I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

 PC
User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 35 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 35
  3. Negative: 4 out of 35

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  1. UncleEd
    Nov 19, 2021
    5
    First things first. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison is one of the best sci-fi stories ever written and if you consider yourself remotely interested in the genre, you owe yourself to read it.

    The video game adaptation is a point & click adventure co-designed by Harlan Ellison himself. Harlan Ellison also narrates AM, the main antagonist of I Have No Mouth, and I Must    First things first. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison is one of the best sci-fi stories ever written and if you consider yourself remotely interested in the genre, you owe yourself to read it.

    The video game adaptation is a point & click adventure co-designed by Harlan Ellison himself. Harlan Ellison also narrates AM, the main antagonist of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. On that point, this game features some of the best voice acting in the history of video games, period (Just have a look at the opening scene). Harlan Ellison’s involvement does not end there. The game expands on the original story, while maintaining the dark, sinister atmosphere and mature theme in visual format. It touches subjects rarely seen in video games and delves into deep areas in psychology. Visually, the game looks very good for an adventure game that came out in 1995.

    Everything you have read so far points out to a masterpiece. But unfortunately, the game is a big flop when it comes to being a video game. Remember how a big chunk of adventure games released up until the end of 90s were crippled with abysmal game mechanics, most of which are completely abandoned today? Trial & error puzzles that make no sense? Deadlocks where you can get permanently stuck because you did not follow the steps in the order the game designer had in mind? You will find all those here and in abundance. It did not take me long to understand how bad I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is as a video game. My love for the original story as well as the parts of the game where Harlan Ellison was involved (atmosphere, writing, voiceovers) kept me going until the end, but only with constant use of a walkthrough.

    Play this one if you are familiar with the short story and only if you are comfortable with using a guide throughout the game.    … Expand
  2. Matseb2611
    Apr 25, 2015
    6
    I didn't know anything about the book when I started to play the game, but the concept intrigued me straight away. You get to pick one of the 5 human survivors to play a sadistic game by a god-like AI where your task is to redeem the character. Then you get to pick the next one, and so on.

    I was really impressed by the story and setting. If I had to rate the game on story alone, it'd be    I didn't know anything about the book when I started to play the game, but the concept intrigued me straight away. You get to pick one of the 5 human survivors to play a sadistic game by a god-like AI where your task is to redeem the character. Then you get to pick the next one, and so on.

    I was really impressed by the story and setting. If I had to rate the game on story alone, it'd be a 10/10. Each of the 5 human survivors is developed well, and you get to explore their fears, likes and dislikes during their challenge, and AI itself is really likeable and somewhat charismatic, despite being a horrible, sadistic thing that has been torturing these people for years.

    The music and the visuals are also very impressive and greatly add to the atmosphere.

    The only aspect of the game I really didn't enjoy were the puzzles. Most times they didn't make much logical sense and involved a lot of trial and error. Worse yet, if you make a mistake, that character fails the campaign and gets taken back to the starting area, so you'll have to redo their campaign again if you haven't been saving regularly. Because of this, I'd highly recommend you to have a walkthrough at hand when playing, or better yet, just watch one of the Let's Plays on Youtube, because the story is well worth experiencing.    … Expand
  3. curzon_dax
    Jun 23, 2019
    5
    I just played “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” and I’m forced to say It’s extremely overrated. It’s considered one of the better games of the genre and it has so many severe flaws. I understand that some of it is a matter of preference and I respect it but while it is subjective, I hated even the subjective parts.

    In short (nevermind, it’s not short), 1) It did the cardinal    I just played “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” and I’m forced to say It’s extremely overrated. It’s considered one of the better games of the genre and it has so many severe flaws. I understand that some of it is a matter of preference and I respect it but while it is subjective, I hated even the subjective parts.

    In short (nevermind, it’s not short),

    1) It did the cardinal mistake that almost all newer adventure games avoid because it annoys people: it produces dead ends that they don’t just create a “bad ending”, in many cases it creates NO ENDING AT ALL. You are left running around the rooms/areas trying to figure out of any way out, even if it’s death or a bad ending and there is nothing at all to do in some cases. You have to literally use an old save and restart. And if you don’t have such a save you can’t go on at all. But that’s not the real issue. It’s that the game doesn’t let you know - in some cases - that that’s what happened so you are left wondering what’s going on. After spending days being stuck you may eventually realize or assume that you may have hit a bug or a hard dead end and a walkthrough may help in that case but that ruins the entire thing. Walkthroughs are giving up or in any case, they are not gaming.

    2) It has bugs! Actual bugs. In various cases it would crash or it would be unable to use an item after a rare action of the player, and it would literally show on the screen “BUG! Unexpected action!” and stuff like that. The game was simply not finished.

    3) And that’s the worst of all, in my opinion, it’s way worse than even the 1st or the bugs: while it can be subjective if you like it, it relies extremely on very abstract concepts that make little technical sense. In some cases you just guess randomly.

    Ok, the 3rd while it’s technically the worst thing a game of that sort can do (being nonsensical with abstract concepts that need guessing and not logic) it’s not done that much in quantity; the 1st problem is probably the worst in total followed by the bugs.

    All in all this game doesn’t deserve better than a 6 for the way it’s constructed by allowing hard dead-ends (not “bad endings”, dead ends that give no clue it’s a dead end) and because of the bugs and the non-sense a few puzzles have, it must be at most a 5.

    So it’s a 5/10. I won’t give a 4 or lower because it’s at least old and doesn’t deserve any hate for its old graphics etc. The voice acting isn’t horrible but not the best but at that time not even most games had voice acting so I won’t even consider it a negative.    … Expand
  4. GolovA
    Nov 11, 2016
    7
    After getting this game i found out a little about Harlan Ellison and his novelette (didn't read it though).
    Well, the game is a classical Adventure point-and-click with an annoying element of choosing each command specifically ('OPEN' or 'SWALLOW' or "WALK", etc.).
    The overall story is ok, a bit simplistic - just like most sci-fi monster movies from the 50's. What makes this game    After getting this game i found out a little about Harlan Ellison and his novelette (didn't read it though).
    Well, the game is a classical Adventure point-and-click with an annoying element of choosing each command specifically ('OPEN' or 'SWALLOW' or "WALK", etc.).
    The overall story is ok, a bit simplistic - just like most sci-fi monster movies from the 50's. What makes this game playable is the 5 characters and their stories, which are rather cliche but well developed.
    As others have pointed out - the puzzles are not always logical, but the game leverages this with a good atmospheric artwork.

    I'd only recommend this to Adventure-experienced players and definitely not as an entry into the genre for anyone not familiar with this gaming style.    … Expand
  5. prostopopez
    Mar 29, 2022
    7
    This is an interesting idea and a good implementation of the book (the plot isn't great, but it's solid). I appreciate ideas as long as the gameplay doesn't get in the way of the experience. Unfortunately, this is the case in some parts of the game. However, I recommend that you play this game if you are ready to experience inconvenience.