This game is overlong, and clumsily written and implemented, reaching beyond its grasp on a number of levels. Its puzzles are poorly-cued or hackneyed ('unorthodox use of a fishing rod' should be locked away forever in the cast-iron cliche box) and the story is perhaps over-complicated -- but, all that said, I like this game. I admire its scope, its sweep, its sense of lives being lived. At the end, I feel something has happened: characters have tried to understand each other, made an impact in each other's lives; they've cared about each other, and I've cared about them. Any individual section of this game is fairly incompetent, but taken as a whole, it communicates something. Although not given its best realisation, there is a very good story lurking somewhere in there.
Rating: 6 (second place)