Point and click adventure is dying as a genre, that’s the unfortunate truth. And I don’t know if we, the gamers, are killing it (by opting for more intense and fast paced genres and games) or point and click adventure game makers simply lost their inspiration… one thing is clear though – we won’t see too soon another game like the great I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. And that’s sad. That can kill a genre. Or it’s just us who can?

Let’s start this time traveling session with a few details about the game. In ‘95 or ‘96 when I fist played the game I was most certainly too young to fully understand it as a whole (and probably too young compared to the intended audience), but this didn’t stop the game from being extremely impressive and quite thought-provoking. And it just can’t be otherwise, having in mind that you’re faced with all sorts of ethical dilemmas and a bunch of characters who suffer of insanity and paranoia and who were tortured and humiliated for over 100 years. Add to the mix a classic human vs machine subplot and lots of redeeming options, and you will get your game like no other. A game that’s described as an adventure of “speared eyeballs and dripping guts and the smell of rotting gardenias.”

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream was not only dark, deep and metaphorical to the bone, it also seemed to touch all the problems of the human kind, from the past and the present, from sexuality to Nazism, from mental illnesses to humiliation and torture – everything to analyze the human nature at its core. Our job in the game? To turn things around and become humans again. Sounds easy? Well… just take a look around and you’ll see that it’s pretty damn hard. Then just get back to 95, give this game a go and you’ll realize that something like that might be coming. Maybe worse!

They don’t do similar games today. First of all, because nowadays a game like I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream would be heavily censored if it were to hit the market, and that would ruin half of the fun. Second, because we are no longer that patient anymore: we don’t the time nor the will to try over and over again until we find the correct path to follow, the right object to use, the right thing to say in order to save our souls and save the human kind. No, today we would only shoot to save it – lightning-fast, with auto-aiming to consider ourselves even cooler and only because we get Trophies (or Achievements, or call them as you wish) instead. And finally, they don’t do such games since the gaming industry has to entertain – it’s not its job to pop up questions, to make us better human beings, to make us care, change things around and become better. The gaming industry has to entertain. Earn much. More. The most.

“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” is basically what point and click adventure gaming has become today – a dying entity, controlled by a superior, collective mind which is, unfortunately, as perverted and crazy as the entity itself. The genre can’t scream for help, we can’t and won’t do anything to help it. We will unlock a new weapon instead and yell “you’re gaaaaay!” in the headset. Because that’s what being cool means. We can scream.