Review: Remember Me

Remember Me is a game about the world having the worst case of amnesia. In the future, mankind has created a way for people to store and contain memories that they either don’t want to have or want to keep forever. It’s called the H3O network, and everyone is tapped into it via their mind implants called the sensen.

If this sounds remotely familiar to some degree, that’s because you’re dead on. Remember Me borrows the digitized world from Watch Dogs, the neural technology interface system from H3 the Digital Series, sprinkled with a dash of human ethics issues from the Metal Gear Solid universe, and the Matrix from the Matrix.

Mostly unoriginal story aside, the game has an otherwise great concept. Tap into people’s minds and manipulate their memories to your will. Sound neat? GUESS WHAT IT’S NOT. Even though this is THE MAIN MECHANIC OF THE GAME and IT’S ON THE FUCKING BOX, you perform this ability a total of six times (and two of those times are debatable). The control system for changing people’s memories is absolute trash. Worst off, it’s arguably the most buggy part of the entire game! This is the sole point of this game, and it controls like flaming ass!

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Turns out everything is the left stick. Selection, pausing, rewinding, stopping. Yep, everything. Also you need to be EXTREMELY precise with timing in memories!

While that’s a bit of a downer, maybe the rest of the package can pull it together? The graphics are drop dead gorgeous. The art style, level geometry, lighting and design tone really bring the piece together. I was quite amazed at the fact there was extremely minimal asset re-usage.

It's like modern day Assassin's Creed!If anything, I must mention the soundtrack for Remember Me, because dear god the music is WONDERFUL. Normally I hate the usage of dubstep in anything, but this is an exception, one I do not make lightly.

The mix of electronic, dubstep and orchestral just works out so well for this game. Words cannot describe how much I enjoyed the musical masterpiece found in Remember Me.

Remember Me rips off a lot of the implementations of game mechanics from other successful games, the biggest being the platforming from Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed. It’s recreated rather well when the engine wants to work. Yet, I consistently ran into problems with the engine forgetting how to climb up onto ledges or not displaying the waypoint interaction marker, leaving the player stuck for ten minutes waiting for the game to catch up.

Combat in this game is a bit floppy and it’s obvious that the developers wanted to implement a system that would rival the ones found in the latest Batman titles by Rocksteady. To subvert comparisons between the two games, Remember Me introduces a combo system where you design what each predetermined button sequence accomplishes.

Get used to looking at that bottom bar now.
Get used to looking at that bottom bar now.

Neat idea, but the developers failed to see that NO ONE LIKES PAUSING IN THE MIDDLE OF COMBAT. In addition, I would assume that PEOPLE DON’T REMAPPING THEIR BUTTONS DURING EVERY BATTLE.

Sure, it’s just a predetermined button sequence, but the method of changing what each button does is really just control configuration mixed with inventory management.

And most of the time, you will be paying attention to the bottom of the screen at all times in order to see what combo the game is thinking you are about to do, since sometimes it gets stuck. Because of this, combat gets extremely monotonous later on in the game, even more so with the addition of cooldown timers for the specific enemies that require special moves to defeat.

But that sounds like it could be mastered, right? Not if the game allows them to teleport around the screen and throws several of them at you at once! Oh and the cooldown is 140 seconds on average (and you can’t hit these guys without taking damage cause they are on fire).

Hope you like waiting it out.

Just doing what you asked lady.
Okay!

Verdict: PASS

Review: Metro Last Light

Metro: Last Light is the sequel to 2010’s Metro 2033, a survival horror game that I wasn’t too fond of. Yet, despite not liking the first game, I decided to give Last Light a chance and to be honest, I’m really glad I did. Metro Last Light puts you in the position of a man named Artyom, a Russian man who almost everyone seems to know by name. The year is 2034 and basically everyone fucked up and launched nukes at each other because that’s the best way to solve problems, right?

Turns out that makes everything worse, and what’s left of humanity is forced to go into hiding underground in the Russian metro system. The surface is extremely contaminated, because one nuke won’t cleanse the sin of butthurt, millions of nukes were launched. Since these atomic missiles tend to be well, atomic, the surface is heavily irradiated, leaving everything horribly mutated and hating your guts. Great job, diplomacy!

Still hanging on to the old ways.
Still hanging on to the old ways.

The developers paid close attention to drowning the player in delicious immersion. Let it be known that any other time you’ve ever felt attached to the story or characters, Last Light takes that experience and smashes it into the pavement.

I was honestly surprised, I went into the game with the standard “meh, this game is probably not that great and it’s just overhyped” but I found myself unable to keep up that attitude.

I was trying to avoid battles, listening intently to side conversations, exploring every nook and cranny, panicking when monsters started to get close by, slowly creeping around and taking out Nazis (oh also, Nazis magically survived the apocalypse, it was probably explained in the last game better) by shaking them in the face rather than shooting them.

It’s way more stealthy than Dishonored, which is surprising considering that Dishonored is a game based on stealth (and is hard as hell to actually do). And when you do manage to screw up the stealth, the combat isn’t that bad (it is a huge improvement over 2033’s). Bullets are rare, and when you run out, legitimate fear sets in. This is a game that has a realistic melee attack (in which it’s not an instant kill and has a believable range), which is dreadful when you have to fallback on it.

Even with its delicious atmosphere, I actually found myself hitting the “Oh I haven’t seen [INSERT CHARACTER NAME HERE] in awhile, I wonder where they are,” and then shortly afterward you’ll be catching up with them. Normally when games do this, there’s this sort of unreal aspect to it, like “if they were going to get here before me, why didn’t they just give me a fucking ride to the destination?”

Amazingly, Metro manages to subvert the NPCs can travel at the speed of light to a destination through various means, but the most important thing to take away from it is that the story doesn’t leave a billion plot holes everywhere and then try to tie things up at the very end.

Even the tragic post-apocalyptic surface is amazing
Even the tragic post-apocalyptic surface is amazing

The biggest problems I have are actually just things I would have liked to see implemented, such as subtitles on minor character dialogue that still is related to the story. In one instance, the game fails to put subtitles on a scene where a couple bandits were setting up a trap, and unless you were listening super closely, you totally would have missed it.

Overall, the graphics are beautiful, the soundscape is fantastic and the atmosphere is quite wonderful. However, whoever was in charge of the sound the grass makes in the game, fuck you buddy. It sounds like a million monsters breathing down your neck and it is the most horrifying, spine chilling thing to hear when the sound kicks in.

All in all, Last Light is one of the best I’ve played in awhile.

Verdict: BUY