So I am in the midst of a VR play-a-thon, you will be getting some new reviews soon for RE7, The Assembly and Farpoint, but first, we have a cool little VR game called Statik by Tarsier Studios.
The premise is simple. Solve the puzzle on your hands, both of which are trapping in a box and can be manipulated as such by twisting and turning the DS4 controller.
Sounds simple?
Well here’s the catch, there are zero instructions on how to solve the puzzle, it is a completely out of the box thinking game (pun intended)
There is a small group of puzzles, only 8, and each is successively more difficult, and each one is completely unique, so do not think just because you aced puzzle 3 you will rock puzzle 4 as all you have learned is tossed out the window with each room.
The plot unfortunately is pretty thin, and all in all makes very little sense when all told.
The game pulls from other projects like Portal, but ultimately falls short on the charm of a game like portal.
The puzzles are the strong point at least and can honestly carry the game even if you play for story (like I do)
But also, I am a puzzle fanatic, not just games, but everything from physical puzzles, to word puzzles and even jigsaws, so something like this fits right up my alley in terms of challenge.
That being said, short of 1 puzzle I breezed through all of them with not to much difficulty at all. But your mileage will vary completely based on your cognitive processing for 3d puzzles. If this is your strong suit, don’t expect to get much more than a couple hours out of the game like I did.
Other than trophy farming you will have zero reason to play Statik a second time. There is a trophy for speed and once you know the solutions, you could easily blow this away in 30 mins or less.
All in all a fun game to blow an afternoon with, but sadly a lot of potential for a great narrative was squandered.
A solid 7/10, but only for those of you who love puzzles.
The Compulsive Canadian Gamer 