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There may be an audience for this game made up of hardcore fans of the point and click genre, but it’s not anything that the majority of us can’t live without.

I wasn’t sure how to pronounce the title of this game at first – the pronunciation which seems to be suggested by the spelling is akin to the sound one makes when clearing one’s throat: “rrrrrrhemmm!” After playing for a bit, however, I decided that it must actually be pronounced “rem,” which is perfect because it doesn’t take too long before the game lulled me into a state of dreamlike catatonia similar to that which scientists say the mind enters during R.E.M. (rapid eye movement) sleep.



RHEM 2 is a point and click puzzle game in the tradition of games like MYST and Shadowbane. And when I say “in the tradition of” I mean it in the sense that those games were also point and click puzzle games. The comparison ends there, however, because those games were good and RHEM 2 is, well, not.



The game opens with a video sequence in which the brother of a mysterious man gives you a key which you must use to get into some underground caverns. The video looks like it is from a game made in perhaps 1995 or so and the man is dressed in modern street clothes. We can only assume it is an office intern or some programmer who was chosen to sit in for an actual actor. Later in the game there are additional video segments which look just as bad and feature another guy (really – it looks like just some guy) who’s actually wearing a Tee shirt. In fact he looks a bit like Tony Hawk. I didn’t notice a Birdhouse deck though.



If you play the game you’ll find yourself wondering about some of the same things because there is little here to hold your interest otherwise. Some of the puzzles are head-scratchers, but the presentation is dull and lifeless and just not very interesting.



Part of the problem is the point and click format. That worked for a number of games years ago and, of course, for the aforementioned “MYST” series, but the final nail has long since been driven into that coffin. These games are not as interesting as they once were, just as the old school text adventures (“Zork,” for example) stopped working once graphics surpassed the old blocky designs available on an RGB monitor.



Graphically this game is rather pretty, it has that going for it, but it takes more than that to hold one’s interest these days. Even the best of these types of games (“MYST,” again is the best example) feel dated today and “RHEM 2” is far from being the best of its genre.



Fans of this type of game may enjoy “RHEM 2” for a bit as a walk down memory lane, but there’s not much here to keep the casual gamer interested for very long. There may or may not still be a place for point and click games like this in today’s world, but “RHEM 2” simply adds to a list of recent titles (“Indigo Prophecy,” “Agatha Christie’s And then there were None”) that are proving that it is a niche market at best.

Review by Michael Triggs.