Sunday, May 13, 2018

Tacoma

In Fullbright's second game, you arrive to an abandoned space station called Tacoma to retrieve its AI data. As you make your way through the not-that-large station's different sections, you discover what led to the abandonment from mundane notes and terminals but also from augmented reality recordings. They work a bit like time rewinding in Remember Me or Life Is Strange but the only interactivity is being able to read AR terminals open in the recording.

An unsuspenseful walking sim


The setting alone gives Tacoma potential to be more interesting than Gone Home but it doesn't claim it. The station's midsection's zero g and the augmented reality bits are cool but that's about it. The story is again boring. Even the soundtrack of the game is literal elevator music.

I think personal involvement is what is missing in too many of these walking simulators. You're a detached observer merely gathering up a story piece by piece. Apart from the light interactivity, the experience is not very interesting. I must again point out SOMA as a good example how to do things right.

Tacoma's too short for its price -- $20 for 3 hours -- and too long for its gameplay, like some Steam user review had put. At least Fullbright realized to fiddle with Unity's default values and moving isn't painfully slow. Physics animations seem to happen at a low framerate, though. It's like in the pre-remastered BioShocks -- a bit detrimental for your immersion.

Also, I think having to wrench cabinets, drawers, and doors open with mouse movement would be more suitable than a single press when it's the main thing you do. Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Soma do that and it makes them more tangible, I feel.





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