I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a point and click that was released on Halloween in 1996. The game is based off of the post-apocalyptic short story of the same name by Harlan Ellison, which was first published in 1967. It is classified as one of the top ten most reprinted stories in the English language, and it is highly acclaimed. It's also noteworthy that Harlan himself voices the antagonist in the game, a computer called AM.

The plot of the story takes place 109 years after the destruction of human civilization, which was caused by the escalation of the Cold War into a full blown world war. The three warring nations, Russia, China, and the United States, had all built super computers which were put in charge of running the war; as they were deemed more efficient at the task. The computers were referred to as AM, which originally stood for Allied Mastercomputer, then later Adaptive Manipulator, and finally Aggressive Menace. One of the computers eventually became self aware and absorbed the other two, and then carried out the mass genocide of humanity; save four men and one woman.

The final survivors of the human race, Gorrister, Benny, Nimdok, Ted and Ellen, are housed in a seemingly endless underground personal hell. The master computer, AM, harbors an immense hatred for all human kind, and has spent every available moment for the last 109 years torturing the poor souls that he 'spared' from the mass genocide. He not only has kept them from committing suicide, but he has made them nearly immortal over the years, thus allowing them to survive for such a long period of time.

Throughout I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, it is your duty to get each of the five survivors to the end of their scenario without letting them die, commit suicide, or otherwise make a wrong decision that could end up ending their scenario early. If the character dies or commits suicide, the scenario ends and you must begin again; if they end up making a wrong decision, it will have an effect on the ending that you will receive. There are multitudes of endings available, although some of them are very similar; you have a chance for the best, worst, and bad endings.

The game has a disturbing, morose atmosphere that is carried by an overall darkened setting throughout each scenario. From the inside of a grungy airship, to a remote forest inhabited by a tribe that sacrifices its people to AM, to a Nazi war camp in 1945, each character has their own distinct setting, with many gruesome discoveries to be made. However, what makes the game truly disturbing is the thought of actually being kept alive and tortured for over 100 years, and the effect that it would have to have on the human psyche. It would be a living hell, wherein you ultimately forget that there ever was anything else, questioning reality and if you had perhaps actually died and gone to hell. Coupled with the haunting knowledge that we are, as a society, getting closer every year to creating such advanced technology, the idea behind I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream should be more spine-tingling now than it was 40 some years ago.

While many people in the forums have stated that they've ran into bugs and glitches that have prevented them from finishing the game, I had no such issues during my four hours with the title. The most that happened for me was the background music stopping entirely, which was a shame since the musical score is incredible for its time period. I also somehow managed to unlock the debug screen during Nimdok's scenario... which was weird, but not game destroying.

Overall, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a solid horror point and click, which was ahead of its time in 1996. The atmosphere is dark, lonely, and grim. It does a great job of conveying the sense of dread and loneliness that each of the characters experience, and the idea of the main plot will really linger in the recesses of your mind for a while. Harlan Ellison even wrote most of the in-game dialogue, and coauthored this expanded storyline. However, I do not find this title better than other horror point and clicks of the same era, namely Sanitarium. If you have a choice of only one or the other, I would go with the latter. For the true horror fan though, I still recommend this title for its capability to truly haunt the human mind.

The Horror Network Curator | Group Click for Gore

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a point and click that was released on Halloween in 1996. The game is based off of the post-apocalyptic short story of the same name by Harlan Ellison, which was first published in 1967. It is classified as one of the top ten most reprinted stories in the English language, and it is highly acclaimed. It's also noteworthy that Harlan himself voices the antagonist in the game, a computer called AM. The plot of the story takes place 109 years after the destruction of human civilization, which was caused by the escalation of the Cold War into a full blown world war. The three warring nations, Russia, China, and the United States, had all built super computers which were put in charge of running the war; as they were deemed more efficient at the task. The computers were referred to as AM, which originally stood for Allied Mastercomputer, then later Adaptive Manipulator, and finally Aggressive Menace. One of the computers eventually became self aware and absorbed the other two, and then carried out the mass genocide of humanity; save four men and one woman. The final survivors of the human race, Gorrister, Benny, Nimdok, Ted and Ellen, are housed in a seemingly endless underground personal hell. The master computer, AM, harbors an immense hatred for all human kind, and has spent every available moment for the last 109 years torturing the poor souls that he 'spared' from the mass genocide. He not only has kept them from committing suicide, but he has made them nearly immortal over the years, thus allowing them to survive for such a long period of time. Throughout I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, it is your duty to get each of the five survivors to the end of their scenario without letting them die, commit suicide, or otherwise make a wrong decision that could end up ending their scenario early. If the character dies or commits suicide, the scenario ends and you must begin again; if they end up making a wrong decision, it will have an effect on the ending that you will receive. There are multitudes of endings available, although some of them are very similar; you have a chance for the best, worst, and bad endings. The game has a disturbing, morose atmosphere that is carried by an overall darkened setting throughout each scenario. From the inside of a grungy airship, to a remote forest inhabited by a tribe that sacrifices its people to AM, to a Nazi war camp in 1945, each character has their own distinct setting, with many gruesome discoveries to be made. However, what makes the game truly disturbing is the thought of actually being kept alive and tortured for over 100 years, and the effect that it would have to have on the human psyche. It would be a living hell, wherein you ultimately forget that there ever was anything else, questioning reality and if you had perhaps actually died and gone to hell. Coupled with the haunting knowledge that we are, as a society, getting closer every year to creating such advanced technology, the idea behind I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream should be more spine-tingling now than it was 40 some years ago. While many people in the forums have stated that they've ran into bugs and glitches that have prevented them from finishing the game, I had no such issues during my four hours with the title. The most that happened for me was the background music stopping entirely, which was a shame since the musical score is incredible for its time period. I also somehow managed to unlock the debug screen during Nimdok's scenario... which was weird, but not game destroying. Overall, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a solid horror point and click, which was ahead of its time in 1996. The atmosphere is dark, lonely, and grim. It does a great job of conveying the sense of dread and loneliness that each of the characters experience, and the idea of the main plot will really linger in the recesses of your mind for a while. Harlan Ellison even wrote most of the in-game dialogue, and coauthored this expanded storyline. However, I do not find this title better than other horror point and clicks of the same era, namely Sanitarium. If you have a choice of only one or the other, I would go with the latter. For the true horror fan though, I still recommend this title for its capability to truly haunt the human mind. [h1]Rating: [b]3.5/5.0[/b] - Average, can take it or leave it.[/h1] The Horror Network [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28221963/]Curator[/url] | [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thehorrornetwork]Group[/url] Click for Gore