Remember Me

[Mr. Analog]

So I recently watched a playthrough of this game (as in I haven't played it myself) and it looks very interesting.

Set in a future dystopian Paris the action centres around the main character, Nillin, who is a kind of mind-hacker, see in this future implants make it possible to share thoughts and a market quickly rose around selling memories as commodities, of course this all goes horribly wrong, with people becoming addicted to memories and paying to have memories rewritten to remove bad feelings. This has lead to a lot of strife in the world and your character is basically one of the people fighting to end the tyrannical corporation that controls it.

EXCEPT she was captured by the corporation's private security force and has had her mind mostly erased, this is where the player steps in.

There is an incredibly rich and detailed world here as you try to regain your lost memories and fight oppression and just to survive through a world completely focused on the self to the detriment to everything else.

Gameplay lets this amazing concept down however, you are mostly on a rail as you adventure through the city, in essence it's a really pretty platformer with a lot of parkour inspired movement. You run, jump and climb your way around the maps. All the areas you can go to are highlighted by a kind of hint system which is supposed to be part of your augmentation, chevrons will appear on things you are meant to climb or jump to.

The platforming is punctuated by fights, usually you are fighting groups of either robocop security force dudes or memory addicted mutant freaks, the fight system is combo based and it requires precise button timing (no mashing!) there are only three combos you need to learn, but you can edit what the combos do in a feature called the "combo lab". In the lab you can assign abilities to the combo levels, so for example on the third hit you could boost your damage or choose to gain health (etc). It's an interesting concept but I don't like the precise nature of the system, again I was watching someone else play, someone who is certainly better at combos than me and even they were having a hard time with it for much of the game. I mean when you are at the final fight of the game and you still get the combo "hint" on how to land hits maybe there's something wrong with your system!

The one REALLY COOL game mechanic that nearly saves things is the Memory Remix, basically you get to play through a person's memory (kind of like a VCR) you can rewind the memory and change things to make the person think that something they remember happened differently (or not at all!) This is a brilliant idea and really underscores the danger of tampering and explores the theme of "does the end justify the means", this would have been amazing if you could take advantage of this power but alas there are only FOUR instances in the game where you can do this, one of which is a tutorial. I mean how cool would it have been to get into an area and change a fight so the bad guy thinks you are a friend or thinks he saw you but "didn't"? THAT would have been awesome. But that's not what you get, just endless battles with a limited number of enemies using three combos over and over and over and over...

Anyway, the game is $50 on Steam (last I checked) and tells a very cool story and looks AMAZING, however the combat is meh and the one cool power you have barely gets touched as a game mechanic.

I was very interested in this game until I saw how combat worked, which is a shame. This title has a lot of potential.

[Melbosa]

Yeah I watched the game plays on it as well.  As with you I was very intrigued until I saw the game's combat system and found out how little the Memory Remix was used.  I'm sure the story is full and inviting, but after playing the new Tomb Raider/Assassin's Creed III I have to say you can get some good story in and have great game play as well.  As I am sure it is with you, my time is limited to the games I can play, so I am staying clear of this one unless it hits the $10 mark any time soon.

[Mr. Analog]

Exactly yes, if this were a $20 game I wouldn't have flinched but it's a full priced game.

I feel bad because this has so much potential but falls short.