Posted on: September 5, 2015

ulterior

Games: 766 Reviews: 7

SciFi Sanitarium / PnC System Shock

If System Shock were a 2D isometric point and click adventure or if Sanitarium had a SciFi theme. Graphics, sound, and story are all very immersive. Fans of SciFi horror movies like Event Horizon will be right at home. The price point seems fair, you will definately get value for your money, but I'm speaking from the point of view of a kickstarter backer so I feel somewhat distant from the amount I paid in the beginning.

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: August 30, 2022

Laminatboden

Verified owner

Games: 277 Reviews: 3

Visually cool but clunky

The game is visually great, looks and feels like an older adventure, but unfortunately, on the technical side it feels old too. For instance, the options menu is not in the game, you have to open a file in the games dictionary, where you've installed it. Sound is also managed over there, so be ready to change it there first because it was damn loud on the first start. The puzzles are fun and reasonable at first, but later in the game, it gets really absurd, especially when you pick up items, that feel completely random, if you don't have any idea why you're picking those things up. Also, be careful to really check everything in a room! Some areas are a pain to backtrack, because John, the player character, is extremely slow in some areas. The story and world is okay, felt very generic though with lots of tropes and clichés. Definitely pick it up, if you like old school adventures, if you're searching for a good story and/or clunky gameplay isn't your thing, you should maybe look somewhere else.

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: December 20, 2017

fade0ff

Verified owner

Games: 1224 Reviews: 83

Isometric SciFi horror from the 90s

Well, no, it's not really from the 90s, but it sure looks and plays like it was. The (pre-rendered) graphics look somewhat lowres/blurry and the animations are wooden. The movement is sluggish and neither dialogues nor (inevitable) death animations can be skipped. Most puzzles are straight forward but some suddenly involve guessing. Besides there is the typical 90s style "try and die" game design all the time where you walk into a room, click on something and are suddenly killed with no proper hint that this would happen. Anyway, there are no clues whatsoever from the protagonist - his only response is "this will break it" or "that's crazy". Taken the outdated design and implementation, the limited playtime, the predictable B-movie story and dull ending, this certainly isn't the "masterpiece" that other reviewers saw in it. Then again, it's not bad either and for sure quite unique in its genre. At least I couldn't name many isometric point'n'click SciFi horror adventures. So if you're into this and like game mechanics from the 90s, you could actually enjoy it. But honestly, it's nothing you'd regret to have never played, either.

Is this helpful to you?

Posted on: August 24, 2022

RagnarNidhoggr

Verified owner

Games: 274 Reviews: 6

Incredible atmosphere, terrible puzzles

This game has all the makings of a cult classic. Excellent storyline, incredible atmosphere, nostalgia factor (anybody who played Sanitarium can instantly recognize the influence), some very good writing... Unfortunately, it all falls flat because the puzzle logic is terribly illogical. I'll give you an example: if you want to hold a door open, you use a dirty wet towel on it! Because that makes perfect sense, right? Well, regardless, the way the game goes about not informing you your actions are insufficient is both infuriating and insufficient. In this example, you open the door and the door closes immediately. The character gives no indication that he expects something else. The game gives no indication that it's expecting you to keep the door open. There is no prompt, dialogue, symbol, pointer or anything to make you think that you're supposed to hold that door open with anything, and only by using every single item in my inventory with every single item in the room did I finally manage to hold that door open for long enough to proceed in the game. In basically every point and click adventure game I've played, the game gives you some sort of prompt or indication that your current action is insufficient. Not in this game. You can remain stuck in one place, doing the same things over and over and the game AT NO POINT will try to give you any sort of hint or prod to look at something else or look at something differently. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying puzzle solutions should be spoon fed to people, but when your puzzle logic is obtuse, having no prompt that what you're doing is wrong only leads to frustration. Some of the puzzles in this game are so stupidly obscure that a walkthrough is the only way to move forward. Which is very unfortunate since all the other elements of the game are top notch

Is this helpful to you?

Edited on: October 28, 2025

Posted on: May 23, 2025

Jinini

Verified owner

Games: 194 Reviews: 20

Incredible Isometric Horror

5/5 9/10 Just played through all 3 Stasis games, this original one is really good and a must play. The followups I cant recommend. There is a lot of logs all worth reading, and one involves a gay guy in a fun setting of 3 ppl where one loves the other and the other loves the third and all 3 are toxic ppl and dont know how bad they think about them behind their back lol. It was great to read and rather funny tbh lol, and was just another log among many about the inhabitants, nothing felt forced. Keybinds are great, you can even exit stuff by right click/outside the boxes, a rare treat they didnt bother following up with in their latest game. Story is great, the atmosphere superb, visual details wow omg, soundtrack/music is just as good. All the little details, elevator music, station commercial sounds, the bouncing baby boy stuff was funny and all this stuff really added to the immersive feeling, and Ive never come across anything like this in an isometric setting and will prob never find it again. I didnt in their runner up games either which I didnt like, I even walked away from What I loved most about Stasis, was how all the characters are interconnected! The story around all of them are just so well done, that silver lining with the main villains at the top and then we read all these logs with the workers below them, it was something I looked forward to read more about in every log I found. Something I didnt enjoy in Bone Totem. Other small details adding to it all such as when u hover over certain things it can trigger a voice log. Bought the deluxe version and loved the bonus content as well, Im just sad I got it all so cheap now. Can definitely recommend to any scifi horror isometric fans! Worth full price and more. 🐧 Arc Linux EndeavourOS

Is this helpful to you?

Discover CD PROJEKT RED games

Highlights

Featured

Close, but not an exact hit

STASIS

Other ratings

Add a review

Edit a review

Delete this review?

Report this review

Additional Details (required):

Report this review