STASIS Review (PC)

I normally dislike video game names that insist on shouting at me from the screen every time I look at them and don't even bother to try and at least invent an acronym that would make them look more legit, but I am willing to make an exception for STASIS, the best adventure experience I have played recently and a solid take on science fiction-powered horror.

The game was created by a small studio in South Africa called The Brotherhood and stands out because it manages to create some very interesting situations and mostly offers puzzles that make sense and have solutions that require little absurd experimentation.

STASIS manages to evoke a series of classics, from Aliens to System Shock, Dead Space, The Thing and more, but it does so without taking elements from each and mixing them to create a new experience.

The development team understands the elements that made those stories effective and then manages to offer an original take on some of the deepest fears that a human being can feel, complete with some well-created terror and solid mechanics.

Story

STASIS is a game that starts off with a very classic premise: the protagonist is a man who wakes up from cryogenic sleep, lacking all his memories and unable to determine what happened around him, sure that he is not on the ship where he went under.

Initially, his goals are simple and involve only survival and finding his family, but as the game progresses, the development team introduces a wide range of themes, all of them linked to gritty science fiction.

The world of STASIS is a dark one, with science that might have moved a little faster than society was able to keep up with and with humans who are ready to quickly exploit others, regardless of moral concerns, in order to achieve their goals.

STASIS exploration

The main character, John Maracheck, is initially lost and a little bit of a cliche, but he quickly evolves, driven mainly by love of his family, and I love the way The Brotherhood manages to always show his human side, mainly through the way he reacts to the horrific things that he witnesses.

The ship on which STASIS takes place, weirdly named the Groomlake, might be a little oddly designed, especially given that it's supposed to be built with future tech, but it becomes a character in itself, mainly because the developers have written descriptions for the various sights offered that manage to be both informative and brief.

I have a little less love for the diaries written by other crew members that lie scattered around, mainly because they feel written for an audience and are often a little bit too long.

Gameplay

STASIS never strays too far from the classic formula of the adventure genre, but it does introduce some interesting twists that will keep gamers guessing whether what they are doing is a good or bad idea.

Maracheck can easily move around the ship, guided by the player with his mouse, and pointing at objects brings up a description or an option to actually interact with them or maybe pick something up to put into a personal inventory

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In order to progress in his quest, the character needs to get past obstacles, and that means he needs to solve a variety of puzzles, the best of which feel entirely organic and ask players only to read the information the video game delivers and then use their own brain to see what the implications are and how they can practically use that knowledge.

I am scared of puzzles in video games because I tend to get stuck easily when the logic they use is not a relatively clear one, and I loathe to end up using a walkthrough to move through the game.

“STASIS tends to have clear solutions almost all the time, and even when the challenges become a little bizarre, players can usually get an inkling of what they have to do by simply testing options from their inventory.”

That's great given that the development team at the Brotherhood is not offering a hint system or a way to get clues about the best way to progress, which can make the game very frustrating when a player gets stuck.

When that happens, the best idea is to backtrack a little in order to see whether there's any object that can be obtained to push forward and to try some lateral thinking, even if the solution feels a little alien.

STASIS is also unafraid to kill the main character in gruesome ways when he fails to execute a puzzle solution in the right order, which is an interesting idea but has a limited impact on the game, other than reinforcing the bloody atmosphere that sits at the core of the experience.

Gamers should be warned that STASIS is a very graphic experience, a video game that is not afraid to show blood, human bodies and other horrific sights, and there are also plenty of text descriptions and messages that a lot of people will consider scary.

The limited mechanics of the adventure genre also means that there's sometimes a disconnect between the pressure John is under and the way he reacts to a situation and the feelings that the game generates for the player.

Graphics and audio

STASIS uses a classic adventure viewing angle, op high over the action, allowing the player to take in a room at a time and carefully evaluate the changes for interaction that are included in the space.

The game is a little dark and lacking in terms of color, with the characters limited in terms of animation, which suits the theme and the general atmosphere but could be off-putting for some players.

STASIS does a good job of making all interactions and puzzle progress paths clearly visible in the various environments, which means that I quickly abandoned the pixel hunting behaviors that other titles in the genre created over time.

The voice acting for the various characters is solid and allows them to show emotion that the actual writing might be unable to deliver.

The real star of STASIS' presentation is the background sounds that accompany the exploration process, with the development team adding spooky voices, clearly inhuman sounds in the distance, and other weird effects to add to the immersion and make the world of Groomlake feel more alive.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion