The Station Review - A walking simulator, supplemented with some puzzles

lyra.roberge (56)in #gaming • 7 years ago (edited)

Games that are made on the basis of crowdfunding are often not high quality titles. These kinds of projects often do not know how to deliver what was promised or the quality is simply to whine. Very occasionally there is a game on the market that has been created by crowdfunding, which can make a big impression, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Many gamers leave these kinds of titles in advance. The Station is also a project made by money from gamers, so the big question is in which list this title can be placed?

The station

The Station takes place in space, where a base has been set up to observe a newly discovered planet. A multitude of extraterrestrial life has also been found here, but these are all involved in a war. It is decided by the government to observe all this from afar and not to interfere. Only at a certain moment nothing is heard from the base. A specialist is appointed to enter the space station and to investigate what has been going on.

Mission accomplished?

The Station is described by the developer as a sci-fi mystery, but it is actually best described as a walking simulator, supplemented with some puzzles. So you are mainly walking around a bit and looking at objects. For games of this kind, the story is very important, since the actual gameplay is fairly minimal. The player has to be sucked into the game, for example by presenting him or her an exciting whole or by putting the players on the wrong foot each time. After all, the gamer's interest is retained. Unfortunately The Station does not succeed.

On paper the story sounds really cool and it makes you curious about what kind of situation you end up in. If you take the first steps at the crime scene, it all looks very ominous and you also get the idea of a fat adventure. The developer only knows how to get rid of this good first impression by letting in a little bit of what happened on the base. In addition, the story quickly gets a very easy and especially soft turn, which is not really conducive to the whole and thereby it feels very cheap. This immediately reduces the game considerably, as a good story is a plus for this kind of titles.

There was once…

This is very unfortunate, because the way the story is told is good. The staff on the basis used technology that records conversations. For this reason, there are some kind of luminous bulbs in the various environments where you can listen back to a conversation. Computers also often release information about certain people and in this way you gain more insight into who was present on the basis, what their functions were and what happened to the radio silence. Finding these conversations and searching for information on the computers is a fun affair. Also the puzzles that are present are well put together and provide a nice distraction, even though they are not super difficult.

Houston, we have more problems

Unfortunately, the search for pluses for The Station is about the same. There are, however, more points to be found that do not come out well. The frame rate is not stable, both on the normal PS4 and the PS4 Pro in Boost mode. If you just go straight ahead, there is nothing to worry about, but if you start turning, it becomes a different story. Then it is anything but fluent and sometimes the stutter is very bad. The game also supports HDR, only that is not implemented properly here. The environments are often too dark, even if you increase the brightness.

Finally, there is the playing time. If you get a little angry, you can play The Station within two hours, without having missed too much. Do you play at ease? Then you will probably not be busy for more than three hours. Now the game costs less than 15 euros, but even then the playing time can be called quite short. A good and intriguing story could have destroyed this, but as you have already read, that is not the case and that is a shame.

Conclusion

The Station makes a very good first impression. The environment in which you end up looks ominous and the mystery surrounding the space base makes for a good start. Only it quickly becomes clear what has been going on and the story gets a turn that is very easy and especially soft. This completely removes the tension and simply makes it uninteresting. That is very unfortunate, because the way in which the events are explained is fine and the puzzles are fun too. Unfortunately, framerate problems, poor use of HDR and too short a play time make The Station worse off. There are simply more than enough games on the market in the same genre that do much better.