Reviewing Tacoma
It’s been a while. I’ve been lying low for a couple months; lurking. But I won this here game on SG through the BLAEO group, so it only seems proper to share my thoughts after completing it. I had this game on my wishlist because I like story driven games and it certainly looked interesting.
The game is reasonably well put together, and I did not encounter any bugs. However, it is falsely listed under adventure games on Steam. To be fair this is likely because there is no category for walking simulator, and even then it is closer to a kinetic visual novel. There are no decisions or puzzles to solve, and you don’t have to go very far between interactions so not much walking either. The entire (very short) game is moving through a prescribed progression of 3 compartments of a space station to listen to dialog, read notes and interact with objects if you are inclined. The idea is to piece together a story of what happened to the inhabitants of the station. And then you leave and all is well. No bad endings here.
It is hard to categorize whether I consider Tacoma to be a good game or a bad game. From a technical standpoint it is good. My biggest beef is that there is not enough story. It is very simplistic, predictable and unimaginative. It just felt very hollow and unsatisfying. This is what the store description says about it:
As you go about your mission, you’ll explore every detail of how the station’s crew lived and worked, finding the clues that add up to a gripping story of trust, fear, and resolve in the face of disaster.
Um.. yeah there is nothing gripping about it. Nothing compelled me to explore every detail. I only did so in order to get all achievements. In the end it was worth the price of admission, just don’t buy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Congratulations on your win! And thanks for the review. The more reviews I read, the more intrigued I become, to see what’s it all about :D Pity that it had it’s flaws, but at least it’s not a long game, so one more off the backlog.
You can actually finish this game without much effort at all in probably less than 2 hours if you do not care about achievements.
I actually played (and finished) the game yesterday. I think I can now better understand why the reviews are so mixed.
I won this here game on SG
it was worth the price of admission
So, you’re saying it’s worth $0? ☺
Yeah pretty much ;)
But don’t let that scare you if you really like story driven games and walking simulators.
Congrats on beating them all! Dragon Age Origins is one of my favorite games but I have yet to play the sequels. Does Inquisition have the campfire or at least have the companions close together like in origins? I hated the separate house ideas from 2, it made it more of a hassle to talk to them often.
I was very confused for a minute, but I see you meant to reply to the post above me :)
I can tell you however that, sorry to say, Inquisition does not have the companions together and they are even more scattered.
woops my bad. Thanks for answering though. That’s a bummer. I really hate having to travel around just to click on them a bunch.
Glad to see you picked it up and completed it! :) I’m very grateful for that.
Though I am sorry to hear it didn’t live up to your expectations, I for one have never been a fan of walking simulators, but even with the hint of disappointment I’m positive you enjoyed it more than I would have haha. Have a good one, Wubble
Yeah, despite the less than positive opinion I managed to get some value out of it. And I’ll know better next time.