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)_/¯

June Roundup (HOG Heaven)

• Enigmatis 3: The Shadow of Karkhala
  

  10 hours playtime

  34 of 34 achievements

• Time Mysteries 3: The Final Enigma
  

  9 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

• The Secret Order 4: Beyond Time
  

  9 hours playtime

  33 of 33 achievements

• Vampire Legends: The True Story of Kisilova
  

  8 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Sinister City
  

  5 hours playtime

  17 of 17 achievements

• Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart
  

  10 hours playtime

  15 of 15 achievements

• Nightmares from the Deep 2: The Siren's Call
  

  11 hours playtime

  29 of 29 achievements

• Nightmares from the Deep 3: Davy Jones
  

  9 hours playtime

  32 of 32 achievements

• The Emerald Maiden: Symphony of Dreams
  

  8 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

• Fairy Tale Mysteries: The Puppet Thief
  

  7 hours playtime

  17 of 17 achievements

• Fairy Tale Mysteries 2: The Beanstalk
  

  9 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

• Crime Secrets: Crimson Lily
  

  5 hours playtime

  24 of 24 achievements

• Lost Grimoires: Stolen Kingdom
  

  3 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

Not much to add. I’ve been pretty busy with work so I’m actually quite surprised I was able to finish that many. Here are the numbers:

Yes, in the grand scheme of things I lost ground in June. (And I’ve already added a few more games from summer sale to July). Looks like the backlog is bound to get worse before it gets better.

May Roundup

It’s been a rather slow month again, but I did manage to finish some stuff. Here’s the lowdown:

• Bayonetta
  Won on SteamGifts

  15 hours playtime

  18 of 50 achievements

• Replay - VHS is not dead
   

  28 hours playtime

  12 of 14 achievements

• The Butterfly Sign
  Won on SteamGifts

  5 hours playtime

  8 of 13 achievements

• The Ball
  Won on SteamGifts

  14 hours playtime

  10 of 17 achievements

• House of 1,000 Doors - Family Secrets
  Won on SteamGifts

  10 hours playtime

  no achievements

• House of 1000 Doors: The Palm of Zoroaster Collector's Edition
   

  8 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People
  Won on SteamGifts

  4 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Wishmaster
  Won on SteamGifts

  7 hours playtime

  0 of 10 achievements

• Hell Girls
   

  2 hours playtime

  8 of 92 achievements

Best game: Bayonetta. Worst game: The Butterfly Sign. Most frustratingly long and boring game: Replay: VHS is not dead. Game with the most silly jokes: Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People.

Need I say more... okay:

• So glad I won Bayonetta on SG. Otherwise I would have waited for a 50% off sale. That would be a mistake. Buy it now, it's worth it.
• The Butterfly Sign is not the worst pile of crap I've ever played, but it needs work and is only the first part of a story. Not for people that experience nausea as it has a serious lack of optimization.
• Replay: VHS is not dead is actually a pretty good game except that you repeat the same things over and over and over and over... The idea is that you have to play coop with yourself. Run one character through its paces, rewind and then have another character do its thing while the first is replaying your actions. It's very repetitive in order to puzzle out the exact actions. Maybe try it for a bit and then realize that it doesn't ever get any better or change. If it had not been chosen for me for Play or Pay 6 I would have stopped after about the first 5 levels.
• Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People has lots of nostalgia and outrageously silly humor. I'd recommend it.

Let’s get to the numbers:

April Roundup

• Replay - VHS is not dead
  

  10 hours playtime

  5 of 14 achievements

• Bayonetta
  

  4 hours playtime

  4 of 50 achievements

• A New Beginning - Final Cut
  

  18 hours playtime

  28 of 28 achievements

• Ys II
  

  21 hours playtime

  18 of 21 achievements

• Ys I
  

  17 hours playtime

  13 of 17 achievements

• Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure
  

  43 hours playtime

  38 of 53 achievements

• Cubot
  

  13 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

Well, I made my goal of finishing Gurumin - great game! -, playing some Ys and managed to complete Cubot finally. In addition I was able to complete A New Beginning (an SG win). But April's warmer weather helped keep me away from the computer, so I did not manage to finish the other two games that I started, and overall it was a down month for slaying the backlog.

I loved playing the Ys Chronicles. I had the Ancient Land of Ys for Apple IIGS a looong time ago but never got very far into it, so to finally complete this was awesome. Not so awesome was A New Beginning. It is okay, but by the end of the game I found myself hating every single character. It also has a good share of bugs. Strangely the interaction choices or subtitles would alternate from English to Russian, sometimes Italian or German. There were occasions where multiple languages were on screen at the same time.

The highlight of May should be beating Bayonetta (shoutout to BraveDave for that opportunity!).

Let's get to the numbers:

Do you ever get nervous that some of those old keys you are holding on to will be invalidated? On April 1st I decided to add a total 41 games, some old and some new, from my list of keys. I've drastically slowed my intake of bundles, but I still have plenty of keys left to decide what to do with. Oh well.

March Roundup

• CAT Interstellar
  

  2 hours playtime

  10 of 16 achievements

• Ferrum's Secrets: where is grandpa?
  

  3 hours playtime

  12 of 20 achievements

• The Banner Saga
  

  27 hours playtime

  39 of 39 achievements

• Fox & Flock
  

  1.5 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure
  

  1 hours playtime

  0 of 53 achievements

• Closure
  

  1 hours playtime

  2 of 8 achievements

• Cubot
  

  3 hours playtime

  5 of 10 achievements

• The Descendant
  

  14 hours playtime

  50 of 50 achievements

• Assassin’s Creed® Chronicles: China
  

  21 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Besiege
  

  12 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Octave
  

  1.5 hours playtime

  no achievements

• KAMI
  

  1.5 hours playtime

  no achievements

• NORTH
  

  1 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon
  

  12 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Costume Quest
  

  17 hours playtime

  21 of 21 achievements

• Awe
  

  0.5 hours playtime

  5 of 18 achievements

• Ichi
  

  0.5 hours playtime

  8 of 17 achievements

Overall I think I did well enough in March. But cats don’t like it when you spend too much time not looking at them. It probably won’t get better what with spring bringing lot’s of outside things to do. We shall see.

I counted CAT Interstellar as beaten even though it is in early access, because I’ve done all I could and there is no telling when it might be finished. I’ll definitely have another go at it if it does get finished. It is a quite a nice little adventure so far with great visuals.

If you like Tell Tale games, I recommend The Descendant. It doesn’t have quite the polish, but it is very similar and has a pretty good story.

I should have played Far Cry 3 - Blood Dragon much sooner. It is even better than I thought it could be. It’s too bad it doesn’t have Steam achievements. But other than that I don’t think I’d a single bad thing to say about it. (Well I might mention it was too short)

I expect to complete Gurumin fairly soon and expect to make progress in April on the other March titles that aren’t finished. Also I expect to make a dent in the Ys series, because I need more weebness in my gaming.

Cheers! :3

February Roundup

• Stranded In Time
  

  7 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Knock-knock
  

  10 hours playtime

  18 of 18 achievements

• Pixel Puzzles 2: Anime
  

  35 hours playtime

  27 of 27 achievements

• Secret Of Magia
  

  4 hours playtime

  5 of 5 achievements

• OPUS: The Day We Found Earth
  

  11 hours playtime

  31 of 31 achievements

• Alter World
  

  7 hours playtime

  12 of 12 achievements

• DreamBreak
  

  7 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

• Mind: Path to Thalamus Enhanced Edition
  

  12 hours playtime

  23 of 23 achievements

• Forgotten, Not Lost - A Kinetic Novel
  

  5 hours playtime

  4 of 4 achievements

• Projector Face
  

  3 hours playtime

  5 of 5 achievements

• Card City Nights
  

  31 hours playtime

  8 of 8 achievements

• Decay - The Mare
  

  9 hours playtime

  42 of 42 achievements

• Deadpool
  

  13 hours playtime

  26 of 50 achievements

• Two Digits
  

  10 hours playtime

  13 of 13 achievements

• Ichi
  

  4 hours playtime

  8 of 17 achievements

• Pushcat
  

  13 hours playtime

  3 of 9 achievements

• Dark Shadows - Army of Evil
  

  5 hours playtime

  no achievements

Not a bad month. I'm making progress on SG wins, but I'm still adding too many games to the collection.

My favorite this month has to be Deadpool. I laughed so hard :D. I highly recommend it even though the game play itself is not stellar.

I tried to play Dark Shadows Army of Evil. Wow, that was a mistake. It is so poorly put together that it is nearly unplayable. If you happen to have this game don't even think about trying it. I gave up after about 40 minutes of nauseating play. I also had to abandon Pushcat - it wasn't a terrible game. The early levels are relaxing, but then it gets a little frustrating and I wasn't enjoying it anymore.

I have new hope!

This is my first post to show my progress and I think I did pretty well. I managed to play 20 games in January, twelve of which were SG wins:

• The Room
  

  5 hours playtime

  5 of 5 achievements

• Echo Tokyo: Intro
  

  71 minutes playtime

  6 of 6 achievements

• Refunct
  

  2 hours playtime

  4 of 4 achievements

• It's Spring Again
  

  4 hours playtime

  4 of 4 achievements

• Gomo
  

  3 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Tengami
  

  2 hours playtime

  4 of 4 achievements

• Spoiler Alert
  

  3 hours playtime

  6 of 10 achievements

• Hexcells Infinite
  

  19 hours playtime

  7 of 7 achievements

• Caffeine
  

  2 hours playtime

  11 of 11 achievements

• Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes
  

  16 hours playtime

  10 of 10 achievements

• Energy Balance
  

  17 hours playtime

  9 of 9 achievements

• Kathy Rain
  

  11 hours playtime

  20 of 20 achievements

• F.E.A.R.
  

  18 hours playtime

  no achievements

• Fran Bow
  

  21 hours playtime

  18 of 18 achievements

• Lifeless Planet
  

  9 hours playtime

  15 of 15 achievements

• Pushcat
  

  10 hours playtime

  2 of 9 achievements

• Two Digits
  

  9 hours playtime

  10 of 13 achievements

• DeadCore
  

  6 hours playtime

  6 of 29 achievements

• Ichi
  

  3 hours playtime

  4 of 17 achievements

• Party of Sin
  

  3 hours playtime

  3 of 33 achievements

“The Room” was a really cool puzzle game and I’ve added “The Room Two” to my wishlist. Also very good are “Kathy Rain” and “Fran Bow”. “Lifeless Planet” was surprisingly good, but a little rough in spots; it turned out to be more of a jumping simulator than a walking simulator.

“DeadCore” looks good and is pretty well polished, but is way too hard for someone like me that likes his puzzles to be a bit more casual. Maybe I will beat it sometime in the future, but for now I must accept that I don’t have the precision timing or patience to get good. On the other hand I finally finished “F.E.A.R.” after dropping it a couple times. Turns out that it is still a pretty good FPS for an older title.

Let’s see… Don’t bother with “Caffeine” it is terrible in its current state. If the developer ever finishes the rest of the chapters and optimizes the graphics it might be worth a second look. That seems unlikely though. “Refunct” and “It’s Spring Again” are great achievement hunter games ;). “Gomo” is a short and cute adventure with simple puzzles. “Grotesque Tactics” was okay-ish, but the camera was really shoddy and the jokes were barely worth a smirk.

The bad part of January is that I’ve added 28 games, including 5 SG wins, to my library. :(

I’ve set up a list with about 30 games that are good candidates to play next and each time I finish one I look for another to take its place in the list. My hope is that I can play 20 to 30 titles a month. The challenge is not be brain locked on what to play next since I have so many I want to play now. Shorter / easier titles help fill in the gaps when I don’t feel a strong urge to play or am too busy.

On to February!