features an impossibly generous depiction of a future san francisco, which is depicted as clean and technologically progressive; i guaranfuckingtee you that by 2064 the city will be a disgusting shit-scented garbage island run by ruthless mad-max style rival tribes based on their district of origin before it is inevitably destroyed by the war between soma's cannibal techno-yuppies and the mission's anarcho-queer doomsday cult. (the upper class will have long left the surface behind in the salesforce tower, which now hovers over the remains of the city, its occupants laughing and clinking glasses of champagne together as they watch the trash pyre at pacific heights burn)

I havent played this game in years, so i might have to replay to give a thorough critique, which i feel it needs, as a 2014 SJW game. I was there, as a 2014 SJW. so i feel this criticism is important. I actually wrote and rewrote this for a VERY long time, lmfao. The story's fine, characters are loveable, turing's there, whatever. My main contention is with actually one of my favorite characters, Jess, who has undergone a hybridization surgery to save her life, and looks like a cat woman. In this world, hybrids are humans who have decided for whatever reason to medically alter their genes to have animal parts, or something like that. They are used as this game's allegory for fantasy oppression, basically. or sci fi oppression. either way, creating an unreal class of people to be oppressed is not something that games should do unless they're prepared to really carry it through, and do the research. In this game, the Human Protection Act exists to make sure hybrids don't overtake humanity. Which... Remember that hybrids are human and these are all just references to real life, mostly racist legislature that the game updates to imagine in a cyberpunk society. Okay. So, you make a microaggression towards Jess, and she of course gets mad, tells her life story to you in detail so you understand... how bad hybrids have it, i guess?

It's just deeply uncomfortable to say something that you, as a player, probably can see will not be taken well, have to say it, and then see it not taken well! And that's where your knowledge of hybrids comes from. And i just feel like there couldve been a better way that feels way less exploitative of this woman's trauma, and way less personally offensive to me as a disabled person who gets a lot of this in my real life already and whatnot... And All this for a racism metaphor. Every confrontation with Jess has a weird vibe and she seems like the writers want her to just constantly be educating you. Which is not the role anyone should have, much less someone who... has been through a lot and has a lot better shit to do with her time.

Also, the term "genotypicals" makes me want to genuinely throw up.

The weird vibes with jess' treatment shine through in other ways i believe, but I don't remember this game fully... Only these parts because they really made me upset! Game is not even that bad otherwise. a little copagandic. but the narrative and the way hybrids were handled did not do it for me at all and it left a very bad taste in my mouth.

A small adventure that pays homage to old Japanese command-style adventures. I don't particularly appreciate the size of the game screen and how it fits with the dialogue boxes and avatars, but the pixel art is certainly well-executed, albeit simple. Another merit I feel I can attribute is to the soundtrack, rich in jazz tracks (quite numerous considering that the total length of the game, or at least to achieve one of the four endings, is around 8 hours, if I remember correctly). That being said, I didn't find the rest particularly interesting; whether it's the characters, their voice acting (a surprise, but it didn't always convince me), the story itself with its twists, or the actions executable from section to section

I finished Read Only Memories a while ago, so this review is not written with the game fresh in my mind. This is a fun and engaging point-and-click adventure/mystery game, with likeable characters and strong dialogue. The pacing is great, the tension is high, and the story explores a wide variety of cyberpunk themes - what it means to be alive or human, what tech might do to politics, and the impact that corporatisation has on people's lives.

The game is also very obviously queer and does this well, with multiple characters whose identities do not fall within the gender binary (both human and non-human). At one point your companion Turing - the first sentient robot, and one of the highlights of the game - muses on how gender has impacted him and the robots who preceded him.

The story, although taking itself seriously, manages to let through some genuinely heart-warming and some delightfully silly moments - at one point, you must help an up and coming rapper come up with lyrics by using the objects in your environment, which results in some sick bars.

Speaking of the environment, it is both rich and has very pretty pixel graphics. All interactable objects have multiple lines of flavour text, all of which are worth the time to read, so if you're at all like me you'll be sat on each screen clicking on anything just to find something new.

I loved 2064: Read Only Memories, and have very few qualms with it beyond:
- wanting to click on all the objects occasionally led to gameplay pacing issues where instead of following somewhere that was supposedly urgent I would sit and read all the flavour text
- One of the lead designers is less than pleasant, which makes me hesitant to recommend you give your money to him - I would still recommend it if you have your hands on a copy that you haven't paid for.

Great pixel artwork and an ok soundtrack are probably the games strongest points.

The voice acting is very hit or miss, with some of the bigger misses coming from internet personalities. I get the want to boost marketing for your game by hiring popular YouTubers to do some voice work, but the overall quality suffers from it.

The story is about what you would expect if you were to read a mid 2010's fanfic. Dialogue is stiff, all subtlety is thrown out the door as it bonks you over the head with its themes and messages. Characters either act like assholes or preachers. For a game that is 99% storytelling, the writing left a lot to be desired.

There is a serious lack of puzzles or things to do as well to distract from the writing. Most of the game is spent listening to characters talk. At least the main character who you will spend most of your time talking to is relatively well done in both writing and voice acting compared to the rest of the cast.