Inside

   Happy 25th Anniversary to my childhood videogame hero, Sonic the Hedgehog, as of last Friday. This is a not so subtle of a hint at what I mentioned in passing last time that I have ideas, so look forward to some Sonic the hedgehog based posts coming soon. What more could anyone want? I've been trying to get through a few of the Sonic games I'd never played before or only in passing, but I can tell you right now it won't be every single game ever, there's not enough time in the world, no matter how fast I gotta go. That's still to come though, because I had to stop right now to talk about Inside. This is going to be a short one in order to avoid spoiling anything but I'll try and encourage you to play it. Warning, no more jokes coming (though it's arguable if there ever are any).

 I hope you've played Limbo before because Inside is the second game made by Playdead (the developer) which has arrived 6 years after Limbo, and even though it's only 3 hours long, it's been worth the wait. Much like Limbo, it's an atmospheric puzzle platformer but they seemed to have learned some lessons from Limbo, which itself was a great game, but they've fixed some of the very few minor issues (some frustrating puzzles with hidden objects got really annoying at times in Limbo) and perfected the art form.

   At different parts of this game it can feel creepy, scary, sad and joyous through the change it atmosphere with a deep story told without a single word of text (written, spoken or otherwise). The main thing to expect though is an unnerving atmosphere, as you're never specifically told what's going on, but you know it's something very wrong, and you just know, with everything that's going on in the game that the unnamed protagonist is ultimately going to fail in his quest, at least to an extent, though it's never clear what that quest is (so I guess he might have succeeded).
   I am not trying to spoil this game, honestly. It really is best to play it for yourself. I don't want to say more than 'fantastically atmospheric puzzle platformer' in order to describe the game. You really have to play this for yourself to appreciate it (also so I can discuss it as I doubt I know anyone else who will), unfortunately (for most people (me not included)) it's console exclusive to Xbox one, though it is available on Steam as well, so there's really no excuse. You need to play this like I need to play the Witness (downloading now), so what are you waiting for?

   New idea for a section. With every 'review' if you wish to call these that, I will include a recommendation or two from me as to what you may also like based on the game in mention. I won't just be googling and copying and pasting, nor recommending games I haven't played, nor sticking to the same exact genre, developer, publisher or so on. Also nor will I say the answers you could obviously figure out for yourself. For example in here I could put 'Limbo' and 'Portal' and have done with it, but I wont. (also, I might go and add these to some of my most recent 'reviews' as well as I have no desire to play Mighty Number 9. (top tip, it's bad) while I wait for this download to complete) With that in mind...

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