I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
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JaySevenZero
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I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder to all that where feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but self-editing (brevity) is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mainly reading. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.
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Kanlic
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Re: 442: I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Post by Kanlic »

I just went through I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, and I'm walking away from it mixed. On one hand, I'm impressed with the creativity of the environments each of the heroes had to explore in their futile attempt to defeat AM. The puzzles, for the most part, had solutions that were logical in their progression despite their fantastical solutions (Finding the correct heart to give to the jackal in Gorrister's story comes to mind) and the allegorical nature of the story allowed for a suspension of disbelief for these dreamlike scenarios. I still had to refer to guides to complete the game unfortunately.

What irked me were the stories of Ellen and Nimdok. I never understood why Ellen was selected as one of the few humans to be tortured for 109 years. Her transgression seems to be that she was traumatized by a sexual assault and that she was ambitious in her career. The game taunts her for being a victim of a crime and her characterization as a cowering person at the sight of the color yellow is incredibly reductive to the pain assault survivors live with. With Nimdok, he's a Nazi that killed and maimed children, who was responsible for his parents getting sent to the death camps. His quasi-amnesia is weak framing for his story, and his discovery of his own ruthlessness is not a sympathetic journey. His death by the lost-tribe was the only appropriate end to him, but I do not know what I was supposed to gain from playing in his shoes.
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The Baboon Baron
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Re: 442: I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Post by The Baboon Baron »

If i can reduce it to an acronym for brevity- IHNMAIMS is interesting and unique, but ultimately flawed game in my view.

If we can start with the subject matter, Ellison's book of the same name is absolute nightmare fuel. A fantastical and far reaching bit of sci fi horror that speaks of the time it was written and a deep and haunting existential threat. It also discusses the horror of enteral life, the fear of AI, cold war terror joylessly bouncing off Cartesian philosophy.

Its great.

The game's very existence is pretty remarkable- It beats a similar path (to the book) by being quite high brow and allegorical, two things that rarely generate sales. A massive undertaking, and very dense subject matter to imbue a point and click with- War and Peace as a FPS anyone?

I found the logic difficult through out, needing to use guides quite regularly to get as far as i did. Full disclosure- I never made it to the end, but i assume its a pretty bleak conclusion no matter what path you chose. I agree with Kanlic, that the characters of Ellen and Nimdok leave a lot to be desired by today's standards, and whilst there are several very mature themes, the execution came across as clumsy and disjointed, lacking the heart of other Point and Clicks as well as the tension the horror setting needs.

An interesting time capsule to 1995, and a vital step in the stair case of horror, immersive gaming and Sci Fi dystopia. But that said, its flaws gleam in today's light, and the character's definitely do not hold up.
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