Let me get this out of the way right now: I do not hesitate to say that Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is the most innovative title for the Wii to date, and the best entry in the Silent Hill series. This is saying a lot. I adore Silent Hill; Silent Hill 2 is one of my top 10 favorite games of all time.

Shattered Memories is a full re-imagining of the first Silent Hill title. You play Harry Mason, a writer searching for his lost daughter, Cheryl. His character is now very well defined, with better voice acting and far more depth and history. In fact, the game’s narrative switches back and forth between traditional gameplay and therapy sessions between Harry and his psychologist where you discuss with him interactively, fill out questionnaires and even color pictures. These therapy elements not only build onto Harry as a character, they change the presentation of the story. For example, Harry is asked to color in a picture of a family in front of a house, to reflect his opinions and memories of his family. How you color the picture changes the appearance of his house when you visit it, and changes the clothes on its current tenants. Filling out the psychological profile survey in such a way to indicate lecherousness changes the appearance of female characters, over-sexualizing them. It gets deeper. Evaluation isn’t the end of it. If you spend too much time staring at certain objects, like the remains of violence or sexually-explicit posters, your psychological profile changes. Even the monsters change with your choices.

That’s a layer of the game. The primary game mechanics are fundamentally different than Silent Hill fans are familiar with. Harry cannot fight. He’s a writer. He doesn’t think to pick through trashcans and grab boards to bash in zombie brains. What does he do? He runs. During scenes with monsters, Harry has no choice but to run, to hide under things, to jump across gaps, to knock things down to slow his assailants and to ward them off with lit flares. The gameplay in these segments is very ‘free-running.’ Think Mirror’s Edge or Assassin’s Creed. If you run to an edge, he jumps. If you run into a door, he slams it open. If you find cover, he’ll jump under it. However, Harry Mason is no master of parkour. He’s clumsy. When he’s climbing, monsters will grab his ankles. When he’s trying to push a barricade down in his enemies’ way, he’ll sometimes run into difficulties that you have to work around. When the monsters do finally grab him, you have to save him. You do this by making throwing motions with the Wiimote. If something’s on your back, you heave quickly upward. If something grabs your arm, you yank the arm away.

Harry is helpless, weak, and in over his head. You never once think otherwise. There’s no, “Oh, that sucked. But at least I have a shotgun now,” moment. The closest thing is the feeling you get when you find a flare. However, you know the flare is a very temporary fix. It gives you maybe thirty seconds of respite, but those thirty seconds must be used to gain distance, because when it’s over, nothing can save you.

While the basic ‘non-combat system’ is the biggest deviation from the original game series, it’s not the only major change. Harry has two major tools that get him through most of the game: A flashlight and a cellphone.

The flashlight is controlled with your Wiimote. It casts a very small beam of light that allows decidedly limited visibility. There’s no way around this, it is harsh. If you’re in a scene where you’re running away from threats, limited visibility will get you killed. This is a feature, not a flaw. It causes sheer dread, when you have no idea where to go. Harry’s perceptions are enhanced with this. While the Wii has limited graphics capabilities, the smaller window of perception means that more attention can be paid to a smaller area. The details are beautiful. Every street sign and gas pump was given laborious attention, with little subtleties. Chalkboards have grainy writing.

The cellphone is the other tool, it covers Harry’s map, his notepad, his camera, everything that’d usually take a menu in previous titles. This adds a whole different level of immersion. You can have your GPS active, holding your cellphone up to navigate while you wander. When the game gives you messages, they come in the form of voice messages on the phone, the sounds of which are played through the Wiimote device itself. His camera function serves as notes and other things. If you want to remember some clue to a puzzle you found on a wall, you take a picture of it and cycle through your phone memory later. When you see little anomalies in your vision, take a picture: It might be a ghost with a clue or a little plot depth. Throughout the game, you find plenty of telephone numbers. Some are worthless, but all have responses. For example, when you call the Department of Wildlife, you get a creepy, “We’re out of the office” message.

Doors don’t break the scene for loading. Think about this for a moment. In previous Silent Hill games, you got to take a few second breather any time you opened a door. You knew that if something was chasing you, that you could get to a door and all would be safe. In Shattered Memories, doors are opened manually. All doors, every last one. Either you slam through them, or you grab the handle with a button, pushing the door open with your Wiimote. If you’re being chased by a ton of monsters, your only hope is to slam through doors and hope you don’t have to slow down. Slowing down means that you don’t have the momentum to bust through, and you need to open the door by hand.

Healing items are nonexistent. They’d pull you out of the narrative. You have a limited amount of ‘health’ during nightmare scenes, and that’s it. Monsters don’t bite and tear, they don’t cause gaping wounds. They grab and harry Harry (see what I did there?,) leaving him slowed and fatigued, until eventually they knock him down and end his life with all manner of disturbing actions.

Aesthetically, the game diverts almost entirely. Instead of a burning Silent Hill, Shattered Memories’s Silent Hill is frozen. It’s not a place of punishment, it’s a place where you’re lost, where you’re abandoned. Cheryl is lost out in the cold. In my opinion, this is more symbolic of the game’s message.

What the two game modes leaves you with is a sense of dread, met with the occasional, heart-pounding slasher horror feel. It’s a good contrast that exemplifies the traditional Silent Hill feel with a much more tense action environment. The calmer scenes are full of puzzles and little seek-and-find type things. Almost all the puzzles use the Wiimote’s capabilities, even the littlest ones. A good example comes early in the game, when you see three empty beer cans. You grab them with the Wiimote, lifting and shaking them. One causes a rattling sound, so if you turn it upside-down and shake it, something comes out. Some puzzles use sound, both in the game proper and on the Wiimote.

When I first played Silent Hill on the PS1 so many years ago, it evoked a similar sense. I thought, “This is the ideal horror game on this platform. It takes everything the Playstation can do, and uses those things to creep you out.” Shattered Memories does exactly that. However, the Wii has a lot more to offer. The execution of the Wiimote draws you in to the action, it drops you right in the dead center and makes you feel like you’re Harry, and you’re likely to die. It does what Silent Hill did, only better. Like a Silent Hill squared. Most importantly, I think this game raises the bar for the Wii. It takes advantage of the Wii’s technology, exhibiting what I imagined the Wii would be when I first played it. Konami’s helped the Wii come into its own. Now, let’s see if other design companies follow their example.

For those that have played the original, don’t worry. You will be surprised. You will be shocked. The characters have a lot of similarities, but the story is not the same. The plot flows differently, the world is different and the involvement is almost unrecognizable. While the game is very, very different, the dropping of your gut and the way your heart will race is very much the same.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is my favorite new release of 2009. Konami’s offered a handful of lackluster titles in the series (Origins, Homecoming, and The Room, I’m looking at you,) Shattered Memories more than makes up for them. Video games have had a relatively lackluster year, full of boring, unimaginative titles. Konami brought their A-Game. They’ve taken the survival horror concept to a completely new level.

Dear Konami: Thank you for breathing new life into the franchise, saving it from banality.

“David Hill is an award-winning freelance writer and game designer based out of Philadelphia. His work has been featured in a number of games including Vampire the Requiem, EVE Online and Shadowrun. You can find more about him at http://www.machineageproductions.com/”

I wrote it before I finished the game. I wish I waited.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories has the most powerful ending in any video game I’ve ever played. It’s easily the best Silent Hill title, and the best game for the Wii. I’ve not been so astounded with a video game in… Forever.

If you don’t have a Wii, rectify it. I cannot recommend this game enough.”