A point-and-click adventure game with an interesting idea and story. Joey's dry humor throughout the early and mid-portion of the game was great, most characters were fairly interesting, and the plot was good. My main complaint is that Foster was rather bland, and had little reason for his goals. He just wanted to find out who caused the incident, why, and how to get out. I feel his goals could have been a little bit more varied from that, and that the puzzles could've been easier. Some of the items for said puzzles don't make sense, or they're not very clear. Finding characters for certain dialogue to solve puzzles is also frustrating, as well as Joey simply not being able to keep up. Overall, however, BASS is great for a free game! Just be sure to grab a game guide to solve those puzzles.
The idea that you can use a program to monitor people's activities and accounts is pretty great - in-game, at least. Some of the mechanics bugged me (like not being able to retract submitted data or solve conflicting chunks after one was submitted), as well at the story line. I get that the Nation is highly invasive and wants to control people, but the way Orwell does it isn't quite what I was hoping for. Checking webpages constantly for updates was a pain too. I was hoping for a little more story-wise, and the end, though dramatic, seemed a bit too much. Not to mention that throughout the game you're just submitting every datachunk you think could possibly be relevant, which is almost all of them. It doesn't feel like detective work, and it's very annoying. And the premise which the antagonist goes against you doesn't feel as deep as it should, either. Not to mention their tactics and reasoning. There could've been better ways of doing this. This certainly isn't a game for everyone, as every game is. I'd suggest reading other reviews too, as I might not be wording this concisely enough. But it was a decent experience for the sale price, at least.
