"A hungover koala detective, Stone wakes to find his chookie Alex has been kidnapped. you need to find out what happened."
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More like "you should crack your head open with a Stone for creating such an abomination"
No emotion for an hour and a half!
No emotion for an hour and a half!
Originally posted here: https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2021/01/26/stone-2018-pc-review/
Self-described as an “Hip-Hop Stoner Noir”, the story begins with the titular character Stone, a hungover koala detective, finding out that his lover, Alex, has been kidnapped. Stone then spends the next few days desperately looking for Alex, trying to make sure nothing bad has happened to him.
STONE is pretty short, taking roughly 90 minutes to play, and no more than 2 hours at the absolute most. It’s hard to talk about anything in depth without spoiling the game due to how short it is, but I’ll try.
For most of the game, you go around town and ask everyone you know if they know anything about Alex’s whereabouts. This is done through using a map screen made up of roughly 4 or 5 locations at most, but the game ends up being pretty linear for the most part, being pretty obvious where you have to go next, making it kinda redundant. If you’re even confused as to where you should go, there are only three locations that you’ll ever end up going to anyway and you end up talking to the same three characters over and over until you’ve found a clue about where Alex might be, only for you to repeat the whole process the next day.
However, the when you’re interacting with people, you do get a few dialogue options that allow for some minor replayablity, but it’s very basic.
And for some reason, there is no run button, or even to speed up the character at all. I know that there are only 4 locations in the whole game, they’re all small, and the game is pretty short, but a run button would have been nice to have it.
The game is not without it’s merits. It’s art style is nice. While it is a bit simple, but it is relatively nice to look at. The game also has a cinema you can go to on the map screen where you can watch old black-and-white Australian shorts from the early days of cinema, but point stuff like this out feels like I’m grasping for straws to say something positive about the game.
Unfortunately, Stone is an underwhelming game in a lot of aspects, and I hate to say that because it’s rare to have a decent Australian themed game where Australia is the main focus. With the underwhelming plot and incredibly slow pace, it’s hard to recommend this to anyone.
Sure, it might gain a cult status down the line for a few people who like the Australian aesthetic or the game’s odd and unique characters and plot, but it’s a lukewarm recommend from me even with the most optimistic outlook.
Self-described as an “Hip-Hop Stoner Noir”, the story begins with the titular character Stone, a hungover koala detective, finding out that his lover, Alex, has been kidnapped. Stone then spends the next few days desperately looking for Alex, trying to make sure nothing bad has happened to him.
STONE is pretty short, taking roughly 90 minutes to play, and no more than 2 hours at the absolute most. It’s hard to talk about anything in depth without spoiling the game due to how short it is, but I’ll try.
For most of the game, you go around town and ask everyone you know if they know anything about Alex’s whereabouts. This is done through using a map screen made up of roughly 4 or 5 locations at most, but the game ends up being pretty linear for the most part, being pretty obvious where you have to go next, making it kinda redundant. If you’re even confused as to where you should go, there are only three locations that you’ll ever end up going to anyway and you end up talking to the same three characters over and over until you’ve found a clue about where Alex might be, only for you to repeat the whole process the next day.
However, the when you’re interacting with people, you do get a few dialogue options that allow for some minor replayablity, but it’s very basic.
And for some reason, there is no run button, or even to speed up the character at all. I know that there are only 4 locations in the whole game, they’re all small, and the game is pretty short, but a run button would have been nice to have it.
The game is not without it’s merits. It’s art style is nice. While it is a bit simple, but it is relatively nice to look at. The game also has a cinema you can go to on the map screen where you can watch old black-and-white Australian shorts from the early days of cinema, but point stuff like this out feels like I’m grasping for straws to say something positive about the game.
Unfortunately, Stone is an underwhelming game in a lot of aspects, and I hate to say that because it’s rare to have a decent Australian themed game where Australia is the main focus. With the underwhelming plot and incredibly slow pace, it’s hard to recommend this to anyone.
Sure, it might gain a cult status down the line for a few people who like the Australian aesthetic or the game’s odd and unique characters and plot, but it’s a lukewarm recommend from me even with the most optimistic outlook.