Among Us: A Casual Player's Review

Among Us has taken over. The revolution has come and gone, and in a plague-torn world one winner has emerged from the chaos: the cute game where you kill your friends and lie about it. Oddly appropriate. It has taken over Twitch streaming, Youtube, and most likely some aspect of your own life, even if simply by proxy. Like the rest of the world I hopped on the crazy, in moments of spare time and when friends asked if I wanted to play. I've also watched my fair share of Let's Plays in which Among Us is the chosen game. Inevitably, I've had thoughts.

What is Among Us?

If by some miracle you have evaded the force-of-nature that is the Among Us, here's how it works. The players are divided into two groups, the Crewmates and the Impostors. The Crewmates greatly outnumber the Impostors, and it is their job to complete tasks around the spaceship that acts as the playing field. If everyone completes all their tasks, the Crewmates win. An Impostor's job is to kill all the Crewmates and sabotage the ship. When something is sabotaged the Crewmates must fix it or be heavily disadvantaged or lose outright. If the Impostors kill Crewmates down to an equal number (example: 2 Crewmates and 2 Impostors left alive) then the Impostors win. The Crewmates can also vote on who they believe to be the Impostor(s), and if they successfully vote every Impostor off the spaceship they win. That's about it, and other than getting to know the different maps and tasks, you could pick up the game right now and have a decent understanding of what's going on, which is part of the reason why Among Us has been so successful.

Why is Among Us so Successful?

First and foremost because it is approachable. It is simple and easy to get the hang of, there are not the same barriers around gameplay mechanics such as moving and aiming that your average video game has because you're never doing more than one thing at a time, and everything is point and click. It's essentially a virtual board game. This lowers the barrier to entry, and has helped add to its player base. It's also free on your phone, meaning that not only is it easy to pick up, it's also easy to access. But there are plenty of free apps that are easy to play, why is Among Us different? Simple: the humans.

Oh the Humanity!

The fun part of the game is not the doing of tasks, it's not even the killing of other players, it's the part when a meeting is called or a body reported and the cute cartoon game suddenly turns into a social bloodbath in which nobody is safe from accusation or retaliation. Think your ever-loving boyfriend won't turn on you the second he has evidence that you're the Impostor? Think again. Think your sweet old grandma won't throw you under the bus to convince the family she's not the Impostor? Think again. This social interaction is not only something that so many of us have been missing for nearly a year, it also makes each game unique and terrifying.

My father once told me about an article he read that said video games were bad for the heart, because they provided adrenaline rushes without any physical use for the adrenaline. I scoffed at that because video games so rarely gave me adrenaline rushes akin to a sport or childhood game. Among Us has made me rethink that opinion. I've lost at least two games as the Impostor because my girlfriend could feel my heart pounding through my shirt.

But is it Fun?

It has been very easy to get caught up in the social movement of Among Us. Not two months ago we all thought that Fall Guys was going to be around as a staple of the video game genre, only to have it be steamrolled by the game we're talking about today. But is that hype around because Among Us is fun to play? Fun to watch? Or just simply the next new thing? Well, unfortunately I am of the opinion that it is a bit of both and you know what that means?

Pros

As previously mentioned, Among Us is easy to access, play, and it has infinite possibilities from game to game. It is highly social, which means you can play it with friends but it can also works as a great icebreaker with new people and strangers. It can be played with text chat, video calls, audio calls or in person. It's strange that those options even need to be listed, but that is the state of the world nowadays. The little astronauts are cute, the controls (as limited as they are) are snappy. There is potential for multiple strategies both as a Crewmate and Impostor, which makes the game less repetitive to watch and play. All of this is true, yet the biggest point in the Pro column is till that it never gets old to try and fathom what another human is thinking, trying to become our own lie detectors. It's a simple game, and it's simplicity is its strength.

Cons

The cons, as with many things, mostly stem from the other side of the simplicity coin. While it is easy to play online with strangers, without knowing the personalities and tendencies of who you're playing with it drastically reduces your success rates. Add to that the fact that the vast majority of pubic games are text-only, and people constantly leave after they've been killed or not been selected Impostor, the online play is practically neutered. The simplicity also means there's a distinct lack of serious depth to the gameplay. All the depth comes from the people. This means the only difference between Among Us and the card game Cheat are the gameplay mechanics, which again are simplistic. Again, this limits the actual enjoyment of Among Us to who you're playing with. So let's analyze the real game: playing with friends, while being able to talk to them. All the strengths still stand, and in this form I believe that Among Us has very few cons. It's a great excuse to chat with friends, murder each other, see if you know them well enough to tell when they're lying. Anyone can do it, so you won't be stuck with the same group of dudes you drop into the Masterchief Collection with. But there is another con, that has nothing to do with playing the game among friends or strangers, online or off, that I think has gotten bad enough to merit mentioning: the rest of the internet.

Burnout

I don't know when you're reading this, so it's very possible that by the time you do the craze has abated, but at time of writing Among Us has begun to get annoying. About half of Youtube Trending (for Gaming) is Among Us videos, all of which are simply edited versions of Twitch streams, often of the same game from different perspectives. Because Twitch streamers all play together, because it's more fun. Which means they're all releasing the same content. At the same time. New creators have sprung from the cracks on the back of Among Us to claim massive views from child audiences, and it's begun to crowd out unique content. Among Us is fun to watch for the same reason it's fun to play: you get to know people and then figure out if they're lying. But that's all it is, and while I think it's fun and a perfectly valid way of relaxing at the end of the day, it's not exactly groundbreaking. I worry about great creators caving to the mania, I worry about the creators who are dependent upon the success of one game, I worry about a cute game that fosters human connection becoming cringey. It is not my place to worry, and clearly much of this particular feeling stems from the annoyance of a flooded timeline, but I think Among Us is fun and I don't want to see it die from burnout.

Conclusions

Give Among Us a try. You can play it easily, and in the current environment it's perhaps the best way to socialize. I think it will have some staying power because of its focus on the human connection, but be wary of falling into the deep, deep rabbit hole that is Among Us content. It's fun, but it's also unending. Stay safe, and don't be sus.