Publisher: Got Game Entertainment
Developer: Centauri Production
System requirements: Windows XP or Vista; 1.8 GHz processor or higher; 512 MB RAM Windows XP (1 GB for Vista); 64 MB Direct X 8.1-compatible video card; 350 MB free hard-drive space
Genre: Adventure
Release date: Available now

Remember you will die…is the translation of the Latin phrase, Memento Mori. Paintings that remind people of their own mortality are considered to be part of the Memento Mori genre. You may wonder how a Latin phrase would be the title of a mystery point-and-click adventure PC game from Got Game Entertainment. The answer is Paintings and…Murder?

Lara, an agent from Interpol, finds out from her former boss, Colonel Ostankovic that a strange event happened. The security system of the famous Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg went down for a few minutes with the possibility of a forgery getting replaced with one of the paintings. Your former boss asks a favor to keep this one off the record as you investigate what actually might have happened. You join forces with Max, a former art forger, who owes a favor to Ostankovic for keeping him out of jail. The story gets deeper as you find that there is more than just a painting getting stolen.

Memento Mori is a three dimensional point and click adventure game. You switch between the two playable characters, Max and Lara. Movement, interaction with your environment and picking up items are all controlled by the greatest accessory to a computer, your mouse. Most point-and-click adventure games all use the same idea for items and Memento Mori is no different. You pick up a vast amount of them, place them in your inventory, and manipulate or combine them to progress farther into the game. Sometimes you have to examine an item closely for it to work. The puzzles you come across might use a magnifying glass to spot a fake painting. The game also has different dialogue options, that are positive, negative or neutral and can affect the outcome of the game accordingly.

The environment and practical item usage in Memento Mori is something that rarely comes with point and click games. The backgrounds and foregrounds make it feel like a living breathing world. When I am walking down a city street I want to hear and see city stuff. The way the title uses lighting impressed me, and the item usage has a rare quality for a point-and-click adventure game, it actually makes sense. It does not make you say, “Ok who would do that in real life? Someone would never use a broom handle to open that safe,” but rather “Ok I can see how I could use a dirty rag, piece of metal and a lighter to make a torch.”

A game that relies more on story than actual game play must have a great story. Memento Mori does not have a great story. It just plain drags at many parts and just does not have any “meat” to it to make me play for hours on end. I would have rather had aliens from the dwarf planet Pluto come and play Lara and Max at a game of checkers then find out who stole the paintings. The conversations are poorly put together. Point-and-click adventure titles must have something other than great visuals and sounds to be enjoyable.

It takes a lot for a point-and-click adventure game to stand out among the countless others. Memento Mori has great visuals and sounds but really does not have much of anything else. It is best described as a terrible present in nice wrapping paper with a flashy bow from your grandmother. You get excited because the environments look beautiful, but when it comes down to what really counts, the story, it just falls short.

Our Score:

Our Recommendation: