The 90’s have returned and after more than three decades we finally get to see the inevitable future and evolution of the FMV genre. Human Within is built on a fantastic concept that blurs and blends elements from Minority Report, Hackers, Lawnmower Man, and dozens of other popular sci-fi movies, books, and concepts. More interactive entertainment than actual “game”, Human Within is basically a movie where, at certain times, you get to steer the path. It’s a mostly passive experience; one that is perfect when you are looking for a seated VR experience about the same length as a feature film.
No spoilers on plot here; just know that two sisters are working on a headset that will merge the human mind with the Internet, and their evil boss is trying to sell the tech to the highest bidder. When things get desperate it’s time to put on the headset and become one with technology. It’s not the first time this plot device has been explored, but Human Within does it with a style and elegance only VR can offer. The technology behind this game is so incredible I literally became part of the experience, even if it was mostly passive.
For most of the game you are in this virtual space surround by video panels about the size of a note card. There is one central screen with the main view and then you get all sorts of surveillance footage, photos, video, documents, basically anything you would see on those fancy crime boards they use on TV with a web of interconnecting lines, only here, in cyberspace, it’s a lot cooler. You can grab and view any of these panels up close then release them so they snap back in place. Examining certain clues will progress the story and unlock more info to process.
Fans of the Watch Dogs games will feel right at home when that city map appears and you can start clicking on citizens to get all their private info, while fans of dominoes (the game – not the pizza) will enjoy the simple hacking game that has you matching dot patterns on transparent cubes to repair corrupt data blocks. There are even moments of instant decisions where you pick a course of action by simply looking at a person for a few extended seconds to make a choice.
While the game boasts multiple paths and multiple endings only a few key choices actually steer the game in any meaningful way; something you can analyze and pursue after your first completion when the story flowchart is revealed. Just like the chart in Detroit Become Human, you can see where the story branches and explore alternate paths on future replays, although it looks like you can fully reveal all the scenes in two playthroughs if you plan it out.
Production quality is great with some reasonably good acting on par with a college-level acting performance. This is one of those game with very little in-person human interaction, so everyone is mostly acting into a camera or a mic delivering plenty of dialogue full of techno-babble. The video quality is actually a bit disappointing in full-screen, and even after disabling the stereoscopic effect things were slightly blurry, but all of those video windows were crystal clear. When the experience does go into “game mode” and you are connecting cubes or navigating a reconstructed 3D crime scene the graphics hold up nice and fit right in with the tech-savvy themes of the plot.
You can finish Human Within in a few hours and there is at least one good replay built into the design, so your mileage may vary when it comes to value for the dollar. I enjoyed my time with the “movie” but found the ways you interact with it were limited and boring after the first few hacking puzzles and conversation choices, which were already problematic given that the time to make a decision was shorter than the time it took to read the choice, so I had to keep looking back and forth between my choices to reset the timer.
There is definitely some fun to be had with Human Within, especially if you are into passive games with minimal interaction. While things do get a bit cheesy at times in terms of script and acting, everyone seems to be taking this very seriously which helps smooth over the rough edges. There is a nice mix of scenes in the real world using real locations and sets juxtaposed with their unique vision of virtual cyber space where things get really cool…or violently red depending on the situation.
Human Within barely qualifies as a game, but when it comes to interactive entertainment where watching versus playing is 95% watching, it doesn’t get much better than this. VR is the perfect medium to explore this type of production visually, but in the future, I just hope we get a bit more engagement with the material. I could see myself with an entire library of interactive movies such as this if they can make that happen.
