Stasis: Bone Totem
Doing a lot of blogging lately, but I finished Stasis: Bone Totem yesterday. This is the sequel to the first game, but it's about different characters obviously. It follows a husband and wife salvaging team who come across a Cayne Corporation rig in the middle of the ocean. Things get worse from there as they end up trapped on the bottom of the ocean, and have to find their way out. Secrets have been kept and they learn they are also not alone down there.
The game features three playable characters: the wife, Charlie, the husband, Mac, and their Super Toy, a robot bear named Moses. He's kind of like Teddy from the film AI, only creepier looking, but even I found myself getting attached to him a little. As for the other two, I had a hard time sympathizing with Charlie because she was completely reckless. Mac was more sensible. But each character had their own abilities. Charlie could combine inventory items, Mac could break them open for more parts, and Moses could get into places they couldn't get to. They can also swap items between each other through a pocket dimension. Nice explanation for the ability to do that because they all get separated from each other early on.
Other gameplay features include a hotspot finder, which shows areas you can hover over to look at, which are marked in green, and areas you can interact with, which are marked in blue. And like the Brotherhood's other games, it's played in that top-down isometric style. That means you can't really zoom in close to see all the details, but the locations are incredibly detailed nonetheless.
I was expecting this game to be scary like the first one, but it actually wasn't. The first game had one or two jump scares, but this had none, which frankly I'm grateful for. It's more atmospheric and macabre than anything else. There's less terror, not that the situation the characters find themselves in isn't dire, but there's a bit less panic. There are still scenes and situations that are grotesque and you can still die. Most of the time you know it's going to happen because there's a clear warning, but I triggered the death scenes anyway for fun. It puts you right back where you left off anyway. You get gruesome cinematic scenes of the character's deaths, although it's not easy to tell what happened in those cinematics, which is probably just as well. I don't need to see too many details and that's the benefit of an isometric view too.
Speaking of the cinematic cutscenes, they are gorgeous, which I've come to expect with this developer. It looked like motion capture may have been used for the characters in those scenes. The story was good, and at least it was less gut wrenching compared to the first game. That one did have a depressing ending. This one did still have a couple heartbreaking scenes too, but I'd call the ending more bittersweet. Grief is the big theme here. There is still horrible stuff going on, but it was not totally devoid of hope (an important word for the game). The story about what happened is unfolded through PDAs you find scattered around, just like in the first game. It's a lot of reading, but I don't mind.
As for the puzzles, there is nothing too difficult there. Usually the clues to solve them are in front of your face, if you know where to look. I admit I abused the walkthrough late in the game because I found myself running into dead ends or forgetting I could go back to a certain area or thought I had already tried something, and I didn't. Me problems. There does come a certain point where the character you're playing with can't make any further progress, so you have to switch to a different one to make more progress. It never gets to the point of being super frustrating because there are limited areas you can go in each section.
This game was good, even if I might still have some unanswered questions. These developers are pros, and I would play anything they put out. It does have a similar feel to Stasis, but slightly less intense. I could see either James Cameron or Ridley Scott directing a movie adaptation of this series, which will never happen, but it is like Alien meets The Abyss. Here's a screenshot. This is where Charlie is exploring the ocean floor to find a rover so they can escape. Spoiler alert: It doesn't work out.
My next game I plan to play really excites me. I only recently just learned about this, but a new Star Trek game came out called Star Trek: Resurgence, and it sounds like it could be the best Star Trek game. I haven't played any Star Trek games though. :P Yes, more Star Trek. It's a Star Trek year for me, and I'm not complaining.
There is a caveat here though that could be a problem for me. This game does contain action elements, which I'm not always so great at. However, I really want to try it anyway. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. The game was made by a couple ex-TellTale Games employees, so that might be what I can expect from this in terms of gameplay. TellTale was fine for me, so maybe it would be OK. I've also heard that a story mode pops up if I have difficulty getting through certain areas, so maybe it won't be hard like I'm thinking. I hope so anyway. I'll see how it goes. It looks really good and I've heard it captures the feeling of classic Star Trek, which makes me happy. We'll see.
The game features three playable characters: the wife, Charlie, the husband, Mac, and their Super Toy, a robot bear named Moses. He's kind of like Teddy from the film AI, only creepier looking, but even I found myself getting attached to him a little. As for the other two, I had a hard time sympathizing with Charlie because she was completely reckless. Mac was more sensible. But each character had their own abilities. Charlie could combine inventory items, Mac could break them open for more parts, and Moses could get into places they couldn't get to. They can also swap items between each other through a pocket dimension. Nice explanation for the ability to do that because they all get separated from each other early on.
Other gameplay features include a hotspot finder, which shows areas you can hover over to look at, which are marked in green, and areas you can interact with, which are marked in blue. And like the Brotherhood's other games, it's played in that top-down isometric style. That means you can't really zoom in close to see all the details, but the locations are incredibly detailed nonetheless.
I was expecting this game to be scary like the first one, but it actually wasn't. The first game had one or two jump scares, but this had none, which frankly I'm grateful for. It's more atmospheric and macabre than anything else. There's less terror, not that the situation the characters find themselves in isn't dire, but there's a bit less panic. There are still scenes and situations that are grotesque and you can still die. Most of the time you know it's going to happen because there's a clear warning, but I triggered the death scenes anyway for fun. It puts you right back where you left off anyway. You get gruesome cinematic scenes of the character's deaths, although it's not easy to tell what happened in those cinematics, which is probably just as well. I don't need to see too many details and that's the benefit of an isometric view too.
Speaking of the cinematic cutscenes, they are gorgeous, which I've come to expect with this developer. It looked like motion capture may have been used for the characters in those scenes. The story was good, and at least it was less gut wrenching compared to the first game. That one did have a depressing ending. This one did still have a couple heartbreaking scenes too, but I'd call the ending more bittersweet. Grief is the big theme here. There is still horrible stuff going on, but it was not totally devoid of hope (an important word for the game). The story about what happened is unfolded through PDAs you find scattered around, just like in the first game. It's a lot of reading, but I don't mind.
As for the puzzles, there is nothing too difficult there. Usually the clues to solve them are in front of your face, if you know where to look. I admit I abused the walkthrough late in the game because I found myself running into dead ends or forgetting I could go back to a certain area or thought I had already tried something, and I didn't. Me problems. There does come a certain point where the character you're playing with can't make any further progress, so you have to switch to a different one to make more progress. It never gets to the point of being super frustrating because there are limited areas you can go in each section.
This game was good, even if I might still have some unanswered questions. These developers are pros, and I would play anything they put out. It does have a similar feel to Stasis, but slightly less intense. I could see either James Cameron or Ridley Scott directing a movie adaptation of this series, which will never happen, but it is like Alien meets The Abyss. Here's a screenshot. This is where Charlie is exploring the ocean floor to find a rover so they can escape. Spoiler alert: It doesn't work out.
My next game I plan to play really excites me. I only recently just learned about this, but a new Star Trek game came out called Star Trek: Resurgence, and it sounds like it could be the best Star Trek game. I haven't played any Star Trek games though. :P Yes, more Star Trek. It's a Star Trek year for me, and I'm not complaining.
There is a caveat here though that could be a problem for me. This game does contain action elements, which I'm not always so great at. However, I really want to try it anyway. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. The game was made by a couple ex-TellTale Games employees, so that might be what I can expect from this in terms of gameplay. TellTale was fine for me, so maybe it would be OK. I've also heard that a story mode pops up if I have difficulty getting through certain areas, so maybe it won't be hard like I'm thinking. I hope so anyway. I'll see how it goes. It looks really good and I've heard it captures the feeling of classic Star Trek, which makes me happy. We'll see.