Not enough space.
The premise behind The Station is outstanding. The idea is that NASA has discovered an alien planet, but not only that, it is inhabited by actual alien life. In the process of exploring the ship sent to scout the world has stopped responding. The idea then puts the player on that ship to figure out what happened. The brief adventure to follow is full of intrigue and a twist that hides itself in a weird way. Think of Gone Home in space (no, not Tacoma) and you get the idea.
The core of the game involves wandering around a spooky station while uncovering what happened to the crew to cause them to cease communications. I won’t spoil anything, but the ending was surprising. Surprising, but not unexpected. My problem lies in the fact that I never garnered any attachment to anyone in the entire game. There are diary entries scattered around the station. Listening to them was interesting at times, but it never built the world around it.
MSRP: $14.99
Platforms: XB1 (reviewed), PS4, PC
Price I’d Pay: $9.99
A lot of this has to do with how brief the experience truly is. I clocked in at less than three hours, but without exploration it can easily be finished within 60 minutes. Even with the extra digging I found most of the characters to be flat and uninspired. I didn’t care what happened to them, and that is a problem in a game where the core mechanic is discovering just what happened.
The loop is what I expect from the genre. Walking around, solving puzzles, and uncovering logs. While the logs didn’t build the world, the puzzles did bring some interesting mechanics. There is some dissonance though as the game introduces context-based puzzles with ridiculous solutions. All of what I needed was within range of the puzzle, but the components to solve it seemed out of place. Why do I need to search for something that should be included in the puzzle? It just feels off.
Visually the game looks decent considering the size of the team. Some corridors feel eerily similar, but that is kind of to be expected. The atmosphere is dark and moody, and the sound team did a decent job of cueing sound at just the right time. I really liked the mood set by the game.
The Station is a decent outing that falls short in some key areas. I wanted more back story, more intrigue, and more interesting puzzles. Still, I had fun with the short romp and the ending, while predictable, is still fun. I would love to see this team craft a bigger sequel with a proper budget.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
