Review: Stacking (Xbox 360) (PS3)
There’s got to be something in the water over at Double Fine Productions. I mean it, the folks over there seem utterly crazy.
“Oh hey, what video game are you working on right now, Double Fine?”
“You know, the usual. An adventure game about a summer camp for psychic children, a band roadie getting sucked into a world created from metal music, a group of trick-or-treaters who use the power of imagination to fight off a goblin invasion, RUSSIAN NESTING DOLLS WHO SOLVE CHILD LABOUR. Just the same-ol’ same-ol’.
It’s really a breath of fresh air, coming from Double Fine. In a world where video games are synonymous with angry, bald, mono-syllabic space marines toting ridiculous guns, where two years and tens of millions of dollars are the bare minimum to getting a mainstream game out the door, here comes a group of obviously unhinged people making games about whatever the hell they feel like, and doing a pretty damn decent job at it.
And so, with no more smoke being blown up Double Fine’s arse, let’s talk about Stacking, which as previourly mentioned is a game revolving around Russian Nesting Dolls. Oh, and the overthrow of child labour and bourgeois industrial capitalism. Same-ol’ same-ol’.
You play as Charlie Blackmore, the youngest son in a large family of chimney sweepers. All of which are kidnapped during the game’s introduction and forced into hard labour to pay off the famiy’s debt to the Baron, a monstrously evil industrialist who looks and acts like a combination of Scrooge McDuck and Voldemort.
Everyone in the family is kidnapped, that is, except for young Charlie, who is too little to be of any use as a child labourer. So off he goes in an effort to rescue his family, and in the process put an end to child labour once and for all!
I know when I think of silent films and the rise of the proletariat, the first thing that comes to mind is “Russian Nesting Dolls”
The aesthetic of Stacking is drawn straight from the dawn of the 20th century, with cinematics taking place as if they were a silent film, including speech cards and a backing orchestral score. The characters as well, from the monocled, mustachioed industrialist to the foppish female dandy to the coal-faced worker child, are all ripped directly from 1920’s tropes. The locations too follow this general theme, as all are essentially turn-of-the-century means of travel, from a train to a cruise ship to, my personal favourite means of conveyance, a giant zeppelin.
Oh, and did I mention all the characters are walking, talking, Matroyshka dolls? Or in other words, those weird kitchy cup-dolls you can stack within one-another? This stacking function lies at the heart of Stacking’s gameplay, as Charlie has the (actually somewhat sinister and ominous) ability to sneak behind and stack into individuals larger than himself, and thus take control over them.
This comes in handy in a number of ways, as different characters throughout Stacking all have different abilities, be it the ability to fix machines, light fires, or, yes, even fart upon others (though the game uses the far more distinguished verb flatulate, a term I have never before and likely never again will have to type).
This man is about to do something very, very uncouth
All of these, *ahem*, skills can be used to great effect to solve different puzzles the game throws your way. Best of all is the fact that the game rewards you for thinking up creative solutions to problems, as there are always multiple solutions to each puzzle. If you’re stumped though, Stacking also has a useful tiered hint system for solving problems, which run the gamut from giving the player a vague hint to directly telling the answer.
Problems begin arising once one’s put a couple of hours into Stacking, however, as it starts becoming clear just how formulaic each stage of the game stays throughout. You’re always going to have three or four puzzles to solve, followed by a final puzzle that sets the stage’s climax, and with few exceptions one or two of the answers to each puzzle is always blatantly obvious.
Exploring each new area is fun, and the dialogue and puzzle scenarios are well-written and contain Double Fine’s trademark humour, but it all just started feeling stale to me in the final stretch, and looking back I feel as though few of the puzzles themselves were particularly memorable. I think the real issue comes from the fact that there’s very little feeling of satisfaction or reward to solving each scenario; too much work was done making sure there were multiple solutions to each puzzle, and not enough was done to make the solutions feel truly satisfying.
Call me crazy but I would absolutely love to have a life-sized wooden Bear doll to decorate my home
Despite its hitches though Stacking is still a truly enjoyable game from start to finish, and with a duration running between 3 (for those racing through each stage) to 6 hours (for those diehard completionists), Stacking doesn’t overstay its welcome. And I feel I need to mention how much I thoroughly enjoyed the game’s ending; without going into any spoilers I just want to say that never have I seen anyone combine rock-paper-scissors and the movie Die Hard with such aplomb.
If a sense of over-repetition, combined with a short, roughly 4 hour duration doesn’t sound like it’s worth the $15 Double Fine’s asking for, than maybe one should skip it, or at least wait until Stacking invariably goes on sale. But if Double Fine’s trademark style, humour, and outright-damn-craziness appeals to you, than Stacking is a game you’d do well to check out.
Score:
