Update One Hundred and Thirty-Two: 28 February 2018
Tacoma
3.3 hours,12 of 12 achievements
9/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Oh, you guys. I loved this game. This game was made for me. (Who’s surprised? Nobody’s surprised)
Tacoma is a step up from Fullbright’s previous game, Gone Home in every aspect. It’s bigger in terms of setting and in terms of characters, and Fullbright takes their skill in carefully seeding story crumbs for you to find and piece together throughout the environment and disjointed and ramps that shit up to 11, with more storylines weaving together than ever.
The main mechanic - the ARDware set up across the station that’s recorded the people within - is utterly fascinating and really thrilling to engage in. The memories aren’t just one person’s - they’re the memories of entire rooms. People move around from place to place, and you follow them. Sometimes two people talking split up, and you have to follow one person or the other. Sometimes two separate conversations are happening in the same room at the same time, and you have to pick who to follow. Then, when it’s over, rewind and follow someone else.
The character animation and voice acting are phenomenal. The simplified models and mo-cap skeletons were such an intelligent design choice - low poly but still distinctive.
And guys. Holy fuck! Out of six crew members, four are women!!!! (plus your player character, too) And guys, even more holy fuck - two of those women are fat! For real fat! Not for fake fat. They’re big women! They’re built like women I know - they’re built like my girlfriend! They’re both also shown to be in loving, romantic relationships. This might seem silly to be so thrilled about, but this doesn’t happen. It does here, and it’s natural and real and so good.
There’s something else that’s special about this game, but it’s about how the story plays out in the end. Major spoiler warnings, my friends!
I am so, SO thrilled that the ending was a positive one. Not only does everyone live, but ODIN is saved, too. As I was playing, it felt almost like a disappointment, weirdly - after all that shit, they didn’t even DIE? It wasn’t until I realized I’d just been conditioned to expect that, that for so much of science fiction, things are going to end badly, and the only adventure is to find out what flavor of bad. Having the ending be positive - and having no gays die, whoohoo!!!!! - was like a breath of fresh air. It was something different. And by god was it satisfying. Finally, everyone (except the big corporation) wins.
Next up: Cat time!
See you soon!
Ha, now I’m definitely looking forward to it!
Was first reluctant to activate it, but then I did and when you said you’re going to play it, I really couldn’t wait for the review! bounce around
So thank you for this! Also I totally agree with you: It is marvelous so have women in different shapes and sizes too! <3
Have fun with the next one :)
Oh yes, I would heartily recommend it. Hopefully you game has better specs than mine, so the environment will be a higher quality. One thing to watch out for is loading times - the game front loads each area, so while going into each of the main modules (Hub, Personnel, Medical, Engineering) took a long ass time to load, once I was in there everything played flawlessly. You don’t move between those areas much, either, so it’s not a lot of waiting. God I love this game.
Unfortunately, I’m liking Hot Tin Roof a lot less <:c I’ll try to keep hacking away at it, but I might be shelving this one.
sigh…. my achievement percentage…
Higher quality would be nice nod
I honestly worry a bit about the first person view. But that’s normal for me, right? :D
Yeah, those cheevos… we’ve all been there sympathetic pet
It does make some sense. It’s a rather slow-moving game, though, and you’re not constantly walking around long distances like, say, in Dear Esther, so it won’t aggravate headaches too much.
Ah, that is indeed good to know! Thanks for pointing it out! bounce
I’m glad you liked it!
This is good news, then! Not that I wasn’t convinced about Fullbright being able to deliver another good game. :) My impression from Gone Home was that they focused their effort in right places on a seemingly limited budget. The house felt like an actual home with family belongings, instead of just a bunch of rooms littered with collectibles.
I definitely see that same intelligent focus here, but this time they got more of a budget and expanded their focus to include more voice actors and animation. It’s one of the best I’ve seen of games this size - one recent example is how the animation in SOMA was okay, servicable, but lacked a certain spark. Tacoma had that spark.
The station itself feels the same way the house did. One thing I liked in particular was how each person’s bunk was a different configuration - instead of them all bunking together in one section that’s their quarters, each of their personal rooms is attached in the area in which they work. So, like, the Admin is bunked near the Personnel center, the botanist is bunked in the Botany bay, etc. It makes sense too from a psychological perspective - they each get to have their space.
Tacoma was really really great and had an awesome cast of characters! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
I’m so glad you loved it!! :D Honestly I’ve seen so many mixed reviews lately, it seems like I loved it way more than most people haha.
I agree with how engaging the story was, loved the acting and way the story unraveled. I was expecting to like it, but I fell completely in love with the characters and so invested in the story. The diversity was so wonderful to see as well! The characters felt so genuine and REAL. How they had flaws and unique backgrounds, letters and conversations. I actually heard several complaints about the diversity, saying how forced it was?? hello?? I loved that it didn’t feel like an afterthought, thrown in “just to add diversity” and done poorly, if you know what I mean. People are diverse, it’s so fucking great to see when people are represented! The characters were so wonderful and flawed and had different personalities…and the girl love!!! I squealed when I saw that and it seriously made the rest of my night. ahhh I loved this game so much, we need more media like this honestly. I’d love to see others, even more fleshed out. I just wanna hug it and never let ago.
‘Forced’, lol - there’s nothing more ‘forced’ than the viewpoint of making everybody in a game be a white man, and that everyone else needs a reason to exist in a narrative. I’m surprised at the mixed reviews - I heard a few people on here saying they wish it were longer, and that’s about the only criticism I can agree with. While I think this story itself is perfectly contained, I’d love to see more stories using this same mechanic.
I really liked all the characters, too! Except Clive - at first I was afraid he was jerking E.V. around, and that he was playing her or something, until I read more deeply and realized that HE was the one afraid of her jerking him around, and that he did feel very ardently for her. I also like that he was talking to his best friend about it, to get support. And that said best friend captained the ship that saved them!
I think overall the character I most identified with was Sareh - I like that she eventually became the deiciding ‘protagonist’ and how stalwart she was about doing what she believed was right. Also she grew close to ODIN and had a good relationship with him, even though she was still so tormented by the death caused by her previous posting’s ship AI. I really liked the scene where you watch ODIN help her calm down, and how heavy the responsibility she had weighed on her.
Yes! Very yes. I feel the same way c: Gosh, between this and Edith Finch I am just so happy with how the genre of walking sims have evolved.
Yeah seriously, I agree. I normally take that as a good sign, as in there’s actual fleshed out diversity. Tbh I teared up seeing someone like myself in the game, it’s always refreshing. I was just really pleasantly surprised at how well everything played out. My only real critique was the length as well, I think they could’ve expanded on the stories and given us even more. I’d have loved to hear even more from the crew, though I think there’s a fine line between padding out the game for the hell of it and actual good dialogue/backstory. So I guess I’d rather still have a good contained story like you said, than one super dragged on. But yeah I’d love to see even more. And I totally agree! Every time I thought the story was going in a more cliché direction and that I had it all figured out, it would pleasantly surprise me. Added even more depth to the game and really sets it apart. My heart broke for Sareh as well and I immediately put myself in her shoes. You can just imagine all of these characters being real people in this situation and how difficult every choice would be. Especially when you come to love the people you’re with and know they have family/friends. So hard to choose a life over another.
I’m still so excited to one day playing. Edith Finch. I think it’ll be my cup of tea, fingers crossed!