STASIS

The game has interesting graphics and an intriguing story. The stort development is logical and seems plausible in the setting, which means that you get quite good immersion from the game, important for playing an RPG. My only issue is that it ends a bit too early, I was surprised to reach the end at the point that I did.

Stasis is something of a miracle. It’s a tiny budget game made by the tiny team at The Brotherhood Games (the majority of the development was handled by brothers Chris and Nic Bischoff), five years in the making, and it’s one of the best adventure games I’ve played in a long, long time. The game opens above Neptune on the medical research vessel the Groomlake as main character John Marachek awakes from stasis. He’s woozy, injured, and things have gone very, very wrong in the time that he’s been asleep. John doesn’t know where his wife and child is, so he sets off to find them. Lights flicker, broken computers spark, blood and bubbling ooze abound, and we’re off on a gothic science fiction horror show. While there are a couple of jump scares in Stasis, the game is more concerned with disturbing you. Kurt Vonnegut said in his rules of fiction, “Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” The Bischoff’s are sadists, and I mean that as the best sort of compliment. John Marachek is put through hell, forced to perform morally compromising actions and suffer horrors of all kinds. I’m rarely surprised by games, but Stasis managed to surprise me with the depths it sunk to. As you guide John through the Groomlake, you’ll face somewhat typical adventure game puzzles – pick up items, combine them, use them where they’re needed – and it’s here that the game stumbles a little. While the majority of the puzzles are pretty great (I particularly enjoyed the puzzles that required me to really pay attention to the environments), there were a couple of times when I was stumped. When that happens, the game kind of grinds to a halt as you run around, clicking on things, trying combinations, running the mouse over the environment hoping for hot spot hits. It’s a problem common to the adventure genre so Stasis is not the only offender, but it is still a problem. Where this really becomes a problem is when there seemingly aren’t enough hints. The hydroponics area held me up for a while, as did the stasis chamber puzzle (although that one was fair, it just needed some laser focused examinations). I couldn’t figure out where to go at one point, but as it turns out, I just didn’t walk in the right spot, which seems unfair. While I generally loved reading the PDA journals that divulge clues and tell the stories of the characters that inhabited the Groomlake – I particularly enjoyed reading about the technician who had some bad luck and an unhappy marriage – there can be times where you have to sit and read quite a bit at one time. The villain is a little flat, coming off as a bit of a one-note version of Doctor Frankenstein. It’s all forgivable, because the rest of Stasis is just so strong. Stasis’ environments are absolutely stunning, so much so that I found myself constantly screenshotting. To paraphrase Hellraiser’s Pinhead, the Bischoff’s have such sights to show you. It’s a joy to explore the horrifically gorgeous world of the Groomlake. The sound design is also great, as is the tremendous music by game legend Mark Morgan, Christopher Bischoff, Daniel Sadowski, Jovana Djordjevic, and Meesah Kuteyi. One holdover from adventure games of yore that I was delighted to see return was that John can die, the pains of which are mostly avoided due to autosaves. The new, episodic King’s Quest game from The Odd Gentlemen also employed this, and both it and Stasis show how old mechanics can be freshened up and made palatable again. I enjoyed every single one of the gruesome deaths that I lead John Marachek to - I'm sure that the Brotherhood truly enjoyed thinking up and animating each one. If you have any love for adventure games, buy Stasis now. It’s a beautiful, horrifying ode to Alien, Event Horizon, BioShock, Dead Space, and The Dig. It’s scary, it’s smart, it has a dark sense of humor, and it has soul. I was frequently disturbed, and I was left exhausted and beaten down by the end. What more can you ask of horror? Highly recommended.

Stasis is very much an old-school point-and-click game -- with every strength and weakness that implies. The puzzles very quickly deteriorate into "try to guess what the puzzle even IS", which then breaks down to "try every key with every lock, even if it doesn't look like a lock", plus some really annoying bits of pixel hunting. The deliberate decision by the dev to withhold information about both the puzzles and the world in general doesn't help -- basic information about what items are and *how they work* is completely lacking (which feeds into having to brute force puzzles). There's a point at which withholding information stops creating intrigue, and starts creating confusion and frustration, and if you look at the Steam threads about the puzzles and the end of the game, it's pretty clear that a lot of people felt the latter and not the former. Also (and I'm trying to make this criticism without implicitly spoiling things, but failing): so you know that bit where, when you're playing an RPG, the plot is screaming "we have to get to this place NOW", and the game says "well, actually, you need to grind through 15 hours of crap first ... so no, not really?" Well, think about what "point-and-click horror game" actually *means*, and why that's kind of an oxymoron. Also, think about the last time you saw a horror movie consisting of only wide shots (you haven't), and understand that the game is also doing that with its isometric perspective. Which is unfortunate, because even though it leans on sci-fi cliches (or just flat out rips scenes wholesale), it executes them well enough to make you want to see more of the world and backstory. The backgrounds and lighting design are beautiful, the voice acting is solid, and I'd love to see the art and sound direction applied to a better game design. Only recommended if you really, REALLY like the point-and-click genre, warts and all.

And I usually hate point and click games. Just challenging enough to make me feel smart for solving the puzzles but not make me feel stupid when I have to look it up.

Beautiful aesthetics and a tense, dark atmosphere was what made me want to play this game. As someone who's not a fan of point and click puzzle solving games, I'm happy to report that generally the puzzles are sensible and only very seldom would they be obtuse but when it did happen it was completely taking me out of the immersion - nothing kills immersion and tension faster than frustration of not being able to solve a silly puzzle. Luckily, those moments are few and far between. I love the fact that the devs respect your time and the character can move at a reasonable pace so the backtracking and puzzle solving isn't terribly burdensome. There is a fair bit of reading involved, it seems like everyone in the game had their own personal diary and at times the entries contain plain silly incriminating details that no one in their right mind would record, or details that are simply too transparently there just for the reader's benefit. It lays out the story which is quite interesting but it is also a bit long winded at times. The game is quite gory and disturbing (but not many jump scares, and they are fairly tame) so if you are a fan of the setting and point and click puzzles, you'll be as happy as a pig in mud. As for me, four stars.