Monday, June 17, 2013

Remember Me


By: Robert Murphy

Hey everybody, I know it’s been awhile since we’ve had some reviews out but I want you all to know I haven’t been sleeping on the job, just busy playing some of the awesome new games that we have to choose from lately and now I’m ready to share my thoughts with you all in “Remember Me.” This game struck my chords when I first saw it played and advertised and I went out on a limb and thought I’d try it out and I was not disappointed with what I got from the game. Based in the futuristic world of Neo-Paris, you play as Nilin, who is incredibly acrobatic and skilled at her profession which is going into people’s minds and stealing/altering their memories. This all seems to be going well until she herself loses her memory and now must find out what exactly happened to her and why she is now being hunted down by her former employers.

 Neo-Paris

“Remember Me” gave me a lot of flash backs to what it felt like the first time I laid eyes on “Mirror’s Edge,” where you have this amazingly gifted and acrobatic girl who moves around like a bird on the breeze but can also move in and take down enemies with her bare hands if need be and it does. As you jump from building to building in this cramped and monolithic jungle of steel and lights, you also must fight a few pesky thugs and enemies who don’t want you to recovery your lost memories. The combat itself moves just as sleekly as you do while free roaming the city, moving in on enemies and beating them unconscious with melee attacks. You can also drift from bad guy to bad guy building up your hit combo and dodge incoming attacks, going right back into pummeling them with your fist until they finally go down for the count and even though this type of combat style has been seen before, it’s very enjoyable all the same. Combat goes a step further as well with the ability to upgrade your attacks in various ways with Pressen’s, which are gained by leveling up and are used to do a variety of different things such as improve the damage your attacks give, cool down your special attack time or even gain health from attacks given. This makes for some interesting ways for players to play, whether they aren’t the best fighter and need to steal health or they like using special attacks and want the cool down time to move faster, you can find something that suits your needs.

 Nilin’s not to be f-ed with

Now let’s move onto our story which features the unique idea of being able to go into your mind and altering your memories, whether you wanted to forget something bad that has happened or change something in your mind to make things feel better, it would all be up to you and I myself can see the appeal as I’m sure many would. However this grand notion comes with a downside as those people who choose to alter their memories and do so too much begin to suffer from memory deprivation which begins slowly as people forget little things here and there and then eventually lose all memory of who they are and they’re humanity along with it.  These people are known as “Leepers” and they are essentially mutated humans who live in the run down sections of the city or are hunted down and killed by Memorise, the corporation responsible for the memory altering break through. Memorise essentially like every other evil corporation with a money making product, they’ll keep selling it no matter the cost and eliminate anything that poses a threat and you just so happen to be one of those things.

 Poor bastards, these are Leepers

Now Nilin, along with being a badass fighter with cat like maneuvers up her sleeve, has the ability to go into someone’s memory and experience or change things, if she so chooses, and these are known as Memory Remixes. Nilin sees something that has happened in a person’s life in full and then can rewind the tape pretty much and change the way the memory plays out for whoever's memories she is currently a part of. The things you do may seem tiny in the memory but have very drastic outcomes if you take things too far and the memory won’t be believable for the host you are trying to plant the new memory inside of. Memory remixes bring the emotionally charged element to the game, where you feel the person’s emotions through their memories in each remix and it was and is a truly unique idea that was brought to the game, the only thing is you wish there were a lot more of them to play through. But if the fact that memory remixes are in short supply then you can enjoy another gameplay element you come across called Remembrance, glitchy fragments of someone else’s actions that you can follow through on, leading to things like a high profile target with important memories that can Nilin later on.

A look at memory remixes

“Remember Me” comes jam packed with plenty of new ideas, jam packed into this incredible world which is that great mix of things that resemble our modern society but at the same time is futuristic and features what science fiction films depict our future being like. Combat, while not featuring ground breaking mechanics, is still a smooth and sleek part of the game and gets even better after leveling up and adding Pressen’s to your attacks. Also being able to freely move throughout your world, climbing buildings and traversing the city of Neo-Paris is a great aspect and one that I enjoy in my games, it gives a certain free element to the game and Neo-Paris is a city that needs to be explored as well. Also the new elements such as Memory Remixes and the Remembrance side quest are so much fun, hacking into the mind off somebody and trying to figure out just the right way to alter their memories provided me with a lot of enjoyment.


Good:

-Memory Remixes and Remembrances are both highly enjoyable

-Combat is sleek and smooth

-Neo-Paris is the classic science fiction city


Bad:

-Combat (while good) is nothing new

-Wish there were more Memory Remixes


Scully Rating: 8.0 out of 10 

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