An ambitious reimagining of Konami’s spine-tingling masterpiece, Shattered Memories proves itself an innovative, if flawed take on one of the forefathers of the survival horror genre.

Features: OFLC Rating (Australia): Unclassified. ESRB Rating (US): Mature.

What’s Hot: Intriguing psychological angle, looks great for a Wii title, fantastic voice acting

What’s Not: Far too short, nightmare sequences are frustrating, way too easy to get lost

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
At the end of the day, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories isn’t a bad game by any means

Review by Will Herring (GamePro (online)) 14/12/2009 17:10:00

My first exposure to Konami’s Silent Hill series of scare-fests was back in 1999, fresh off of a week-long bender of Resident Evil 2. Ready for even more malformed monsters and mutant crocodile menaces, I was somewhat surprised when I powered my Playstation on to find an incredibly different environment than RE2’s Raccoon City. Instead of facing a horde of genetically altered flesh-eaters, I was met with twisting camera angles, hauntingly melodic background music, and faceless creepy crawlies straight out of Jacob’s Ladder. Silent Hill’s titular fog-infested locale was frightening in a much more psychological sense, creating a general sense of uneasiness and anxiousness that offered a nice change of pace from RE’s conventional Romero-esque scare tactics.

The franchise hit a high point with the scarring Silent Hill 2, a journey through the psyche of a tortured widower that garnered both critical and commercial acclaim; after a relatively successful direct sequel to the original with Silent Hill 3, the franchise slowly headed back to obscurity with the remarkably dissimilar Silent Hill 4 (originally not even a Silent Hill title), then ran safely back towards the horror conventions it tried so hard to stray from with the American developed Silent Hill: Homecoming. Despite its masterfully frightening origins, the Silent Hill series fell victim to contrived and confusing plot twists, as well as several inherent gameplay issues such as unwieldy cameras and a slow, cerebral pace that proved too taxing for survival horror fans accustomed to Resident Evil’s gut-wrenching pace.

Luckily, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories returns to the game’s glory days by re-imagining the first Silent Hill and combining it with a more psychological ploy that harkens back to the classic second installment; Harry Mason is still searching for his daughter in the barren villa of Silent Hill and as the game progresses, players slowly begin to unravel the mystery of the town and the man who haunts its snowy streets. But rather than being a direct remake, Shattered Memories has an interesting twist: the developers — Climax Group, the promising minds behind 2007’s handheld prequel, Silent Hill: Origins — bills it as a game that “plays you as much as you play it.” Every so often, the core action will be broken up by small psychiatric sessions, prompting an unorthodox doctor to ask you almost uncomfortably personal questions about your hopes, fears, and sexuality. Depending on your answers, the game will shape itself as more tailor-made for whoever’s playing it. After all, what’s more frightening than a horror game that knows what scares you?

While the psychoanalysation angle is certainly an ambitious one, I just didn’t feel like it went quite far enough. Two separate playthroughs of Shattered Memories with polar-opposite answers did alter character dialogue and appearances, but the game’s simplistic puzzles and repetitive nightmare sequences were left entirely untouched. Add in the fact that the game can easily be completed in about five hours, and there isn’t an awful lot to keep players around for another playthrough.

The aforementioned nightmare sequences are especially disappointing: Unlike previous Silent Hill titles, Harry is unable to actually fight his faceless foes, instead resigned to meekly pushing them aside and scurrying away. Discretion is the better part of valor unless, of course, you’re mired in a dense fog that surrounds a labyrinthine city, at which point it just becomes jarringly annoying. Harry does come equipped with a GPS on his cell phone, but the level design is so straightforward — every path but the one you are meant to take is blocked off by a convenient wall of ice or some other debris — that it’s almost completely useless.

At the end of the day, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories isn’t a bad game by any means — it’s an incredibly original and ambitious project, but the weight of its problems, both old and new, keep it from being much more than a nostalgic love letter addressed to diehard series fans.

In the late 90’s, the 32-bit era gave birth to the survival horror genre. The two main series in the genre that had gamers playing during the day with their lights on were Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Resident Evil shocked players with its jump scares and zombies, while Silent Hill relied on a more psychological kind of terror. Both series are frightening in their own ways, but, personally, I’ve always found Silent Hill to be much more disturbing, and therefore more compelling to play. As a huge fan of the original Silent Hill, I was quite apprehensive about the idea of a “reimagining” of the classic title, especially since it would be on the Wii and implement motion controls into the experience. Thankfully, although the game does have its issues, it is still one of the most interesting and unique Silent Hill experiences to date.

Perhaps the game’s greatest strength is that it doesn’t just attempt to be a visually prettier remake of the original Silent Hill. Instead, besides the basics of it taking place in Silent Hill, revolving around Harry’s search for his missing daughter Cheryl, and using some of the same character names, this is a completely new title. Even so, players will still be in control of Harry who manages to crash his car (doesn’t he always) in the town of Silent Hill. Upon waking up after the accident, Harry notices that Cheryl is gone, as is most of his memory, leaving you to search the town for clues to her whereabouts while also trying to come to grips with his scrambled memories.

Before you get to take control of Harry, you’re first psychologically profiled by the game. You are asked a series of odd questions that shed light on everything from your drinking habits to your sex life. These kinds of mind games are a big part of this title’s experience, even going as far as starting off with a psychological warning as the game boots up stating that the game is playing you as much as you are playing it. Intermittently, throughout the title, you’ll find yourself sitting across a desk from a therapist. He’ll often question you, discuss various things that may pertain to what is currently going on in your adventure, and have you do things such as listing your perfect day of high school classes or even coloring in a picture of your house and family. Many of the questions he asks and the tasks he has you perform will actually shape your experience, adding a ton of replayability when done differently. Some examples of the changes that these things can cause may be as arbitrary as changing the color of your old house to more drastic and important differences such as determining the character’s you’ll meet or the way some characters will act. This aspect of the game is truly novel and interesting, making you want to play through the game several times just to see all of the possible differences.

While exploring Silent Hill, you’ll need to make use of your cell phone. This device is pretty well integrated into the experience and can be used to save the game, as your map, to hear incoming calls and messages, and even as a camera. Throughout the game you’ll find apparitions that need to be photographed, discarded mementos from someone else’s life that need to be collected, and random items of interest that will all result in either voice or text messages being received. These voice messages can be really interesting as well as quite unsettling, and will come through the speaker on your Wii Remote, making them sound even more distorted and otherworldly. The map function of your phone can also be somewhat useful, although much of the game’s exploration is quite linear in nature, usually only involving one path/door to take.

Players will control Harry’s movements with the analog stick while aiming a flashlight and turning by pointing the Wii Remote. This works well when exploring the ins and outs of the dark and snow-covered town, pulling you further into the experience as you shine light onto whatever you wish to illuminate. The lighting effects caused by the flashlight are quite good, accurately creating shadows that change in size and positioning depending on how you’re pointing it and where you’re located. The shadows cast by your flashlight really add to the creepy vibe of the game and can occasionally cause a scare or two by themselves.

Pointing the flashlight works well, and there are quite a few other interesting uses of motion controls to be found in Shattered Memories. You’ll encounter many puzzles while trying to find your daughter, most of which make good use of the motion controls. Most of the puzzles you’ll find will require you to pinch or hold an object, which is handled by pinching the Wii Remote by pressing the A and B buttons simultaneously, in order to be able to maneuver it. A good example of this is a window that you’ll need to open in order to get into a high school. You’ll need to grab hold of four nails, pull them out using the motion controls, and then grab the window and swing up in order to open it.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories screenshot

Shattered Memories gets many things right in the story and gameplay departments during the majority of the game, though it manages to get just as much wrong in the nightmare segments of the game. Whereas in the original Silent Hill, when things got rusty and blood-covered during these portions, in Shattered Memories everything freezes over and the game’s monsters come out to play. Since there’s no combat in the game, you’re reduced to simply trying to run away from these creatures in a desperate attempt to find the exit point for the nightmare. Standing in your way are the monsters that will latch onto you from in front, behind, to the left, or to the right. Once they’re attached, you’ll be unable to move until you shake the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in the correct direction to dislodge them. The responsiveness of the controls here is quite lacking, as it can take several over-exaggerated gestures before the game will actually pick up on it.

To help out somewhat, blue lines will outline doors and ledges that can be used, giving you a quick visual reference for a place to run to. However, while the explorative parts of the game were rather linear, these segments are full of multiple doors and paths to get lost in and confused. To make matters worse, pulling out your cell phone
to reference your map is virtually suicide, as you are forced to walk when your cell phone is out. You are also unable to use your cell when hiding in closets or under beds/tables, when trying to get a brief respite from the chase to regain some composure or to lose trailing monsters. Even if you do hide in an attempt to lose some of your pursuers, they’ll never actually go away. They just keep walking around where you’ve hidden until one eventually pulls you from your hiding place and the chase begins again. What you’re reduced to is a frantic, directionless running spree full of while constantly being tackled by enemies and hindered by shoddy motion detection until you either find the correct destination by random chance or the monsters eventually take you down and you’re forced to start over again from the beginning.

The nightmare segments of this title, truly, are unnecessarily frustrating, and serve as the only major blemish on an otherwise enjoyable game. Unfortunately, there’s no way to bypass these infuriating segments and memorization isn’t always a guarantee for success, so if you want to enjoy the rest of the title, you’ll likely just have to retry them again and again until you get lucky. Still, the game is good enough that it is worth slogging through these nightmare segments in order to get the full experience. The moody visuals and the soundtrack from renowned composer Akira Yamaoka are great and exactly what you’d expect from a Silent Hill title. The psychological testing bits are also quite interesting and add a ton of replayability and variety to the game. If only the good aspects weren’t constantly polluted by the aggravating nightmare portions, Shattered Memories might have been one of the best Silent Hill’s yet.

By Adam Brown
CCC Staff Contributor

Rating out of 5

Rating Description

4.2 Graphics
Shattered Memories really does look great for a Wii game (obligatory qualifier) with well detailed character models and some great lighting effects.

3.7 Control
While generally things work well, with some excellent uses of motion control throughout, they tend to feel much less reliable during the nightmare segments in the game when you need them to work accurately.

4.5 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
Here you’ll find some respectable voice acting and haunting sound effects as well as another fantastic soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka.

3.7 Play Value
The game is a little short but makes up for it by adding a ton of variety due to the changes that will occur from answering differently during your psychological profiling. If only you could just skip past all the completely infuriating nightmare segments in the game and simply enjoy the great game that surrounds them.

3.8 Overall Rating – Good
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Psychologist Gamer Limit Review: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

The Silent Hill series has always been about the parallel existence of two dimensions: the real and the nightmare. While scares are plentiful in the real world, the true horrors begin in the bloody, hellish realm.

Similarly, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a game that enhances the split of the two worlds more so than any previous game in the series. So, does this dualism work in the game’s favor, or against it?

There’s no doubt that Shattered Memories takes a vastly different approach to the Silent Hill formula than what gamers have experienced previously. In fact, it seems to question the very nature of horror; what has the power to frighten and unsettle us? Gone are the desecrated corpses, blood-covered rooms, and, yes, even Pyramid Head.

Instead, the game provides glimpses into the ugliness of the world that we all inhabit, seeming to argue (unlike previous entries in the series) that truth is more frightening than fiction. For instance, a journey through the halls of a high school shows the unsettling events surrounding specific students–events that not only could happen, but do happen. Better yet, by the end of the game, you understand the true weight of each of these events, and it is here that you become truly unsettled. Hell, the game gets closer to true morality than any other gaming experience that I’ve had.

Dahlia Gamer Limit Review: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Much has been made of how the game changes based on your actions, including everything from your responses on psychological tests to the things you, as Harry Mason, choose to look at. In fact, the game begins with a psychology warning, stating that the game plays you as much as you play it. In the midst of your play-through, your actions will change a variety of things, including conversations, character appearances and behavior, and, like all Silent Hill games, the ending.

Yet many of these changes prove relatively inconsequential, and while the game attempts to get in your head, it doesn’t necessarily succeed. Instead, it places you into certain categories, and will present situations that it believes will affect you most deeply. But these categories are fairly limited, and on a second run, it’s easy to spot how the game is profiling you.

Speaking of a second run, you’ll definitely want to play through the game at least twice, not only because it will offer a different experience, but because it is very short. Even taking my time on my initial play-through, the game lasted only about seven hours. Rushing through a second run, I was able to finish in about three. This actually proves beneficial; you’ll want to experiment with all of the different decisions you can make in the game, and with five different endings to see, you’ll be glad that you don’t have to slog through a slow, more poorly-paced game.

The game is indeed well-paced, infused with some stellar storytelling that takes the story of the original Silent Hill in such a vastly different direction that it can hardly be called the same story at all. The plot proves far more compelling than the original, containing a surprising and thought-provoking ending that works perfectly with the events of the game. It is truly masterful storytelling.

Dimly Lit

However, things are a bit less masterful when we delve into the gameplay, which has many ups and downs. The vast majority of the game is spent in exploration, with Harry searching the town equipped with nothing but a flashlight and cell phone. While this may sound boring, it is anything but. Shattered Memories is a game that, despite being an entry into a popular monster horror series, is best when it isn’t trying to scare you with monsters.

But these monsters do pop up from time to time as the world around Harry becomes a frozen, nightmarish version of Silent Hill. Streets become encased in ice, and the gameplay shifts drastically from slow but tense exploration to an all out flight for your life. Here, Harry is attacked by mobs of twisted monsters, but lacking any significant defenses, he must simply flee until he reaches a certain area, at which time, he will return to the real world.

Oddly enough, it is in these sections that the game largely lacks fright and tension. Monsters simply run at you and jump onto your back, shrieking all the while. If caught, Harry can shake the deformed body off and continue on, and though death will come if he is mounted one too many times, it’s typically easy to get through a nightmare without failing. The end result is that the nightmares feel nothing more than an exercise in finding the correct path to the exit as quickly as possible.

While the nightmare sections are far from bad, they fail to match up to the thrills found in the real world. Series die hards might want to skin me for this, but the game would have been far better if it had abandoned monster horror altogether and focused entirely on those unsettling real world situations that players can relate to.

Nightmare Attack

So, how does all of this control? For the most part, it’s very well done. It’s quite apparent that the game was custom-made for the Wii; it’s hard to imagine playing the game without waving the Wii Remote around like a flashlight, illuminating dark corners and zooming in on important details.

In addition, the motion controls are used for a variety of actions, including operating bridge controls, rolling down car windows, and even opening a tiny latch on a coin purse. While some of the more minor gestures can take a few tries to get right, the controls rarely feel problematic. On the contrary, it is hard to imagine wielding that flashlight without a Wii Remote in your hands.

Also, the beam from that flashlight sure does look nice. Graphically, the game pulls off some impressive lighting, which offers a great contrast between the normally obscured world and the glimpses of clarity provided by the flashlight. You’ll notice that some objects don’t look great up close, but the game looks very good overall.

If only it ran as well. The game suffers from some serious hitches at times, especially during nightmare sequences. It appears the game uses door transitions to load, as the game will pause rather noticeably if you run between doors too quickly, and the frame rate will very often stutter during these mad dashes. It’s enough to take away the little bit of fear you might have been feeling.

Looking Back

With Akira Yamaoka again in charge of the game’s music, series veterans will know what to expect from the sound. While this isn’t Yamaoka’s best work, there are some stunning vocal songs that make it easier to stomach the fact that there are relatively few tracks in the game. In terms of sound effects, the team seems to have taken a far more minimalist approach compared to past entries. There aren’t nearly as many frightening, sourceless sounds to unsettle you, though the familiar static makes a return.

With its truly original and thought provoking story, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is the rare game that is an absolute must-play despite having a number of elements that lead to disappointment. As long as you realize that this is a complete re-imagining of the original Silent Hill, you’ll be extremely impressed with the brilliantly crafted story and disturbing themes. Still, it seems torn between being a horror game and an unsettling experience, and it doesn’t do quite enough to realize all of its great psychological promises.

But if this is the new direction that the roads of Silent Hill will take us, I’ll gladly take the lonely, disconcerting trek.

Rating Category
9.0 Presentation
Some incredibly creative storytelling meshes with striking visuals to create an impressive experience overall.

8.5 Gameplay
The flashlight and cell phone based exploration is far more engaging than you might think, but the nightmare sequences don’t work as well as they should.

7.5 Sound
Akira Yamaoka’s music is always a plus, but the use of sound isn’t quite as effective as it could have been.

7.0 Longevity
Even though there’s plenty of reason to take it slowly and play through multiple times, this one won’t last you very long.

8.5 Overall
Despite some elements that could have been improved considerably, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories takes the series in a much-needed new direction, making this a game that you simply must experience.

The original Silent Hill was a bit of a Resident Evil clone. What made it stand out was not the gameplay or plot, but the creepy atmosphere. Instead of the creepy cultists from the original game, the sequel, Silent Hill 2, built upon the town of Silent Hill and the effect it had on the characters and players. It even studied the player’s actions and reactions and changed the plot and conclusion accordingly. The later games in the series, and even the movie, were more in the vein of the first game, focusing on cultists and monsters instead of the town, but Silent Hill 2 still remains the high point for a lot of gamers, in large part due to the way it used the game world against you. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a game made in the vein of Silent Hill 2, and yet it’s completely different from every other Silent Hill title to date.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is technically a remake of the first game. Players are put in control of Harry Mason, a struggling writer and single father. While driving with his daughter Cheryl, Harry gets into a nasty car accident and passes out. When he awakens, Cheryl is gone, and Harry finds himself in the town of Silent Hill, searching for his lost daughter. Functionally, that is where the similarities to the first game end.

Aside from the names of characters and locations, the plot of Shattered Memories veers so far away from the original that it might as well be a different game. Very little of the original Silent Hill remains unaltered, and the world that Harry explores is very different from the town that he visited on the PS1. It borrows a lot more from David Lynch than Stephen King, and the entire adventure comes to a very strange end. Players who are fond of the Silent Hill mythos may be disappointed in how little the game has to do with the other titles in the franchise. It is more of a stand-alone title, although there are a plenty of Easter eggs for fans of the franchise, including a hilarious UFO ending.

Shattered Memories has a rather unique framing device. The player is telling the story to his psychiatrist, Dr. K, sometime after the events of the game so the story jumps back and forth between Dr. K’s office and Harry’s adventure in Silent Hill. This doesn’t mean that the segments with Dr. K don’t have any influence on Harry’s adventure, though. Dr. K will question the player and submit him to psychological tests from time to time. These questions and tests alter the game world in different ways. If you tell Dr. K that you have a problem with drinking, Harry may encounter a bar instead of a diner. When you’re asked to color in a picture of a happy family, that family will later appear, exactly as you drew them. A character may be cheerful in one path and suicidal in another. The more the game progresses, the more the world changes based on your answers and actions in the game world. If you spend too much time staring at pictures of scantily clad women, Dr. K may suspect you’re a bit of a pervert. Even the monsters in the town change depending on your answers, and Harry’s ultimate personality is shaped by the player.

To be fair, being asked to color in a house, only to have the house show up later, is a neat bit of programming but doesn’t really add much to the psychological horror aspect. Other elements are more subtle, and the game has a wide variety of changes and alterations depending on what you do. There are even entire subplots that you may not encounter on your first playthrough. Mostly, it is interesting to see what the game does and does not read about you and your actions. It isn’t exactly scary, but it is certainly fascinating to see how your choices reflect upon the world. In many ways, it is reminiscent of the Insanity Effects in Eternal Darkness. It screws with the player more than it interferes with the character you’re controlling.

Shattered Memories takes great advantage of the Wii controls. Players move Harry with the Nunchuk’s analog stick, while the Wii Remote points the flashlight around. You can investigate objects by pressing the B button on the Wiimote, which zooms in at whatever Harry is looking at. Harry will usually comment aloud on anything unusual, but there is no pause in the gameplay when he does so. Moving around feels incredibly natural, and it’s difficult to imagine how the game will fare on the PlayStation 2 or PSP, considering how incredibly fitting the controls feel on the Wii. Climax did a great job of keeping in mind the limitations of the Wii and implemented all of the basic mechanics accordingly. It is, however, a bit annoying to have Harry in the middle of the screen, as his body tends to block something directly in front of you, and turning quickly can sometimes be a pain. Still, Shattered Memories does a great job of immersing the players in the game world, and this is one of the few games where the Wii controls don’t feel completely tacked on.

There are actually no pauses or breaks in the gameplay. Harry doesn’t have an inventory system or health bar. There are collectible items, but they’re stored in a special inventory and don’t really come into play. He has access to his iPhone, which he can use in a variety of ways. He can use the built-in GPS to find his way around Silent Hill, and he can make notations on the map to show where he wants to go next or highlight items of interest. The phone can be used to receive messages and calls from other characters, and Harry can even call numbers he finds around the city. The built-in camera can be used to take pictures of puzzle clues for later use, which is a handy way to prevent backtracking. In Silent Hill tradition, the iPhone also functions as a warning about supernatural activity. When Harry approaches something in the real world that has a hint of the supernatural, his phone will emit a high-pitched whine and his flashlight will flicker. Investigating these objects will transmit voice and text messages to Harry’s iPhone, which can reveal interesting clues or subplots.

Unlike the other Silent Hill titles, Shattered Memories features no direct combat. For most of the game, Harry doesn’t encounter any enemies at all. Most of the areas of Silent Hill are completely devoid of anything, friend or foe. The danger only starts when Silent Hill transforms into the horrific nightmare world. Unlike the other games in the franchise, Shattered Memories’ nightmare world is a land of ice, rather than blood and metal. Everything becomes twisted and frozen, opening some areas and closing off others. In this nightmare world are The Creatures, which are completely invincible and can’t be harmed, so Harry’s only choice is to run from them. As such, every nightmare segment turns into an extended chase scene, where Harry is forced to run from The Creatures until he can find a safe area.

Any path that Harry can take is highlighted by a blue light, but there is no linear path to follow. The player has complete control during these chase segments and must remember the direction they have to go and find a way to get there. There are multiple paths one can take through these twisted nightmares, which is useful since The Creatures are relentless and don’t always follow the same path. If a creature catches Harry, it’ll latch onto him, draining some of his health and slowing him down. Since the creatures are already faster than Harry, repeated grabs will quickly seal his doom. Each time a creature grabs Harry, he has to shake them off with the Wiimote by quickly following an on-screen motion. This is a surprisingly intense and well-done method of control, and it feels perfectly natural. The motions registered perfectly for me, and it was rare that I felt Harry wasn’t reacting properly. This did occur a few times, but never in a way that led to my untimely death.

The Creatures are invincible, but they can be slowed down in a few different ways. Harry can find hiding places to duck into for a moment, but these locations are iffy at best. If The Creatures see Harry, the location is useless, and if he remains in one spot for too long, they’ll drag him out, regardless of how well he is hidden. Hiding places are best used to throw off the creatures for a moment, allowing you to backtrack toward a door you missed or take a look at your GPS. Harry can also knock over objects while he’s running, which is done with a flick of the Nunchuk. This slows down The Creatures slightly and lets Harry get an all-important head start. Like knocking The Creatures away from Harry, this is easy to do and feels very natural, which keeps the chases feeling intense without the Wiimote feature getting in the way.

In certain areas, Harry can also find flares, which are single-use items that can be deployed to temporarily ward off The Creatures. They’re incredibly useful but very rare, so they’re best saved for moments when you took a wrong turn and ended up completely surrounded. Harry’s iPhone also serves as a warning to The Creatures’ proximity. The amount of phone static increases as The Creatures approach, and aiming your flashlight around allows you to figure out exactly what direction the monsters are in, so you can alter your path without stopping to look around.

The nightmare sequence is a lot more satisfying as a horror mechanic than any combat system in the previous Silent Hill games. It gives a real sense of being in danger and facing things that you have no idea how to deal with. You are utterly powerless, which makes the simple creatures a lot more frightening than even the nastiest foe in previous Silent Hills. The mechanics are well-implemented and interesting, and being chased from room to room is very intense. With that said, it can be very easy to get lost while doing this. While that is the part of the challenge, it can also end up frustrating when you’re running through icy rooms, trying to find a path that leads to salvation instead of more Creatures, especially if you lose your sense of direction easily. The GPS can be accessed during these segments, but it is incredibly slow to pull up. If you check it, you’re almost certain to get grabbed at least once before Harry can put away the iPhone again. Since everything is blue and covered with ice, it can also be tough to tell where you are during a frantic race, making it even harder to keep your bearings.

One of the riskier choices in Shattered Memories is dividing the game into two sections. Since the game is divided into two areas, the regular world and the nightmare world, it becomes very easy to tell when you’re in actual physical danger from the nightmare creatures. While in the real world, you know that you’re not in danger. The fear comes from wondering when the nightmare world is going to appear and everything is going to go to hell. It does, however, mean that there are no real “jump scares.” You’re warned in advance of the approach of scary things in the real world, and since you know they can’t hurt you, it amounts to a loud noise and a spooky sight. If you’re the kind of gamer who pays attention to this, it can really suck the atmosphere out of some areas of the game. It’s especially noticeable on a second playthrough, since you’re more prepared for the ice to show up and to run away from creatures. Shattered Memories does an excellent job of setting the atmosphere, but only if the players are willing to immerse themselves in it. Otherwise, it ends up feeling like a trip through a haunted house, and that can feel quite unsatisfying. Once you know that monsters are not going to pop up, it’s hard to be frightened when the iPhone buzzes about something supernatural nearby.

The puzzles in Shattered Memory are a lot more straightforward than their counterparts in the other titles in the series. If you need to open a locked door, the key is usually nearby. If you have to solve a puzzle, there’s usually a clue in the same room. You may sometimes have to backtrack in order to find a particular puzzle solution, but this is pretty rare. Since you can use the built-in camera in Harry’s iPhone to take pictures of anything suspicious, you can usually keep a collection of useful information on hand. This means the puzzles are a lot more streamlined than their counterparts, but also a bit less satisfying to solve. There is an element of unusual realism to them, which is both welcome and a little disappointing. It’s far less tedious than backtracking through a bunch of rooms to find the obscure item you missed, but at the same time, it’s pretty unsatisfying when the solution to a locked door is located in a wallet a few steps away. Some of the puzzles are also fairly lackluster. Without spoiling anything, a few aren’t exactly puzzles but more of an excuse to show off the Wii’s ability to interact with objects. They add nothing to the game but slightly delay how long it takes for you to go through a door.

Almost every element in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories has been streamlined. Without the inventory wrangling and backtracking usually involved in survivor horror games, Shattered Memories has a much better pace. You’ll rarely find yourself growing tired of a location because you spend so little time in one area. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost to the game length. Even on a first playthrough, it is unlikely you’ll spend more than six hours finishing the adventure. Subsequent playthroughs, even with changes to the world thanks to the psychological analysis, are going to be even quicker. The way the game plays out encourages multiple playthroughs, but a good portion of the impact is lost after the first time through, making it difficult to really say that the game is meant to be replayed again and again. This means that Shattered Memories is a great rental, but it’s a little harder to recommend as a purchase.

Shattered Memories is a good-looking game. The art design is solid, and the character models are well done, if not particularly impressive. The most interesting visual aspects are all the ways that the game changes and alters itself based on your psychological profile, and each area in the game is brimming with details that take advantage of that. However, the game also suffers from some nasty glitches and poor QA in more than a few places. Most noticeably in the nightmare segments, the frame rate drops very quickly, especially when you’re being chased by a whole horde of creatures. More aggravating than that, however, are some potentially game-stopping glitches. On multiple occasions, Harry would glitch and was unable to act, and another time, he even fell through the floor. The worst of all, however, was where game froze at the end of a long cut scene, forcing me to redo a fairly lengthy section. Considering the short length of the game, it was surprising to find so many errors, and while it was possible to work through them, it was certainly annoying.

Shattered Memories also has a suitably chilling soundtrack. While I have a hard time pointing out any songs as particularly standing out, each one does a fairly good job of setting the mood for the scene. The sound effects are very well done, although I could have done without the loud sound that occurs every time you investigate a supernatural object. Harry’s voice actor does a good job, especially considering that he has to play someone whose personality changes depending on the player. There are a few scenes in which he is awkward, but not many. The other voice actors range in quality, but most do an adequate job. Cheryl’s voice actress is a bit squeaky for the role they ask her to play, which makes it harder to be intimidated when you receive her cryptic voice messages.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is an interesting, if flawed, game. The plot is the strong point, and venturing with Harry into the depths of Silent Hill is extremely engrossing, especially as the world begins to change around you. Exploring the town is a surprising amount of fun, especially if you’re the kind of gamer who likes to poke around the environment. Escaping the monsters that pop up from time to time is pulse-pounding and exciting, and it provides an interesting twist to the usual survival-horror mechanics. Unfortunately, the flaws have a habit of outweighing its strong points. The fact that you’re safe in the real world sucks a lot of the tension from the game and can really dull the experience. Glitches are rather common, and more than a few can break the game. Perhaps worst of all, however, is the fact that the game is short. There is replay value, but the nature of the game means that no replay has the same impact as the first playthrough. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a great rental, but it’s harder to recommend as a must-buy because of the flaws and short length. If you’re looking for a unique and interesting horror game for your Wii, though, it’s hard to find one better than Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

Score: 7.8/10

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.”

No weapons? Wii waggle? And a “re-imagining” of the first Silent Hill game is what they’re calling this? The combination sounds like Silent Hill: My Worst Nightmare, and I don’t mean that in a good way.

Boy, was I ever wrong. Instead of some Silent Hill one-off rehash, we get a lovingly crafted story set in a world so deep and involving that it actually does the series name proud. The Wii waggle? More like Wii mastery. The control is a new hallmark for Wii games, let alone Silent Hill titles. And the no weapons part? Absolutely brilliant, and it works out to be a chillingly beautiful thing when you finally understand what the story is about.

Again, I was totally wrong.

Read on for our review of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (reviewed on Wii, also on PSP, PS2)
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Climax
Released: December 8, 2009
MSRP: $49.99

In Silent Hill: Shattered Memories you play as Harry Mason, loving father and husband and crap driver in inclement weather. The game starts out with Harry running off a snowy road and into a fence. He crawls out of his car and notices that his daughter, Cheryl, is missing from the passenger’s seat. He sets off to look around the crash site to find her. Unfortunately, he crashed on the outskirts of the worst town ever to crash in, Silent Hill. To make matters worse, it’s snowing like crazy, and the town has gone mostly…well, silent.

I wouldn’t call Silent Hill: Shattered Memories a survival horror as much as I would call it a psychological thriller. First off, there’s no combat in Memories. That’s right: instead of slowly turning and slowly swinging some found implement at some otherworldly monster, you’re running. You’re running for your life from creatures that are just as creepy as the ones from the previous Silent Hills, but for a different reason. (We’ll touch on that later.) And when they catch up with you, they tackle you, grope you, and bring you down. Your only defense is the powers of push and nudge. You can’t kill them, and that makes for a pretty terrifying experience when more than one is on your trail.

Memories is so focused on the inner workings of the player’s head that it actually opens with a “psychology warning,” which informs that the game will play the player. They’re not kidding around, either. When you’re not wandering around Silent Hill, you’re a patient in a therapist’s office, taking tests and answering questions to reveal your character. The game opens with a psychology profile that asks some pretty private questions on your love life and morals. The game can change drastically depending on your choices. A second play-through revealed new areas, new characters, and even a new attitude for Harry himself. Existing characters can look completely different, depending on your profile. For example, one character looked like a normal policewoman on my first play-through. On my second one, with my profile slanted more toward the perverted, this same cop was a busty blonde. That said, I recommend being true to yourself your first time through.

Wii motion controls are beautifully utilized in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. To date, this is the best and most elegant use I’ve seen for the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, and I’d go as far as to say that the Wii version is the ultimate version, and should be chosen above the PlayStation 2 version. Harry is armed only with a flashlight, which comes in handy often, as Silent Hill rarely sees sunlight. Moving the Wii Remote moves your flashlight beam on what seems to be a one-to-one scale. You’re free to shine it at anything, and right away you’ll notice how smooth and realistic the cast beam is. The realism of how the light moves from your control goes a long way towards enveloping you into this snowy world. The nunchuck’s analog stick controls movement, and turning is controlled by pulling your flashlight to the far left and right edges of your field of view. While this type of turning has been used in other games to varying successes, it works solidly in Memories.

Away from exploration and into panicky sessions of being chased, which the game calls “nightmares,” you’ll use the Wii Remote to make movements in place of real-world hands. Attackers can tackle you from any direction, and you’re to use the Wii Remote and Nunchuck to repel them. If they attack from the front, you’ll need to motion both controllers forward, as if to push them off. You’ll flick them off your back, elbow them in your face, all the while holding in Z to run. One thing to note here is that the controls do not need large gestures to repel enemies. Those flailing their arms in a panic to shake off attackers will likely become frustrated, as the controls seem less responsive. Firm but controlled pushes and shoves are the key, and done right, will begin to feel like second nature as you continue on deeper into the game.

Puzzle solving and exploration involves manipulating items with virtual hands, using the Wii controls. Pinch, turn, pick up, etc. We’ve seen this in other games, but here it feels tactile and responsive. Probably the best example of Wii controls in Shattered Memories cannot be revealed in this review, as they would likely spoil parts of the story. I will say that the uses are creative, surprising, and some truly memorable. There were a couple of instances so amazingly effective that, even now, thinking about them gives me chills.

That said, you’ll want to make sure you’re gentle and not over exaggerating with the controls. Again, large, fast movements seem to throw the sensors off. Likewise, you’ll also want to be careful to not let your IR beam wander out of the Wii sensor’s view, as you’ll be stuck retracking for a few seconds, leaving you vulnerable. Being mindful of these points goes a long way towards the game’s enjoyment.

As Harry looks for his daughter in snowy Silent Hill, he uncovers dark, buried memories of both his life and his daughter’s. Some are surprising, others are disturbing. And the ones that are sexual? They’ll make more sense later. Most of this is found through exploration of the town, and all the while Harry is struggling with his own memory, which seems to have been damaged during his car accident. This exploration sometimes leads to deeper truths and memories, and this triggers a nightmare sequence where Silent Hill turns dark and freezes over, everyone else disappears, and monsters come out of the woodwork. You’ll run through the transformed, hellish version of the town, doing your best to find the nightmare’s resolution, working to fend off monsters that seem to want to hold you back from that resolution. You’ll likely become disoriented and panicked, running around in the dark, trying to find an exit. Some may become frustrated with these scenes, but I think that was the developer’s intent. Once the lost panic sets in, it sticks with you well after it’s over. When you do finally reach the end of the nightmare, the town becomes somewhat normal again, and you resume exploration. Waking up from the nightmare, so to speak.

Being chased and held back by monsters in your nightmares is a beautiful parallel to the story the game is trying to tell. To reveal why these things happen would definitely ruin the story, but when you do finally find out, its the type of resolution that has you sitting alone, pondering, remembering all the scenes from the game. The game play will make sense. A second play-through is incredibly rewarding because of this, and is highly recommended. And as the game profiles everything you do and say and tailors the experience toward your mind, going “opposite” in your responses and actions the second time through is also recommended. I don’t want to ruin anything, but know that the game even keeps track of what you stare at. Eyes up here!

The dark and gritty town of Silent Hill has never looked better, and by “better” we mean worse. Darker, more desolate. Everything is that much more eerie when cast in your flashlight’s beam. The graphics dazzle on the Wii, and I found myself surprised at the graphical performance more than once while exploring. Characters manage to both remind players of the old games and bring some originality at the same time. They’re expertly animated and are voiced with what is likely the best work I’ve heard in the series. You can definitely see the loving care developer Climax put into the game. To top it all off, series composer Akira Yamaoka is back with a haunting score. This time around it’s more subdued, but it fits the sleepy, snowy atmosphere perfectly.

Perhaps you’re wondering if a Wii Silent Hill game is scary. I can say without hesitation that it is. Much of this is due to the superlative pacing and storytelling. As expected, there are plenty of jump-out scary moments, but the panic that the game’s situations causes go even farther toward scaring you senseless. When the story ends and you begin thinking about the game’s story, the tons of symbolism, and the overall message, you’ll likely be creeped out. And amazed.

While Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a total departure in every way from what Konami proper had started, it manages to reinvigorate the series. This “re-imagining” could have been a story rehash, instead we get a brilliantly deep game with subtle subtext and surprising symbolism. It’s deep enough that some may glaze over the reasons behind the game play decisions and story elements, which were, again, brilliant. It focuses on the horrors of the human mind and gets away from the tired ghost story, making for a story much more involving and disturbing than recent Silent Hill titles. A lovingly crafted story draws you in and then wows you with a surprise ending that leaves a lingering fascination. And chills. I’m still thinking about it. From one die-hard Silent Hill fan to another, this is a true Silent Hill game. A better Silent Hill game. Do not miss this game.

Score: 9.5 — Superb (9s are a hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won’t cause massive damage to what is a supreme title.)