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 (This is why we don't let Freddy Krueger develop photos)
CLASSIC GAMING
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream
Developer: The Dreamers Guild
Publisher: Cyberdreams
Genre: Point-click Adventure
Year: 1995
System: PC
Now and again there comes the argument for the idea that videogames can be art or at the very least as deep and involving as the greatest novels or movies.
The medium of videogames, while in its censorship period like any other medium such as music or movies have had at some point in history, still has the potential to prove videogames can be as culturally significant as movies. And this game is a wonderful but underrated example of such.
Story - Based on Harlan Ellison's short story of the same name, it begins 109 years in the future where mankind has been all but eliminated by an insane supercomputer created to oversee global wars too complex for man to handle, known as Allied Mastercomputer, or AM. He has before him five various people to keep himself amused with to keep alive and young to torture in semi-real nightmarish worlds tapping into each of their own fears. The cast includes:
Gorrister, a suicidal truck-driver wracked with guilt for causing his wife to go insane.
Ellen, the only woman of the group and an electric engineer with a deep fear of the colour yellow.
Ted, a rich trickster prep with bouts of severe paranoia despite the fact he's the living model of Barbie's Ken (well looks like him).
Benny, a disgraced military commander turned into a crippled apeman.
And finally Nimdok, one of Doctor Mengele's closest assistants in Auschwitz. All five of them must traverse and conquer their own fear-ridden landscapes, overcome their personal sins or fears ranging from genocide to rape to suicide and, at the very best, confront AM.
 (4001: This Odyssey Will Never Fucking End)
Graphics - Point-click adventures rely on one thing important with their graphics. Detail. Because you have to be able to see what's clickable and what isn't by the off-colour of what should be an obvious thing to click on and progress the game, and what is merely just background. So with that in mind, I would like to complain the fact that some areas are rather dark, and, especially in Ellen's chapter, you tend to miss over stuff to interact with due to the visual dark atmosphere.
In contrast to that, the characters are well-drawn in the sense they actually do look like humans even outside of cutscenes during normal play (unlike say, The DIG where everyone looked like apemen) and the environments are all wonderfully different to give each chapter its own feel such as Ellen's pyramid, Gorrister's zeppelin or Benny's caves.
This is also a game that has quite a few violent or implied violent parts within, and when those happen...well it gets pretty nasty. One particular part to note was using a knife on a certain character which, while is not something you should do, was definitely pretty damn graphic for 1995 in being stabbed in the back with a fucking big-ass knife (I mean seriously it looked like Pyramid Head's butter knife) and cutting the heart open FROM THE BACK...even if it's implied by shadow.
Then again there is also an implied rape scene, which again is nasty for back then.
Gameplay - Most point-click adventure games are very linear, they have the one path, the one ending (or MAYBE two slightly different endings not counting the many death endings which is kind of frowned upon to have in these sort of games but if people love King's Quest enough, anyways I digress) and usually the one character. I Have No Mouth does away with this mostly. You can start with any of the five characters in any order you want, each of them having their own objective and various ways to fail their chapter with only one true ending which upsets AM and is therefore the good ending. But there is one small problem.
 (Anyone remember the Talking Heads? No? Okay screw this joke)
The spiritual barometer. Various actions in the chapter have a good or a bad effect on your character which is signified by their portrait on the bottom left smiling or turning horrified, accompanied by an appropriate sudden burst of music and the colour around the portrait brightening or darkening. Black is the absolute worst colour and the one you always start with. As you do good acts the colour turns a brighter green with white at the utmost pinnacle.
It's actually a very complicated game to do right since there are only two endings truly to the game, the bad ending and the good ending. The bad ending anyone can get no matter how well or bad you did and is actually a rather cool ending and perhaps I daresay the true ending. The good ending is a goddamn fucking chore to do and to be honest, other than the sense of personal achievement, is not that much better than the bad ending.
 (....no. No I am not going to joke about this one)
The thing is, the good ending is VERY difficult to get. It involves a lot of trial and error which is where the replayability comes in, in having to learn your mistakes again and again finding the best way to get through all the chapters before the final one (after finishing all of the five characters' that is) with a high enough spiritual barometer level for EACH of them (and we're talking real bright green here) as well as getting the true ending for each of them (it helps believe me) and THEN dealing with the mixed up last chapter.
It is going to be a game you may play again and again just for your own sake of pride.
Also, if you ever get stuck the game does give you a Psych Profile, a blue book everyone has that gives you a hint to continue on. However, because this is admitting weakness, this actually makes your spiritual barometer go worse. Yes this game is a fucking tease, which is pretty much what AM does throughout the whole game anyway.
And that's what makes it awesome, not many point-click games demand this much effort in your mistakes to be learnt then rectified the next time you play. Thankfully you can save but I recommend never to open the menu when selecting characters. When I did that, I think AM became really scary in deleting my save files with some Psycho Mantis shit. Or maybe it was just the one time glitch but just a warning.
 (This is like my fourth Captain Planet joke right? This is way too easy)
Music/Sound - The music carries a mainly sombre atmosphere in a state of oppression, fear and sadness, fitting each of the chapters' feel. Ted's has the lighthearted medieval eerieness of confusion, Benny has the tribal almost retarded drumpace of shame, Gorrister's (my personal fave chapter) has a soulful atmosphere of sorrow, Ellen's brings an aura of fear and anxiety, with Nimdok's lastly having a more militaristic feel of oppression. The music really helps in bringing you deeper into the various worlds of each character.
 (....goddamnit I can't joke about this guy, sorry)
The voice acting is also commendable, an impressive amount of effort has been made into it to give the characters as much emotion as their personalities can give, with my favourite being Ellen's high-strung proud but frightened voice, as well as Gorrister's emulation of a suicidal Clint Eastwood.
But the true winner of voice acting in this is the writer himself, Harlan Ellison, as the psychotic supercomputer himself, AM. Easily having a personality on par with GLaDOS or SHODAN, Ellison's AM is one of an almost childish insanity in the way he plays with his subjects torturing them with vile recollections or tempting them with hollow soothing tones. You have to admit, anyone able to throw themselves into this sort of project with such passion HAS to be given applause, especially in videogames.
So I say again, videogames do have the potential to be culturally significant to history. Admittedly not many games have ever had this kind of amazing treatment to be inspired from a book and be twisted around enough to be playable but not enough to lose the true message of the novel. And for that we should applaud the creators of I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream as well as Harlan Ellison standing alongside every part of the project to make sure it stayed true to his ideas.
This is a level of dedication and thinking and twisted depth that really I've never seen since Silent Hill 2 or BioShock. And they are freaking masterpieces story-wise. Just like this one.
Fun and Innovation - 5
Replayability - 4
Gameplay - 4
Presentation - 5"Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto  Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Rank: Fecal Impaction For the Win!
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Downloading now. Safety + Peace
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Rank: You're gonna stick that where?
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Got a link to the download?..i wouldnt mind trying this game out ..is it free? it doesn't change the fact that most people think Jews are much like the Ferengi of Star Trek. More interested in acquiring "profits" than anything else. -Erkdog
Shut the fuck up Frostbite, I know what i am doing i been playing TF2 for 8 fucking years i know how to run my damn servers-Erkdog
More pearls from Erkdog
I say we let him back on the forums.
lol epic
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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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I bought it off eBay for $108. As a huge point-and-click fan, I have never regretted it. "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Rank: Fecal Impaction For the Win!
Groups: {pDs} Member, Registered User, Server Admin
Joined: 1/1/2008
Posts: 1,640
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Location: Bainbridge Island, WA
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I obtained it via other methods. But I get an error when I try to run it after install. Something about memory pool. Safety + Peace
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Rank: Taco Technician
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I'm digging the title, I might just read the short story though
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