Stacking is a weird one. Set in what's supposed to be the 1920s depression, in a world filled with Russian stacking dolls, you can't help wondering what the developers were under the influence of when they came up with it. You play as Charlie Blackmore, the man (or doll) who seems to hold the record for being the smallest stacking doll in the entire world, as he sets out to rescue his kidnapped brothers and sisters - Albert, Abigail, Agatha and Archibald - who've all been taken away to work for the evil Baron.
Cutscenes take the form of silent Charlie Chaplin-style movies.
As a game both based, and named after stacking dolls, it stands to reason that a large part of the gameplay would involve, well, stacking. Because you're so tiny, you're able to stack yourself inside the various other dolls you find in the levels, so long as you bear in mind two things - you can only stack into dolls one size larger than you, and you need to creep up behind them to stack into them. Thankfully, there's little in the way of stealth required, as most dolls are oblivious to your presence, so it's quite easy to hop inside them - although you'll notice a few dolls in each level that, unnervingly, watch you like a hawk, rotating round on the spot so you won't get a chance to stack yourself inside them, unless you manage to distract them...
As you may have guessed, the paranoid dolls are often essential to completing each level - but luckily, there are ways to distract them. Each doll type has it's own unique ability - whether it's a deafening scream, the ability to unlock things, to the Proper Uppercut, each will come in useful for solving the various puzzles in the levels - and for solving them again and again, as each puzzle has multiple solutions. For example, quite early on in the game, in an area known as the Royal Train Station, you'll need to empty the VIP lounge, and there are three different ways of doing so. The first way is to stack yourself inside the maintenance man, Jasper, and use him to unlock an air vent that you can then sneak in through. If you're feeling a bit more risqué, you could use the widow Chastity to seduce the guard on the door so that you can sneak behind him and stack into him and open the main door; or, finally, you could use the flatulent Meriwether Malador to, er, pass wind in the air vent and cause an evacuation of the room below.
As you can see, the approaches are as a strange as they are varied, but if you find yourself stumped, you needn't worry either, as the game comes with a built-in hint system to help you on your way - by pressing Start, scrolling across to challenges and pressing the X button, you can reveal a hint for one of the challenges. There's a total of three hints per solution, which you can reveal gradually, Professor Layton-style, so you can have anything from a nudge in the right direction, to a blatant spelling out of what you have to do, depending on how stuck you are.
How does the caviar chef reach the counter?
While there are only really four areas - the Royal Train Station, the Gilded Steam Ship, the Zeppelin of Consequence and the Triple Decker Tank Engine - there is an awful lot to do, although perhaps not enough to warrant the steep asking price of 1200 Microsoft Points (about £10.20), especially taking into account the probable extra downloadable level (there's an extra space in the hub bit).
Each level has various challenges, all with multiple solutions to find, as well as unique Collectable Dolls, which are easy to spot as they sort of shimmer blue when you look at them. There's also Hi-Jinks - a list of ten or so things you can do to cause trouble, each with a slightly cryptic description, such as 'A Blast on the Past', which requires you to use Meriweather Malador to, er, pass wind on a number of older dolls, or 'Black Widow', in which you use Widow Chastity to seduce a number of men at once.
The only real problem with Stacking is the camera, which has a tendency to mess up from time to time. As an example, once, when I tried to talk to someone, the camera decided it was a great idea to zoom in so close, I ended up looking at the wall behind the guy I was talking to, as the camera passed through his body. Sometimes, too, when you go round a corner, the camera has a tendency to go mental, which means you can't see your doll for a few seconds. While it's not a massive problem, because it always sorts itself out, it does lead to a few 'where did he go' moments.
If you can afford the 1200 Microsoft Points (about £10.20), Stacking is a worthwhile investment - and it's a damn sight more substantial than some other 1200 Microsoft Point games we could mention (*cough* Limbo *cough*). But with only four, albeit rather extensive, levels, it does seem a bit on the expensive side - but, as with everything, it all depends how much you need a quirky puzzle game in your life.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
