The Consensus: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Review
By Anthony Gallegos | Dec 10, 2009
Don’t call it a remake.

3.5/5 Stars (Good)

Pros:
Generally good use of the Wii remote; awesome twist on what it means to be a “horror” game.

Cons:
Shaking enemies is annoying; story feels a little disjointed; repetitive at times.

7 (10 press ratings)

GameSpy’s Take

Calling Silent Hill: Shattered Memories a horror game is kind of misleading. Sure, it has some intense moments, but the game is based around playing with your mind and presenting you with perplexing mysteries. I’d describe it as a mystery-adventure game — one that uses the Wii’s capabilities to (mostly) good effect, and despite some repetitious level design, takes the Silent Hill series to a refreshing new place.

It doesn’t matter if you played the original Silent Hill, as Shattered Memories is a complete reimagining of the source material. While the game still follows original protagonist Harry Mason, and features some other supporting characters that will be familiar in name to series fans, the story is vastly different. Harry’s still looking for his daughter, but his journey is no longer wrapped up in an ancient cult, and it’s considerably less confusing to follow to its conclusion. Silent Hill enthusiasts might be a little put off by how easy to understand the narrative is (relatively speaking, that is), but I thought it built up a story with a very satisfying twist and ultimate ending.

And the revised story isn’t the only thing that makes this a true experiment with the franchise. Along with the lack of weapons — that’s right, Harry never physically defends himself — another major change is how you now interact with the world through a cell phone, rather than running around the environment mashing a button to see what’s contextually sensitive. With the cell phone’s interface cleverly mapped to the Wii remote’s button layout, using it to call other characters, receive text messages, snap photos or to access maps feels intuitive. Even the use of the Wii remote speaker to receive phone calls (yes, I found myself actually holding it up to my ear) felt natural, and engaged me in ways that a regular controller simply couldn’t.

Outside of the phone controls, the game’s Wii-specific functions both elate and frustrate. Mapping the flashlight in Harry’s hand to the pointer on the Wii-mote works fantastically, adding tension to the exploration of Silent Hill’s darkness. Conversely, using the motion controls to shake off enemies becomes a constant source of irritation, as you have to jerk the controller in the direction you were attacked from — quite the task when you’re surrounded by enemies and freaking out. Still, despite this and a couple of other examples (like mimicking wheelchair movements), Shattered Memories’ motion controls are exceptional, playing to the console’s strengths in ways that few other games do.

But while the team behind Shattered Memories obviously spent a considerable amount of time thinking of creative ways to use the system’s unique abilities, they neglected to put as much time into the actual level design. The first time the town changes to the “nightmare” world — where creatures constantly hunt Harry, and he must run through a distorted, ice-covered version of Silent Hill to escape — it’s thrilling and scary. However, after I figured out that this repeated about every 30 minutes (and after I spent a lot of time dying as I trudged through this confusing nightmare-labyrinth), it quickly wore out its welcome and lost almost all of its intended effect.

Still, it’s more than worth blasting through even the worst parts of Shattered Memories in order to reach the next portion of in-game counseling. That’s right: During the time I spent with Silent Hill, I constantly met with a virtual psychiatrist, and participated in activities that psychologically profiled me. Answering questions about my personality traits, and my thoughts on things like death, sex, and my family, prompted the game to adapt my responses into tangible changes to the game’s environments and characters, and I wound up with a strikingly accurate profile of my personality during the ending credit sequence. It’s a dramatic departure from anything the previous Silent Hill games have ever done, and it’s quite possibly the best innovation to the franchise.

I said that it’s misleading to call Shattered Memories a horror game, and in a lot of ways, I feel like it’s so different that calling it a Silent Hill title will make series fanatics wonder what that even means anymore. It brings some wonderful new ideas to a franchise that’s been starting to feel stale, but it wraps them up in a series of repetitious levels that feel arbitrarily forced in for the sake of making a game that’s at least six hours long. The studio behind Shattered Memories obviously has a better understanding than most developers about what does and doesn’t work on the Wii, and, with the increased emphasis on psychology, I can’t wait to see their future work within the nightmare world of Silent Hill.

The Critics Agree

Everyone seemed to mostly enjoy the Wii-specific controls Shattered Memories used.

“The tactile nature of the puzzle design works particularly well on the Wiimote, too. Initially it tasks players with manipulating objects, lifting latches and pulling locks back, but you’re soon asked to be more imaginative. Discarded empty drinks cans can be picked up, rotated and shaken. With a bit of patient manipulation, eventually your search yields a key rattling around in one of them, and simply tipping it upside down and shaking allows it to drop out. As simple as that example is, it demonstrates thoughtful use of the Wii’s controller, which we so rarely see.” — Kristan Reed, Eurogamer

“Even if there is both an upside and downside to the weaponless sequences, though, I have to give the developer full credit for bravely trying something unabashedly new. The same could be said for many of the unique gameplay offerings contained within the title. As Mason progresses through the adventure, he is able to interact with the insides of moving vehicles, to roll around in a wheelchair, to go for a long swim and there’s even a couple scenarios where he falls down huge, black chasms. These are not cut-scenes, but clever gameplay situations. He can roll down windows, unlock doors and fool around with dials inside the cars. His swim strokes are tied to gestures on the Wii remote and nunchuk — and it feels good.” — Matt Casamassina, IGN

“Shattered Memories also really takes advantage of the platform’s abilities in some really clever ways. Whether turning a knob on a radio, shaking empty cans to find a key, or some other tricks we’d rather you be surprised by, the “waggle” doesn’t feel tacked on – although a few puzzles call for finer manipulations than the Wii Remote was intended for.” — Henry Gilbert, GamesRadar

The Critics Disagree

Not everyone enjoyed the nightmare portions of the game, though.

“Now, take that nice stuff we said, and flush it all down the toilet as you enter the Nightmare world. Comprising roughly a quarter of the game, the Nightmare world encases your surroundings in ice, and sends monsters out to attack you in its dark and dangerous terrain. This screws up the game in two ways: first, since only this mode carries the threat of attack, it removes some of the scares you’d normally get exploring the game’s “normal” world. True, there is the threat of the Nightmare seeping into an area when you’re not ready, but that’s it. And the Nightmare world isn’t even all that scary, with its one enemy type (with slight variations) chasing you. All those near-identical monsters are also really annoying, as the beasts let out the same stock scream over and over while lunging to hug you to death.” — Henry Gilbert, GamesRadar

“Frantically running from doorway to doorway with deranged screaming monsters in tow is truly frightening, especially since the creatures are both fast and adequately smart. They will tail you through doorways, over crevices, under crawl spaces and even open lockers that you might hide in. The problem with the system is not that there are no weapons, but rather that these hair-raising run sequences are interspersed throughout the game and predictable. When the world takes on an icy sheen, you know the monsters are coming, it’s intensely scary, and you will likely panic as you stumble toward a safety point.” — Matt Casamassina, IGN

The Word on Twitter

“Silent Hill:Shattered Memories is scaring the crap out of me, but I love it!” — The_Wilbo

“Actually really want to get silent hill shattered memories for my wii because it looks really really good :)” — ravenreturns