Inner Chains
Style over substance
DEVELOPER TELEPATHS TREE
PUBLISHER IMGN. PRO
PRICE $ 19.99
AVAILABLE AT STEAM innerchainsgame.com
You awake on a horrible biomechanical world and must escape by reaching a place called “Last Hope.” That’s the premise of horror FPS Inner Chains. It’s also pretty much the sum total of the story as well. There’s little in the way of narrative throughout the adventure, just the occasional hint that there’s something big and bad at play. Without a solid reason for running around the admittedly fantastic looking hellscape, all players are left to ponder are the shooting mechanics and the quality of the AI. From the outset, neither are anywhere near as good as the environments.
The first chapter of Inner Chains is unlike anything else in the game and could definitely lead you to believe it’s something other than a below average shooter. The entire first chapter is essentially a surreal walking simulator, with the main character trudging along, activating consoles and experiencing strange visions. It’s not great but it’s interesting. Come chapter two you start fighting, first with the terrible and ineffective melee system and then with the handful of guns available in the game.
The three weapons, a flamethrower, electric gun and blade thrower all feel equally bad in different ways. The flamethrower will frequently fail to set enemies on fire and sometimes doesn’t appear to do anything at all until the enemy inexplicably falls to the ground. The electric gun can only fire for a few scant seconds before it has to cool down, leading to fights with equally equipped enemies being a simple back and forth of shoot, cooldown, shoot again and hope you can shoot a little harder. The
a simple back and forth of shoot, cooldown, shoot again and hope you can shoot a little harder
blade thrower does little damage and has no impact or weight when it hits. Enemies don’t even flinch when shot.
The flamethrower and electricity guns will be your go to throughout most of the game as not only are they more powerful (or at least they appear to be) than the other weapon, they are also linked to progress in the game, as the flamethrower can be used to burn down certain obstacles (so long as you can get them to ignite), and the electric gun can be used to activate consoles at range. That’s the sum total of any kind of puzzling.
Enemy AI is erratic to say the least. Some enemies will ignore you even if you’re standing right next to them, others will path directly through traps on their patrol routes, killing themselves if you have the patience to wait. Others can see you around corners or from across a map. That wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the game didn’t have some incredibly strange hitboxes and clipping issues. Some enemies have displaced hitboxes and some environments have massive hitboxes, protecting enemies you can clearly see. In some areas enemies can shoot through pillars to hit you, even though you are supposedly behind cover and out of line of sight. It appears all the effort that went into Inner Chains began and ended with the visuals. It’s a great looking game. Such a pity that everything else is rubbish. DANIEL WILKS