I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Xbox Series X Review 9.5/10 “I think therefore I AM” 👄 @NightdiveStudio #RetroGaming #IndieGame #GameDev

I don’t think any other title of a game has ever conjured up things in me that I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream has. When I was a 14-15 year old kid and watched my brother play this game the title alone deeply affected me, it conjures up an awful image, it’s a title that's creepy before you even play the game or read the short story. It is a powerful title, but when you learn what it relates to in the story - its power is magnified tenfold.

I’ve experienced the game three times, once as previously stated, then again in my 20s, and now in my 30s, and each time my love for it grows, it is such an interesting and engaging story, based on Harlan Ellison's short story of the same name, it takes everything that's great about that story and adds to it. 

Harlan Ellison himself worked on the game, writing dialogue and voicing the super A.I computer AM - so you know it is in safe hands, not calm hands mind you - as I have watched hours and hours of Harlan Ellison interviews recently and boy howdy did that man get wonderfully animated, quickly, I’m going to guess when he visited his doctor, his doctor never uttered the sentence “Mr Ellison, your blood pressure is a bit low.” he was such an interesting person to listen to. The point being - with his guiding hand the game brings the best parts of the story to life whilst adding new depths to the story and characters.

You play as five humans Gorristor, Benny, Nimdok, Ellen, and Ted - the last remaining humans alive watched over by a human-hating A.I Computer called AM who spends all its time torturing these five humans in sadistic ways, you play as each of them through different scenarios, diving into aspects of the character and unlocking details of their past. Some changes are made from the original story, but it is kept relatively close. The five places that you explore for each character is vastly different; an Egyptian pyramid, an airship, and a Nazi Concentration camp...Yeah… very different locations and that one setting alone lets you know that the game covers very dark themes that can be a lot to deal with. 

The gameplay is a traditional point and click adventure game - you explore and make your way through doing ‘adventure game things’ and by that, I mean things that won’t always be very clear, if you don’t look up some guides, I have No Mouth and I Must Scream will have you wandering back and forth possibly for all eternity. Helpfully, we live in the age of the online guide so this can be alleviated easily, part of me wants to say that it’s a game about an A.I computer torturing you so maybe it is supposed to be like this, but thirty years of adventure gaming makes me a bit cynical, and this is more a case of being just the style of the time of original release (1995). The voice acting is marvellous, not Just Mr Ellison but all the other characters as well, they are all great and well-acted, but if I had to pick one - Benny's is really powerful, his ‘bad ending’ speech really tugs at the heart strings, but I think everyone gives a fantastic performance.

The recent additions to this re-released title are; being able to stretch to full screen, a smoothness filter which is supposed to enhance the quality (but the difference is really negligible), personally, I would say that the best feature is the control scheme, it is usually universal that playing point and click games is easier on PC and that’s probably still true here - but they have linked every command to a button, and not only that, but displays on screen which button you need to press for each - I’m not sure if I’ve come across this before, but it really is brilliant, being able to see what button you need to press to look at something or take something really made it so much easier and smoother, definitely more games in graphic adventure genre should do this.

SUMMARY
This is a game that may not be for everyone - but it really should be played by most. It is an amazing story that’s been wonderfully realised, it is powerful, and scary, and really makes you think. 

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream has top notch voice acting and the biggest problem that plagues it is easily alleviated with modern access to guides. I highly recommend experiencing this at least once, but I also recommend the original short story and listening to some Harlan Ellison interviews as well. 

I look forward to revisiting this in another ten years.

9.5/10

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