Originally posted here: https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2023/10/01/inner-chains-2017-pc-review/
In 2014, Scorn was announced with a trailer showing off it’s H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński inspired horror landscape and managed to get a fair bit of excitement for it’s release based purely on it’s art style and atmosphere. But unfortunately for the people looking forward to it Scorn took 8 years for that game to eventually get released. And those 8 years were enough time for another studio to come in and develop and release a game to fill that void that the original Scorn trailer had left, which is where Inner Chains comes in. Having a Kickstarter in 2016, 2 years after Scorn’s initial trailer, which went onto be successful, Inner Chains eventually went onto to be released a year later in 2017. Clearly not only taking the same inspiration from the same artists for it’s creepy landscapes, it also took inspiration from that initial trailer for Scorn by having biomechanical weapons and other tech throughout the game, which I’ll talk about later.
Set on in a distant future on a planet alien from what it once was, mankind has lost it’s control over nature and nature is reclaiming what it once had, turning the ancient technology into biomechanical beings, creating a strong symbiosis between technology and nature, and what is considered living and what is considered mechanical is getting difficult to distinguish. But slowly mankind has once again become an important part of the ecosystem. However, it hasn’t quite regained the level of development that it once had and is oblivious to it’s own history, unable to comprehend or control the powerful technology at it’s disposal.
As one of the inhabitants of this world, your head is filled with the teachings of the Ruling Caste. Your only goal is to get to a mythical place called the Last Hope and leave this degenerated, dying planet once and for all. You embark on your journey full of fanatical zeal, but soon it becomes clear that nothing is what it seems in this strange world.
Right off the bat Inner Chains is pretty solid when it comes to it’s aesthetics. As I mentioned earlier it uses H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński as it’s inspirations and while it it’s trying to ape on what Scorn did to a certain extent, it does give the game a distinct art style that not a lot of games have in general, and is much appreciated. The game even tries to show off the scale of the desolation of the planet by showing you glimpses of a building off in the distance that seems to loom over you throughout the game. It also helps that pretty much the entire game comes across as a heavy metal album cover.
The game also has tablets that you’ll come across throughout the game that when you interact with them they translate one letter of the in-universe alphabet into English, which is clearly meant for a second playthough so you can get all of the story. Even if you don’t translate 100% of the alphabet, you could still probably get the gist of what’s going on.
Unfortunately the presentation is where a lot of my compliments end and a lot of problems start rearing their ugly head.
While the game has some exploration and minor puzzles, such as using your electricity gun to shot distant buttons or using the flamethrower to burn something that gets in the way, most of the game is combat, and that combat is mediocre at the best of times, clunky the rest of the time. The game gives you the options of a gun that shoots electricity, a flamethrower, and a bolt gun, all of which you can use to stun your enemies and then use melee when you get close to the to save ammo. To get ammo, the game has these organic looking ammo dispenser that each give out ammo to a specific gun along with regenerating your health, both of which are limited. I didn’t have too much trouble with the combat but it left much to be desired.
Enemies range from close combat melee focused enemies such as zombies and these dog like creatures to enemies that have the same weapons you do, such as guards and doctors with the electricity guns, and even a tankier enemy flamethrower that you can take out by shooting the gas tank on it’s back.
And two of the enemies are pretty much clones of two of the enemies from the original Half-Life. One of which is a clone of the Barnacle, an enemy on the roof that grabs you with it’s super long tongue and drags you into it’s mouth, and the other ones are these tentacles that are stuck in place. At least these two enemies in Inner Chains have obvious signs as to what they’re attack range are. You can even lead zombies near or kick them towards either of the Barnacles or Tentacles to take them out. You can take out both of these enemies if you need along with the others, so they shouldn’t be much of a problem.
Then there are the straight up bugs. There was at least one scene that I’m pretty sure was supposed to have more sounds to it since it inconsistent with what sounds were playing. And I’m pretty sure there was an area that I accidentally clipped through.
But the worst bug I encountered was the geometry not loading in a certain area. I uninstall and installed the game and the bug persisted. It wasn’t until I got a new computer that it fixed itself. I’m assuming it had to do with moving from a HDD to an SSD that it fixed the problem. I don’t know if it’s because it was of the hard drive or a completely new computer, but it was frustrating. I think it had to do with the way that the game loaded in new areas. It doesn’t help that this game also runs poorly, even on newer hardware.
Unfortunately I can’t really recommend this game. While it’s nice to look at, as nice as a depressing desolate wasteland can look like, and is atmospheric, it is stuck with an underwhelming plot that can only be discovered with a second playthough, which can end up being tedious because the whole thing is carried mediocre combat. About the only thing that it has going for it is that it goes for super cheap whenever a sale is going. And while Scorn had it’s fair share of issues, it was significantly more successful in what it was doing than Inner Chains.
In 2014, Scorn was announced with a trailer showing off it’s H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński inspired horror landscape and managed to get a fair bit of excitement for it’s release based purely on it’s art style and atmosphere. But unfortunately for the people looking forward to it Scorn took 8 years for that game to eventually get released. And those 8 years were enough time for another studio to come in and develop and release a game to fill that void that the original Scorn trailer had left, which is where Inner Chains comes in. Having a Kickstarter in 2016, 2 years after Scorn’s initial trailer, which went onto be successful, Inner Chains eventually went onto to be released a year later in 2017. Clearly not only taking the same inspiration from the same artists for it’s creepy landscapes, it also took inspiration from that initial trailer for Scorn by having biomechanical weapons and other tech throughout the game, which I’ll talk about later.
Set on in a distant future on a planet alien from what it once was, mankind has lost it’s control over nature and nature is reclaiming what it once had, turning the ancient technology into biomechanical beings, creating a strong symbiosis between technology and nature, and what is considered living and what is considered mechanical is getting difficult to distinguish. But slowly mankind has once again become an important part of the ecosystem. However, it hasn’t quite regained the level of development that it once had and is oblivious to it’s own history, unable to comprehend or control the powerful technology at it’s disposal.
As one of the inhabitants of this world, your head is filled with the teachings of the Ruling Caste. Your only goal is to get to a mythical place called the Last Hope and leave this degenerated, dying planet once and for all. You embark on your journey full of fanatical zeal, but soon it becomes clear that nothing is what it seems in this strange world.
Right off the bat Inner Chains is pretty solid when it comes to it’s aesthetics. As I mentioned earlier it uses H.R. Giger and Zdzisław Beksiński as it’s inspirations and while it it’s trying to ape on what Scorn did to a certain extent, it does give the game a distinct art style that not a lot of games have in general, and is much appreciated. The game even tries to show off the scale of the desolation of the planet by showing you glimpses of a building off in the distance that seems to loom over you throughout the game. It also helps that pretty much the entire game comes across as a heavy metal album cover.
The game also has tablets that you’ll come across throughout the game that when you interact with them they translate one letter of the in-universe alphabet into English, which is clearly meant for a second playthough so you can get all of the story. Even if you don’t translate 100% of the alphabet, you could still probably get the gist of what’s going on.
Unfortunately the presentation is where a lot of my compliments end and a lot of problems start rearing their ugly head.
While the game has some exploration and minor puzzles, such as using your electricity gun to shot distant buttons or using the flamethrower to burn something that gets in the way, most of the game is combat, and that combat is mediocre at the best of times, clunky the rest of the time. The game gives you the options of a gun that shoots electricity, a flamethrower, and a bolt gun, all of which you can use to stun your enemies and then use melee when you get close to the to save ammo. To get ammo, the game has these organic looking ammo dispenser that each give out ammo to a specific gun along with regenerating your health, both of which are limited. I didn’t have too much trouble with the combat but it left much to be desired.
Enemies range from close combat melee focused enemies such as zombies and these dog like creatures to enemies that have the same weapons you do, such as guards and doctors with the electricity guns, and even a tankier enemy flamethrower that you can take out by shooting the gas tank on it’s back.
And two of the enemies are pretty much clones of two of the enemies from the original Half-Life. One of which is a clone of the Barnacle, an enemy on the roof that grabs you with it’s super long tongue and drags you into it’s mouth, and the other ones are these tentacles that are stuck in place. At least these two enemies in Inner Chains have obvious signs as to what they’re attack range are. You can even lead zombies near or kick them towards either of the Barnacles or Tentacles to take them out. You can take out both of these enemies if you need along with the others, so they shouldn’t be much of a problem.
Then there are the straight up bugs. There was at least one scene that I’m pretty sure was supposed to have more sounds to it since it inconsistent with what sounds were playing. And I’m pretty sure there was an area that I accidentally clipped through.
But the worst bug I encountered was the geometry not loading in a certain area. I uninstall and installed the game and the bug persisted. It wasn’t until I got a new computer that it fixed itself. I’m assuming it had to do with moving from a HDD to an SSD that it fixed the problem. I don’t know if it’s because it was of the hard drive or a completely new computer, but it was frustrating. I think it had to do with the way that the game loaded in new areas. It doesn’t help that this game also runs poorly, even on newer hardware.
Unfortunately I can’t really recommend this game. While it’s nice to look at, as nice as a depressing desolate wasteland can look like, and is atmospheric, it is stuck with an underwhelming plot that can only be discovered with a second playthough, which can end up being tedious because the whole thing is carried mediocre combat. About the only thing that it has going for it is that it goes for super cheap whenever a sale is going. And while Scorn had it’s fair share of issues, it was significantly more successful in what it was doing than Inner Chains.