Recent reviews by !Klams

Just moving around in this game is fun. You have a grappling hook that works from REALLY far away, and you can kinda speed-dive around most of the time, too. If you jump off your spaceship and zip about in space on your tod, you can still get a bit stranded, so it doesn't feel like the spaceship is a waste of time. It strikes a really great balance of feeling vulnerable when you're off it, but still being super (SUPER) manoeuvrable. The ship catching fire / getting invaded feels intense, and exciting, but never too overwhelming as to not be fun.

There's not a ton of variety yet, but honestly this core is a good enough time that even if they never added anything I'd say this was a great time; we're having an absolute blast!

Really doesn't need a review, I don't think, I think this is the kind of game you know whether you'll like or not from the premise. It nails the premise. It gets in, makes it's point perfectly, and leaves you alone to wonder what just happened. Perfecto.

I'm only 13 hours in, but having played the first one, and as much of this as I have, I think I have a pretty good idea of what this game is like. And I think it's one of the very best games.

Every time I remember this game I'm really excited, "Why didn't I reinstall that sooner, it's SO good!" And then I remember why, and am crestfallen. Such an insane shame. It's like a theme park closing down, and you can see all the rollercoasters and rides from afar, but you can't get in or power them up.

This game is amazing. I was amazed by it. I completed it in 3 hours.

If you were watching a film, and it was 3 hours long, and you said "It felt like only 20 minutes!" that would be a compliment. I feel that way about Inside. The game is cheaper than a Gregg's vegan slice for goodness sake, do yourself a favour and spend a few quid and a few hours and let yourself enjoy this masterpiece.

This game is good, if you play it, you'll play all of it. But I can't recommend you do. It's about 20 minutes of actually solving puzzles, about an 1 hour 20 of just holding W through some appealing environments, and 20 minutes coming across a solution to a 'puzzle' while you're holding W and then going through the motions of applying that solution. It never made me feel clever.

You've almost certainly already seen a clip of someone picking up an object, holding it high in the air and then it dropping it, with it's shifted perspective, as a big thing. It's incredible when you first see it, and, for sure, it's a really really cool technical marvel. But... it's never elaborated on. That's it. You hold some stuff up in the air, and drop it big. It never really evolves. They kind of try at a couple of points, but it never quite lands; the other gimmicks tend to only really have one possible use.

I think, if you like this sort of game, you'll appreciate having played this sort of game. But, I personally think the price (at time of writing 16 English Quids) is too much for how short and simple it is.

Games good, but if you're reading a review, you probably haven't played it yet. Like me, you'll never kill anyone. It's fun, but I play it as a survival horror game, knowing full well that as soon as I encounter another player in the game, it will be a frantic scrabble that ends with me dead.

At this point, the only people playing this game are Better than you™ at it.

It's a really well designed walking simulator, with some cool puzzles and incredible atmosphere, that's utterly ruined with terrible combat. Just utterly appalling combat, it's actually the worst I've experienced since Daikatana. Because it's not just bad, it's confusingly bad. The first weapon you get has only two charges, and it takes 5 attacks to kill the enemies. So you have to make two attacks, then run away, wait, then make two attacks, then run away, then wait again, then make the final attack. That wouldn't be an interesting play pattern in a shooter, but in a first person horror puzzle game, it's 'always' bizarre, unwelcome busywork. No element of it is fun.

If you do die, you've got to go back and do some of the game again. How much? Who knows! Could be seconds, could be minutes! Of a walking simulator. That has no fail state apart from these enemies. That aren't fun.

I feel like it's a really really simple solve, too. Just have the enemies take two hits. That way there's tension in that, if you miss at all, you're going to have to do the running away thing, and if there are multiple enemies, you've got to be careful with your reload.
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/edit: Finally got around to playing this through to completion.

All the above remains true, but for whatever reason, I now think it's a masterpiece. The horrible combat and horrible movement actually plays into the themes. It's kind of weird and possibly very art-wanky of me, but I actually really came to enjoy the fact that the violence in it isn't fun. Or, easy. Or good in any way at all. It's also often debatable as to whether it's totally necessary for survival. There's a beauty in the ugliness of it.

I really really want to like this game, but it's just so buggy. Every time I go to play it something exasperating happens and I give up.

Played another 6 hours, and got to a point where I'm infiltrating a building, so I sneak up to a guy and shoot him 4 times point blank in the head, and he doesn't die. I'm out of ammo, and everyone in the area knows where I am and is shooting at me. I just cant be bothered. It's not that it's too hard, it's just that it's unrewarding. Playing well doesn't feel cool or good. The plot is great, but the action really lets it down.

This game is great! If you liked Portal, you'll like this. The puzzles are all really smart, they feel good to solve but only take a couple of minutes each. The thing that made me wanna actually leave a review though is the vibe of the meta narrative. It's principally an adventure, trying to figure out who where you are, but there are psychological and philosophical elements that play into it. None of this is especially groundbreaking, but it's got that indelible quality where some of it feels almost illicit, like you're painting outside the lines, seeing behind the curtain. Again, it's the whole 'the cake is a lie' element that portal did so well, but I feel here it's even better. It's a hard quality to describe, and if you think you know what I mean and enjoy it, this has it in spades!