This review contains spoilers
I played the first Stasis a couple days ago and I played Beautiful Desolation last year. I really didn't enjoy either one. Beautiful Desolation I thought was just pretty poor all around with confusing puzzles and a bad narrative. I thought the first Stasis was pretty mediocre at best with some nearly impossible puzzles and very tropey narrative.
But. I'd already bought all of them on deep sales. So why not make it through the backlog. Started with Beautiful Desolation and it was so bad I almost didn't bother with Stasis. But I did. Stasis was quite mediocre but I did finish it. And I was left with Stasis: Bone Totem. But looking at screenshots and seeing the 17 GB install size, I figured I might as well take the plunge. I already own it. And I'm happy to say I did.
The narrative is pretty good. It's compelling. Husband-Wife Salvage Team stumble upon a gigantic derelict oil rig. We very quickly find their relationship is on the ropes and they're in massive debt. They'd recently lost their daughter in an accident when she tried to save her teddy bear after it fell in the ocean during a trip to the beach. Then we find out the teddy bear is actually a pretty advanced animatronic futuristic AI companion of sorts like a souped-up Aibo. The teddy bear, named Moses for some reason, is even further enhanced by the wife, Charlie, who is a super smart bio-and-computer engineer.
The gruff husband, Mac, hates the bear for killing his daughter and is upset with the wife who has seemingly moved on too fast. With that set dressing the trio quickly discovers that the oil rig is actually a ginormous surface base for an expansive digging operation below. The entire thing is operated by Cayne Corporation which is a corpo-religious company that seems to rule a large portion of the planet/universe in Stasis and Stasis: Bone Totem.
As the two descend to uncover if the operation is truly abandoned, so they can sell it all for a big scrapper pay day, they rapidly uncover a supernatural horror scene of an ancient civilization, old Soviet submarines, gross out horror mutant bugs and fungi and an AI that looks like a pus-ridden cuttlefish. A myriad of trials & tribulations befall the trio as the push through body horror gore and violence, navigating the mysteries that resolves with many sad sacrifices and depressingly grim lore logs lying strewn about the entire game world.
The story is engaging. It's never too scary, more just very sad, grim and gorey with many attempts to unsettle you by grossing you out more than ever scaring you. You spend so much time trudging through the intestine smeared panache that you get well desensitized to the blood and viscera in short order, meaning the only thing in the game meant to spook you becomes banal set dressing in the end.
But still the puzzles are largely pretty clever and often easy enough. Far better than the awful opacity and obtuseness in the first Stasis game. The voice acting is a bit off-balance. Mac is terrible. Charlie is okay. Moses and Farran (a nervous system connected to a microwave with a walkie-talkie) are really quite good. The Soviet sea captain seems out of left field but is well acted and Calaban meets expectations as a cranky AI. Most of the art is also quite good with character models and facial visuals looking excellent. Though Moses's character model is absolutely hideous and off-putting (he looks nothing like a bear) and some of the faces on the personal log are AI generated trash.
The game doesn't really have a fall off moment. It doesn't come apart in the final act. The quality maintains throughout. Moses's death is heart wrenching. Farran is a sad tale. The Soviet Jesus might be upsetting to some but I imagine if that's a sore spot for you, you'd've never played the game to begin with. I could never quite get over the characters being named Mac and Charlie; it always elicited images of It's Always Sunny for me. But in the end Stasis: Bone Totem was an interesting splatterpunk narrative tale with pleasing visuals and puzzles. The game comes with a guide if you get stuck and the game ran buttery smooth on an aging-mid-range gaming laptop. I think any gaming fans with a penchant for horror, gore and/or point & click adventures would have some fun with it and it's easily worth the $10-$15 you can often find it for.
But. I'd already bought all of them on deep sales. So why not make it through the backlog. Started with Beautiful Desolation and it was so bad I almost didn't bother with Stasis. But I did. Stasis was quite mediocre but I did finish it. And I was left with Stasis: Bone Totem. But looking at screenshots and seeing the 17 GB install size, I figured I might as well take the plunge. I already own it. And I'm happy to say I did.
The narrative is pretty good. It's compelling. Husband-Wife Salvage Team stumble upon a gigantic derelict oil rig. We very quickly find their relationship is on the ropes and they're in massive debt. They'd recently lost their daughter in an accident when she tried to save her teddy bear after it fell in the ocean during a trip to the beach. Then we find out the teddy bear is actually a pretty advanced animatronic futuristic AI companion of sorts like a souped-up Aibo. The teddy bear, named Moses for some reason, is even further enhanced by the wife, Charlie, who is a super smart bio-and-computer engineer.
The gruff husband, Mac, hates the bear for killing his daughter and is upset with the wife who has seemingly moved on too fast. With that set dressing the trio quickly discovers that the oil rig is actually a ginormous surface base for an expansive digging operation below. The entire thing is operated by Cayne Corporation which is a corpo-religious company that seems to rule a large portion of the planet/universe in Stasis and Stasis: Bone Totem.
As the two descend to uncover if the operation is truly abandoned, so they can sell it all for a big scrapper pay day, they rapidly uncover a supernatural horror scene of an ancient civilization, old Soviet submarines, gross out horror mutant bugs and fungi and an AI that looks like a pus-ridden cuttlefish. A myriad of trials & tribulations befall the trio as the push through body horror gore and violence, navigating the mysteries that resolves with many sad sacrifices and depressingly grim lore logs lying strewn about the entire game world.
The story is engaging. It's never too scary, more just very sad, grim and gorey with many attempts to unsettle you by grossing you out more than ever scaring you. You spend so much time trudging through the intestine smeared panache that you get well desensitized to the blood and viscera in short order, meaning the only thing in the game meant to spook you becomes banal set dressing in the end.
But still the puzzles are largely pretty clever and often easy enough. Far better than the awful opacity and obtuseness in the first Stasis game. The voice acting is a bit off-balance. Mac is terrible. Charlie is okay. Moses and Farran (a nervous system connected to a microwave with a walkie-talkie) are really quite good. The Soviet sea captain seems out of left field but is well acted and Calaban meets expectations as a cranky AI. Most of the art is also quite good with character models and facial visuals looking excellent. Though Moses's character model is absolutely hideous and off-putting (he looks nothing like a bear) and some of the faces on the personal log are AI generated trash.
The game doesn't really have a fall off moment. It doesn't come apart in the final act. The quality maintains throughout. Moses's death is heart wrenching. Farran is a sad tale. The Soviet Jesus might be upsetting to some but I imagine if that's a sore spot for you, you'd've never played the game to begin with. I could never quite get over the characters being named Mac and Charlie; it always elicited images of It's Always Sunny for me. But in the end Stasis: Bone Totem was an interesting splatterpunk narrative tale with pleasing visuals and puzzles. The game comes with a guide if you get stuck and the game ran buttery smooth on an aging-mid-range gaming laptop. I think any gaming fans with a penchant for horror, gore and/or point & click adventures would have some fun with it and it's easily worth the $10-$15 you can often find it for.