I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream

As suggested by the title, there are numerous controversial things within this game as the horror doesn't pull any punches. Content warning for as it contains mentions or containing some of the following: rape, victim blaming, concentration camp, death, torture, murder and corpses. This title was quite often seen as controversial due to one of the characters you play as being Nimdok, someone who worked with the Nazi's to kill, maim and experiment on the prisoners or those who got in his way. All five characters are being tortured for over 109 years because of what they did before he kidnapped them and decided to punish them for their numerous crimes. Like I said earlier, this game doesn't pull it's punches in the dark topics it covers so I wouldn't recommend it if any of the content above is triggering for you. Apart from this, the most I can say without spoiling much is that like many classic adventure games of the time (like Sam & Max, by Lucas Arts) you can get stuck to save often just in case and the ending can be very different if you don't do things correctly or you can get trapped in a chapter if you make a mistake. However, this game allows you to skip talking scenes so that you can get back to where you were stuck, correct when you did wrong, then move on to where you got stuck last time. The game is thought-provoking and AM is an incredibly entertainingly cheesy villain too. I streamed this myself and if you want to see some gameplay I have a link here to the first part to the game on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/mxHayuuxQeY

About 10 minutes in and a woman fed me with her mouth like I was a baby bird, I then made monkey noises in an attempt to eat this woman. I am familiar with the story, which to say it's one of the darkest, bleakest things I have ever read. The game seems to give a similarly uncomfortable experience. I'm knocking one star off because honestly the backgrounds are blurry to the point where you will be scanning with your mouse for interactable objects and paths.

This game has some flaws, largely with occasional odd logic and not cluing you in to what needs to be done. Though I say this as someone who has never been especially great at point and click adventures. So I had a guide up ready to help out when i got especially stuck. And honestly that is the only glaring weak point in the game as i remember it having just finished it earlier today. Everything except those 'stuck' moments was smooth and compelling. Even little things like characters being able to quickly move from one end of an area to the other, while not looking like they were being fast-forwarded. That alone helped keep me immersed, while also not being tedious every time i realized i had to backtrack a bit. Of course the story is the strongest point of this game. I stayed up all night playing it because every time i got to play as a new character I NEEDED to know how their story played out, as well as the part it played in the story as a whole.

I expected an enjoyable and climatic advanture - the rating (4,5/5 stars) and comments suggested so - but I was disappointed. The biggest problem for me were bugs. This game requires from you walking around and trying everything with everything, pixel hunting and, in general, it's not very forgiving, you may have to use save/load feature quite frequently. I'm patient, I'm okey with pixel hunting and testing things, but not if there are significant bugs. For example, in one place the item becomes clearly visible, but the character "doesn't see anything" - and then you start to think, if you broke the game - do you need to start all over - is it even possible to finish it? This makes you go straight to a walkthrough and I personally hate it. However, it is quite climatic, so if you want a climatic adventure and you are okey with using a walkthrough to pass the game, then you may find it enjoyable.

IHNMAIMS is a classic point and click game from the mind of Harlan Ellison, the man who wrote the short story the game is based on, which is included with the game (I very much recommend reading the story, as its very well written). Graphics: Can run on a Speak-N-Spell (its a 90s point and click, for goodness sake). Nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done. Story: Probably the best part of the game. Learning about the backstories of the 5 trapped humans was very interesting. You dont have to read the story to know whats going on. Gameplay: classic 8-option control scheme for a point and click game. Each character is given whats essentially a hintbook, but if you use it too much, bad things start happening, and it could prevent you from getting the best ending. IMO, its a bad mechanic, but as Ellison wanted the game to be hard as possible, I guess I cannot complain. Scenarios vary from pretty simple (Ellen, Benny), to pretty annoying if you dont know what youre doing. What youre supposed to do next could either be intuitively obvious or stupidly vague. Sometimes both (or maybe Im just bad at Point and Clicks...) Id recommend a walkthrough, but if you wanna go in completely unaware, I wont stop.