izigame.me

A very good and strong continuation of the Stasis series, but not without some minor problems, where the game sags near the end. If you had played previous installments and interested in the story - buy this game and don't waste your time reading. After finishing it, return here to discuss. If you had never played previous games - give Stasis (the original) a go first, then play Cayne, if you liked it.
I will make this review almost spoiler-free for anyone unfamiliar (otherwise I will place the spoiler tag), but I will critique some things in vague terms so anyone familiar may relate or argue with me.
I had played all of the games by THE BROTHERHOOD, haven't finished Beautiful Desolation for some reason or the other - I will most likely revisit it or just watch a good walkthrough (It's still very memorable, unique and worth the praise). For anyone new to this - Beautiful Desolation is not connected to the Stasis universe (AFAIK) as Stasis, Cayne and this game are, so it's kind of irrelevant, but in my eyes there's something that could be said about the design, themes and bit meh dramaturgy that started in that game and seeped here.
There's a problem of escalation of horror, especially in Stasis universe. The first Stasis started kind of slow and the horror element rose throughout the whole game gradually. Things go from bad to worse with the little sliver of hope shimmering in the dark somewhere. There's a strong body-horror element with the dread of existential horror that makes it's crescendo near the end. Cayne just starts "In medias res" where you are kicked and bashed from the start not even understanding what the hell is this level of insanity around you with body horror given you in bulk non-stop making previous set-pieces seem like it's nothing. The Bone Totem presents it's first set-piece almost at the very start and it looks very gruesome, almost peaking on the horror chart and then there's little way to go. You can always add more of that kind of thing, but it doesn't have the same effect, it's just more. At some point you grow accustomed to it somewhat and when your character exclaims for the hundredth time seeing something gruesome, you kind of start to wonder if this character was present in the previous 99 situations or is this a hint of early onset Alzheimer's. Also it seems that this game is just longer and much meatier in terms of story and locations, so this problem is getting pronounced.
I must say that I loved the development of the universe. The story doesn't spell some things out, but some comments in broad strokes give you the hint on what's happening with the world and Cayne. More of that! Also, maybe I'm just stupid, but I realized something about two previous games that was pretty much obvious, now that I think about it, but I just thought that some experimental work by dr Malan in Stasis and something you see in Cayne was just another mad-scientist-extravaganza stuff, but those projects are sort of related and are key to the overall story. Somehow i bridged that gap playing The Bone Totem although there was nothing about it in here, just very vague comments about the universe developments.
Voice-acting and direction is salvageable, but there's room to grow. Nothing tops Ryan Cooper as John Marachek in Stasis. He's selling every bit of the thing all the way and even enhances the horror of the story somehow. Same can be said about Sarah Anne Williams as Hadley - the star of Cayne. Sadly, I can't say that the characters in this game are as believable or selling it appropriately, except one. I don't thing that's there's a problem with a talent, but a direction and screenwriting. There's nothing to feel when the character just exclaims "oh my god" in every situation. There's no range of emotion or some special comment. Hadley reacted in various ways: shouting, commenting and even joking about some unspeakable horror set-piece, which made her character more elevated, the story, the everything! It just blossomed like there's no tomorrow. I get that we have stoic here, so minus one to emotions, then there's two who are annoying, repeating the same phrase over and over again like it's a fit, so we left with two characters to carry the story and the great one isn't even present half of the game! It's a shame really.
There's a rule in dramaturgy - show, don't tell. I must say that there's a lot of jibber-jabber with heavy exposition dumps in a latter quarter of the game. Not good. Oh, I enjoy the story - make no mistake, but I think that there must be a better method of giving it to me in this case.
Another rule is to suspend the emotions of the actor to give the onus of emoting on the audience. And it's hard to emote in a scenario where horror escalated pretty much from the start, the acting is bland and the chatter is constant. Give me some room and shut up about water being not the thing that you like for Cayne's sake! 100% prediction FFS.
Funny thing is that the unspoken stuff is working like a charm - I already said about the universe, but there was some moments when you, the player know or sense that some action will mark a point of no return or will have a consequences that should be avoided, but the characters don't speak about it and just proceed, and then you see those consequences blossom and make situation worse story-wise. This is great! It makes me dread the whole thing and focus even harder on that tiny shining ray of hope at the end if there's any. What's not great is spoon-feeding me the whole thing in the end constantly, on repeat. Also there's this theme and study of a two and a half societies, basically. And one society kind of mirrors the other one - there's nothing spoken in the game about it, but that's a strong theme and an interesting thought. It's a shame that writers took another angle by giving us a cameo appearance of one famous superstar and ran with it. Don't really like that and I don't thing that it worked or was warranted. Also, the stuff with the prevention of some disaster doesn't really work - the world they are in are so utopian that there's no argument in my mind about the distinction on how exactly it will go to hell. And it can't, because in some sense it's already way worse.
There's a two games worth of story here. The last two chapters is spreeeeeeeeead like one spoon of butter on a baguette. It's on-rails as it can be, the puzzles make less and less sense and it's basically a movie with some clicking in-between. I was interested in the story and that's what made me push through, but man could it be trimmed heavily. And it could be said about the whole game, I'm afraid - it would be much better with less dialogue, a bit less locations, less characters. The player will lose nothing and gain much more, being present in a more concentrated story, but that's a thought for another game (hopefully)
You can still expect an absolutely stellar set-pieces and locations. The writing in journals is great. Although, given that there's so much of them, the authors may have to invest in a more advanced interface in the next titles - current interface doesn't show a headshot of a person (when you reading it after) and it's easier to remember someone by his or her face rather than by name. Also some links or text search would be welcome - I like to come back to these journals to match who texted who and what was where, but it's hard to track without such features. This stuff shines.
Music by Mark Morgan, again. Enough said.
Some puzzles are great. I thank the authors for the hints functionality - it's good and it's a very good design.
One particular character should've had some kind of redemption. I'm mad as hell at this character for all the shit that it did. Just pure hate in the end and I don't like that. I bought this game to be horrified and depressed and not to be pissed.
Great story still and I regret nothing!