Stasis is a traditional point-and-click nightmare that enthralls from the opening scene until the very end. Smart puzzles and breathtaking yet horrific artwork make it not only one of the best adventure games ever made, but one of the finest horror titles to be released on PC as well.
Stasis delivers one of the best P&C atmospheres we have seen in years, with great 2D visuals and carefully designed locations packed with detail. A must for every fan of SF horror games.
System Shock meets Santarium, that probably best describes this rare gem ****. If you are a fan of traditional adventure games and if you like ScFi classics like SS, Alien and Event Horizon than this is no brainer.
I initially hesitated buying Stasis due to some mixed reviews, especially with the regards to the story. Don't make the same mistake. The story is top notch, the puzzles are fun and the atmosphere is absolutely gorgeous .Rich isometric graphics combined with amazing sound effects make this one of the densest games I have ever played.
To think that all this has been created more or less by a single person (Chris Bischoff) is just mind boggling.
Total 10/10. Get it NOW !
Fantastic game, everything is just top notch.
The isometric perspective and 2D backgrounds work very well for this kind of game. The music and ambient sounds really add to the atmosphere. The gameplay is excellent: the puzzles can be challenging but are never too hard (unlike older point & click adventure games). I also really appreciate the voice acting. It kind of reminds me of Dark Souls in the sense that it's kind of weird & off-beat, but it totally fits the setting. Last but not least, the writing is superb too. Reading the PDA's of the dead crew members really pulls you into the story.
Play at night with lights out and headphones on, and I can almost guarantee you'll be completely immersed.
Statis is an atmospheric, creepy, enticing and sometimes frustrating experience. The game looks kind of okay, but the power is in the sound design. The game never feels too unfair or too difficult, but you really have to chase pixels to the end.
The game might be too gory and violent for some players but it is rarely gratuitous and playing through it is a great way to get a scared, explore a cool story and then sit back and think about how one might react when a cryosleep trip turns into a nightmare.
Stasis knows exactly what it wants to be - a loving tribute to the classic point-and-click adventures – but despite to its impressive atmosphere the game offers more to genre veterans than to newcomers.
Not very original, sometimes of a bit clumsy adventure game, that offers a classic gameplay and captivates especially with excellent atmosphere. [Issue#256]
I am so impressed with this gem of an adventure game.
It isn't MGS sure, but it was fun to play and kept me entertained for 10 hours.
Visually, Stasis is absolutely astounding. The grimy decks and bulkheads of the Groomlake, recently (and suddenly) redecorated in every shade of intestinal red, are as expertly and extravagantly realized as anything you'd see in a triple-A game - a phenomenal accomplishment by one-man design team, Chris Bischoff. Seriously, this is sci-fi horror at its most spectacular.
The voice acting is mostly very solid, with South African bad guy Dr Malan claiming much of the slimelight, and the sound effects will keep your blood pressure dialled up to the max with ambient whispers, occasional shrieks, and WHY ARE THERE CHILDREN TALKING OUT OF THE WALLS. Music by Mark Morgan (Fallout, Planescape: Torment) is a bonus extra, the tension-setting, minor key intro sequence being my personal favourite of the mix.
Loved it
Having just come from playing Cayne I pretty much knew what to expect with Stasis. I expected to not be a big fan of it’s puzzles but absolutely love everything else. This was spot on. The atmosphere was a delightful mess although the graphics were showing a bit of age compared to Cayne as they were lacking in colour variety and detail. The voice acting was top notch and everyone involved did a wonderful job. The music was great throughout. As for the puzzles, they were the same as Cayne, which is to say a mixed bag. My issue with many of them were the fact that many were what felt like random mixing of items and others required multiple tries. When I click on a valve and my character can’t turn it my train of thought never gets to “maybe I should try it exactly three more times” and several puzzles have this. Turning valve’s multiple times; hitting glass multiple times, etc. Usually in puzzle games something either works or it doesn’t. There was also a surgery puzzle I thought was terrible. The first part was alright but in part two of it you must hit buttons in a very specific order with little to go on as what that order is and if you die you start it from scratch. Being able to run was great. I do wish there was more of an objective list, it would have been very handy. I also wish that you could pause the game during dialogue but you can’t. You can die in the game but it isn’t really a big deal. A lot of it is common sense stuff of what not to do and if you do you respawn to a point usually shortly before. You never have to worry about enemies which is a bit weird. There are several creatures roaming about the ship; they have killed most of the crew; you can hear them running about; but they never attack you. I know the reason is probably due to combat not working well with a puzzle game but it’s still weird. I guessed the twists in the plot pretty much a mile away but the journey there was enjoyable enough I didn’t mind. The ending could have used a bit more of Epilogue but I guess in a way Cayne helps with that.
I played Stasis on Linux using the Linux beta. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs aside from Steam achievements not working. You can save whenever you want or there are auto save points as well. One thing I didn’t like was sometimes if I died the game would load an auto save point instead of my last manual save which was further along. It wasn’t a big deal as I just manually loaded the save file I wanted. There are no graphics options at all. Alt-Tab worked. I couldn’t monitor frame rate but I didn’t notice any lag. A couple times there were loading screens that lasted 3-5 seconds, which felt long for being on an NVME, but most loading screens were near instantaneous.
Game Engine: Visionaire Engine
Game Version Played: 1.3.9
Disk Space Used: 2.84 GB
GPU Usage: 4-15 %
VRAM Usage: 1165-3257 MB
CPU Usage: 2-11 %
RAM Usage: 2.9-3.6 GB
Despite the puzzles I really think Stasis is a solid game. Everything else is of such high quality I have to recommend it. Fans of the genre probably won’t mind the puzzles anyway. It’s worth it for the story; characters; voice acting; music and visual style. I finished the game in six hours and six minutes. I paid $5.74 CAD for it and felt that was fair value. Even $10 would have been alright.
My System:
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 21.3.7 | Samsung 970 Evo Plus 500GB | Garuda Soaring White-tailed-eagle | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 5.16.16-zen1-1-zen
==My Opinion==
What Good: Good atmosphere, nice graphics, cool story.
What Bad: Lack of puzzles, Low resolution graphics, Too much reading materials through entire game-play which were really not much needed to progress.
Some decent writing, but a bit more polish would of gone a long way. Implementing music into the game wasn't done well, but the sounds and such are okay. I think they could of done more with the sound though - it seems like you can be anywhere on the ship and hear the same screams and weird noises.
There is a lot of text in this game and you have to read it as it's probably the best thing about the game. The **** up stuff was pretty good, and although the general plot was rather simplistic and not that original, it's rather enjoyable. The ending wasn't the best, and kind of reminded you of the lack of polish, but the setting and atmosphere is great.
Normally not really my cup of tea, but a good game overall for an indie.
Heavy on text with a tiny font; I had to let it go. Yet a while later, a patch introduced a larger font, to be modified in a configuration file, an XL size that finally behaves like a normal font. Or almost (it's still rather small and hard to read.) Credit where due, the developers are active and diligent on the support, so, if you have a technical issue with the game, you still have a chance to come back to it later, like I did.
The pretty pictures, unfortunately, are also terribly small. Very few developers seem to understand that the constant increase in screen resolution is not meant for smaller sprites and fonts, but for more detailed ones at a constant metric size. In the case of Stasis, it's hard enough to provoke a scare with animated pixels, it becomes a complete waste of time when one can't even distinguish that some tiny creature is rushing towards the protagonist. Can't give a more than average note for the graphics; specially if you consider that you've already seen it all before, many times.
The interface is definitely less than average. For starters, there is no hot spots key, in 2015. Who still wants to scan their entire screen with a mouse ? I, for one, don't need the aggro. Here it's worse since the large majority of hot spots can't even been interacted with. When they do seem to interact, sometimes nothing happens on the click. When something does happen, it can be very unclear. For instance, you click on a corpse and a PDA pops up, supposedly the corpse's journal, but it's very awkward. In another case, you click on a corpse and all that happens is that your inventory icon flashes briefly in another corner of the screen. Open this inventory and you might notice that a new item is in there, but since inventory items have no descriptions, you are still left wondering. In short, the interface confuses the narrative instead of helping it.
The voices are good. The atmospheric sounds also, technically, but I'm still wondering why I keep hearing screams and such in empty rooms and corridors. They seem out of place, random, played for thrills with no regard for environmental consistency.
Finally, the story and its context are dreadfully unoriginal. I won't spoil, but you'll recognise every single aspect of Stasis from a previous game or movie if you were not born yesterday: the plot, the setting, the narrative through logs and journals, etc.
I can't recommend; it's good enough for the true fan of this niche genre, not for the picky point n' click player. And I still wonder why the lift goes down at least 10 floors when I press the button to go down 1 floor. Maybe just for the muzak unfunny joke...
SummaryDisoriented, drowsy and in pain, John Maracheck opens his eyes. There is nothing to greet him but the static of a nearby monitor and a cold steel floor. Thick, green liquid covers the floor and then his body, leading to trail to a nearby, steaming stasis-pod. He slowly gets to his feet, trying to take in his surroundings. Where is his wi...