Review of "Screen"

Review by David Welbourn

Hm. Reliving memories isn't a bad idea for a game (see Photograph and MythTale below), but aren't these memories trivial? Commonplace? Lessee, you're razzed by friends, you kissed a girl ("she looked so sweat"), you argued with your sister, and you watched tv. Like, so what? What does any of that have to do with where you are now in life? I don't know, and the game doesn't go into that.

Worse, the tv show sections aren't particularly evocative. I actually didn't clue in that the first one was about Gilligan's Island until after I finished the game. I had imagined "Little Buddy" as a wooden marionette like Pinocchio, because... why else would his hat be stuck on his head?

Timing and implementation problems plagued the second tv segment. Those scissors wouldn't let me cut off the Caped Crusaders tights (or any other clothing) no matter how often I tried, which made the scissors appear useless. And after dying once too many times, I was off to the walkthrough.

I should also point out that using unexplained magic to paper over continuity breaks is usually considered bad writing.

Rating: 4.