Kill Rem Review

Appalling. If any one word best describes this game, it is the word, “appalling”. I am a pretty open-minded person but this game seems to have been created with the purpose of offending. Most reasonable people allow and even embrace a certain degree of offensive material in their world. That the world is a harsh place is a reality we must face. But how much reality do we want in an adventure game? Does a game that flaunts racism, misogyny, mass murder, obscene language, and sexual violence deserve to be played? This question can only be answered by the individual who decides to download and play this adventure game.

The game is one of many free games that uses the AGS engine. It can be downloaded from the AGS website. The game plays in 640×480 resolution maximum and runs without a hitch. I did not experience any crashing to the desktop or freezing for the 90% of the game that I played. You may ask why I stopped playing after coming so far. I would have played it to the (bitter) end but unfortunately, I ran into dead end after dead end. In most cases, I restarted my game from an old save and worked around the dead end by doing things in a different order. After hours of being unable to extricate myself from the quandary I am in now I emailed the maker of the game ([email protected]) about my difficulty. Failing to get a response, I decided to cut my losses and review what I had played.

Created in Poland, it is very evident from the beginning that English is not the primary language of the creator. His (?) sentence structures and spelling are understandable given his country of origin and mostly comprehensible but it does not make for a pleasant gaming experience when you have to decipher the intent of the text. There were even odd occasions when descriptions rendered on the screen were in Polish instead of English! Though his English is limited, it is evident that he has really applied himself where swearing is concerned. If there were a University of Coprolalia anywhere in the world, I would have to assume that the author was Valedictorian of his graduating class. I suppose it could be seen as a small blessing in this case that there is no speech in the game.

Having spent most of my life until the age of fifteen living in countries around the world, I am sensitive to cultural differences and try to respect and view customs different to my own as diverse parts of a global whole. Despite this, I was genuinely uncomfortable with some of the text that made joking reference to rape, misogyny, and racism. Although I was aware of similar sentiments being raised at soccer games in Eastern Europe, it is confronting to be exposed to these hatreds in what is supposed to be a form of entertainment in your own home. I am not yet ready to accept that the author’s biased ideologies are just reflections of his “cultural differences”.

In a similar way, the game’s cavalier attitude toward schoolboy revenge through violence is disturbing to say the least. The story centers on a young man who has returned to his hometown to kill his schoolmates. The eponymous Rem is the man’s best friend and final target of his revenge. It is unclear whether this intended violence is a provoked attack but the matter-of-factness of the protagonist in committing these acts is chilling given the increased frequency of similar events that have occurred around the world involving disgruntled students. Given that this game is free to download, access to this game is unhindered whereas a commercial equivalent (if it were even released) would probably require a classification warning at the least. Does a game that jokes about killing students put ideas in people’s heads? Probably not, but do warped individuals need to be supplied with ideas of how to create mayhem?

On a more esthetic front, the backgrounds in the game are static but attractive, many “borrowed” from other computer artists. It is unclear whether the author had permission to reproduce these images in the game but it is almost certain that he did not receive permission from Tracy Chapman or her record label to use her songs in the game! Other music I did not recognize was of an easy-listening vocal-less quality. It is fortunate that the author included music for there are no other sounds in the game! Characters in the game are rendered as pixellated sprites with truly awful robotic movement. The storyline is a boring one with dull, inane dialog trees that repeat ad infinitum because the game does not recognize when quests have been completed. As I said earlier, this is further complicated by dead ends that seem to relate to being able to complete tasks out of order. All these features are tied together with a clunky interface, one that features an inventory which is so poor that it is not clear whether the character is using an inventory item or not! Although a word I used earlier was “appalling”, in reflection another word that may be more apt is “unplayable”. Play this one at your own risk.

The author, in his readme, states that this is his first game. His website seems to be down now. All I can hope is, unless he experiences a life-changing transformation in his fundamental attitudes towards others, that this remains his one blemish on the cyberworld. This game deserves an F and ought to be nominated for entry into JustAdventure’s “Hall of Shame”.

(20)

Final Grade: F