Inside is an "indie" video game (I put the indie in quotes, because I do not know how much a game that appears in a conference of Microsoft can be called indie) of 2016 created by Playdead, the creators of Limbo. Most likely, most people know Limbo, and yes, he is quite famous and acclaimed. However, although the previous Playdead game had good points like the artistic style and the atmosphere, the play really is rather bad and is quite overrated.

But well, I'm going through the limbs, what I mean is that Inside is a game strongly inspired by Limbo, and that is not something to hide, the similarities are seen from the logo, to the gameplay and controls.

Then there comes the question Did Playdead learn from his mistakes? Is Inside better than Limbo? And even more important Is Inside a good video game? Well, that can only be found by analyzing the game.

I want to clarify that this criticism will contain several spoilers, and Inside is a work that I recommend to experiment knowing as little as possible, but if you already played the game or you just like it, go ahead.

The game begins very similar to Limbo, being that in both games begin with a child in a forest without having a clear objective, nevertheless, the difference between both titles falls in that, whereas in Limbo we have nothing in clear, beyond What are the dangers, and advance mainly by the inertia of advancing; Here we are clear: you are running away. More specifically specifically, we flee from men wearing a mask, whom we see carrying people in a truck, only to discover later that these people do not have their own will, but are controlled by a helmet. Now, the interesting thing about this is that this last point is not established with a kinematics to a note that leave on the floor, but the game lets the same player to experience it on their own.

Something that characterized the gameplay of Limbo was trial and error, another point against the previous game of Playdead, Inside, although in a measure almost nonexistent, trial and error is present, the difference falls that, while in Limbo Not only were traps impossible to distinguish, but the video game also established rules and broke them only to generate artificial difficulty with the aim of compensating for the short duration of the work. In Inside, the traps that can be considered "trial and error" are well executed, since you are still playing under the established rules and do not break them for convenience, besides that if one is attentive, these traps are identifiable and evadible, the The only condition is that playing must be very attentive to notice them, which increases the tension. Which brings me to the next point.

The atmosphere and tension of Inside are excellent, partly due to the great sound direction of the work, which uses easily identifiable sounds to alert us of danger, giving the work an excellent sound direction. The persecutions are measured to the millimeter (thing that makes sense by something that I will say later), which gives more tension to the game; Which is reaffirmed and makes sense since, in principle, we control a child.

Now, let's stop talking in general and focus on something more specific, Inside's message. Which opts for a silent narrative, which forces the work to send its message through the visual and, more important, the interactive. You do not have to be a genius to realize that Inside has an anti-capitalist and antisystem message, and no, I do not support socialism, or Communism, quite the contrary. But in spite of that, Inside never got to bother with that because of the subtlety in his message (which is a consequence of what I explained previously). Inside does not show how the "brainless" are used and controlled, you have to experiment through their mechanics, Inside, if you want to tell you something, you will not show it, much less tell, it will make you part of it with their mechanics , And that's what makes it good; Not the message itself (which is quite seen and explored in many other works), but the way in which this message is transmitted.

A comparison that I did not see anyone do (Maybe because it's a bit farfetched), it's Inside and Bioshock. And yes, in principle they seem to have nothing to do, but there is a specific point that both works explore (and although they are not the only ones that do, much less do both in a relatively similar way), and is the Theme of the relationship between the game and the player. I'm not going to go into it as much as Bioshock does (not to spoil, as this is not an analysis of the Irrational game), but in a nutshell, Bioshock "questions" how the player obeys orders and believes he has freedom, when It really does not have it; If you do it better or worse is another topic that I will not get into now. Inside, despite not playing exactly the same theme, does raise something similar, with the question of the player and how it is controlled. In Insdie, in principle, we play a boy, who is pursued by mysterious men, and a mechanic that establishes the game is to control the "brainless" (I do not tell them humans since the game does several things to show that They are not, and if they played the game, that if they are reading they should have done it, they know to whom I am referring); It is also established, at a more advanced point of the game, that the brainless can control other brainless, which is very important; Since we, no, the child is a mindless one which is controlled by the mass of the end, which, in turn, is controlled by us. This is confirmed when in the alternative end, we see that when disconnecting the machine the child is in the same position as the brainless and stops moving. The goal of the mass is to control it to free itself, and apparently achieve it ... APARENTLY. Actually the mass is playing under a plan previously guided by the men who chase us, this becomes visible when we fall in an area and there is a small stage with the same place where ends the mass lying at the end of the game and when they are going to lock up The mass, you can see many people visualizing the event in what seems to be something like a theater. Thus the protagonist (representing the avatar of a player) is controlled by the mass (representing the player), which in turn is controlled by people who chase us and move everything (representing the creators), and speaking thus, to Like bioshock, but in a very different way, from the relationship between the player and the feeling of freedom (freedom being a recurring theme in the game). The problem with this is that even if this last one of mine is just overthinking, the fact that the child is controlled by the mass is somewhat obvious, the problem is that it is established that the brainless have no emotions (and the child manifests Some) and they are seen without blood, falling of high places and losing limbs, without dying. While our character possesses blood and dies in the ways mentioned above. And it could be argued that it is another type of "brainless" more advanced (since the game also establishes, showing some capsules of very artificial aspect in the forests and later showing that the brainless go out of there, that these are born naturally, but Are created) but even if this is so, it only opens more questions: How did you create it? What did they create it for? Is it not more effective for the mass to use a normal mindlessness that is invulnerable to various things for its purposes?

To conclude, Inside has many successes: The visual is used for narrative purposes, the sound direction is spectacular and is used in a masterful way to contribute to the mechanics and the setting, the message is very solid and together with the story are Very well presented; And the mechanics are simple but varied, since based on a few buttons and few mechanics make vary situations doing many varied challenges. The only problem I see with the gameplay is that in the water the child drowns more or less fast depending on where you go, this in order to serve as an invisible wall, and in principle would have no problem with this, if it were not because The difference is too great and, consequently, notorious, something that at times can draw from the atmosphere so well constructed of the game. But the same is still a nitpicking asshole on my part, and the game, in general terms, is excellent.