Double Fine and THQ’s Stacking is a charming 3rd person adventure game that is oddly addictive and a blast to play through. Like Costume Quest, THQ has developed a fun, simplistic game that is pick up and play and pretty much anyone can have fun with.
Stacking is the charming story of Charlie, a stacking doll. Charlie’s family has been taken from him due to the horrendous child labor laws. It’s up to Charlie to go on an adventure to save him family and make things right. Along the way you will have the ability to stack into different sized dolls and use that dolls unique ability to help you solve situations to get you closer to achieving your goal of saving your family.
When I first started playing this game I really was not sure what to think. At first my reaction was dislike. Then I thought back to reviewing Costume Quest and realized that the first impression I had of that game was the same. So I though that I would continue to play to see if my opinion changed. The longer I played the less I liked the game. So I cut it off with the plan to approach it again later to clear my head. I really did not want to go into a review being biased in any way. Then an odd thing happened. After I cut the game off the sudden urge hit me to start playing it again. So I picked it back up and started having simply a blast with the game.
There seems to be something about the game that draws you in. There is no voice work on the game, like Costume Quest it’s all text based. To be honest it can get a bit boring sometimes, but for some reason I felt compelled to keep playing. By half way through the game I realized that even though the game starts slow, after working your way through the first part of the game and you get the general idea of talking to lots of people and learning the tone of the game that Stacking is one of the best 3rd person adventure games on the XBLA. As you play through the game there are plenty of side quest to do. Including an option called Hi-Jinks. Hi-Jinks are simple things you may do. Like flashing a flash from a camera in someones eyes or using a white glove to smack other dolls in the face.
When you play this game you realize that Double Fine are really trying to develop a different style of games with their downloadable titles. It’s a fine line of casual and hard core play that makes this game so much fun to play. The achievements in the game are kind of odd. Fact is though if you are a completionest while playing the game you will get 100% completion and eventually earn all 200G in the game The game does not support avatar awards. All in all Stacking for 1200 MS points is really worth the buy in the end. I don’t think the replay value is going to be great unless the game is followed up with some DLC. The charming story and great pick up and play game play is what makes this game worth playing and a great addition to the XBLA.
