GAME REVIEW: Remixing minds and making mayhem in Remember Me

Coming out at just the tail end of this generation of consoles, Remember Me is one of those rare gambles you’ll see in triple-A videogames. It’s a fresh new intellectual property following in the wake of several of the most successful franchises of this generation winding down, developed by a new studio featuring a female protagonist and bereft of an aggressive post-launch DLC strategy.

 

All that being said, Remember Me is a largely competent and straightforward game that ends all too soon. And while you might forget some of its rather ‘basic’ systems as an action adventure game, what you’ll definitely remember is its stellar art direction, sophisticated musical score and compelling premise of a futuristic Parisian society addicted to social media.

 

Social media: digital commodification
 

That’s right, the crux of Remember Me’s backstory is that memories have become digitized commodities shared by everyone. Every pleasure and thrill, sorrow and regret is filtered through Sensen technology that converts them into data that can be shared. 

 

Remember when you and a friend hit ‘like’ on the same cat video, and shared a mutual laugh? It’s like that.

 

It’s unfortunate that much of this backstory, which is a heady mix of present day social media critique and existential neurosis, exists apart from the game’s main narrative. Instead you’ll find it detailed in the in-game encyclopedia (which is filled up by acquiring in-game collectibles called ‘mnesist memories’) and the online multimedia presentation known as Antoine’s Journal that chronicles the creation of this ‘killer app.

Hunting memories
 

The real focus is on the story of Nilin, an amnesiac memory hunter on a journey to reclaim her memories. While she doesn’t have the inscrutability of a Rockstar Games protagonist or the detailed backstory of a Bioware companion, she is remarkable as one of few playable female characters who isn’t dressed for the visual entertainment of a hot blooded twenty something male. 

 

Nilin is a physically fit multi-racial heroine clad in ultra-skinny jeans, defined by her moxie and resolve. Kezia Burrows’ vocal performance as Nilin is superb: unashamed to feel fear, yet strong in the face of uncertainty. As her, you’ll punch and kick your way through corporate security goons, robotic sentries and memory mutants, while learning more about the tragic history of the Memorize Corporation, which created the Sensen technology. 

 

Recent action games have been inspired by the pioneering rhythm-based combat of Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Remember Me is no different.

Combat is all about the timing and chaining of combos, but Remember Me stands apart with a rather involved ‘combo lab.’ The lab lets you mix and match different moves called ‘pressens,’ which imbue your strikes with effects like increased damage, replenished health and reduced cool downs for spell-like ‘S-Presssens.’ 

 

However, once you acquire a certain level of dexterity with Remember Me’s combat, there isn’t really incentive to master more than the most basic of combos. That’s because the results you can get from combos far exceed anything the game can throw at you, and serve to prolong any fights that may have started poorly. The only real difficulty you’ll face is the occasional unresponsiveness on Nilin’s part and a camera that frequently needs correcting. 

 

 

Spectacular boss fights require you to do little more than chain enough hits to begin finishing them off with a scripted quick-time event, but the combination of awe-inspiring choreography and visually engaging enemy design make these a joy to behold even when you’re distracted by the act of playing the game.

 

There’s also a fair amount of platforming sequences and puzzle rooms. In between fights you’ll slide down drainpipes, unlock doors, shimmy across ledges, activate floodlights and leap across rooftops. None of this makes for any intellectually engaging fodder, but it does help to break the rhythm and give your fingers a rest from the combo mashing. 

Memory remixes
 

The most inspired (and well-reported) bit of Remember Me are the memory remixes. These are scenes in which Nilin dives into someone’s memories in an attempt to influence their state of mind. You’ll rewind back and forth throughout a scene making tiny adjustments to the memory that can cause a butterfly effect on how the memory plays out.

 

None of these remixes are terribly difficult, but they do tie into some of the more emotionally impactful points in the game’s story. They also flesh out some of the characters in ways that just wouldn’t be possible in a more conventional narrative. That these highly emotive scenes are handled so deftly, makes it unfortunate that there are only four of them across the entire game.

 

Remember Me works best when you surrender yourself to it: Overlook the foibles in the combat and you’ll find a lot of pleasure in the fluidity of Nilin’s movements. Revel in the stunning environmental design, and you might not mind being led on rails all the time. Even the narrative, which is undermined by the occasional plot hole, works mostly because Nilin is a compelling protagonist.

 

Conclusion
 

Simply put, Remember Me looks and sounds great. Fantastic art direction governs everything from the fashion of Neo-Paris’ residents to the graphic design of augmented reality overlays. Additionally, a fantastic score makes skillful use of electronic distortion and traditional orchestral elements. The result is a sound that evokes the symphonic ambitions of Daft Punk’s score for Tron: Legacy but with a richer and finer texture.

 

When you do choose to give yourself over to Remember Me, you’ll find a very poignant story that evokes more than just the speculative vibe of cyberpunk, but its emotive core as well. At its heart, Remember Me is a story of personal pain and its consequences, as well as the value in self-forgiveness. As such, it echoes the melancholy of A Scanner Darkly as much as it does the postmodernity of We Can Remember It For You, Wholesale?

 

So while Remember Me relies heavily on some basic design tropes and stumbles in matters of mechanical depth, its intriguing world and appealing heroine make it an adventure that’s difficult to forget. — TJD, GMA News