Remember Me Review - Sadly Forgettable

[Rednog]

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.

Err, it's a 6/10; 3 out of 5 stars doesn't end up being 7/10.
And considering the trend that gaming scores have been on for quite a while (I usually view it like a grading school system) a 6/10 is usually a sign of this isn't worth your time and falls below par.

 

[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.

Err, it's a 6/10; 3 out of 5 stars doesn't end up being 7/10.
And considering the trend that gaming scores have been on for quite a while (I usually view it like a grading school system) a 6/10 is usually a sign of this isn't worth your time and falls below par.

I was going by the average, not the specific Escapist review. Because, you know, I don't use one singular opinion to shape my own opinion on something I haven't tried.

And the trend for gaming scores is, if you'll pardon my language, fucking stupid. There's no reason people should only buy games in the top three scoring ranges, and that's why it's shifted so high in the first place. Every game scores between 7-9 these days unless it's Aliens: Colonial Marines levels of bad, because it's the only way people won't write them off immediately as not being worth it, and now people have started writing off 7's as well. Fantastic.

Unless it makes huge stumbles by making the combat tedious a la Dragon Age II with wave-spawning, at eight hours it shouldn't be long enough that it outstays its welcome. Though I guess I'm also one of the few people who doesn't immediately think something sucks if it doesn't let you explore.

 

[loa]

Why create this intricate settings if all you do is beat up dudes in yet another power fantasy?
How does a great ability in memory manipulation also entail a great ability in physical combat??
This could've been another psychonauts but alas...

 

[LAGG]

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.

The plot seems nice actually, the character too, and the the setting seems awesome.
Only the game seems very boring.

 

[kakeroo]

"i am the hunter, why am i being hunted?"

- because there's always a bigger fish

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Warframe has been taking up my time since it was released on steam not to long ago. It's averaging 7/10

It's clunky. It's a beta. Nothing really was explained. I had to suss a lot out via the wiki. The power system is hard to use (you have no idea if you're near enough to use a power, or why if the cursor is on a foe it will say 'invalid target')

But I love it. Great views, it gets closer to giving me the freedom of being a Super Space Ninja with powers. It is good.

 

[Wolfram23]

I find it slightly irksome that Batman: AA gets the credit for smooth flowing combat. My first memory of that sort of super smooth, context sensitive type combat was back in 2004, PoP: Warrior Within. Not sure about Sands of Time in 03, as I didn't play that. There's probably other contenders too, but at the least it was around 5 years before Batman.

 

[maninahat]

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.

Me too - having followed this one for a while, worrying this would end up sucking. It just adds to the pile of naff female protagonist games that has been steadily accumulating over the years (Velvet Assassin, Wet, Hydrophobia etc.), which feels extra damaging when there are so few female led games to begin with.

What I think might be happening is that ambitious, but unimaginative devs feel the need to address the issue of there being not enough female protagonists, but don't really know how to do so beyond making bland 20-something action girls. At least when game designers restrict themselves to males, they realise you have to do something original to make their protagonist different from the standard, gruff space marines. If you aren't imaginative enough to make anything beyond a !strong !independant !female, you probably aren't going to much else right either.

 

[axlryder]

I thought this looked painfully mediocre from the moment I first saw anything about it. Too bad, as the environment design did impress me. Seems like a waste.

At least now game developers will realize that you just CAN'T have female leads in games.

 

[Random Argument Man]

AH! That title!

It's sad that it's a forgettable game. I foresee that Capcom will use its excuse "Female leads don't sell video games" to justify the sales if they're poor. It's never "We made a bad game".

Aaahhh...sad.

 

[SecondPrize]

How's the combat if you don't cheese it with the combo system?

 

[Gearhead mk2]

I still might buy this, if only to say "screw you" to those execs that insist games led by girls don't sell.

 

[Woodsey]

The first demo was Arkham-style fighting, some extremely linear platforming and a helicopter gunship chase. And terrible writing and acting. I never really understood what anyone was excited by.

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.

Probably because it looks dull and uninteresting and it is now being described as dull and uninteresting. Shocking that people wouldn't then want to spend money on it.

 

[idarkphoenixi]

I felt bad for how hard they had to work just to have a female protagonist but the moment I saw the gameplay I had a feeling I wasn't going to want to buy it for myself.

 

[MattAn24]

AH! That title!

It's sad that it's a forgettable game. I foresee that Capcom will use its excuse "Female leads don't sell video games" to justify the sales if they're poor. It's never "We made a bad game".

Aaahhh...sad.

Capcom didn't make it. DONTNOD did. Capcom merely published it when countless other publishers literally refused because it had a female lead character, and supposedly those don't sell.

Don't care, preordered on Steam because fuck what society and reviewers think.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

Not surprised.

Looking at the trailers the devs didn't seem to know exactly what direction to take this game with, the game didn't know what it wanted to be or what it was supposed to be. Sure it had to be about memories but I got the feeling that they weren't sure how to build a GAME around memories. A story maybe, but how the hell do you base gameplay JUST off of memories? I think we learned the answer to that: you don't.

 

[dpixie]

Shame it's not the OMG! AMAZING!! game I wanted it to be. Might still pick it one the price comes down as the story still sounds intriguing.

 

[Norix596]

Aww that's disappointing-I had been keeping an eye on this. Guess I'll wait for the price to go down on Steam see how cheap it can get before I get it.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I can't say I'm surprised. I went over the story recap the game's official site offers, and the collapse of the European Union seems to happen out of nowhere. As soon as Cartier-Wells leaves San Francisco, all considerations about a world extending outside of Europe are abandoned. Similarly, Cartier-Wells' son is naive enough to fall for the usual trope of thinking that his marketed device is hack-proof.

Then, big shock, Antoine finds out how to jailbreak Sensen implants to alter stored memories. The public opinion barely seems to change, following this. The story tackles some big ideas, but some of the twists and turns that are taken are just plainly stupid.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

but neither does it come together as something truly great either.

(Emphasis mine.)

Seriously, why do people keep doing this? Try reading it out loud; isn't it obvious that you should be using one or the other, not both?