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Remember Me

Entry updated 10 April 2015. Tagged: Game.

Videogame (2013). DONTNOD Entertainment. Designed by Jean-Maxime Moris. Platforms: PS3, Win, XB360.

Remember Me is an action Adventure, scripted by Stéphane Beauverger and set in a near future "Neo-Paris" where the technological manipulation of human memories is commonplace (see Memory Edit). As in many earlier works dealing with the same theme, the ability to remove painful memories and transfer more desirable recollections to others is here presented as an unmitigated curse. The future France of the game is a society of junkies hooked on dangerously addictive memory swaps, where the personalities of dissidents are simply erased. As in Joss Whedon's television series Dollhouse (2009-2010), the mutability of memory has resulted in a dangerous fragmentation of identity, as people forget who they truly are.

The gameplay is a combination of hand to hand combat, stealthy infiltration, and climbing and leaping in the manner of a platform game (see Videogames), with some interesting sequences in which the player can remix a subject's memories, changing their motivations in the present by altering their recollections of the past. There is a general emphasis on making the game accessible to participants who have not played similar works before, an approach which may have contributed to its perhaps overly linear structure; players' travels through the milieu seem constrained to a path in which every step has been laid out in advance, leading to an unfortunate sense of constriction (see Interactive Narrative). Nevertheless, the game benefits from an impressive ambience and an excellent visual design, reminiscent of both such comic-strip bandes dessinées as Métal Hurlant (1975-1987; 2002-2004) and the film The Fifth Element (1997). Despite some hokey dialogue and an unconvincing denouement, Remember Me's appealing heroine, cheerfully exploitative sensibility and outré fashion designs lend it a great deal of charm.

Related works: Remember Me: The Pandora Archive (2013), by Scott Harrison, is a prequel which was published as an Ebook. [NT]

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