Remember Me - PC

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Remember Me (PC)
Requires: Mouse, Keyboard
Also for: PS3, Xbox 360
Viewed: 3D Third person, into the screen Genre:
Adventure
Media: DVD Arcade origin:No
Developer: Capcom Soft. Co.: Capcom
Publishers: Capcom (GB)
Released: 7 Jun 2013 (GB)
Ratings: PEGI 16+

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Summary

Remember Me was revealed at Gamescom 2012, and was described as a cross between Blade Runner, Uncharted and Mirror’s Edge. That’s probably a fair comparison in so far as it’s set in a dystopian future, involves climbing around and features a leading lady. Despite that, Dontnod’s effort is every bit its own beast.

First, the story. Set in Neo-Paris, a city largely dependent on (and likely controlled in one way or another by) the clinical and scientific organisation Memorize, you play as amnesiac Nilin as she tries to piece together her past. You first see her waking up in the grime-filled underworld of the city, the Leaper’s Lair, fighting for her life as a man named Edge gives you directions on where to go in order to recover your memories.

According to this Edge chap, Nilin is a member of the Errorist revolutionary group, which aims to rock the status quo and shake up the inequality that is evident in the half-wealthy, half-poverty stricken world they live in.

The third-person combat takes some getting used to, but feels pretty solid to play. Fighting is slower-paced than most other action games out there, but it’s certainly more visceral as a result. You build your arsenal of moves as you progress, unlocking combos as you go. Unlocked combos can’t be used straight away, though. You need to use ‘Pressens’ to assign the buttons indicated to use the combo in battle.

You can unlock different kinds of Pressens that provide different effects in combat - Power Pressens deal damage, Regen Pressens regenerate health, Chain Pressens duplicates the previous move and multiplies your hit combo, and Cooldown Pressens reduce the time it takes to use a special move.

Remember Me revels in the connection of your attacks, with brief slowdowns following successful execution of combos, and brutal sound effects that wouldn’t seem out of place in a Korean action flick. The dynamic battle music - which drops in and out (distortions and all) depending on your performance - wraps up the presentation side of things here quite nicely.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Remember Me is the feature in which it is at its most cinematic - the Memory Remix. This is a mechanic that enables players to access the memories of other characters and manipulate them. It works like this - at first, the entire memory is played out, so you can understand what’s going on. Once the scene ends, you can rewind and fast-forward by rotating the left stick, keeping an eye out for ‘glitches’ in the memory which you can manipulate. Doing so dynamically alters the memory and results in a slightly different outcome.

Remember Me looks suspiciously like the first sleeper hit of 2013.