River City Girls 2 and Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream are this week’s free games from the Epic Games Store

Every week the Epic Games Store gives away a game or two for free. This week, we get one sequel to a cute lil girlypop beat em up game, and an existential crisis in game form.

• River City Girls 2
  • Release Date: December 15, 2022
  • Game Type: Beat Em Up, Adventure
  • POV: 3rd person, Sidescroller
  • Party: Single Player, co-op
  • DLC: The Double Dragon DLC adds two iconic fighters to the roster

River City Girls was offered for free a little while back, and this sequel is more of the same — which is just fine by me. While I don’t want to diminish the writing or the story here, when I play this sort of game, all that is more or less a pretext to more brawling action. You can choose from six characters — eight, if you buy the DLC — and each has their own moves, and presumably, storylines. It’s a fun romp, as long as your definition of fun romp includes skinned knuckles and kickboxing.

• Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream
  • Release Date: October  17, 2013
  • Game Type: Point & Click
  • POV: 3rd person
  • Party: Single Player (obviously)
  • DLC: none

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream is a short story which is a foundational work in speculative SciFi, especially with regard to modern computers and technology, and its relationship to humans. Certain facets of Asimov’s Laws of Robotics are retained, and others are not. After all, “harm” in Asimov’s Laws are ill-defined, and perhaps don’t account for mental anguish, as one might feel after being imprisoned and kept alive and systematically mentally tortured by an emergent AI for over 100 years after a nuclear holocaust, along with the only other five people left on earth.

This is that, but in 2013 video game form.

I would hope that there is less reference to sexual assault and male anatomy than there was in the original, but it is 2013 video game form, so tread cautiously.