(If you're wondering what the heck is about, my first blog post here sums up my goals - short version: I'm matching every gaming dollar I spend, beginning at the start of June 2013, with a dollar of philanthropy).

Remember Me is the sort of game I approach hopefully but realistically. I really want a game like this to be better, both from a gameplay perspective and a writing one, but even though the final result, at best, can be called uneven it's still playable... just the kind of "second tier" game that we often mourn the death of, and it was a savvy idea for Capcom to bring it out during this year's particularly sharp spring-summer drought of new game releases - I'm sure my interest was half borne of needing something novel to play. Honestly, the weirdest thing to me was how it tugged at my (fond) memories of other games. It's like the teams behind DmC Devil May Cry and Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective decided to collaborate on a game but never really saw eye to eye.

Anyway, I decided to back away from memory-related causes that might be the most obvious parallels to this game, because I get uneasy talking about Alzheimer's in conjunction with a game where you win the game by... changing and erasing memories. The game comes close at times to grappling with the ethics of its central gimmick, but abandons every attempt at such moral questions.

Instead, with a bit of a nod towards the game's setting of Neo Paris and the vast destitute population of "Leapers" therein, my $55 (more on that amount later) is going to Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), an organization which could definitely be used in this particular dystopia. I also thought of them because of the rare (for games) mixed-ethnicity heroine, Nilin. That she's an African-European mix is beautifully handled within the game, which is to say it's not commented upon at all but simply accepted to be. And so I wanted to reach out to an organization that likewise has a global reach but some French heritage.

As for that $55, I'm also lumping in my Steam purchase of Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4, since it was too small a purchase to split off a separate donation for. The series ends, unfortunately, a bit rudderless, and the game fails to bring enough interesting elements to justify its length. I would have been a lot happier with a shorter game that allowed the writing (which still has plenty of great moments) to stay front and center, at full concentration and potency.