Title: The Beast Inside
Format: PC
Price: USD 14.99
Considering the opening sequence, and indeed the game’s box art, pretty much signpost where this game is going to end up, and probably a more than healthy hint as to why, it’s testament to the skill of developer Movie Games that this is still such an engrossing title.
Groovy. And not in the let’s-go-carve-us-a-witch kind of way either.
Following the aforementioned gruesome opening, we’re a young couple moving to the house in the country that protagonist Adam Stevenson has inherited. So far, so generic. Then it becomes clear that, rather than our happy couple sharing unfortunate sartorial tastes, it is, in fact, the 1970s. This plus the rural house setting and some excellent graphical representation of the world lend a Fulci-esque atmosphere to the proceedings, which was far from displeasing (and possible apt considering some of the later lapses in narrative cohesion).
And another horror reference! Just don’t ask him to name any cats.
While this is likely just me projecting, there is a more obvious nod to horror cinema in that the house has the same floor plan as that in the first The Conjuring movie. That the developers figured out the plan, scale, and were able to recreate it is quite an impressive achievement, and one I hope that does not result in copyright infringement action. Fortunate then that the house has the size and variety to support the story’s exposition, although frankly we see a bit too much of the basement in some back-and-forth questing. Fortunately, there are other locations in the immediate locale we also get to explore.
Oh deer!
Once the couple has settled in, Adam gets down to his day job. Which is decrypting Soviet cyphers. This is a more original videogame protagonist career than, say, police detective, private detective, or journalist detective. It also leads into some of the puzzles, where cyphers must be decrypted using a combination of gears, cables and codebook settings. As Adam’s career is relevant to the overall plot, using his actual job as a basis for the puzzles was plausible. Beyond the puzzles needed to advance the game, you can obtain far harder codes to crack. I suspect these may lead to easter eggs, but sadly (and honestly) I had neither time nor skill to find out.
A good puzzle gives you a sense of satisfaction. Also, I love the cypher machine and want one of my own. So as to encrypt messages to my cats. They’ll still ignore me, but at least I’ll get more out of it.
Then in his exploration of the house, Adam finds an old diary page, the chapter ends, and suddenly we’re in 1864 and someone else entirely – one Nicholas Hyde, as it turns out. This sets the pattern for the rest of the game. In the 70s, Adam is focused on exploring, puzzle solving, locating Soviet bugs, and finding diary pages to trigger the next chapter. In 1864, Nicholas is focused on the accumulation of matches and the odd boss battle. The game is much more than a walking simulator accordingly; both Adam and Nicholas have more active engagement with the environment, even if, as in Frictional Games titles, many of the items that can be interacted with are completely pointless.
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. Except murder, that’s pretty much the same.
Adam eventually obtains a pickaxe and a machete, however, this is no Zelda-like opening up of multiple new areas. They serve to unlock one path and one path only, and that being the linear path you happened to be on at that point in the game. More interesting is Adam’s CIA MacGuffin, a device which allows you to track and uncover recent past events, which he uses when he and his wife begin to be stalked by persons unknown.
The MacGuffin at work, tracking down mysterious stalkers.
Back in the past, other than trying to keep the lights on, Nicholas also obtains a gun, and a lockpick which he uses to burnish his Skyrim lock breaking credentials, although this is somewhat inconsistent as when he is exploring the mountainside Inn later in the game, some doors can be picked, and others are simply marked as “locked,” apparently arbitrarily, unless you need a specific key to open them, despite them being identical to those which can freely be attempted.
It’s the Michael Jackson room!
As always, I will try to avoid spoilers. Suffice it to say that this is more than just Adam finding out about some unrelated character in the past, and the two narratives eventually intertwine, bringing into question how much of this is real, and how much is delusion, paranoia or even more serious mental illness.
A puzzle, yesterday.
As the player, you may see where this is heading, even though the game has multiple endings. But the ride to get there is enjoyable, thanks to some excellent locations, great lighting, tension and some quite effective scares. The game did manage to make me jump on more than one occasion.
Hmm…what would Peter Griffin do?
There is some narrative confusion, particular in the Inn when Nicholas seems to have knowledge that we don’t know how he obtained – for example, he enters the Inn, and mysteriously immediately knows that the janitor keeps a certain key in a certain room. There’s also some clumsy introduction of additional story elements (“oh, right, that guy, the one who…” sort of exposition). There are also a couple of sections of the game that result in insta-death and the game is loathe to tell you what it actually wants you to do. This sees loading screens more than is warranted. I get that in games the first time, or even the first few times, I might not get past a challenge, but usually I have at least some idea of what I need to do to beat it. Also, as is often the case, the Mine chapter was busywork that outstayed its welcome.
A long thin plank over a yawning chasm. What’s that you say? Insta-death QTE ahead? I could not possibly comment.
The Beast Inside is, then, more than a walking simulator and more than your average haunted house first person horror. It is a bit predictable where it ends up, but very enjoyable and occasionally innovative in how it gets there. Considering the price tag, the journey is well worth your time. 7