Inside

This horror platforming experience has the best art direction that I've seen in years, in any medium. From the first few seconds of the game I was totally immersed in its world and it relentlessly kept me in. The more I played, the more disturbing and intriguing it all became, until the literally awesome end-game that had my jaw drop and then made me smile in horrid delight. There are some dark, twisted, beautiful minds behind this game.

So, yes, Inside is a "total experience" kind of thing, but it does work just fine as an actual game, specifically a rather straightforward puzzle platformer with some allowances for exploration. None of the puzzles were very hard and they pretty much all do a great job of keeping the story going. There are a handful of timed puzzles, which I tend to hate, but they were happily few indeed. In most puzzles I could take my own time and it's in those silent moments that both the horror and beauty of the environment really hit me. Usually all I heard was my own wet footsteps and distant echoes of machinery, but sometimes there was a subtle ambient music soundtrack peeking through. A moment of recognition, and then I was plunged back into quiet terror.

There are some secrets for completionists, but I strongly recommend you just play through without worrying about them. You can fill in the blanks after finishing the game.