I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

by Acclaim Entertainment

Product Features

• Dos

Product Details

• ASIN: B0008EM0E2
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,708 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ellison's Machinations Make for a Surreal Game, June 26, 2010

By 

D. Lambert "Magic Bullet Productions" (Inglewood, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Video Game)

"I have a secret game I like to play. It's a very nice game.
A game of fun. A game of speared eyeballs and dripping guts ... "
So says the self-proclaimed god of the world created by author
Harlan Ellison for his short story, "1 Have No Mouth, And I Must
Scream." It has been thirty years since Ellison chronicled the
events surrounding five damned souls trapped for 109 years in the
electronic belly of an insane computer. With the help of
Cyberdreams, Ellison has brought his dark vision into the realm of
a new medium by creating a CD Rom role-playing game based upon his
award-winning story.
The "Scream" computer game is eerie, thought-provoking, and
shockingly stark in its autopsy of the human soul. In other words,
it is all things Ellison. Anyone who has ever heard Ellison read
one of his stories will be happy to know that he outdoes himself
here, playing the voice of his maniacal creation.
The game takes place in the subterranean bowels of AM, a monstrous
entity who began its "life" as Allied Mastercomputer, a
massive thinking machine that was buried in the earth to help the
free world fight World War Three more efficiently. The trouble
began when AM became self-aware and decided to link up with its
counterparts in Russia and China, forming a prison that the last
remnants of humanity must struggle to escape. AI"I reinvented
itself as "AM: Cognito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am." Like
Frankenstein's creature, A~ has learned to hate its creators with
a loathing that is tangible in its razor-sharp richness.
The player may choose one of five "damned souls" to embark
upon a quest concocted by AM. Each of these five last remaining
humans has a character flaw that AM enjoys exploiting for its own
amusement. Gorrister is a suicidal loner, a man whose wife's
bitter fate has left him overcome with guilt. Ellen is a brilliant
engineer whose uncontrollable phobias leave her paralyzed with
fear. Ted is a cynical paranoid, a "fraud" in A......,'s estimation.
Benny is AM's favorite torture subject, a Vietnam veteran
transformed into an ape-thing by the computer's vengeful whim.
Nimdok is an ancient and tormented sadist whose own dark secrets
compel AM to refer to him as a "kindred spirit."
Because AM is mad, his "quests" are relatively pointless in
their promise of escape or material reward. The real object of
"Scream" is not to accumulate cash or to find a way out. The real
object is to show AM the value of humanity by demonstrating a sense
of ethical balance in a world gone insane. The player can tell how
well she is doing this by monitoring the "spiritual barometer"
which appears as a green hue behind the chosen character's face
and is supposed to gauge the character's "self-esteem." As the
character makes choices that help him or her overcome the
weaknesses that AM preys upon, the hue becomes brighter. This is
the closest I have come to "winning" the game, although I suspect
that concepts such as winning and losing are not as important here
as what the character learns about herself. In this sense,
"Scream" is a true role-playing game.
Some of the moral choices that AM forces upon the characters
are chilling in their human resonance. The Nimdok adventure is
particularly haunting in its portrayal of the Holocaust from the
point of view of the perpetrators.
I have always argued that the story upon which this game is
based is not a science fiction story at all, but a horror story.
The game underlines this notion, with its scenes of blasted
landscapes and macabre slices of life recalling the dark art of
Goya and Bosch. I found myself actually having nightmares after
playing. To a horror writer such as myself, this is a good thing:
a very good thing. My hat comes off to Ellison and the folks at
Cyberdreams for the same reason it came off to David Lynch after I
saw his film Lost Highway: This game managed to truly scare me,
which is not an easy thing to do.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely brilliant, September 2, 2005

By 

layla - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Video Game)

If you liked the book, you will absolutely fall in love with this game. If you've never heard of the book but enjoy dystopian fiction or just vintage video games, then this is a wonderful addition to your collection.

The storyline is deliciously dark and depressing and is certain to make you tingle if you love ironic tragedy. The graphics are clearly dated, but match the grave tone of the story and bleak mood of the characters perfectly. The puzzles are interesting and original and unlike too many adventure games, are actually well integrated into the plot. This is an irreplaceable classic!

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite game, February 14, 2012

By 

Zappaphile - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Video Game)

This game was, for me at least, a truely unique experience. Although I have played games before with interesting plots or compelling narratives, this piece was like reading an excellent novel or watching an immersive movie. The story is rich and deep and the mood is dark and haunting. This is not merely based on the story I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream, this is an expansion on the horrifying world of the story that, rather than try to turn the short story itself into a game, covers the back story of each of the main characters, including the super computer.

Most refreshing is that the puzzles in the game are based on ethics and human interaction, rather than flipping switches and pushing buttons (although there's some of that as well.) Though some have said that the game's puzzles boil down to either doing something noble or doing something crummy, the game is actually far deeper than that. The scenarios are multi-layered and require the player to weigh the possible outcomes of trust and deceit, keeping in mind the back story of each character and how they are likely to behave based on the commands they are given.

Also, the contributions of writer Harlan Ellison cannot be overstated. Ellison, a veteran writer of science fiction as well as other genres, brings the kind of intelligent and well built storytelling to the game that helps it rise head and shoulders above the sci-fi cliches around which many video games are built. Bravo, encore!