This game is hit or miss. For me, it was a big miss. The game starts out all exciting, with a mystery feel to it. Maybe even a hint of horror in there! The game keeps you massively in suspense, and you do all of this cool detective work - but it is just all totally in vain. Once you reach the end of the story, the mystery collapses upon itself, and leaves the realization (at least to the critical thinker), that the entire story was built as an illusion to keep you going, while forcing a ridiculous teen-age love-story down your throat and it turns out to be nothing more than that. Mild Spoilers ahead! I realize now, that the game is basically just your character's sister coming out of the closet in the most awkward fashion, and your parents being out of town for some reason I can't even recall, leaving you to hunt down clues for 1-2 hours. I mean, seriously, watch a let's play instead.
Tacoma has a decent game-engine, decent graphics, great voice-acting and really cool concept art and setting building going on, but the a story is build upon its characters, and the characters of Tacoma just aren't memorable, relatable or in any way realistic. Many games try to provoke your thoughts with the implementation of characters with certain opinions, or by forcing you to do certain things because you have to, in order to win, and Tacoma is no exception, but where this works well for most games, with Tacoma, it just left me shaking my head. It wasn't thought-provoking or scary, just... Too much propaganda. That doesn't mean the game isn't worth playing, but I wouldn't pay very much for it, if I were you. Once you do get into the story, my bet is that you'll want to see how it ends. My opinion? It had a drab and completely disappointing ending. That aside, I feel like the game tries to force certain values upon you. Whether or not you agree with these political messages or not, I don't feel like a game that promotes specific ideas is necessarily a good idea. I'm not saying this is the only game that does that, but it's new for me that it's done in this way. In addition, I feel like the game takes its mission of celebrating diversity too far, by offering a game-cast that is basically a present-day US HR-Department's dream, for the purpose of a poster. If we set the unrealistic level of diversity aside, we can take a moment to examine the fact that the game features morbidly obese astronauts who are claimed to be in good health in the game, and in addition, are surviving on space-food made from vitro-meat, which has no fat, and have exercise routines. I mean, body-positivity is apparently an important message these days, but morbidly obese astronauts? Come on! Anyway, to summarize, the game is OK. I wouldn't pay over 10 bucks for it, and frankly, I'd be sore to pay that.
Please note that I am not natively english speaking. Baldur's gate is a classic D&D adventure in many ways, a pary sets out to uncover a sinister plot, and ends up making the world a better place (or not?) doing that. Ofcourse, Baldur's gate differs from the classical D&D themes by targetting a single person as the protagonist, and this character is the player character. The entire storyline is build around this character, and the players choices as this character affects the story alone. Through out the game, the player can encounter lots of other characters, some of which will agree to follow him on certain conditions. These characters are as different as night and day, and few of them get along quite nicely, and this makes the game come alive. The creators of the game are reknown for creating stron personalities within their games, and they did NOT fail with Baldur's gate. As you experience the game-world you will end up favouring some companions over others, some of them you might never encounter, and multiple play-thoughs are encouraged. As you make your way through the story you will experience many of the different player-classes become introduced often in most dramatic ways, showing off their features, which will often leave you with a feeling of regret over having not chosen that class for your own, another good reason as to why multiple playthroughs are encouraged. Baldur's gate is one of the most balanced games I've played. You simply can't have it all! You are forced to put together a team of people with different strengths and weaknesses and make them work together. You have to work hard for every coin you earn and put them to good use if you want to afford nicer weapons and armor. This game is wonderfull through and through, you explore, you fight, you resolve, you talk, you chat, you discuss, you argue, you transport, and the many areas in which you can do this combined with the soundtrack of the game that seems to hold tracks and sounds for every inc of the world creates so many thematical scenes that makes one melancholic to look back upon. The game has glibbed in one place though. Magic. In original AD&D and D&D wizards, clerics and other spellcasters were wildcards with lots of different uses, but in baldur's gate, their uses are so limited that they are best used as tactical nukes. Clerics and druids have some abilities that makes them someone irreplaceable, but basically it comes down to healing and entangle. Wizards have one very practical ability: The fireball. Mage armor, larlochs minor drain and other spells that were originally created to offer different possibilites for the wizard are now nescesary to use all the time because the wizard simply won't survive without them. Ultimately this makes the fighter stand out as the most effecient class, as he can more freely locate his stats as he sees fit, but don't let yourself be fooled, the other classes allows for just as much fun.
