How do you describe a game like Capcom's Remember Me?
It’s a tech-noir. It’s an action game with a heavy focus on free-running and precision combat. It’s a story with cinematic roots that draws inspiration from dystopian sci-fi flicks. There are robots and mutants and guys who turn invisible and also you can hack into people’s memories and re-arrange them.
It’s crammed full of big ideas. Confident (and for the most part, coherent), yet very eclectic.
After playing the first four hours of the game, I have to agree with my US counterparts that the combat, while not entirely disastrous in execution, grows quickly repetitive. Enemies swarm in clusters, destroying that combo-string you so desperately want to pull off with Arkham City-style fluidity. Cut-scenes interrupt the action too often, making progress through the story slow. The camera, too, can be intrusive.
And yet, I persisted.Remember Me is seductive in the way it swings, even if it misses; in part because its ideas are so lofty; in part because there are just so goddamn many of them. And the world that new studio Dontnod has created – while not the prettiest you’ll see this-gen – feels vibrant, interesting, and most importantly, well, kinda weird.
While Remember Me’s Neo-Paris is recognizably a Philip K. Dick-inspired post-apocalyptic hellhole, its mixture of old European architecture and weathered futuristic technology feels new. Why aren’t more video games set in Paris? It’s a goldmine of moody architecture, and to meander past robots standing stiffly outside 19th century facades is a delight.
The city is shot through with nods to its filmic inspirations. Dontnod has taken many of its cues from Total Recall – one of Remember Me’s characters is unashamedly called ‘Doctor Quaid’ – and has revelled in that movie’s divide between privileged capitalists and those left impoverished and physically mutated by their addictions to weird new modern conveniences. Mutants – in this game called ‘Leapers’ – scurry around, whispering raspy threats under their breath, while the French bourgeois swan about with mechanical slaves carrying their boutique purchases.
A lot of attention to detail has been paid to in-game advertisements (the ‘Sensen’ ad that opens the game evokes Total Recall’s ‘Rekall’ commercial) and the idea that highly advanced technology has become a disposable commodity; shells of forgotten robots line the walls of repair shops like car parts in a similar vein to the ‘mechas’ in A.I: Artificial Intelligence.
It’s a playful world, too. The soundtrack - a highly cinematic orchestral score remixed into glitchy techno beats - treads a fine line between overbearing and ultra-cool, falling into a kind of sensory-overload-inducing middle ground. All the characters we meet have names straight out of late ‘90s MTV; names like ‘Johnny Greentooth’ ‘Bad Request’ and ‘Kid Xmas.’ The latter permeates the world of Neo-Paris with loud commercials for his “hacking channel”, aptly titled ‘Channel Fear.’ The exact shtick of his celebrity is vague, other than he’s a badass who fights people in giant arenas and has a massive fan following in Neo-Paris. He's showy and silly, much like the game itself.
Moreover, there’s Remember Me’s lofty overall concept that a giant corporation wants to control the world by wiping out everyone’s memories, and that a small revolutionary faction – who in a very po-faced manner call themselves ‘Errorists’ – are out to ‘hack’ The Man. While the premise is interesting on the whole, it’s realized with a slightly ludicrous sincerity. Thoughtful quotes can be read across loading screens, while cartoonish NPCs stand in stark contrast to protagonist Nilin, who is voice-acted with an eloquent, somewhat theatrical British clip. Somehow, though, Remember Me gets away with it; its charming and absurd like a sci-fi B-movie.
Dontnod have introduced a couple of other big premises into Remember Me’s world.’ Remembranes,’ ghostly memories of another person, make for an interesting gameplay mechanic; activate someone’s remembrane and they’ll show you your path in a ghostly vision. The hook lies in replicating their exact movements, so it’s important to pay attention in order to not blow Nilin up by a land mine or trip a security camera. ‘Memory remixes’ on the other hand, allow you to play with past encounters that will irrevocably change their outcome.
The latter in particular feels fresh. Playing out like an interactive puzzle, you can rewind and fast-forward a scene and tweak small details in it – the position of a hospital table, the buckle of a wrist strap – and watch the scenario change in real time. It takes time and patience to make enough changes, in the right order, to manipulate the memory correctly, but it’s a fascinating - and unnervingly empowering - process.
These are fun, unique mechanics, and make a welcome relief from the combat, which seems to be the focus of Remember Me, at least if the game’s marketing is telling us anything. But it’s with these concepts, and this ambitious world, that Remember Me shines. It has all the makings of a title that could end up beloved by a die-hard clutch of fans that love it for its eccentricity, a cult hit rather than a mainstream blockbuster. Certainly, from the first four hours it’s clear that it’s not hitting all its balls out of the park, that some might find it overstuffed and scattershot in its approach. But when Remember Me does connect, it’s really quite something.
Lucy O'Brien is Assistant Editor at IGN AU. Follow her ramblings on IGN at Luce_IGN_AU,or @Luceobrien on Twitter. And hey, why not follow the whole Aussie team on Facebook while you're at it?
Source : ign[dot]com
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