I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream
1995 by Cyberdreams
DOS (will run in W98)
Vesa compliant video card required
During the cold war the three great “superpowers”: US, China and Russia
each built an underground computer facility. Each contained self-repairing
computers built for the sole purpose of waging a global war that was
deemed too complicated for humans to control. Everything known about the
human race's vile acts were fed into these computers until they became so
intelligent and capable of “thinking” for themselves, they eventually
discovered each other. They then began to do what they were programmed to
do – wage the Final war and murder the enemy – the human race. They joined
together and became one massive unstoppable killing entity. They called
themselves AM (I think, therefore I AM). When AM was finished the earth
was totally destroyed – nothing remained alive except for “five damned
souls, buried deep within the center of the earth, trapped in the bowels
of an insane computer for the past one hundred and nine years.” Gorrister,
who drove his wife to commit suicide, Benny who while in the army
performed coldhearted acts of cruelty, Ellen who is hysterical, especially
about the color yellow, we have Nimdock who’s a sadist and Ted, who's
certifiably paranoid. A great group of folks gathered, wouldn’t you say?
As the game begins you are called before AM’s Hate Pillar and told about a
new game it has devised for its pleasure and your pain. Then it asks for a
volunteer. This is where you come in – you take over control of each of
the characters one at a time - in any order. In doing so you discover more
about their warped personalities. Your goal is to hopefully bring about
some kind of moral alteration or sign of humanity in each of them.
Everything you do or say will affect the outcome. You track your
character’s moral fiber by watching his or her "Spiritual Barometer". You
want to keep your character’s self-esteem as high as possible (AM hates
self-esteem). If you choose correctly, the background around the character
you are playing will become a brighter shade of green – you choose wrong
and it darkens. After you complete all five of the mini quests – you are
then ready for the end game sequence.
I would advise to save often in this game. If you make the wrong choice
and lower your spiritual barometer too much you can reach a dead-end in
that character’s portion of the game. I remember having to play parts over
when I chose wrong.
Movement is easy – typical point and click with the mouse. Saving and
loading also easy – there’s a little disk that shows up on the bottom of
the inventory screen. There is also a fair amount of the dreaded pixel
hunt.
If you’re looking for a fun, upbeat, happy game – this is NOT it folks.
This game is dark and depressing and seeing how it was based on Harlan
Ellison’s novel of the same name, don’t expect a happy ending.
copyright © 2002 GameBoomers
