Hey, can we stop doing this, developers? You know, the whole thing where you focus on making a game which tries so hard to be a movie experience that is interactive, you forget that you are a game?

Sorry, getting ahead of myself ...

Remember Me is a game set in "Neo-Paris", a land covered in classical architecture as well as holographic advertisements. This possible sci-fi future world has developed the ability to back up a human's memories and transfer them as digital packages. So there is the promise of being able to re-download your own memories like a living scrapbook of your life. The elderly can use this technology to relive moments from decades before. Young lovers can now prove their love by showing exactly how much they love each other through the sharing of their own memories. Or you can unwind from a tough day by re-experiencing some of the best moments of your life. 

However, it shouldn't take anybody long to realize that there is a dark side to this kind of technology. Our identity truly is a collection of our memories. This kind of technology turns the human mind into little more than a hard drive that can be copied, rewritten, or even corrupted, which is especially worrying when the ability to digitize (and thus control) our memories is exclusively the ability of one mega corporation. 

Enter Nilin, a memory hunter who suffers from that glorious condition that many characters from videogames and soap operas suffer from... amnesia. Du-du-dunnnnn. 

At least the tired old trope of having a main character having their memories "Metroided" away only to slowly gain them all back fits within the world they have created. See, in this reality, the only people who can maintain their own memories (aka their personal identity) are the people who can afford to keep paying for the privilege to re-download them if needed. These are more commonly known as rich people. 

In this world, the same technology that is meant to archive our memories also seems to damage our ability to actually hold onto them properly. If you are rich, you can maintain yourself in a detached false utopia. If you are not, you slowly but surely lose your own identity and begin to wander through life in a haze. Fall too far down the ladder and you can find yourself just a shell, a miserable animalistic husk that was once a human.

This is where the memory hunters come in. A revolutionary group who can see the damage being done by this corporation and seek to free humanity of its grasp. You play as Nilin who was once "the best of the best" but got captured and had the majority of her memories ripped out of her. She now is on a quest to not only find out why this was done, but also who she is.  

Now it may seem like I'm taking way too much time in this review discussing the story. Well, I guess it is because I'm stalling. This game's concept is top notch; seriously amazing and well crafted with a world that is actually enjoyable to run around in. The problem is something of a recurring problem with the industry at the moment. It forgets to put a lot of focus on engaging gameplay. 

What gameplay you do get often feels like half-remembered recollections of someone who played the climbing sections of Assassin's Creed and the combat sections of Arkham City. Mechanically they work, but it feels hollow and unrealized.

First the frequent climbing sections have this "why can't I just turn this off?" feature that highlights the next ledge you can grasp on. While this does allow the environment to be free of Assassin's Creed's obvious bricks poking out hand holds or Tomb Raider's white paint trail of interactivity, you don't feel like you are allowed to enjoy said environments when a giant arrow is specifically pointing at exactly where next you need to go. 

Combat... hoo boy... the frickin' combat.  As said, it follows the now popular style of the Arkham series. You attack with timed button presses in order to chain together a combo. Enemies cluster around you and you must be prepared to dodge at a moment's notice. The problem comes in that while the hits are beautifully animated and the soundtrack builds and responds to your attacking, the feel of the combat is rather hollow. You have no parry/counter ability so you end up doing the punch-kick-dodge-punch-kick-dodge dance over and over. 

Furthermore, the worst part of the combat is its repetitious nature. You are given the ability to "customize" your combos by earning what are called Pressens. As with the rest of the game, the concept is stronger than the execution. These pressens can be adjusted to either deal more damage, regenerate health, or lower the cooldown of your special attacks. 

The major flaw is that combos themselves remain basically the same. Sure you can shift a square-square-square combo to either be a hard hitting attack or an attack that will easily heal you in a pinch. However, the button input is still square-square-square and maintains the exact same timing. So once you get to the point of knowing your four combo strings, you better just get comfortable with them. More often than not encounters just don't feel like you did anything more than having dodged better than the enemies could hit, usually ending in the anti-climactic simple falling backwards of the final foe. 

There is too much monotonous brawler in this futuristic sci-fi action game starring a memory hunter. A good 70% of your gameplay will be of the punchy kicky kind with moments of climby jumpy time in-between. Which is a darn shame because of how great the game's unique gameplay hook is.

This hook, called the memory remix, is the part of the gameplay that seems to have inspired the entire game's existence. Nilin has the ability to (I can't use enough air quotes) "hack" into people's memories. You watch a scene play out as just an observer. Then you are given the option to scrub backwards and forwards through the scene searching for opportunities to alter the events, effectively changing the "reality" of the person's memory.

It doesn't quite hit the same brilliance that Capcom's other title, Ghost Trick, did with its mechanically similar gameplay, but these moments will still be the defining ones of the entire game. Which makes it a shame that the roughly eight hour campaign only has four of them in total. They make up roughly 10% of the total play time. 

That is really the biggest problem Remember Me faces. It is a game with a lofty concept, great visuals, an engaging plot with great characters, and an interesting soundtrack. Aside from all of that it trips on being a game. The 'so bland they feel excessive' combat moments are like a punishment you must endure to get to more of the story. I would have preferred the combat to have been completely removed from the game.

Give me this same game but instead of fighting make me have to completely stealth my way through and double the amount of memory remix segments and, boom, I would be much, much happier than I am at this moment. 

It is a complete shame too. Remember Me is a rather unique thing in this day and age. It is a new IP published by Capcom and it stars a lone female protagonist. I would wager a guess that you all have probably heard more about this game from the controversy surrounding it than from the official marketing.

The controversy wherein the publisher wanted the main character to be re-designed to be a male because "games with female protagonists do not sell." The developer had to fight to keep Nilin from having a Y-chromosome shoved all up in her digital DNA. It is puzzling how rare it is to see a character like Nilin in a starring role. A fully-realized, well voice-acted, non-objectified, female protagonist who is both self-reliant but not robotically emotionless nor overly aggressive. 

Unfortunately, this game will not sell well. The publishers will be proven right for all the wrong reasons. They didn't bother to market the game much at all. They set the release date the week before E3, which is basically a death sentence for a game's sales.

Also, unfortunately, this game deserves to not sell well. It is a mediocre game with a shiny wrapper that is just plain boring during the very moments it is trying to excite you. It would have made a better summer blockbuster film in its current form. While I hope that we get a sequel that fixes all the issues in a few years, this industry has taught me better. 

I just hope that Remember Me will not have a legacy that teaches publishers that female protagonists don't sell games. It should instead be a cautionary tale to not forget that the most important thing about a videogame is that it should be enjoyable to interact with not just to look at.

That is the moral of the story which should be remembered.

This review is based on a retail copy of Remember Me for the PlayStation 3, provided by the Publisher.