Just one day after Halloween, out comes our two many podcast discussion on the classic adventure game I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
In the beginning we lament that we have to warn about spoiling the game, including puzzles. In fact, a large portion of the podcast could constitute a walkthrough because of the integrated nature of them regarding the thematic content. The puzzles aren’t divorced from the story like many traditional point and click adventure games and on that alone I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream comes out far ahead of much of its genre.
We also have a lot of comparisons to the original short story, because Harleen Ellison wrote both and how are you not going to. There is so much more I’d like to say about this game and I’m just glad that it is now available to the public on GoG and Steam. This is one of those games I’ve waited a long time to try and it didn’t disappoint.
Upon listening to the podcast, I am struck by the marked difference there was to a normal conversation around a video game in comparison to the one we had about I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. You can just hear the qualitative difference of the game in how we talk about it. Games that engage with ideas on a complex and sophisticated level just seem to feel like they are on a completely different scale. It may or may not be a traditionally “good” game in the 8-10 range, but there comes a point when you just don’t care and a game is working from a completely different yardstick.
So, if you’ve played it and want to hear an in-depth discussion about it or just don’t care about adventure game puzzles being spoiled then head on over and listen.
“Cogito ergo sum.”