Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
This remake artfully rebuilds the original, but not all the pieces fit
Words Henry Gilbert, GamesRadar US – Posted Dec 08, 2009
This generation hasn’t been a high point for the horror genre. Most horror games lately, with Resident Evil 5 being the best example, ditch the scares almost entirely and replace them with intense action. So perhaps in an attempt to rediscover what once made horror great, and to rekindle interest in the genre, publisher Konami and UK developer Climax went back to the first Silent Hill for inspiration. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, a re-imagined exploration of the frozen, desolate town filled only with your personal demons, is both new and familiar. And most of the time, it succeeds in pulling in and scaring players open to its unsettling fun.
On paper, the plot is fairly similar to the first Silent Hill: a man named Harry Mason gets in a car accident, wakes up and has to find his daughter Cheryl. And though there are winking nods for fans of the original, with familiar names and locales popping up, the story has been completely rewritten, which is a welcome departure in an age of ports and Wii-makes. Not only is Harry’s quest a significantly different affair, the story is told with more clarity, as opposed to the (sometimes maddening) murkiness of the earlier games. Not that it isn’t packed with mystery, but once an answer is revealed, it makes sense and won’t leave you saying, “huh?”
As you explore this newly refurbished Silent Hill – which features impressive graphics and some of the best natural-looking people on the Wii – it’s difficult to not be constantly creeped out by the spookily empty, snowed-in burg. Nearly every room is lit only by your flashlight, with eerie background noise and a moody soundtrack that sets the tone for Harry’s search (though the music doesn’t reach the intensity or inventiveness of some of the past games). The puzzles are pretty clever, with logic and observation usually being key, without the obtuse or silly solutions that plague so many survival-horror games. The devs made it a point to have the solution to every puzzle be in the specific room the locked door is, keeping your inventory free from insane piles of crests or keys.
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. The game also has what is perhaps our favorite-ever use of the Remote’s speaker: when Harry talks on his phone or listens to a voice mail, you hold the Remote to your ear and listen just like it’s a real phone.
The iPhone-esqe device used by Harry in-game is pretty handy throughout, whether for menu navigation, taking photos which are often needed to unlock pieces of puzzles, or checking the map while keeping the screen nearly HUD-free. Still, we enjoyed the phone calls most, even if it was used for the often-pointless action of calling every number we come across during our search. Though only a few numbers advance the story, usually with vague hints or a spooky voice telling you a door is unlocked, and the rest of the time you’re hearing answering machines, it makes the world feel fuller, while at the same time reminding Harry he’s alone when he’s so often met with recordings. We can only see the game suffering in the planned non-Wii versions, as the Remote features add so much.
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.
Above: They just keep pulling you back in
The second (and worst) way this mode hurts Shattered Memories is by being no fun at all, and even excruciating to play. Shattered Memories’ Harry has no weapons and no hope of defending himself, so he can only run from his identical pursuers. If they jump on him, they can be shoved off by swinging the Remote and Nunchuk in one of four directions, but the game often has trouble catching your movements here, and several times we whipped ourselves in the face with the cord as we tried throwing something off our back, making the frustrating ordeal even more annoying. Oh, and you have to run from these unkillable things while trying to find your way through the maze the land has morphed into, and if you hit a dead end, you’ll see you’ve collected quite a herd of monsters directly behind you. Sure, Silent Hill barely penalizes you for dying here, as you’re quickly returned to where you began in the Nightmare, and hell, maybe the devs deliberately made the Nightmare portion horrible to play, but it really hurt our enjoyment of the overall game.
Despite those issues, the rest of the game was interesting enough to keep us forging ahead. Though Shattered Memories’ tale is a tad shorter than we’d like (a little under eight hours) this single-player adventure does lend itself well to replays, mostly thanks to its psychoanalysis segments, in which a slightly aggro shrink asks you questions, and your answers have real impact on what you see and who you meet. It was interesting to play through after answering honestly the first time (though we’re glad no friends were around for some of the more personal questions), and the next time, we answered differently just to see what else there was.
Above: You may or may not meet someone looking like this
After finishing Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, we’re still left wanting more from it and from SH in general. The devs made some real strides in design and concept for the series, and they treat “waggle” like it isn’t a dirty word. Its mature storyline and characterizations, its clear-yet-challenging puzzles and the series’ trademark atmospheric scares all make Shattered Memories worth experiencing. Even if you have to suffer through some Nightmare portions that act as a roadblock to thrills, it’s at least worth a rental to see somebody take the Wii in a new – or at least “re-imagined” – direction.
You’ll Love
- Mature (in the best way) story
- Packs some genuine scares
- Really uses the system’s strengths
You’ll hate
- You can’t harm enemies
- Repetitive Nightmare chases can be infuriating
- Not all waggle puzzles are created equa
source: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Review | 12/08/2009
