ECTS: Shadow of Memory Hands-On

Konami was showing a small playable demo of Shadow of Memory, its latest PS2 development in its booth at ECTS. The game's plot involves a female character that dies and is then given the chance to fix the past and prevent her death by using a time traveling device. The only problem is that she doesn't know how she died, or even what or who was involved - giving the game an odd take on the classical murder mystery.

The game starts in a small bar that's ablaze. Chairs are overturned, doors are blocked, and all the exits appear to be guarded by huge spurts of flame. After you escape you travel through time and return to a time before the bar caught fire and warn and barkeep about the impending disaster. After a huge drawn out cutscene that oddly suggests that one must love their child the demo ends.

At the point the graphics are looking very sharp. The flame effect is very nice and casts some excellent light and shadowing effects on the backgrounds. Both the characters in the game look good and move well - especially in the cutscenes. Unfortunately, the game was missing sound at this point, I was still able to see what was going on through the use of subtitles.

The game feels very similar to Tomb Raider or Resident Evil, but there are some major control differences. In Shadow of Memory you run in the direction you press on the analog stick or D-Pad. This control scheme keeps things moving very fast and makes it very easy to change direction. You'll use other buttons to open doors, look through your inventory, perform actions, and use items, but not a whole lot of that was going on in the demo build.

Shadow of Memory could be a very compelling game, or it could get lost amidst a storyline with an overdramatic moral message. At this point there's really no way to tell. Shadow of Memory is scheduled to ship early 2001.