While a pretty decent game all around, the whole picture turns out to be a lot less than the parts it's cobbled of.

User Rating: 6.5 | Remember Me PC
Remember Me isn't bad. But its title is one of the most ironic ones ever conceived, given how all this game does is constantly remind me of all the other games it blatantly imitates. Now, videogames, like any other art form, is not the place to look for total, complete originality. In a way, Call of Duty remains a Doom clone. But the real quirk is in how this great influences somehow don't make this the great game it should be.

For starters, you have Nilin, a heroine with amnesia (yet again) which is actually a decent lead character, if only she weren't trying so hard to be a mix between Faith Connors and Nathan Drake. Not only is she a member of a resistance in a not-so-grim dystopia, she also seems to have a knack to breeze through ledges, pipes and all the typical acrobatics hijinks Uncharted did. So that's one influence.

But it's ok. Nilin remains interesting, if a bit irregularly voice acted, and seems to be legitimately conflicted about what has happened to her. She is contacted by the resistance movement which, for once, have a rather original name, the Errorists. They seek to overthrow the dominance established by the Memorize corporation through its Sensen device, an implant that allows users to remember or forget things at will, ability that is slowly sinking the world into an hedonistic cloud of decay.

See, the issue here is that, while you can somewhat understand why the Errorists want to end Sensen, the motivations Nilin has are obscure at best, which is why it is rather unseemly that she goes around infiltrating all this places and stealing memories simply because a mysterious voice that tells her "I'm the good guy" says so. Well, maybe is the price to pay for having your memory wiped...

Of course during these infiltrations and memory stealing, there is combat. Remember Me manages to have glimpses of true genius from time to time (which I will continue to highlight) but for some reason, those glimpses are always marred by bizarre design choices or what would look like laziness or haste (I do understand this is a game that fought for its financing, but given the state of polish most things are, is jarring to find such blemishes, which I will, of course, explain). For instance, the combat system has this very, very interesting feature called the Combo Lab, which lets you craft your combos (yay!). However, you can only craft 4 combinations: the 3 hit basic, two 6 hit medium and long 8 hit (boo...). While these combinations can all be any arrangement of X or Y buttons (yay!) there is a limitation that adds a puzzle element to the crafting and that is the Pressen system. Four different types of Pressens give different types of bonus, like healing, extra damage, cooldown reduction and a booster. All good so far, but the Pressens are unlocked by performing certain tasks, and if you fail to do them, you can end the game without being able to unlock all the Pressens. But it doesn't really matter, because a good 8 hit combo can pretty much knock off any enemy, which makes the touted 50,000 possible Pressen combinations redundant (boo...)

Nilin's Sensen can gain access during the game to some ranged devices, like the Spammer (semi-automatic pistol) and Jammer (shotgun), but given the emphasis in hand-to-hand combat, they are there mostly for puzzles. There's also a kinesis device, lifted directly from Dead Space, and a virtual lockpick that drains power from one lock to put it in the other, making it one of the most underestimated puzzle elements in the game.

One of the most publicized concepts is that of Memory Remixing, the ability of altering the memories of key characters to change their outlook on things. While I understand that the way it was implemented intended for a methodical approach, I can't help but wonder why it feels so blunt. The concept is brilliant in its genesis, but the implementation is the current equivalent to a trial-and-error, match-the-cues puzzle. It is dramatic in its significance, but you can find yourself remixing the same memory more than once, serving a great purpose story-wise, but doing a great disservice concept-wise.

Still, the game looks great. Powered by Unreal Engine 3, the level design is functional. However, the setting is Neo Paris, 2086. With such a setting, one can't help but feel disappointed when the game's story hastily makes excuses to send you back to sewers or office buildings when out there is one of the most interesting settings in a game. Well, Deus Ex Human Revolution did it too, maybe not Paris, but indeed cyber-renaissance, so there's that.

The music is the very definition of irregular. It can be gloriously magnificent, or tacky and terrible at times. While the composer says it stems from his confusion after the barrage of information received from the game developer, it's meta sense may be lost in most of us poor mortals, so it seems a tad hermetic to pin the irregularity in some sort of artistic lockdown.

So, to summarize, picture Mirror's Edge, Uncharted, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Strange Days and a dash of Blade Runner and Isaac Asimov in a blender and you get Remember Me. However, just like lasagna, placing each ingredient in a blender doesn't guarantee a top-rate product. A shame. Even with so much squandered potential, Remember Me manages to be above average. Imagine what it could have been.