Inner Chains

A random game I had come across, judging from the gameplay trailer it was a eary fps set in an even weirder looking setting, so I gave it a shot, and I must say, the game is full of bugs, it seems like the dev bit off more than they could chew with this one and I'm curious about whether or not it's a single person or a small group of close people who made this and it seems as if none of them knew how to code or code well anyways, I won't spoil the ending but...well...if you play it, you'll see. That all being said, the games art style and overall ideas were really solid, they just needed to be fleshed out more, I enjoyed the world and the 3 main weapons in the game as well as their upgrades, I enjoyed the focus on solving problems with your brain rather than with your weapons althought there was a fair shair of that as well. Game needed a lot more work and is plagued with bugs, but it's definitely interesting in it's own right, I'm personally happy I played it, but that's just me, I can't see many other people enjoying this game at all, which is sad, because theres something special here, just needed to be fleshed out more.

Good first then bad. Good: The art style is amazing and made me want to love this game. Glitches arent overwhelming for an indie title. The atmosphere is immediately creepy and sucks you headlong into the awesome geiger art like world. Bad: The features are repetative. There are very few enemy types and the puzzles are all almost identical, revolving around... here is the worst bit... your 3 weapons. This is n FPS game with 3 weapons. This wouldn't be bad if they were interesting, or you had to use them strtegically. But, by the 5th level where you fight the same 4 enemies with the same 3 guns and solve the same two puzzles, well, no amount of awesome atmosphere can make up for haw dull that is. Would have been an amazing walking game, like firewatch.

The game itself is really beautiful when the settings a cranked to the maximum. That though, is quickly overshadowed by the heap of technical issues with the game. I couldn't even run the game properly on the lowest settings, lowest FOV and resolution at 1600x900. It would still stutter and lag like crazy in some areas rendering the game almost unplayable at some points. The sound design is mediocre. Sometimes it sounds like an enemy is right beside you, but in reality they're much farther away. Other times they make absolutely no sound at all, and you're suddenly ambushed by four zombies, or whatever the enemies are. The "combat music" is pretty good, but it always continues for a much longer time after the enemies are defeated which tends to get annoying after a while. The voice acting is not really great, and sometimes downright cheesy. But considering it isn't really a AAA title with millions of dollars going towards the development, I can live with it. Definitely my smallest gripe with the game. My biggest issues with the game is definitely the performance. It ran so awfully at the boss fight that I almost wanted to quit the game all-together. It's even a laughably easy fight once you get the point, and get used to the horrible framrate. Environment hit boxes are stupidly large, making it almost impossible to not hit the walls even if you fire several pixels above them! The only problem with the environment is that you never really see any of it, because you keep running around in a castle or something. It's basically the same over and over again, and you're almost consistently confined to small corridors. As soon as the game opens up, it just shits the bed. Pros: - Beautiful Cons: - Performance is horrible - Sound design is mediocre - Cheesy voice acting - Promises a lot; delivers less - Environment hit boxes are stupidly large - All segments are the same - Loud or completely silent enemies - Melee combat is bad - Not worth more than €4,99

I give it 5 stars. Because it is really a good game. The first version had lots of gamebreaking bugs. But now with the latest v2.2 patch all the bugs are fixed and finaly playable. The performance is good and if you have a really fast processor + videocard it's gonna be perfect. The gameplay is nice, it's not a fast shooter like CoD. But more a survival game, just don't run and gun like a maniac. There are lots of traps and ammo is spare. The visuals, a dark Giger-like theme, is fantastic! Take some time to look around and be amazed! They really put some hard work in it. The first level you may think is boring, the game really starts in chapter 2. Just don't quit so fast... :-) Have fun!