In the December 2009 issue of Play Magazine Eric L. Patterson (a huge Silent Hill fan) reviewed Silent Hill Shattered Memories for the Wii. Even though he thought it was a good game he felt that it didn’t make a good Silent Hill game which is unfortunate! I’ll have to see for myself how it ranks as a Silent Hill game when it’s released in December but at least we know it a fun game 🙂
We get this magazine for free at my work so I was able to scan the full review for you guys to read! (there really isn’t any spoilers)
So, hello. This is Eric.
As in, the guy from Play who did this review. As in, the guy some folks have called an “idiot,” a “moron,” “not fit to do reviews,” and the person at least one or two people have said should be fired due to my review. *laughs*
I’m cross posting this onto both Silent Hill Heaven and the Silent Hill Community, just to kill two birds with one stone. My goal really isn’t to convince any of you that I’m not an idiot, moron, that I’m indeed fit for doing reviews, or that I should not be fired (although I would indeed like to continue having a job). Instead, I’d just like to clear up a few things about my review and my feelings on the game.
First, let me be clear on the mentality that I came into Shattered Memories with. I have always wanted a remake of the original Silent Hill, because it was a game that had a lasting and profound effect on me both as a gamer and a person. The reason I wanted a remake was because, as much as I do love the game, I also must admit that it now feels awkward and clunky in a number of ways.
So when the rumors started going around on the internet about a “remake” of the original SH, I was both excited and hesitant. Sure, it was something that I had always wanted, but at the same time when you’re remaking something beloved by so many people it can be so, so easy to screw up. I then had the opportunity to check out the first 15 minutes or so of the game right before it was officially announced. In going down to Konami to see the game, I found out the truth behind what the project was; instead of a “remake”, it was a “re-imagining” of the story of Harry and his search for Cheryl.
That was absolutely, positively not the game that I was wanting, but the truth it, I was still excited for it anyhow – and that’s very important. What I had to come to terms with even before I ever saw one second of the game was that this was not going to be the original Silent Hill that I knew it loved. Not the same Harry, not the same Cheryl, not the same storyline, nothing. The reason that I say that this is important is because I knew right off the bat not to compare this directly to the PlayStation version of Silent Hill 1, or to any Silent Hill for that matter, and let me be clear in stating that in reviewing the game, I never did that in direct ways.
What I had been hoping and praying for was something to come along that would re-ignite the series. The “same old same old” was not at all what I wanted, and that’s why I was so excited by Shattered Memories after getting that first look at the game. Just re-make the same game over and over is absolutely not what I wanted from a new Silent Hill game, as some seem to have gathered from my review. At the same time, just destroying everything that had made the series what it was just for the sake of “freshness” is something I find to be a ridiculous idea. That kind of thinking was what I was seeing seep into the thoughts of Team Silent from interviews and where things were looking to go as the franchise went on. My argument has always been, and always will be, to push the series forward into new and enthralling territory built upon the foundation that had been laid by Silent Hill and, in some ways, Silent Hill 2, not in spite of it. For that reason, unlike some who claim that Westerners have killed the series, I was always of the opinion that the one to initial stab the knife into the body was Team Silent themselves.
So when I said in my review that Shattered Memories was forgetting that it was a Silent Hill game, it was never because it wasn’t exactly what the previous titles had been. That isn’t my argument. My argument is that the fundamentals of what this series is about, what it stands for and what it specifically speaks to, are missing here. Why does Silent Hill, the town, exist? Not as in origins, but as a catalyst for what then happens in the games? It exists as a means to explore the sides of the main characters that they are afraid to face, and, in turn, to explore those things that we as humans are afraid to face. Silent Hill understood how to be scary because it wasn’t like Resident Evil, with big monsters suddenly jumping out at us, but because it knew what situations to put us in that we didn’t want to be it. Not just in a physical sense, as in dark rusty hallways or pits leading to the unknown, but also in the mental and emotional sense.
Silent Hill 2 was as great a game as it was because of the very simple, yet utterly complex question it asked: what would a man do to be re-united with the love that he lost? Silent Hill offered James an answer to that question, but an answer that might lead him to a place where reclaiming what he longed for might be a worse fate than continuing to live without it. That is the entire essence of the game, that human drama that comes from the deal with the devil where you get what you want and then suffer the consequences.
That is part of what I referred to when I talked of the “heart and soul” of Silent Hill, but it wasn’t just that. It was also the sense of us finding ourselves lost in a place that we want, and need, to escape from, a place that is alive and aware and which is struggling to not let us go. I spoke in my review about Lost, because I think it had a connection to Silent Hill in a surprising amount of ways. The island on Lost is not a setting, or a backdrop, or a location, but a character that is almost as important as any other member of its cast. The Silent Hill series has, bit by bit, forgotten that the town of Silent Hill is a character as deserving of attention as Harry, or James, or Heather, or Henry, or Alex, or Travis, or whomever. In Shattered Memories, that town simply doesn’t exist. At all. Not just in more surface-level ways, as in look, or feel, or street layout, or design, or whatever else, but more importantly in concept and attitude and emotion. Does Shattered Memories contain a town called Silent Hill? Sure. But it is as much Silent Hill as the town you yourself are currently living in. It could have been called by any other named and served the exact same purpose.
The problem in fully explaining why I felt what I did, and thus gave the game the review that I did, is that it’s very hard for me to completely go into my full opinions without completely spoiling the game to hell and back. I didn’t touch once on the actual storyline to Shattered Memories in my review because there was no way to do so without giving away the major twists and turns. If that wasn’t a concern, then it would be easier for me to go into the complete score of my thoughts on the game. And, maybe I can’t even fully explain what that core feeling, that “heart and soul” of a Silent Hill title truly is, but I cannot help but think that all of us here, being Silent Hill fans, understand what that means. It’s that thing that made you understand that Silent Hill 4 started out as a completely separate project before being told that fact. It’s those things that made us fall in love with the series, to an insanely fanatical degree and extent. Those elements – those core elements that have made Silent Hill what it is, and was – they aren’t present in Shattered Memories, at least to me, and it has nothing to do with the game not being exactly like those that came before it or because of this or that complaint when taken on their own.
If there is one fact about Silent Hill fans, it is that they seem to almost never agree on anything. *laughs* I would love nothing more than for you to play Shattered Memories and love it, because that’s what I wish I could have done. I wanted so bad to love this game from the start, and went into it with no expectations other than the hope of a fresh new take on the Silent Hill mythos. When you play it, maybe you’ll suddenly come to the decision that I did actually know what the hell I was talking about. *heh* Or, maybe you’ll enjoy the game, think it’s an awesome Silent Hill chapter, and see it as proof that I’m a bigger buffoon than you originally expected. Whatever the outcome, I’m really curious to see how opinions sway once the game gets into more hands.
