I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream

The gaming archaeologists at Nightdive Studios have unearthed another classic and released it for modern consoles. I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream is a 1995 point-and-click adventure based on the 1967 short story of the same name by the eminent science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison, but don't worry - the story still feels fresh. This is partly due to the eerily relevant premise of nuclear war and runaway AIs, but the main reason is the psychological and human depth of the story, which few games in the last 30 years have even come close to matching.

109 years ago, humanity was practically extinguished in a nuclear war caused by the major power's supercomputers deciding to act out their simulated war games in real life. One of the computers, the insane AM, wasn't quite done playing though and kidnapped five people, which it has kept alive ever since just to torment them.

The game opens with our five unfortunate protagonists - Gorrister, Benny, Ellen, Nimrod, and Ted - trapped in their small cages, tormented by fire, laser beams, and razor blades. To mix things up, AM sends each of them on a virtual trip where they are confronted with their many faults, shortcomings, and failures from the time before the bombs dropped.

If you think the overall premise is a bit too depressive, just you wait. The individual episodes tackles topics such as mental illness, sexual assault, and loss of family members. And that's just some of the "lighter" topics with other episodes dealing with war crimes during the Vietnam War and Nazi atrocities. It's as bleak and horrible as it gets, but despite this, the stories still manage to deliver satisfying redemption arcs for most of the characters, which is quite a feat.

The game's episodic structure allows for great visual variety. The paranoid and manipulative Ted is sent to a medieval castle filled with traps and temptations, while the depressed Gorrister lands at a bar that seems as sad and abandoned as his worn-out soul. You can tell from many background illustrations that the game's budget was hardly the largest, but the slightly smeared 640x480 canvases are still atmospheric, despite the limitations.

As mentioned, I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream is by no means subtle, and the same goes for the sound design. But since the whole premise is so unusual and extreme, this should not be seen as a criticism. The voice actors deliver each line as if it were their last - filled with hope, fear, and pain - while Harlan Ellison himself is particularly well cast as the mad and mischievous supercomputer AM.

The game's haunting soundtrack from the later Oscar winner John Ottman also deserves praise. You can listen to it outside of the gameplay through an included music player in the menu, but unfortunately it's the only extra included with the game.

While good story-telling, art, and music pretty much last forever, it's definitely not the same for video games. Unfortunately, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream does show its age in some regards, but let's take the positives first.

The game's puzzles are simple and relatively straightforward. In fact, only one of the chapters contains a bit of the MacGyver logic that point-and-click games of the time were so infamous for, and even then it's never too excessive. The puzzle design also display an interesting focus on performing symbolic actions. You'll get to literally wash the blood off your hands and bury the past to make amends.

Ellison - who had very low thoughts about video games and stubbornly wrote his contributions to the game on a typewriter - has said in interviews how he wanted the player to think not just about how to move forward, but also about the thematic content. In this he and the developer Cyberdreams did succeed, though perhaps a bit to well. The final chapter of the game takes the symbolic logic to the extremes, turning physical objects into abstract concepts like compassion, courage, and forgiveness, and while I like the idea, the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

Being a re-release of a now 30-year-old game, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream does have some rough edges. The worst one is undoubtedly pixel hunt, as you often have to comb the screen for essential objects that are completely lost in the somewhat blurry textures. I can understand why Nightdive Studios didn't want to touch the source code. But an optional layer on top of the screen highlighting interactable objects would have made a world of difference.

In fact, the problem is arguably worse than ever in this new console version, as there is no mouse support. Instead you'll move the cursor with the analogue stick, while often having to make small adjustments with the D-pad (that provide slower movement). It works - but only just - and I often felt like I was looking for a needle in a haystack with an excavator.

Unfortunately, I also experienced a number of bugs, such as voice lines that had a jarring echo effect and glitchy animations where characters walked backwards. The worst offender was Benny's chapter, where the long-suffering character simply refused to appear on screen every time I reloaded my saved game. Fortunately, it's one of the shorter chapters and eventually I managed to beat it in a single setting.

At least the interface, which wasn't smooth in the original to begin with, is functional as each action - such as push, give, swallow, and use - is mapped to a button on your controller. It takes some time to get used to, but it ends up working better than clicking on verbs.

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a welcome return to the golden age of point-and-click, despite some shortcomings. Like the characters themselves, the game is flawed and you have to go through quite a bit of agony to get to the end of the game. But at the same time, the game does deliver a truly haunting tale, going places where few other games dare. Still, I would recommend you stick to the PC version unless you desperately need some bleak pixel hunting on-the-go, or you want to chase the Achievements/Trophies.