Games worth discovering

Minds Beneath Us is a compelling cyberpunk story about AI and free will

464 View2023-12-16

Minds Beneath Us

8.5

Sci-fiPuzzleStory Rich

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SHOULD I PLAY MINDS BENEATH US?

This is definitely one to check out if you’re interested in adventure games or cyberpunk stories. Minds Beneath Us is a modern, more down-to-earth spin on Ghost in the Shell. It’s set a couple decades in the future in an unnamed city in Asia where AI controls many aspects of daily lives and shadowy agencies use data ghosts to possess targets and spy on their enemies. It’s stylish and atmospheric, and the story had me hooked right away—even though I found some of the pixel-hunting a bit tedious.

PLAY IT FOR YOURSELF

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TIME PLAYED

I played about an hour of the Minds Beneath Us demo, which gave me time to complete it and go back through the intro sequence to experiment with some alternate choices. The demo included an introductory scene in a hospital room, which cut to new characters in their apartment, preparing to go to work their night shift jobs.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT MINDS BENEATH US?

• A gritty, compelling cyberpunk story. Minds Beneath Us started off with a scene featuring two men waking up in a hospital room with fuzzy memories about how they wound up there. However, I quickly learned there was much more going on than it first appeared: Shadowy forces were at work, and this hospital ward was actually an experimental interrogation chamber. Creepier still, I wasn’t even who I thought I was—instead of the older man in the room, I was an implanted intelligence placed in his brain in order to gain information the younger man had. This sinister stuff pulled me into the story immediately.

• Hand-drawn character animation. The characters in Minds Beneath Us are all animated by hand, and the care put into this process impressed me. While there are some jarring transitions—for example, between standing and sitting, or when a character moves into position for a conversation—I loved how natural the characters looked while walking or interacting with each other. Subtle ambient motions really brought the faceless characters to life, and these gave the game a much warmer and more human feel than I expected.

• A cyberpunk atmosphere that’s believable. I’m not entirely sure where Minds Beneath Us is heading with its setup, but the brief portion I played felt very grounded and believable. It’s set in the 2040s, not the distant future, and its characters deal with similar issues we face today: fretting over a partner’s argument with a neighbor, worrying about someone spending too much time on work, or having your body hijacked by a secret paramilitary spy agency. Okay, so that last one might be a bit out there, but my point is that the rest of the game felt relatable, and that sense of familiarity made the more sci-fi parts even more effective and interesting.

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT IN MINDS BENEATH US?

• Pixel-hunting. Unfortunately, Minds Beneath Us resorts to that oldest of adventure game sins, which is the dreaded pixel hunt. I had to go scouring through the apartment looking for some hard-drive sized device my girlfriend had left somewhere while she was in the shower. Another item I needed was tiny, the size of a jewelry gift box, and hidden on top of a bookshelf near the top of the screen. Both items were in shadowy areas too, so it was a matter of luck that I found them at all. Fortunately, they did at least light up when I finally moved my mouse cursor over them.

• UI needs some work. There were a couple places where Minds Beneath Us frustrated me with tooltips that refused to remain on screen. These contained things like item descriptions and background details that would have been nice to be able to read, but they would only flash on screen for a second, no matter whether I kept my cursor in place, clicked, or held the mouse button down.

PLATFORM TESTED

PC.

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO PLAY ON THE CLOUD?

The cloud version of Minds Beneath Us quickly loaded on my Samsung S22 Ultra with no issues, and I was impressed with how smooth and unobtrusive the touch controls were. It helps that the game has a very simple control scheme that naturally adapts to my phone’s smaller, narrower screen. This is the perfect game for the cloud, really—it was just as good to play it this way as on my PC.