Recent reviews by thearbiter

Might be the most important game of this century.

So peckin' cute

I kowtow to Robert Kurvitz and his writing

I can't last an hour not thinking about what I'll do when I next play.

Not quite as well-written as LiS, but does have its compelling moments, even if the climax at the third episode seems rather too convenient. The bonus episode is especially melancholic and makes the rest of the game worth the purchase.

A pleasant if somewhat twee game that uses its cyberpunk setting as a lens for advocating a socially progressive message.

2064: Read Only Memories is a point-and-click adventure game set in the retro-futurist city of neo-SF in - you guessed it - 2064 (the reason for the neo-prefix appellation is never really clearly explained). You play a down-on-their-luck investigative journalist, who, one day, is visited by an intrepid robot (ROM, in the game's parlance) named Turing. Turing turns out to be the world's first truly sapient artificial intelligence, and enlists your help to locate their creator, who has gone mysteriously missing. In true cyberpunk style, this lead rapidly escalates into a conspiracy involving shadowy corporations, rogue AIs, and killer androids.

ROM is less of a game than it is a kind of interactive visual novel - a point and click game where all you do is choose conversation paths, solve absurdly simplistic puzzles from time to time, and generally follow the story along a linear path to one of a few branching conclusions, based on how you've treated your compatriots along the way. Such games stand and fall on the strength of their writing. Luckily, there is an intelligence to ROM that is belied by its somewhat cartoonish presentation. Its characters are your standard cyberpunk tropes - genius kid hackers, shady corporate billionaires, murderous androids - and they all play their roles to the hilt, sometimes almost to the level of caricature. But there are underlying threads and bits of lore and worldbuilding that you can find if you take enough time to talk to characters, and they paint a compelling portrait of a 2065 San Francisco.

A large part of this is the game's abiding mission to present a socially progressive vision to the player through its characters. ROM features a plethora of LGBT characters for whom their sexuality is just one unremarked-upon facet of their identity. In fact, most of the characters in ROM are either gay or genderqueer in some way. The game uses gene-modified human animal hybrids as a stand-in for the latest discriminated-against minority, and leaves it to the player to show solidarity or not, which has some small bearing over the eventual conclusion you get. The allusion is a bit strained - because hybrids, after all, choose to be hybrids - so the narrative makes it so that many hybrids don't become hybrids voluntarily, but it's supposed to be a part of wide-ranging gene therapy. It's a bit of a convoluted metaphor to generate some degree of social commentary on privilege. The game is better at being just a kind of safe space for LGBT players, who can experience a story in which there are many gay people and that's that - no thematic significance to that part.

Turing's character is also a way for the game to expound on its calls for greater tolerance and diversity. As the world's first sapient robot, Turing is an unknown, an "other" - whose charm and humane nature shine out beyond their chrome exterior. The game is a journey of sorts for Turing, who tries to fashion human-equivalent identities, such as gender, age, or the right of autonomy. It's up to the player to embrace Turing rather than push them away to get the better ending.

To sum, ROM is a short, simple, at times tacky - but ultimately intriguing cyberpunk adventure with a progressive message to bear. While hardly a game, ROM thrives on the strength of its writing and the surprising depth of its cyberpunk setting. Just make sure you check your non-hybrid privilege at the door first.

I give this: 4 out of 5 milk cartons

Subversive and delightful.

Review: https://binarycafe.wordpress.com/2016/01/02/undertale/