Remember Me Review - Sadly Forgettable

[Zhukov]

I don't understand why so many people are writing the game off, I would rather experience it for myself then listen to someone else say whether its good or bad, but meh.

Because experiencing it for myself will cost $50 and eight hours.

Unless you're about to buy me a copy...

 

[Chrono212]

I played the a demo of Remember Me at London Comic Con and I noticed three things:
1. Camera was clunky
2. Exploration was non-existent
3. I freaking loved Neo-Paris!

It's a shame that the game turns out to be so short.
And although I felt it would be rail road-like from fight to fight, I'd hoped there'd be small 'hub' levels that would be open to a little exploration.

I didn't expect this to be Bladerunner with memories but that the obvious traps (repeatative combat, unrealised memory features) were fallen into is such a shame.

A rent is certainly still going to happen though.

 

[mohit9206]

I think am still going to rent it or buy used.

 

[Dragonbums]

The thing that will be upsetting about this game is that everyone will criticize it for the plot, yet the suits in the game industry will twist it and say it failed because it had a female protagonist.
This is coupled by the fact that there was hardly any advertising for it.
Seriously, how many people would've known about this game if it wasn't for the controversy around the dev team almost being forced to change the gender of the main protagonist? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong sites, but I haven't seen so much as a flash advertisement for it. Heck, even I didn't know the name of the game until I had to look up the controversy behind the gender of the protagonist.

On that it's a shame really. I really REALLY like the design of the protagonist. Props to the design team for that.

 

[Dragonbums]

Also, something to think about, do you guys think that it's short and uninteresting because they didn't get a big budget for leaving the protagonist as female?
I know some Escapist critics have stated, or quoted that game publishers aren't willing to sink nearly as much money into games that feature women as the main characters as their counterparts.

 

[Silly Hats]

Steam sales seem to be the way to go. I'm kind of interested still, i'd rather have a short and okay story rather than a tedious boring one.

 

[Vault Citizen]

I just hope that if this game doesn't do well it isn't used as an excuse not to have female leads in games.

 

[Eternal_Lament]

I can't really say this is a shame or that I'm disappointed, since I didn't really have high hopes for it. Before I even saw or heard of any of the gameplay features, the only news I heard was that the developers were fighting to keep the protagonist female, and more of an everyday type as well instead of a fantasy one. This had me worried, in so much as this large focus on this aspect made me wonder if the game had anything gameplay wise to offer, or if it was trying to distract us with the nature of the protagonist in this industry.

Once gameplay actually came out, everything I saw came with a "...but" The environments looked great and would look great to explore...but how free is the platforming? The memory hacking looks like an interesting diversion/gameplay mechanic that can help pacing...but how will this game make me feel like this is a new mechanic? The combat looks like it could offer some interesting play-styles...but how free is the combat actually?

One last thing before I go; I'm not sure people will chalk this up to "The game failed because of a female protagonist", and I say that because this game coming out so soon to The Last of Us will probably just serve to be that excuse of "The game failed because the publisher was dumb enough to compete with a much more high-profile game" If the female protagonist aspect plays any part, I think it would be "Instead of talking about how good your game is because it has a female protagonist, just focus on making a good game that happens to have a female protagonist"

 

[Araksardet]

Great. Yet another game with other problems that will be spouted out as "proof" that female protagonists don't work. Thanks, Dontnod. Though at least they're trying; sadly, publishers and dudebros won't see it that way.

 

[Sabrestar]

This makes me feel like when Pandora tosses me a song that I hate from a band that I love. I don't want to up-vote it, because I don't like the song and don't want to keep hearing it. But I want to hear more from the band on my station, so I want to up-vote it somehow. I just want to "like" part of it, not all of it.

Perhaps I'll play through a few other games in my queue and then pick it up a bit later.

 

[92Sierra]

It sounds to me like the game's only real flaw is that it is an easy game: The combat is easy to spam, the platforming mechanics points its way through the realistic environments...

The only real flaw that is not mechanic based, according to the review, is that the world and story is interesting but you cannot explore more of it. This seems to be a flaw in genre choosing rather than anything else. The only game genre that does allow for free exploration of the world are sandbox and rpg games. Considering that this game has already done so much with the actually having a good story and voice acting I am not going to fault it for being too short and not giving you the freedom of Fallout and GTA and being too easy.

 

[Ferisar]

I don't understand why so many people are writing the game off, I would rather experience it for myself then listen to someone else say whether its good or bad, but meh.

Because experiencing it for myself will cost $50 and eight hours.

Unless you're about to buy me a copy...

Hey! Rent rent rent!

As someone in the facebook comment section had said, you may as well rent this one considering how short the game is. It'll just end up being a good deal assuming you think you can sit through it.

OT:
Meh. I'm still going to try it at some point, just won't be an instant "OMGMUSTHAVENOW". At least it wasn't godawful.

 

[Slycne]

Also, something to think about, do you guys think that it's short and uninteresting because they didn't get a big budget for leaving the protagonist as female?
I know some Escapist critics have stated, or quoted that game publishers aren't willing to sink nearly as much money into games that feature women as the main characters as their counterparts.

I suspect it had more to do with other aspects of the game's development. It was original a game called Adrift, a game focused on world flooding caused by global warming, and was going to be a PS3 exclusive. That fell through at some point and then memory became the central premise along with Capcom picking up the IP. Even on top of that, the early preview and walkthrough footage made it look to be a much more open world game in development, but I think the devs might have been pressed to finally just get something out there after the game had been in development for 5 years.

 

[Midniqht]

What a shame - this actually looked pretty neat at PAX East and I'm surprised they didn't bring it together the way it should have been. I'll wait for a sale or rental to play it - add it to the pile of games I intend on getting to this summer.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

The problem I can see is that any failure of this game will be trumpeted by some as a failure due to playing a female protagonist.

The problem I can see here is that it was REALLY over-hyped for some reason.

Anyone going into a game with such expectations is bound to be let down : /

That's the problem, everything I saw on the game was just a group of articles and videos that talked about the whole the publisher wanted to force the developers to make the protagonist male debacle, with only very small bits on what the game was about.

So basically, I feel all the hype was based around the fact the protagonist is female.

People think, "interesting premise plus finally getting another female protagonist that looks reasonable, it must be an amazing game."

In a way, yes the protagonist being female plays a part in the failure, but not by point that the protagonist being female was bad, just that the fact that her being female created so much hype that many people ignored all the other important points on what makes a good game. Justin mentioned that a key problem was the game play. Of course, that is one of the most important parts of any proper game.

 

[Little Duck]

I recon I'll pick it up. It looks really fun and yeah the features may not be developed but you know what? I've haven't seen a game with this many unique mechanics in it for a while. And hey, none of them are bad. It still sounds like a good consistent game and that's more than can be said for a lot of games.

 

[josemlopes]

The problem I can see is that any failure of this game will be trumpeted by some as a failure due to playing a female protagonist.

The problem I can see here is that it was REALLY over-hyped for some reason.

Anyone going into a game with such expectations is bound to be let down : /

That's the problem, everything I saw on the game was just a group of articles and videos that talked about the whole the publisher wanted to force the developers to make the protagonist male debacle, with only very small bits on what the game was about.

So basically, I feel all the hype was based around the fact the protagonist is female.

People think, "interesting premise plus finally getting another female protagonist that looks reasonable, it must be an amazing game."

In a way, yes the protagonist being female plays a part in the failure, but not by point that the protagonist being female was bad, just that the fact that her being female created so much hype that many people ignored all the other important points on what makes a good game. Justin mentioned that a key problem was the game play. Of course, that is one of the most important parts of any proper game.

Yeah, basicly now the game is tagged as "disapointing" because it just isnt as good as everyone was thinking it would be (just because it has a female protagonist doesnt instantly make a game good and everyone including the marketing and the consumers forgot that regarding to this game), and "disapointing" is a worse tag then "ok game", games like Wet and Velvet Assassin hold the "ok game" tag nicely.

If anyone is to blame its the marketing for putting so much emphasis on "We have a female protagonist" and the media for claiming it to be enough for a good game.

 

[1337mokro]

I'm still gonna take the leap. The reviews says it's average in the stars and disappointing in the text. The fact it's disappointing to the reviewer is not really an indication of quality but if it met their expectations. It could be allot worse than that, the game disappointing, it didn't insult. Maybe I will find something to enjoy in it. My opinion of games doesn't always align with reviews so I might really like this game.

GMG is still selling it relatively cheap so "Why Not?" at 8 hours it is perfect to fit in between my lectures.

If it sucks hard I can always use trusty mister Alcohol to wipe my memory.

 

[WanderingFool]

I don't understand the logic in the story.

If a sen-sen can get hacked, why did everyone adopt it in the first place? Memory changing? Drugs and alcohol do that just fine, why does that warrant an expensive surgery? Hell, even people in Ghost in the Shell didn't all get cyber brains.

Yeah, seriously. There has to a liberal amount of stupid being peppered through this setting for that to seem like an acceptable risk.

As a side note, every time I hear someone say some futuristic city name like "Neo-Paris" I immediately think of the robotic ghost of Christmas future from Aqua Teen and "Robo-France 29 in the year 9595." Might as well get him to narrate it too.

Probably would have made the game more memorable...

 

[shrekfan246]

So 7/10's aren't worth peoples' time anymore?

I get that being "middle of the road" is more boring than being Portal levels of awesome or Deadly Premonition levels of weirdly budgeted, but if nothing about the game is outright bad aside from the fact that it might be repetitive (which all games are, even if some of them do slightly better jobs of masking it than others), then what's so hard to recommend? Everyone's getting all crestfallen because it's an interesting premise with an average execution? Buy/rent it yourself, maybe you'll love it, you don't know.

Anyway, I'll probably still check it out when I've got more space on my hard drive. Crushing linearity and repetitive combat don't really bother me; I liked Space Marine and I've been really enjoying Of Orcs and Men.