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.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of Read Only Memories... the characters are great to interact with, they have plenty to say and the world in which they inhabit is not so far removed from today, but enough so that it grabs you.


The storyline keeps you going, but I felt it was almost to on rails. I suppose I was coming at it expecting a point and click adventure, but it really focuses on how you interact with the characters and there's some branching based on that (at least based on the achievements). From the achievements I got, it seems like I was too nice to everyone... will have to try playing as a jerk next time.

There are three puzzles, 2 of which seem to define how your story will progress (I flubbed the taxi one, but the game routed around my screw up to bring me back to the main story).

I enjoyed my time with the game.

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)