Remember Me

[toblix]

Remember that game that about the ninja lady that climbed buildings and manipulated people's memories? It's out this week on PS3, Xbox 360 and IBM compatible PCs. I wasn't really that excited about it, but I'm sort of in the mood for running around in a good-looking world, and Neo-Paris sounds like it may fit the bill. The enemies are apparently people who have «overdosed on memories,» and nobody can say that's a terrible concept.

 

Here is the Steam hyperlink: http://store.steampowered.com/app/228300/

[youmeyou]

Deadendthrills is doing a great pre-release screenshot series:

 

http://deadendthrills.com/

 

I love me some dirty ramshackle future city sci-fi art

 

[voxn]

I spy R2-D2, the Transistor, and a bunch of poorly composited photo stock.

[Erkki]

I'm waiting for reviews, can probably buy either this or Metro Last Light, but not both.

[melmer]

Slightly bummed, I saw Jim sterling gave it a 6/10 (didn't actually read the review properly) from what I skimmed over sounds like the games not terrible just vapid and instantly forgettable.

I'll still play it, I'll squeeze it in this weekend before the citizen Kane of games

[TheLastBaron]

instantly forgettable.

Ziiiiiiiing!

Here's a 5 minute interview with the composer of the game.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/05/24/olivier-deriviere-remember-me-on-top-score

[quantum_leopold]

I was very excited about this pretty much as soon as I read a description of the game that began something like "Neo-Paris. 2084. Memory has become a commodity."--all that sounded like the kind of scifi story that I particularly enjoy, but that few video games address. Add to that a video I watched showing the memory remixing ability, and I was all in. Reviews have been mixed, but generally complimentary of the world and the overall story, while critical of controls, combat, and dialogue. I was more excited about the former aspects of the game than the latter, so I picked the game up on day one and  played the 90 minutes or so last night (completing Acts 0 & 1).

 

I'd suggested to my wife that she might be interested in watching me play this game (something she has done in the past, but it's been a few years), as I thought she'd like the scifi story, and further encouraged by the promise of a well-rounded female protagonist. The game didn't make the best first impression on her, no thanks in part due to a long sequence in which Nillin is in a confined space and the camera basically just rotates between crotch shot and chest shot over and over, but also due to some viewer-unfriendly tutorializing--watching me bounce around in menus trying to figure out the Pressen system's customizable combos is apparently not especially exciting. After defeating an early miniboss, maybe 30-45 minutes in, I looked over to see my wife sound asleep on the couch. Oh well.

 

As far as the combat goes, the customizable combo system is a cool idea, but I haven't had enough time with it to figure out if it really adds anything. The combat is rhythmic in a way that calls to mind the Assassin's Creed or Batman fighting systems, although connecting with an enemy is somewhat unsatisfying. I think the problem is that the basic enemies I'm fighting take too many hits. When it takes a minimum of three three-hit combos in order to punch out the weakest baddies, it gives the impression that my individual hits aren't having much effect. Perhaps as I go deeper into the combat system, my attacks will start to feel more substantial. The most glaring omission from the combat system at the moment is a counter move--an essential component of the AC/Batman style fighting--but it's clear that there are more combat abilities that I have yet to unlock, so I hope that this will be rectified soon.

 

The first "memory remixing" sequence was very effective. Nillin makes contact with an enemy whose memory she needs to change, and you watch how that memory happened. You're then given a prompt explaining how the memory must be changed. You can rewind the memory (by rotating the left stick counterclockwise, which I could see getting tiresome), stopping on highlighted "glitches," and choosing whether to tamper with them (move the position of an object, undo a safety protocol, etc.) until you settle on the right combination of tweaks to the memory to get your desired result. Very reminiscent of Ghost Trick. I'm curious to see how often these sequences will occur. Although it's fun, the system doesn't make a ton of sense in the fiction of the game. You're told that Nillin can do this by virtue of a special ability no one else has (finally, a Video game where you're "the one"!), but there's no real reason why you shouldn't be able to do this all the time, or why you would pick the particular memory you choose to manipulate, or how you figured out what needed to happen to the memory to get your desired result, etc. Maybe that will be justified at some point, but the explanation will likely be "Video games."

 

The story and the world are living up to my expectations so far, particularly the glimpse I've gotten of Neo-Paris in the first moments of Act 2, having emerged from the city's slums. The voice acting, however, is not good, and the dialogue feels like it's out of a JRPG (which I do not mean as a compliment). I also noticed that the lip-syncing between the models and the audiotrack doesn't fit right. Just before I quit last night, I set the voice language to French and turned subtitles on, in hopes that the acting and lip-syncing will come across better in the developer's native language. Maybe that will help? I'm looking forward to spending more time with this game over the weekend.

[Erkki]

RPS gave it 7/10

[TheLastBaron]

RPS gives scores?

[Erkki]

RPS gives scores?

They kind of did this time.

[Merus]

Specifically they said that if they did give it scores, it would the epitome of a specific score they're thinking of.

[elmuerte]

what does 7/10 mean?

[Zeusthecat]

what does 7/10 mean?

 

Just a step above unplayable.

[melmer]

I've spent a couple of hour with it today and there is no joy to be had in the "playing" of it, the gameplay is serviceable at best

Looks nice though.

I wish there was a jogging speed as she moves from a slow walk straight into a full on manny calavera run bouncing around the tiny environments

[elmuerte]

Just a step above unplayable.

Ah, so it's like volume sliders.

[Zeusthecat]

Ah, so it's like volume sliders.

 

Exactly.

[melmer]

So I turned this game off yesterday as it crashed, (it seemed like a logical stopping point for the day as I had played it for a few hours)

Just loaded it up now and it's crashed in the same place... Oh dear

Here goes round three

[melmer]

That's lucky, there was a slight pause but the game carried on ok. It was the start if an enemy encounter on a subway train.

[quantum_leopold]

Yeah, I've had a couple of hard crashes.  The combat system is starting to wear thin on me at this point--having decided that the controls aren't good enough to make the challenge of it enjoyable, I've dropped it to easy so I can button mash my way through the story and the world, which I am still enjoying on a broad level (although on the specifics, it is hard to follow what is going on from moment to moment).  Most distressing, though, is I read somewhere that there are only 4 memory remixing sequences in the whole game?  If true, that's very disappointing.  I bought this game because I wanted to see Neo-Paris and I wanted to do some memory remixing.  The more time I spend in tunnels and subways, and the more time I spend doing mediocre combat instead of doing the cool memory remixing mechanic, the less I like this.  Oh well.

[melmer]

I'm probably 60% done, just done the second memory remix, i can't help but feel they should have a mini timeline or something so you can jump back and forth between the editable moments. Maybe its supposed to be a "challenge" to find them. pfft

 

The forth combo has just been made available to me as well, i've set it up so that i have one short combo for time, one short combo for health then an out and out beat down combo for maximum damage. the combat feels less like a beat-em up and more like a rhythm puzzle game, i guess at the end of the day thats what Batman Arkham City is too, but Batman disguises it a lot better be being faster/more fluid and having more options.

 

I find myself having to do a lot more 'shooting' as the game goes on, which is probably the worst thing about the game for me. You press a button for an assassin creed style lock on, but if there's nothing around deemed lock-on-able™ you press the button and nothing happens ANNOYING

 

It really is pretty though

[quantum_leopold]

Yep, the first boss fight that forced you to rely on the shooting (that mech thing) was when I made the difficulty switch.  They don't do a great job of explaining how the shooting works.  Does a counter move ever unlock?  The solution of just jumping over dudes' heads when they're about to attack does not work particularly well for me.  And I'd like the combo system a lot better if it didn't break your combo to switch targets.  What makes the combat in Batman, AC, and similar games so fluid is the ability to switch from one opponent to the next so seamlessly, but here I'm just trying to sort of corner one guy at a time so I can get my combos off, which is less fun.

[toblix]

I've gotten to the Madam fight, and though it's generous with the checkpoints, I really can't be bothered to try more. I'm probably about halfway and feel like I'm playing the most generic video game ever made. This boss fight that relies on luck (picking the right one out of a group of boss copies, getting punished for trying the wrong ones) made me realise I'd rather be doing anything else. I think the best part of this game may have been the music.

[melmer]

Finished it tonight

Yeah hmmm if you do decide to quit you ain't missing much. In fact I found the ending pretty irritating.

That boss fight you can use the sense overload focus ability thing and it will destroy all the clones leaving just the real madam

I may write more about it tomorrow if I remember

[quantum_leopold]

Yep.  I did get past the Madam fight (the DOS ability helps a ton, and/or I just happened to have good luck), but I just bailed out mid-way through the next chapter, about 50-55% through the game.  There was a sequence where a helicopter was chasing me and blowing up the floor in front of me, and trying to figure out which sections of floor I could walk on was not a fun process (particularly given the long load times I experienced on PS3).  As much as I like the world and the overall idea of the story, the characters, the dialogue, the voice acting, were all quite poor.  For my tastes, dontnod's missteps here were similar to problems I've had with other Capcom games--I wonder if partnering with a different publisher on their next game could help them improve where they're weak while retaining what they're good at?  I had really high hopes for this game, I am super disappointed.  Thankfully Last of Us will be on my doorstep tomorrow evening...

[melmer]

Lol I had to redo that helicopter glass floor shattering section about 8 times. I kept fucking up the jump at the end which triggers a cutscene.

FYI the game only has four combos

Last of Us tomorrow woop woop \o/ that's the reason I forced myself to get through it this week.