Point-and-Click adventure games are all but dead in this day and age. With the exception of Telltale Games' story based games and Double Fine's Broken Age. However, in the late 80s and early 90s the point-and-click genre was booming, with wonderful games like the King's Quest series in full swing, companies were clamoring for different types of adventure games. Out of the slew of different types of adventure games came a subgenre of horror games. Phantasmagoria, the Gabriel Knight series, Hellknight, all of these games found a place. But, arguably the most thought provoking and intense of those games was I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

Based on the Harlan Ellison short story of the same name, the game is an expansion of the

original story, it's script was written by Ellison himself and keeps intact all of the horrorific elements of the original story, while providing a backstory for each of the five protagonists/torture victims of AM. The overall story is a much broader study on the themes of Freudian psychology, rape, delusion, and redemption. This is the part of the game that truly shines. Harlan Ellison also does the voice of AM, and while the other voice acting in the game is spotty in some areas and downright terrible at the worst, Ellison's manic hatred of AM is a pure joy.

The game is also brutally difficult, divided into as many as six different parts: One for each character and one last part if you are able to complete the others to a satisfactory conclusion. Each character starts with a black border around their character profile that steadily turns green as they choose certain options, realize their own faults and weaknesses, or go against their better natures to do something morally good. While a lot of these tasks are easy to figure out once you know how the game works and you begin to get a feel for each of the character's own flaws and personalities, some of the tasks needed for the perfect ending are downright mind boggling. That coupled with the spotty detection of some items needed for the game's completion will leave you scratching your head and going to GameFAQs in a heartbeat.

If you can embrace the games more mature themes, haunting realizations, and gruesome images, there is a lot to enjoy here. The story alone is worth the price of the game, which can be easily found on Steam as of October of 2013. This is a game that deserves a look for any fans of old school 90s adventure games.

(Originally Written 07/21/2014)