Among Us Review — A Lockdown Phenomenon

Everyone remembers the COVID era, lockdowns on high, the world falling silent. The rise of late-night discord calls and videogames was inevitable, and Innersloth’s newest title was soon to become a global phenomenon. Though released in 2018, it saw mass popularity on the rise during COVID-19, which is when I was introduced to it by a close friend and finally gave in after being coerced for weeks on end only to become addicted to it.  

Story And Setting 

Among Us places players directly into a spaceship. It steers away from following any storyline at all, focusing purely on the gameplay aspects. This allows players who aren’t interested in dialogue to experience a game separate from it. 

The entire game is set in space, where players are to choose from astronaut skins that are provided to them. The setting follows the players heading into a lobby, waiting for them to join. You can also customize your character by giving them pets that follow you around. You are also able to change the skin of your astronaut if it hasn’t already been chosen. 

There isn’t a main storyline that you need to follow, giving you the pure freedom to play however you want.

Hidden within rules and different game modes such as Hide N Seek is where you can also hide from players or be the seeker and hunt them down as I ruthlessly slashed some of my closest friend’s astronauts. 

Gameplay 

Innersloth knew what their target audience was when they released Among Us. The game is purely multiplayer, focusing on matches that are carried anywhere between 4 to a max of 15 players, which can be a whole lot of fun. 

The main gameplay aspect of Among Us features an ejection system which was what made me play it in the first place, and it relies heavily on the player’s strategic sense to navigate through the five different maps.

They range from Skeld, Polus, Airship, the Mira HQ, and a recently added map called the Fungle, diversifying map options. My all-time favorite is the Airship due to its increased map size. 

Imposters and Crewmates are chosen at random, and the players who are chosen as Crewmates are to finish a list of given tasks. They also need to stay as far as they can from the imposters who are out to get their souls and murder them. Becoming an imposter has to be one of the most fun things to do in-game. 

Amidst the murder party, Crewmates and Imposters are also able to report dead bodies that they find. The game is to blame other players to save yourself and survive until the end to make your opposing party lose and I for sure took advantage of it. 

There is no limit to the number of lies and manipulations that you can carry out, making it the perfect setting for friendships to get ruined amidst a sea of lies and pure, unhinged curses, which were inevitable with my group. 

The one game mode that is available apart from the regular game is Hide N Seek, where Crewmates need to survive until the timer goes down, while the Imposter is out to kill them.

Players are given the freedom to choose from a range of astronaut color skins, alongside pets and clothes that are purely there to set apart your character from the basic ones and can be bought in the shop. 

Roles And Game Modes 

Tasks can be completed to make the timer run out faster so that the Crewmates can win the game; otherwise, the Imposter will take home the victory. 

Adding roles in Among Us makes it all the more interesting, as it brings in roles such as becoming a random player’s Guardian Angel, a scientist who can check whether a player is no longer in the room, or even an Engineer.

While there isn’t a main storyline to follow, there is loads of betrayal involved.

Engineers can gain a few advantages, such as being able to vent just as an imposter would. While there isn’t a main storyline to follow, there is loads of betrayal involved. Taking on the two roles of Imposter and Crewmate, each serves a different purpose. 

The Imposter focuses on tracking down the perpetrators, chasing and murdering them to get a victory each round. The imposter can vent, dim lights, and call on meetings to eliminate the crewmates. On the other hand, the crewmates are supposed to survive each round and complete tasks, ensuring that they don’t get killed or eliminated. The last crew mate standing or an Imposter eliminated is their end goal. 

Visuals and Performance

As far as the visuals are concerned for Among Us, the characters are simple astronauts that lack hands or arms and are just blobs on feet. They are mono-colored, and range from a spectrum of colors that can be chosen by players. 

Innersloth takes a minimalistic approach with Among Us’s art style by keeping the color palette of its characters and world simple yet distinguishable. The maps, however, are vastly different from the simplistic character appearance, as they are set apart with a different theme for each of the five maps that are offered. 

The Skeld features a simplistic office setting, while Fungle features a forest theme with a lot of green elements that set it apart from the other four maps that are offered to the players. 

Innersloth takes a minimalistic approach with Among Us’s art style by keeping the color palette of its characters and world simple yet distinguishable.

While there is a map that marks out each of the rooms, it still becomes difficult to track them down running up and down the ladders while there being zero 3D elements from my experience. 

Among Us is an absolute delight visually, with its pop of colors giving it a very light-hearted theme to begin with. However, it is temporary as it only continues to delve deeper into the horrors with the bodies being slain on sight and the bodies that are left to rot in the rooms. 

Performance-wise, Among Us is a game that requires very low-end requirements, whether on mobile or PC clients. While I personally played on a phone, the PC experience was also very smooth, as a few friends stated. I didn’t really experience any major bugs while playing it, though character colors would appear faded every now and then. 

Verdict 

While Among Us was at its peak during lockdown, it remains a game worth trying at least once. It is a visually appealing, engaging multiplayer game that requires a good mixture of master manipulation and strategy and a lot of betraying your friends to win. 

It is everything that you can expect to come out of a co-op simplistic multiplayer game. However, the difficulty of map exploration is something that should be looked into as it is something my friends and I faced while playing it. 

However, with it being an easy-to-pickup game that can be played on the go, anyone and their mothers can try it out to kill a few hours. 

This has been my review of Among Us; if you enjoyed reading this, then be sure to check out similar articles from the list below:

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