I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream

If you look past all the quirks of the 90's point and click, there is one of the darkest stories ever told by humankind. AM is real. AM is here, inside every one of us. I have no mouth, and I must scream.

This Point-and-Click Adventure has you guiding 5 different characters through their respective stories. They're all looking to overcome something horrific from their pasts, whether they be quests for redemption or coming face to face with traumatic events in their lives. They're pretty diverse, too, with a wide variety of personalities and themes; Ellen was my favorite. There's a lot of trial and error, and there are a lot of opportunities to royally screw yourself over, but having 5 self-contained scenarios means that repeat attempts will be mercifully short. This is also the era inn which the genre had a lot of this sort of thing, so it's a bit more forgivable, but they had the good sense to give you a subtle visual indicator when you did something right, and with that, you can at least attempt to figure out what you're supposed to do. Of course, there are some times when it's still really unclear what you're supposed to do. Generally speaking, you're supposed to make the moral choices, but one of the characters is a Nazi doctor from World War II; how do you even come to grips with the idea of trying to earn redemption from something like that!? The scenario was pretty unintuitive, and even counter-intuitive at times. Ultimately, the game's horrific theme and chilling atmosphere more than make up for its flaws. It may not be the best in the genre, but it takes a wild left turn that makes it a very worthwhile experience. They even got Harlan Ellison, the author of the short story upon which it was based to voice the main villain, which was a nice touch.

I like the story, but the gameplay is sort of disappointing. It is not rewarding and not forgiving. Mechanics is quite bad and obscure at times. It is intentionally made difficult, but I don't see this adding any value. So, can I recommend it? Yes, but only as a walking simulator, i.e., use a walk-through. Also recommend to read the FAQ about possible glitches and some gameplay nuances.

I love the concept of the story and that’s likely why you’re considering buying the game. However be warned, it isn’t much of a ‘game’ and you would be better off watching a walkthrough instead of buying. You must complete tasks in a very specific order or you will be locked into a no-win scenario if you don't (I don’t mean a ‘bad ending’, I mean you literally cannot continue with the game and will have no way of knowing you’ve done this), I think half of them are bugs rather than deliberate ‘game over’ situations, which is unacceptable given how long this game has been around and how easy some of them would be to fix. You WILL end up looking at walkthroughs when stuck (thinking you must be stupid and can’t figure things out), only to find that you’ve done everything correctly but the game is bugged, and will end up ruining the surprises in the story. Also, I wasn’t invested in any of the characters and the ‘episodes’ for all but one of them don’t really give you much cause to care about them in my opinion. Each of the characters has a laughably short and quite boring ‘episode’ which consists of having to do and redo tasks in the exact order the game demands in order to trigger an event that ends the episode. Even if you’ve searched an object several times, you must have had a specific piece of dialogue before the character will acknowledge the item you need is in there, and even if you’ve asked a particular question or tried a particular movement, the game won’t move on unless you did previous steps exactly right. You will have a couple of usable items in each episode, and they’re pretty self-explanatory, so if you like item puzzles then you won’t be into this. Also, the use of the interaction verbs (if that’s the right way of saying it) are bizarre – it’s hard to give an example without giving spoilers, but for arguments sake, imagine having to ‘take’ a giant metal container in order for your character to see an item inside it.

I loved the original short story of the same name that served as the basis for this game ever since I first read it and I was trying to find this game for a long time. I got it a while back (and then on GOG, too) because online reviews raved about how groundbreaking and excellent a game it was. Unfortunately, it was more of a letdown. Technically, the game was OK - I haven't encountered the bugs other reviews mentioned but it's a pretty standard point-and-click adventure game: the graphics, the music / sound effects are all OK - not bad but nothing special. The characters have some pretty crazy background story that I thought didn't really fit the original short story and I found the resulting experience mostly confusing and not very engaging. The puzzles are (with some exceptions) illogical and frustrating - I have a hard time seeing how anyone could get through this game without a walkthrough or just randomly clicking everything. Getting through this felt more like a chore, not playing. I definitely recommend reading the story - it's good dark sci-fi and it's much better than the game.