Grave Gamer News & Views — remember me

Remember Me Lands a Summer Date

First time developer Dontnod’s sci-fi actioner, Remember Me, has gone and got itself dated.  The Capcom produced title will see a Western release June 4th and on June 7th for the European market for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

A dash of Arkham Asylum’s combat, a bit of Assassin’s Creed’s platforming, and a whole mess of Total Recall’s, well, everything, Remember Me follows Nilin, an amnesiac who awakens in 2084 Neo-Paris (don’t ask me to point it out on a map).  Nilin soon discovers her forgetful disposition may be a taste of her own medicine; in her former life, she was an expert at “memory remixing,” a skill that gave her access to others’ memories, allowing her free reign to manipulate and modify them at her whim.

It’s a rife concept that plays on the notion of literally rewriting people, effectively playing God.  Hopefully Remember Me’s meatier notions aren’t overshadowed by mindless action (both Total Recall’s suck in their own special ways, after all), but I’m willing to give Dontnod the benefit of the doubt considering how hard up the industry is for original IP’s, especially when studios are saving up their “Wow” shit for the soon-to-be next generation.

Burn this solid Remember Me trailer into your memory.

1/12/13
Welcome back to the Roundup, where we take a look back at the week in gaming, reflect on the gaming happenings, and balance our finances in order to put gaming above all else, minimizing insignificant expenses like food and rent (let the landlord keep banging at the door – it’s not like he has a key or whatever).

This week in games, cyberpunk became cool again, Pokemon invaded a new dimension on its quest to conquer ours, the Kinect became even more gimmicky, and Massachusetts declares war on our virtual wars.  All this and half past an inch more after the jump.

Remember Me (PC/PS3/X360 - May 2013)

Capcom’s new IP certainly has the mixings for a surprise hit: interesting neo-punk setting, a unique gameplay mechanic in its memory remixing, and a combo-centric bent on hand-to-hand combat.

Of course, hamfisted storytelling could bring Dontnod’s game down in a fiery explosion.  Remember Me’s announcement trailer played host to cringe inducing lines like “I’m the hunter, why am I being hunted?!” and I swear I heard a baddie in a demo reel literally say “Curse you!"  Dontnod, the modern equivalent to "Curse you!” is “Fuck your own face!"  More nuanced than the former.  Get it right.

Writing pitfalls aside, there’s not much else to be concerned with since every gameplay video has been utterly impressive.  With that, I’ll leave you with this new trailer focusing on Nilin’s fighting prowess (which, thankfully, seems to abide my doctrine that every third-person brawler needs to outright steal from Rocksteady’s Batman games).

Remember Me (PC/PS3/X360 - May 2013)

Nothing like a cool, new dystopian sci-fi IP to cure a little of that franchise fatigue hanging off of your shoulders (I’m almost confident it’s been “The Year of the Sequel” for a solid decade now).  Remember Me’s concept had a strong showing yesterday with a sneak peek at protagonist Nilin’s Memory Remixing skills, but sometimes you just can’t beat a batch of gorgeous screenshots (see: above).

If You Haven’t Heard of Remember Me, You’ll Want To

Capcom has announced today that they’re bringing a completely original IP to the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 next May.  Handled by Dontnod Entertainment, we’re given a look into the surveillance state future of Neo-Paris, a city that defines the word “dystopia.”

You’ll control Nilin, a talented woman that has had her mind erased, an unfortunate case of deliberate amnesia that probably has more than a lot to do with the fact that she used to be a “memory hunter."  See, under contract from an insidious corporation, Nilin would infiltrate other people’s heads and access their innermost memories.  She could siphon them, enriching herself (and her company) in information or…Or she could change them, manipulating others into thinking just about anything.  Maybe a little white lie.  Or maybe they could be convinced that they actually murdered someone.  When it comes to messing about in the human mind, it’s easy to plunge into dangerous depths.  Such is the nature of remixing memories, a trade that Nilin has now turned on the world in the hopes of gaining her very own past back.  It’s a fascinating and chilling conceit that Remember Me centers on to already impressive effect.

From an early gameplay demo, Remember Me looks to be a fantastic marriage between Assassin’s Creed’s free-running exploration and Deus Ex: Human Revolution’s cyberpunky-yet-believable future.  When not hanging from building sides in order to fry her targets’ brains, Nilin will engage in fluid hand-to-hand combat that’s already receiving the Arkham Asylum melee compliments (I’m beyond joyous that the industry finally figured out that it’s okay to riff on that fighting system as much as possible).

We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Remember Me, meaning there’s plenty of time for anticipatory drooling yet as Capcom drops details about this project over the next several months.

Until then, witness Nilin’s Memory Remixing skills in action.