the 10/10 gang but this video review is spot on. Cheers mate
I see this game as a Kafkaesche story about alienation and envirement, and I think its beautiful and fun. For me most things you complain about (like crafted suspense and ambiguous story) is what makes me love it so munch. Its art and game. Hope you can now, at least, simpathyse with those that liked this game.
I think playing any game without expectations will always give you a better experience since you're surprised by the good parts instead of expecting them. I genuinely enjoyed this game when I first played it because of this, and I presume other reviewers had the same experience? Hype will inevitably disappoint..
Oh I didn't read the reviews before I played it. I should have said in the video. I didn't even know the game was coming out until I saw a trailer on an E3 stream.
You are correct with everything you say here.
Just found this channel and I greatly enjoy these vids, I appreciate the more critical approach you take to the games you play while still maintaining a humble and calm disposition. In a way, it helps me become a better storyteller in the writing I do and helps me become more aware of what makes good gameplay in the games I play (not to mention it helps me become a better critic of such artistic mediums). Keep it up.
I think of all the perfect 10s kind of how I think about the Academy Awards. Sometimes the work that receives the most praise does so not because it's genuinely the best but because it is important enough to be made an example of.
Inside is a decent game with a lot of flaws, but what it's trying to do is such a departure from the current stale state of the industry that it needs to be on game of the year lists to make a statement that there's more to video games than combat, and that setting can be crafted through subtle things like character animations and lighting rather than narration.
Your analysis is always spot on, and I think a more nuanced and fair approach to games is important. It's why I love this channel, and this video specifically. This is just my two cents on why Inside was given such high praise. Not because Inside is spectacular, but because it's goals are spectacular.
It’s the sounds and plops every movement is satisfying i don’t remember the story at all i just remember how it feels but unlike other story based games i think death just pissed me off like i would miss a little bit of the ledge and stop cause literally what was that i did it and for me it held/crashed a lot but i have a horrible device
I like hearing critiques with solid backing to their points. I know you aren't telling me to dislike the game, but saying you don't even understand how other people can enjoy it to the extent that they do seems purposefully inflammatory.
In words of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw - We once saw the word 'intrigue' written on a shithouse wall, and that's about as far as we understand the concept.
Now you've got me thinking about Gris, another 2D puzzle platformer with admittedly basic gameplay and an abstract story that's told entirely through the way the game is presented rather than any concrete information.
Except I love Gris, partly because the art style is way more appealing to me, and partly because the intended message of the game is... more obvious? At least I believe so, since everyone seems to come to the same conclusion of what the game's about. I think the abstraction also works more to its favour, since its "story" is just the emotional experience of moving through the stages of grief. It's more akin to an interactive painting, which I know sounds pretentious as hell but I really appreciate the experience that game gives me.
So many puzzle have the same core solution..
Portal : excuse me?
Death is minor inconvenience
Most games : yes
The issue with the illusion of repetition is highly subjective since I thought the exact opposite. I found the conflict mechanics were dwelt upon in the right amount and not recycled too frequent that they overstayed their welcome. And while one can say that the fundamentals behind those are the same, the literal circumstances that contextualize these situations are varied in practice that it comes across as an incremental evolution of the said mechanic instead of the exact same puzzle.
However, I would have to agree with the reliance on death for progress. There are indeed some sections where trial and error has be done in order to properly succeed. And this undermines some of the momentum the game expertly builds upon.
Watching this review 2 years later. This game is a masterpiece, is still the feeling I get. It's an art piece, and like any art installation it will not suit everyone's taste.
This is 3 years old
mom donate so are you apparently
I enjoyed playing but quit about halfway through, so I can understand some areas of this video. My only complaint of the video is "if you are a drone, why can you control other drones?" *shows footage of the *drone* boy making a drone attach to another controller to control a third drone vicariously through the second drone*
Usually I agree with your opinion in many points, but not this time. Yes, the "story" is a mess, every interpretation I've heard contains either logical errors, or cherry picks details. But the gameplay is genius, and not boring at all. Inside uses only a few controls, starts with minimal interactions then combine those, each building on the previous ones, then introduce new mechanics just because it becomes too boring. Not every puzzle game needs to be hard, especially not when it is focused around a motion on straight line, creating an atmosphere via the constant moving of events in the background. Its the same with the trial and error approach. You say its cheap with infinite lives, but for me watching the kid get torn, get shot, drown etc over and over again made me hate this world. Not the game. Its world. With all inhabitants. Which turned my default reaction for turning into a nonhuman blob from frightening to satisfaction. Finally I can reverse the roles and be the aggressors. I was in the mood at that point that I enjoyed killing them, chasing them, destroying everything in my way.
2:57
I like that term you made, ambiguitis and wish it was spell-able
related to ambiguous, I loved the shockwave hall less as a defense, and more of a "We turned this on and can't turn it off I guess this is our life now" area
I think you could have talked more about the things you liked about the game. It's kinda weird to hear you say "I liked the game, I'd give it a 6/10" then shit on it for 20 minutes haha. I still liked your review and think a lot of it was valid and made sense; but if you asked me what I thought you'd give the game out of 10 (and you didn't flat out say near the beginning) I would have thought a 2 or 3.
Yep, you're absolutely correct. A few more minutes showing some stuff the game does well would have been good.
20:15 alright wait. I thought that this was the big reveal: the boy dies, but the host controlling his body lives on. Notice how after that scene the boy doesn't release any bubbles while underwater.
I've watched a bunch of your videos recently, and I really appreciate your perspective. It's clear that your bias is for games that reward careful, skill based play because you are a careful, skilled gamer. Essentially watching one of your videos is like saying "hey let's look at this game through the filter of Dark Souls", which is particularly hilarious in this case, a game I personally loved, because it is none of that. I for one felt the manufactured tension of every chase and death in this game, knowing it was manufactured. It's a lot like a movie, yes, but the slight gaminess made me just that much more invested. Also the 'mystery box' ambiguity didn't bother me either, because many things in life end in an ambiguous slump, and I much prefer the unraveled mystery to a bunch of over-exposition in an effort to explain something that was all about the journey in the first place.
Either way, great take man. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I absolutely love this game mostly for the body & psychological horror component of it but your criticism is very fair and definitely made me reflect about gameplay especially, I even hope the creators might find this video because its legitimately very insightful for a game-making process. Good job & keep making smart content
Wow, watched your review of The Witness and agreed or at least understood most of what you were saying, but this feels like we were playing two different games. A few things that I thought were particularly baffling:
1. The story/atmosphere/experience. I think getting hung up on the specifics and having every plot/world detail logically fit together is going about it the wrong way. It's not meant to have a specific story. What I got about it is that it's generally about being trapped inside massive oppressive systems over which you have control. You're trying to escape, if not just survive, inside the systems while fighting back to the extent that you as an individual can. At the end, you free a collective of people (the blob) that have been grotesquely transformed by the system but still want to escape. Some of the scientists/people help you because they see the humanity in you. Others don't. Some are killed. In particular, the man at the desk who you slam out the window appears to be someone in power who is thus more responsible for what has happened in this world than many of the others, and thus it's reasonable that he meets a worse fate than others do. At the end of the game, you finally escape the facility, getting a bittersweet glimpse of life "outside" the system. It's possibly the first time you're actually outside in the whole game, as you can see in several points that there are natural looking areas with trees and grass that are definitely contained in the facility.
Stray thoughts about other plot inconsistencies you brought up:
- I don't think all the obstacles were necessarily put there to stop the boy from getting to the facility. I think many were just meant to be experiments or weapons tests meant to show that an extremely powerful and likely malevolent force is in control of this facility. For example, I never thought the sound blaster was deliberately trying to stop the boy. It was just a weapon being tested that could possibly be used for some nefarious purpose in this world by the people who built it.
- If the blob had some control over getting the boy to come free it, maybe the blob was also able to assert some control or communication with the creepy water girl, and that could be why she changes from trying to kill you to saving you and granting you the ability to breathe underwater.
2. Boring/Too easy. Not every game needs to be challenging. For me, this game felt like an absolutely perfect balance of puzzles that require a bit of thought separated by action or quiet moments to take in the sights and ponder the world around. On a personal level, I played this game with a friend of mine who doesn't play games as much as I do. Many "hardcore" games push her away by being too difficult for someone who hasn't grown up playing games their whole life. This game allowed her to play through a much darker, serious, game than what would normally be possible without massive frustration from the difficulty. That's a good thing when games are accessible to people who aren't skilled at them. That's how more people get involved in playing games. I'm not saying there isn't room for deliberately very challenging games too, just that not being challenging doesn't necessarily make a game worse. On the other hand, if the world-building and atmosphere in the game wasn't enough to keep you engaged with the relative lack of complex gameplay, that's a reasonable complaint and the game might just not be for you. For me it was more than enough.
3. $20 is too much? I'll start by saying that I think judging a game's worth on its length is extremely insufficient, and reduces games to nothing but time wasters rather than the experience that can be gained from playing them. Nonetheless, Inside takes about 3.5 hours to complete (more if you look for all the secrets). That's about as long as two feature length films. An average movie ticket is around $10, and, unlike the price to play this game, that's to see a movie once and you don't get to keep it afterwards if you'd like to return to it.
I respect your opinion but I was just very surprised because many of the things you pointed out as parts that turned you away were exactly why I loved this game and why it is probably my game of the year. If you have time I'd love to hear your thoughts on some of what I wrote.
Tegan Valo I agree, a lot of the complaints in this review weren’t even backed and had no explanations. How can you say the story was ultimately pointless if it had millions of people talking? I also disagree that the puzzles were repetitive, I’d say they were more of a build up on previously similar mechanics. The same way the mind control theme kept building up. Then he also fails to acknowledge how unique the puzzles were at times. His complaints on why some people helped the blob and others not were weak. To me it was obvious given every situation. The man at the door was obviously scared for his life. The other construction workers could have been curious or could have shown morals. Humans aren’t a hive mind so why should they act all the same? The trap at the end had no people in the scene, so the crane can be concluded to of been operated by someone in command, who wants to stop the containment breach.
Oh and his complaint about the game just being boring because you just hold right all the way through is also pretty weak. First, a simple game should have simple controls. Second, that’s known as a side scroller, and a very artistic one at that. But I guess Mario Bros and Sonic games are pretty boring too then... Really? This review was just critically negative for the sake of being different and drawing attention. Don’t get me wrong, there are complaints to be had, but obviously none were found and objectively addressed in this video.
The game is full of details and clues within its simple art style so the story is only as limited as your imagination. There’s so much else to say, but it’s obvious that not much thought went into this video as some of his others.
recently discovered your channel, and just wanted to say (while I disagree with this particular video, I LOVED inside) that I love your critiques. you kept me up until 4am the other night after I found your series on Bloodborne and dark souls 3.
Really looking forward to your Bloodborne lore/story critique.
Sounds boring, but damn, does it look good.
I'm happy I got to see some of the visuals but don't have to slog through it myself.
That's so fucking sad man
please play it...your missing out
"Slog through" the game is like 2 hours long.
This game fits into a category of games that are more enjoyable to watch than actually play
it's definitely boring but atmospherically pretty cool...
I like for the same reason i like LIMBO, its a quiet, depressing short story that you can experience when you're down.
So, I’m very late to this but I just finished the game. I’ve been looking at theories on both Inside and Limbo and I wanted to comment on this one because there is something in this review that struck me (and I’ve run across to a greater or lesser extent elsewhere). There is a point in this video where the reviewer spends a great deal of time just listing out questions from the game that he felt were never answered. Now, I’m a fan of The Prisoner, which, if you’re not familiar, was a television series from the 60’s. My mom hates it. I once told her that The Prisoner tends to be less about what is literally happening in the plot and more about the thematic ideas, how the exploration of those ideas makes you feel and think. To an extent it’s less about the answers the filmmakers are given you and more about the questions you end up asking yourself. To use another example, the film Eraserhead by David Lynch has also been discussed at length. The last I heard Lynch had stated that he had still never heard anyone with the idea he had written the movie with. And he hasn’t told. I think that Playdead probably knew what the story behind these games were, but they made them intentionally vague because sometimes the answers are less important than the questions you end up asking yourself.
Agreed! I think it's one of these games where atmosphere is king and you play it for the feels and the cinematic experience, not because you expect concrete answers about anything. And if you haven't already, please also play GRIS from 2018 (by Nomada Studio), its an incredible experience that will be with you always.
I was obsessed for a while because this game supposedly had another hidden secret in the form of ciphers and codes hidden within the game files, and remnants of a secret elevator that had triggers in the game- like many people have pointed out below- I think I was just trying to justify my playtime- hoping there were more answers.
Yhatzee thought inside was pretty meh as well and he loved limbo, so I don't think you're alone in "not getting it"
The constant deaths the game likes dishing out sounds a lot like Heart of Darkness.
A lot of people say that he didn't get the game, because he wasn't immersed in the story, or atmosphere. The problem is that it's hard to get immersed, when what you are doing is repetitive, boring, and frustrating.
It's hard to get immersed in the story. The game leads you to many questions, but doesn't answer them. It makes you craft your own story, that you're comfortable with, instead of presenting one to you that actually makes sense. The problem isn't that the plot doesn't make sense, but that there really is no plot to analyze. It's so loosely connected, and self contradicting. Like when the monster gives you water breathing, or when you unplug yourself even though it's been shown you are not a drone. You can always find explanations to these illogical events, but they always end with more questions that can't be answered without enough evidence. It feels more frustrating to analyze the narrative, then rewarding.
All game deaths feel like the game is just randomly punishing you for playing the game. Trial and error can be fine, but when it lacks any depth it is frustrating. A key part in trial and error is also being go around it by spotting clues that could've lead you to a solution. The best way to describe the puzzles is repetitive. Too many recycled ideas, and very few interesting ones at that. This is what takes people out of the atmosphere. Even then though, is the atmosphere that good? I would argue no, because it has to be combined with gameplay to actually be good. Otherwise it's just a backdrop to a boring game. An overpriced back drop as well. You are either going through boring puzzles, or looking at spooky set pieces while thinking about how frustrating the game play section was. Maybe this should've been a movie or just a walking simulator with gameplay, because for me and many other people, the game ruins any atmosphere with bad puzzles and chase sequences. The tension, and atmosphere is lost because of repetition of game deaths, and annoying gameplay. Atmosphere can only be experienced when combined with gameplay, or else it is lost.
Inside is a video game. It is on a video game distributing platform. It's under the adventure games tag. The game itself was made by PLAYdead studio, a self proclaimed video game development studio. Even they call both Limbo and Inside video games on their page in steam. It has to be critiqued as a game, and it is simply a bad game.
Zi I completely agree with this point. Personally I didn’t like inside although I haven’t played it I’ve watched others play it and reviews and I don’t get why it’s so praised. Sure some people got immersed but like you said it’s a video game meaning you have to take in all aspects of it. This means story, atmosphere, gameplay and other things that I can’t think of and don’t feel like listing. The point is if you wanna look at just atmosphere or story, then review movies, not games. Personally, I don’t believe there is a story, and the gameplay it boring and shit but that’s just me
Ik I’m late af (UA-cam recommended me this video, so I felt contractually obligated to reply lol), but I just wanna say you do a truly incredible job explaining your points, so I cannot commend you enough, but I disagree:
1. Imo, that moment you mention regarding the protagonist getting unplugged DOES have a rational and coherent explanation. The secret ending establishes that the boy IS a drone, so the way I see it, the Mermaid Girl imbued him with her unique ability to traverse the water without having to breathe. To me, this explanation works because it’s supported by what we see for the rest of the game as we see the boy no longer needs to breathe underwater, but also, for me, doesn’t raise too many new questions because it’s fairly clear to me that the Mermaid Girl was doing this to allow you to reach the Blob in an effort to take down this corrupt world. Imo, this makes the narrative rewarding to analyze rather than frustrating because you can use the bread crumbs given to you by the story to formulate rational conclusions. But that’s just how I feel and I can still absolutely see why you and numerous other players felt they weren’t given enough proper clues even if that’s not a sentiment I share.
2. I can definitely see why you say the game deaths felt cheap and unearned and I also think using that as a basis to argue that the gameplay takes the player out of the atmosphere is an incredibly fair and valid argument, but personally, I always felt the deaths were earned instead of feeling random, like they would sometimes in Limbo. For example, in one of the early chase sequences when you have the enemy who will shoot you if you run right into him, dying to this enemy felt earned because I quickly realized that if I just stay out of his headlights’ range, I’d be fine. Personally, this is how all the deaths I experienced felt. I died only because of my mistakes, mistakes that were quickly corrected by effective environment clues that alerted me to potentially repeating my previously fatal mistake. Personally, because of the varying environments, technical elements, general escalating atmosphere, and the fairness of occasional deaths, I didn’t find the puzzles repetitive, boring, or frustrating, but I can definitely see why this wasn’t the case for you and I think you make an outstanding case for that position.
All in all, though, even if these are my feelings, I once again must reiterate you do an outstanding job explaining your harsh criticisms of the game, so I cannot commend you enough for that. Even if I personally found the non verbal narrative to be reasonably coherent and rewarding to analyze and contemplate and even if I personally found the puzzles visually/audibly interesting and engaging enough to avoid feelings of bore or repetition, and even if I found the deaths I occasionally experienced to feel earned enough to maintain my immersion in the atmosphere, I can absolutely see why those sentiments did not ring true for you. And all that aside, especially given how fantastically your criticisms are formed and articulated, I couldn’t be happier that you and so many others have zero hesitation in giving this game plenty of criticism because no matter how much I personally love it and regardless of the immense profound impact it had on me, I still very much believe Playdead’s work deserves plenty of scrutiny in the hopes they’ll learn from potential mistakes they may’ve made.
This is the best game review channel on youtube by a country mile.
All the things you criticize here remind me a lot of Another World and Flashback - which are games I loved. So I may try this one.
Yeah, apart from the negatives of the game, this looks like Another World and Flashback.
For me, thanks to the fantastic sound design, the atmosphere was catched me over the whole game. There wasn't a minute where I strived off to another game or to other topics. From the very first second to the very last, the game had my absolute focus.
It's not the best game I''ve played, by far. But every other game has parts I don't like, parts where you just walk and get bored, overstretched parts that should have been shorter, and most longer games' atmosphere will get completely destroyed at least once as you can't play them in one go. Even though this game has a lot of "just walk" parts too, the audio and visual beauty of the game kept me completely under its spell and makes this the best game experience I've ever had.
Also, the underwater thingies scared the hell out of me and the shock wave level is an absolute audiovisual masterpiece. The shock waves felt as if they had force in the real world.
I think this game prioritizes “art” over “game” and whether or not that works for you really depends on taste. It works for me
Style over substance**
@@trouper206 style over substance is such a cop out. Style can be substantive, they aren’t unrelated factors. There is a big difference between “I don’t get it” and “this is bad.” Tone poem is a term for a reason. But sure.
@@Tinyvalkyrie410 Yes they are unrelated factors. How you dress has nothing to do with your morals. There is a big difference between "I don't understand this" and "There is no understanding this". There is a big difference between instructions in a different language, and a bunch of scribbles on a piece of paper.
@@trouper206 you can absolutely make judgments on people’s morals based on their clothes. Is it always going to be 100% correct? No, but someone wearing a BLM T-shirt to a party has different substance than someone wearing a coat and tie. The language you speak literally changes the way you think. A large number of film (Hitchcock, Flanagan, all film Noir, most animated works, musicals) use style to create theme and emotional impact. Books like House of Leaves are exclusively style, but it would be ridiculous to suggest they don’t have substance. Games like Gris, Shadow of the Colossus, Soma, and Journey also would fit into this category, but man, calling those not art or not substantive is objectively wrong. What most people mean when they stay “style over substance” is “the style doesn’t fit the substance” which is clearly not the case here. Again, you can not like or not get a thing, and it’s often fun to crap on things that are popular, but dismissing it with a statement that doesn’t even take itself seriously is kinda a bad thing. Even this video understood that, and saw the missteps it made in approaching the discussion the way they did (see pinned comment.). Using “style over substance” as a real criticism is exactly what you are complaining about. It uses a catchy, well worn phrase to dismiss something without having to think about it too hard or acknowledge the nuance. I’d recommend going deeper into this comment section to read the responses of the huge number of people that elaborated much further on my statement, showing people who were genuinely moved by this game in unique and lasting ways. Dismissing that as invalid is not cool dude.
@@Tinyvalkyrie410 "you CAN absolutely make judgements on people's morals based on their clothes." I never said that you COULDN'T. I've played through Shadow of the Colossus, and Journey. Yes they are both works of art so stop putting words in my mouth. That's not cool dude.
As a guy who loves authors like George Orwell (1984) or Harlan Elison (I have no Mouth and I Must Scream), and a guy who just generally enjoys existential nightmare tales or weird twists on popular narratives, I adored Inside. Its not for everyone, for sure. But I am a firm believer that it is a must-play, even just once. I've looked up analyses, reviews, theories, even pondered writing an essay on it myself. There's definitely something far more profound going on with the developers that they can create something so simple but can squeeze out of it a wordless narrative that, to this day, I still can't wrap my head around. But the great paradox, or conundrum rather, of Inside is that its just a videogame, whose rules and goals and gameplay are the ultimate point of its existence, but its atmosphere and world are very clearly complex and rich with no real explanation for any of it. It raises so many questions and answers none of them intentionally because they are ultimately not what you play a game for. The answers are unimportant. And this is quite true of life in itself. The goal and rules are simple, survive and reproduce and get to the end. What surrounds this central simplicity is complex and confusing and puzzling to no end or seemingly no purpose, but there doesn't have to be a purpose. This is what frustrates most people about this game, and I completely understand. I was there too. Scratching my head wondering what the point was for months, only to come to the conclusion that there never had to be one.
Love contrarian views on games that I love. I never noticed the puzzle repetition when I played. I was just completely absorbed by the atmosphere, mysterious story telling and sheer bizarreness of it. I smiled the whole time I was playing because I was realising how absorbed I was. If I wasn't taken with the mystery and atmosphere I may have thought more along with your findings.
There's an immense amount of worldbuilding, creativity and willpower that goes into making a fictional reality for you to experience. Sometimes the character is just a platform to traverse the world because the world is the story.
As soon as I saw the fake humans it was obvious that the boy is one himself. The reveal of this fact is the plot twist at the end.
I personally think what you describe as "boring" I see as great use of atmosphere, the quiet factory allows you to be immersed and really feel like you are in the world playdead created. While I don't agree with your critique, I understand where you are coming from.
I didn't need to know much about this game to conclude that although it looked really interesting, I had no interest in actually playing it. I'd heard it had a remarkable ending, so I watched it on UA-cam and was duly impressed. You pretty much confirm that I was right to save the time and money it would have taken to play through the whole thing.
I understand where he's coming from, though I hope he understands that all these mechanics and gameplay designs are kinda how platform puzzle based games work, usually.
It's kinda based more around it's visual narrative and leaving much to interpretation, though there is a pretty solid idea what what is happening.
Also, those questions about drones, the boy, and the people's reactions to the monster are pretty clear to me.
The boy bleeds and dies easily because he's a younger, weaker model, that breaks apart easier.
The people were helping you as the monster because they wanted to lead you to that trap, and you followed because there was no other way out.
The sea creature didn't help you breathe. You happened to sink passed a thing that helps you breathe underwater, that you swallowed.
>It can't all be a joke, right?
that's where you're wrong, kiddo!
I 100% disagree with the “it’s boring” critique. I think Inside’s intrigue comes from its atmosphere, it’s immersion. I played the entire game in one sitting on the edge of my seat because the game’s atmosphere alone is so engaging to me, it made me stressed and anxious at times. While the game is very simple, fairly easy, and short, it’s world is so interesting and intriguing to me that I couldn’t put it down for the 3 hours I spent with it.
You know what's so crazy? Oddworld: Abe's Exodus had a quicksave system and despite that, it still had great challenge and dread in death because of the complexity and difficult of the puzzles and platforming. It also had a good story, too.
And then there's people like me who have no expectations of the gameplay and story, but solely enjoy the game for its incredibly eery mood.
Despite the stigma attached to the phrase, I don't think that there is anything inherently wrong with trial-and-error gameplay challenges, especially when a game is properly designed around them, as you pointed out that this one is with its infinite lives and close checkpointing. I enjoy this form of gameplay, and in the case of Inside I do feel that just about every individual problem or threat includes enough visual hinting that I am confident that you could find players who got any given challenge right on their first try.
I also enjoy the cinematic platformer format more broadly, with its emphasis on your performance as a continuous narrative. You called the threats on offer here bland whereas I felt that the dogs and spotlights and so on were grounded, which contributed to my reaction to some of the more extraordinary phenomena that you come across later on. I'm not going to pretend to be capable of defending the story (since that would require actually understanding it), but I did find it intriguing and awesome (in the classic sense of the word).
There probably isn't a single factual statement in this video that I would say is false, and yet I disagree throughout with the opinions that you draw from them, which leads me to conclude that this is simply a matter of taste; this kind of game doesn't seem to be to yours. Since neither LIMBO nor INSIDE appealed to you, I wonder if you've ever played any other cinematic platformer that you did like? It simply might not be your genre. However, I still think that it's valuable to have dissenting opinions like yours out there for otherwise universally acclaimed games.
This is how I felt after seeing the movie "Us" and then hearing the responses from critics.
us had a point, a really in-depth meaning to its twist and implications, and was really engaging and scary. inside is boring as fuck and meaningless.
Hey Joseph Anderson ! I found your channel through this video and I've been avidly going through all your videos since. Your stuff is really good !
It's interesting because I actually loved Inside when I played it, I was completely seduced by the atmosphere and the general ambiance. I was also not really counting on the story as I found Limbo didn't really deliver in that respect, and so as a comparison I was pleasantly surprised by the story aspect of Inside. I thought they gave way more information on the universe and what was going on than in Limbo and was thus satisfied (I had done both the regular ending and "hidden ending" by the time I saw your video).
However upon watching your video I had to agree with every single point you were making (it's true, the gameplay is repetitive and not that amazing in retrospect) and they do not ultimately deliver on the story as they didn't strongly commit to one strong narrative solution that could bring satisfying closure.
This felt even more acute as I just finished the Talos Principle. Amazing game by the way, would absolutely love to see you make a video on it if you so feel inclined :). Without giving away any spoilers Talos promises a lot in terms of story and remains very mysterious for a really long time before getting to the final reveal. And bam, then they really deliver. This helped me see what you were saying about Inside's lack of a clear conclusion.
Anyway, long story short, love your stuff, loved Inside and still had to agree with you on everything. Thank you for your hard word, and I'll keep watching and liking !
Can you do one of these videos for Horizon: Zero Dawn?? I love how in-depth you get, its fantastic
I see this game as an experience and not as a game.
The intense atmosphere driven by top notch sound design, movement & animation and cinematic staging.
I found enjoyment out of the sheer movement of the character, it's so smooth, realistic - they obviously spent allot of time refining every little detail.
This, I can't find in other games so I gladly look past everything you said about the game because I rarely get so immersed in a game before.
Finally a reviewer that isn't a smug, or self-fellating hipster. I agree with review, and the lack of "story" or MUH ART isn't enough to save it. It was too short for the asking price and the puzzles were piss-easy. I think it was such a missed opportunity.
Solid review, mate.
Narrative is not necessary.
Self-fellating hipster
gold, pure gold
Chrisco ironic that you are as pretentious than the hipsters you complain about
@@Rohishimoto what's his pretense? That games should have content when you buy them? The game clearly has puzzles, they are traditionally designed puzzles, and by traditional puzzle standards, they are shallow. The game operates on the same pretense of being a game with puzzles that this comment does. Your comment is about as reasonable as calling someone who criticizes a games skybox as being an unnatural color as pretentious for assuming it should be any particular color, even when the rest of the visuals are designed to be color accurate. You pretty much hammer home that this game is made for hipsters like you who have completely lost the plot and operate fully with nebulous feelings rather than reason.
@@tarjet3867 that's ok but where's the story fuck
This is just my opinion: I think the whole game is a test, I mean the corporation is testing this boy. What if the boy is a drone, but he is the first one with free will. Every single time you fail they send out a new drone. And one huge piece of evidence for this is in the last part of the game. In the facility there is an exact replica of the beach you escape to, you can see this at 20:58 this means that the scientists have some knowledge of your escape.
Great video! I disagree though.
My interpretation of the story is so different from everything that I've read that I was shocked after beating the game and going on the internet to see what other people thought. Here's my interpretation. Spoilers:
During the first hour of the game I started thinking about mind control and factories that use humans as experiments, but during the last hour I completely changed my mind. To me it's obvious that the whole game is a metaphor for child conception, from sperm cell to birth. The boy in red is the sperm cell (you can giggle now). There are parts in the game toward the end that visually represents a sperm cell's penetration of an egg. At one point you can see other people running into a huge building, in a hurry, which I interpret as other sperm cells trying to "win the race". The part where the girl drags you deep down in the water and attaches some kind of cable to the boy's stomach: umbilical cord. That gigantic room where you have to shield yourself from the huge blast that occurs every few seconds can be seen as the child developing a heartbeat. Inside the dome where people are watching you from the outside, the blob breaks the glass, releasing the water, and wreaks havoc. I believe this implies that the mother carrying the child has had her water break and labor is imminent. This is where the pace of the game picks up and other people help you along the way by opening doors and so on. Also, panic. While in blob form, if you listen closely you can even hear what sounds like a baby crying faintly mixed in with the grunts. The last part of the game before you end up on the beach, when you break through the wall represents birth to me. My god, the game's name is 'INSIDE'.
I get all the mind control and supression theories, but I feel that INSIDE is a game that is not literal at all. Everything in the game feels like a metaphor for something else.
2 years later, I know... But thanks for interesting review!