Inner Chains
An FPS horror game set in a surreal, dark and deadly biomechanical world never seen before. One does not get to set the rules in the world of Inner Chains. Humankind is just a small part of a hostile universe. Want to survive? Discover its secrets. A planet in the distant future. A rock floating in space that is no longer what it had once been. Without human interference, nature has been adapting to the new conditions, reclaiming what was once taken away. In its pursuit of perfection, it began to assimilate with the abandoned technology giving life to biomechanical beings. Left to its own devices, man-made technology has also changed as it tried to adjust to the new environment. A strong symbiosis soon developed between technology and nature. It became difficult to determine what is alive and what is mechanical in the world of Inner Chains.
Steam User 199
FUN THINGS TO DO:
⭐️ Stay alive from zombie & cultist
⭐️ Stay away from tentacle traps
⭐️ Finding ways to process further
THE UNIQUE:
💎 Weapons design
💎 Tentacle Traps design
💎 Alien tutorials
PLAYER GAMING REQUIREMENTS:
💼 Love the art design
💼 Able to remember location & direction
💼 Enjoy using flamer & lightning gun
💼 Enjoy fighting slow-walking zombie
COMPLAINTS FROM COMMUNITY:
🔧 Not able to fully understand the story from intro ➜ Needed more study before playing
🔧 Bugs here and there ➜ Still no fix in 2019
REVIEWER PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:
Outlast 2, Caligo, Layer of Fear
VERDICT:
Total Score = 17/70. Worth a buy, for who enjoy staying in biomechanial world, fight zombie.
However, for who want cutscene throughout the campaign, good combat system, don't buy it
SCORE
WORTH BUYING?
OVERALL
DISCOUNT
57 ~ 70
Valuable than Normal Price!
-
No Wait
43 ~ 56
Worth Normal Price
-
No Wait
29 ~ 42
Good Value
-
Wait 10%~35%
15 ~ 28
Overpriced
✔
Wait 40%~90%
0 ~ 14
Not Recommend
-
Wait 100%
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MORE INFORMATION:
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Approximate File Size = 7.79 GB
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Steam User 39
Just finished the game and it was overall a pleasant experience. Apart from the first chapter, which needs rebuilding, the game itself was decent. The fights were sometimes challenging, especially during the first part of the game, developing strategies for enemies was cool, different ways of defeating them was also in plus. The last boss was a blast to the past to the times of first and second playstation, when each boss you had to damage three times. Rinse and repeat. Same here, but it is not a bad thing, just different in today's times.
I had some minor framedrops in chapter 2, but apart from that - no problems that would discourage me from playing.
Would I recommend this today for this price - I think yes, 60 PLN is a fair price for this title, which gave me a lot of fun - and that is what games are all about, after all.
Steam User 36
Inner Chains has one of the most epic intros a game could have in my estimation. That alone made this game something I wanted to try out, so when a copy came across the ethereal surface of my existential desk, I was very excited to check Inner Chains out. It is worth noting that Inner Chains definitely saw a troubled release, and it was obvious this was a first time developer. Still, Telepaths Tree kept their resolve, engaged the community despite a fair amount of vitriol from gamers and regularly provided both updates and loose road maps for future repairs, until around the end of July (2017), when they stopped completely. One of the devs did however comment in the forum recently, claiming there will be at least one more patch forthcoming before the game is completely abandoned. So, with all that in mind, how was my own experience with the game?
Story
The story in Inner Chains was very, very interesting to me. You awake as an amnesiac in a horrifying post apocalyptic world, as one of many. Legion if you will. However, you still retain your ability to perceive the world around you, even if you don’t even recall how simple language works. As you travel, you will uncover letters from the alphabet, which will in turn allow you to decipher various writings you find that develop the lore of the world, as you start to re-learn language. This was a particularly fascinating aspect of the story. Outside of that however, a lot is left to your imagination and the story as a whole is fairly elusive. Fascinating, but difficult to isolate.
8 out of 10
Gameplay
The gameplay in Inner Chains is actually fairly generic shooter material. You travel through almost completely linear levels, killing a decent variety of enemies, avoiding traps, and basically trying to get from point A to point B. Initially, a lot of the beings in this world aren’t hostile, but as you progress, they almost all will end up being hostile. Most notable in this are your overlords, who herd the people like cattle, and who will end up being your primary adversaries as you go along.
There is a nice variety of weapons that are all powered and operated off of a wrist/bracer/thingy. These different types of ammo, as it were, are all color coded (red for fire, green for poison, etc…) and can be recharged at stations found throughout. Each are color specific though and so you can only recharge that type ammo at each specific station. Each station also will heal you. However, each station also only has a limited amount of energy and can be depleted. Different enemies are obviously more affected by specific types of ammo and immune to others. There is also a melee attack, but this is largely ineffectual and an absolute last resort.
Throughout the game, you will also find clairvoyance stations, which look like creepy face sucking trees. These function like security cameras, although the enemies won’t be using them.
One interesting gameplay dynamic is the ability to use health as ammo if necessary. This is obviously not the best scenario, but it will come up often.
You will uncover language in the form of letters hidden throughout, and these serve as collectibles, albeit with an important purpose (allowing you to translate the various text found throughout the game). You’ll actually find that once you’ve found enough letters, you’ll be able to translate the rest easily just by analyzing use and patterns.
As far as the linear level design, I think this actually works nicely. However, there isn’t enough variation between levels, and this results in an otherwise fantastic idea becoming somewhat generic as a corridor shooter.
There have also been no lack for bugs, as I mentioned in my intro. As of my last play session, many had not been resolved and more had been created by the last patch, notably a complete wipe of gamepad controls. That has apparently been resolved since however. Clipping was a real issue at time as well. Also, and probably most noteworthy, is the end game boss bug that allows you to completely circumvent the final boss by simply climbing around and behind it. That is how I finished the game as the final boss fight was pretty weak and not fun at all. Sadly, the workaround doesn’t trigger the end game achievement, but that’s fine.
5 out of 10
Graphics
The graphics in Inner Chains are stunning. Flat out stunning. In this regard, Inner Chains was a complete success. I don’t believe I’ve ever played a game that looked quite like this one, and that unique take on a game world was very, very compelling.
10 out of 10
Audio
The audio in Inner Chains was a mixed bag. There are moments of brilliance, especially with regards to the ambient world noises. However, much like the gameplay, the audio in general becomes lackluster after you’ve heard everything and ends up being a cacophony of annoying sounds as you get further into the game and have been listening to the droning audio for several hours. Definitely needs more variety.
5 out of 10
Verdict
As you can probably tell, Inner Chains is a mixed bag of brilliant story and graphics, and sub par gameplay and audio. I would recommend trying this one out, but I would also temper your expectations. You should be able to complete the game in between four to six hours, and you can definitely find worse games out there, but this one does fail to live up to expectations.
All told, this gets a straight 7 out of 10, which might actually be a bit generous, but reflects a lot of great ideas, despite the failed execution in several glaring ways.
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Steam User 30
You like the grimdark world of Warhammer 40k?
This is Warhammer 40000K!
It's like the world where Mad Max or Fallout is in but after another apocalyptic world ending event, and another and around 4000 of these later you get to where ever this game is.
It is not a walking simulator, you do get to kill allot of things and burn other things and not get eaten or hit by half-life 2 type alien flora, however you do not need to worry about combat too much, its not Doom and you are not going to be 360 no scope head shooting people in midair after a double jump. You could do a bowl and be couch locked and still play this. Had a few minor performance hiccups though, but no crashes or bugs! Graphics wise, it looks a bit dated, but they really put allot of effort into the details, I figure the Devs probably wanted to see this running on as many machines as possible.The atmosphere is really cool. Kind feels like a few depressed Asian emo kids had a competition to see how grimdark they could get with out turning into a H.R. Giger painting.
I like it, I think it is totally worth it.
Steam User 8
did i enjoy it? YES!
will you enjoy it? depends!
if you like nice graphics and the overall h. r. giger style (it's amazing!) you are in for a bloody good ride. quite literally actually. or at least for the most part that is as this game has numerous definitive weaknesses. see below for more info.
if you don't care much about all that eye candy and you prefer smooth gameplay, a deep story and an overall polished experience it's most likely you will be really disappointed. so don't bother, seriously.
long version:
at first it looked a lot like painkiller to me and i liked that idea big time. but it's not.
general movement is slow, you can't sprint for longer than five seconds and the enemies' AI is so dumb that the hostile plant life is way more dangerous and deadly. combat overall is really clunky and there's a total of three weapons in the game. you can find upgrades but they didn't seem to do anything for me.
the game looks pretty nice and its alien artwork (see what i did there?) is really ingenious. however even with a beefy gaming rig (i7 4770k, 16gb ram, gtx 1080, ssd) it feels kind of laggy most of the time and you get some serious stuttering when transitioning between areas.
i can't stress enough how much fun i had exploring everything and just looking at the scenery. it took me 7 hours to explore everything (ocd-grade exploration) and i loved all of it. however sometimes passages close behind you and you can't get back without loading the last checkpoint. meh!
the game is filled with graffiti and posters on the walls as well as a few pages for your journal. you can't read that (yet) as you need to "collect" letters for translation by touching certain monuments while you progress through the game.
it's a nice idea and it works but it's kind of half-hearted. the posters get translated as you collect more letters but nothing else. the wall graffiti stays in chinese and so does your journal and even the loading screen! at least you get what the journal says by looking at the drawings. so that's a plus.
the story was fresh & new and quite interesting. sadly it stays pretty superficial. you get a rough idea about what's going on but that's it. an environment this interesting asks for a lot more solid background info imho.
so that was a lot of talking for a game that most people won't bother with. and rightfully so.
it could have been a shining jewel of a game but it's more of a raw cut gem now. the devs dropped the game a while ago so it won't get the polish it needs and deserves and there won't be a sequel. i don't say this often but in this case it's really sad.
while i didn't encounter any major bugs the lack of polish and finesse really drags the game down.
get it on sale in case you still want to.
Steam User 13
So I actually have played the game already and I'm gonna change my review from, Unplayable to I like it so far.
Things I like:
+ The HR Giger design
+ The atmosphere
+ The whole Idea behind it
+ Graphics
+ Enemy design
+ Weapon design
+ Learning/searching runes
Things I dislike:
- Shooter mechanics
- Tooo fast Weapon overheating
- Surround sound doesn't work
- Meele attacks
- The game needs some good puzzles
- Not enough Weapons 😁
After I finally played it I can say, it's not perfect but in my opinion a good start for a great game, just patch it till it works and I'll be happy with it!
Steam User 17
I'm compelled to write this review by the "Mixed" overall rating.
It's baffling for me how low the ratings are for this title, on Steam and even on Metacritic, where the 40/100 score is an average of the so-called "critic" reviews.
Inner Chains is a slow paced FPS focused on exploration: the gunplay is limited, the levels huge and astonishingly detailed, the enemies carefully placed.
The game unravels through four chapters (plus a fifth, introductory, chapter), each played in the course of a single, enormous, level; this is both beneficial and a serious problem. The obvious benefit is giving the player the possibility of having different perspectives on the locations, going through certain areas then seeing them again, several minutes later, from the distance; the downside is a severe impact on the performances. I decided to test this game on a rig that could have been realistic during 2017-18: an i7 7700k equipped with 16Gb of RAM and an Aorus 2070 Xtreme; the game was running on an SSD. The graphic options are minimalistic, as we can choose only Low to High details, the window mode, the resolution, and a few other options such as Anti-Aliasing (on or off), V-Sync, Motion Blur, Film Grain and Chromatic Aberration. I was running Inner Chains in 1920x1080, turning off only Film Grain had the effect of making the game struggling to keep stable above 30fps, averaging 40, with peaks in the low 20's it was rare to hit 60fps. When you get into the game and explore a level, you realise that this has probably little to do with poor optimisation, rather with the size of the levels.
The visual aspect of the game is the most interesting thing, curated by the art directory Sebastian Strzałkowski, it reminds of the work of Hans Giger; as previously stated the attention to the detail is maniacal, every little bit of the world the player goes through has been carefully crafted. From the 3D objects to the textures, the lightning effect, the sounds and the placement of enemies and items. The only thing breaking the immersion is the music that plays during a fight: it's always the same track, ends too much after the last enemy around has died, and doesn't really add much to the game, but breaks the mood with the rest of the soundtrack, which isn't bad per se but lacks a more harmonious blend with the fighting sequences.
Regarding the items, Inner Chains features a total of three weapons plus a melee attack (which will keep us company from start to finish, considered how weapons tend to overheat rather quickly), each weapon has an upgrade that unlocks a secondary fire mode, that is more powerful at the cost of requiring more ammunition; the upgrades, as the weapons, will be found laying around, but it will require a careful exploration to make sure not to miss any of the upgrades. Instead of ammunition, these strange-looking weapons work with energy, which the player can absorb from altars scattered around; this energy serves both the purpose of refilling the related weapon and to heal the player.
Although there are no difficulties where to choose from, the game feels fairly balanced, being not excessively easy while still offering a challenge due to how clunky the movements are: our hero moves slowly and has a short breath, as after every few seconds spent sprinting he will start panting and will need a few moments to regain his breath.
What is most striking is how the artists managed to blend the UI for the health and ammunition left on the character and the weapons, so that during the game we always have both on sight, while avoiding an ugly (for how well designed) hud, that breaks our immersion.
The movements feel slow to the point of being tedious sometimes, however this is still part of the design and of a carefully balanced equilibrium. The game isn't long, most people will take 4-5 hours to finish it, perhaps 6-7 exploring every bit of it, which is an activity that pays back with beautifully crafted views, definitely worth the extra time spent exploring.
The artificial intelligence is rather remarkable for its low quality but this is something we shouldn't pay too much attention, as the game focuses on exploration rather than gunfights. The latter are there only to keep the player busy and give a bit of a challenge between exploration sessions. Whoever jumps into this game expecting a classic (or even console style) FPS, has the wrong kind of expectation and will be left disappointed. However, Inner Chains is, still, a remarkable FPS.
If you need ratings:
Graphic: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Longevity: 5/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Overall 7/10
Inner Chains a game that still tries to be original and to be a breath of fresh air in the FPS scene, with a peculiar art style and many other niche ideas that contribute to make this game a small gem. It is by no means perfect but it's worth a ride through.