Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Surprisingly good"

I'm sure that anyone who knows me that I love Silent Hill. I consider Silent Hill 2 to be a fantastic piece of art, and I consider Silent Hill 3 to be the scariest of the bunch - and one of the scariest damn games of all time. I was not looking forward to the idea of the series' progenitor being remade by an American studio, but believe it or not - Climax serves up something quite memorable this time.

In truth - this isn't a "remake" of the first Silent Hill game, but a complete, reconstructed and reimagined take on the classic. There are nods to places and people from the first game, but they are subtle and while a treat for veterans - don't interfere with the games plot and you certainly don't have to have played the original to enjoy this one.

The only similarities between this and the original is that the basic plot set-up revolves around a writer named Harry Mason, who ends up in a car crash in the town of Silent Hill. His daughter, Cheryl, has gone missing and he must explore the eerily empty town (Though it truly isn't fully abandoned this time, but an extreme blizzard has snowed it in almost completely.) to find his daughter. However, that's where the similarities end. Otherwise, "Shattered Memories" tells a whole different story altogether - and guess what, it happens to be one of the smartest, most ingenious, and clever stories ever told in an interactive medium.

The story is very reminiscent of films like "Jacob's Ladder," (It fits seeing as the series was inspired by that film.) in that it uses subtle, dark imagery peppered through the "real world" while occasionally dragging the protagonist through a psychological hell filled with demons. The way the Otherworld is handled in Shattered Memories is rather interesting, and is allegorical of repression of traumatic memories. When Harry uncovers a significant plot twist or is involved with something overtly stressing, the world freezes over before he has to actually deal with it. While in the Otherworld, no one can speak and his mind blocks his conscious efforts to understand and comprehend reality and represses his memories, and he must deal with the raw shock of it all - which takes the form of shrieking monsters he must escape. It is one of many clever and subtle implications of certain psychological processes.

These "nightmare" sequences are intense and hectic, as unlike previous games you are not given any form of weapon - not even our old friend the rusty pipe. Your only option is to run from the raw shock, blocking its path with objects, warding it off with rare and precious flares, or if need be - hiding and praying they don't find you. It's a good concept - it's just a shame that while they are still freaky, the monsters aren't as threatening or truly scary as they can be; but regardless, their speed and numbers mean that running and praying they don't latch on and strangle you to death is hectic and intense and while I normally should complain that the wii-mote controls used for throwing them off is finicky and rarely reads your moves correctly, I'll actually state that it actually adds to the intensity and fear by making it harder to make the proper motions. Someone in that situation isn't going to be graceful and precise.

It is also quite clever that the story takes place from the perspective of a psychological exam, and the title "Shattered Memories" is quite apt as the story is all about finding the truth and clearing out the repressed memories to help their patient. It also incorporated the psych test into gameplay, which is a unique but somewhat unfinished idea.

The explain why I feel it is somewhat unfinished is that it is easily fallible and it also isn't very broad. Your options at the initial evaluation are limited, and it sometimes assumes a bit too quickly. My wife thought her experience was weird because she admitted to just one of the questions regarding sex, and the game assumed she was a pervert - throwing around sexual images everywhere and the character of Cybil appeared in a sexualized manner with a ridiculous amount of cleavage and traditional standards of "beauty" (The ironic thing is that this version looks closer to the original version of the character than the others. She looks kind of like Agent Scully otherwise.) and really the only way that would any way fit my wife is the fact she is studying to be a relationships therapist. It also decided that I was a bit of a drunkard, despite my "I occasionally drink to relax" answer was genuinely just "Occasionally" in real life. Yet there are many other more subtle changes that did fit our profiles, and were nice and interesting differences - it was kind of cool to talk about how the game was different in certain experiences with my wife.

Another part of it that seems strangely missing is that it never truly asks or deduces your true fears. This could have really affected the game strongly if they had implemented it. It wouldn't have to be so blatant that Dr. Kaufman just immediately asks "WHAT DO YOU FEAR MOST?" but it could like, say, have a moment where he says "You are trapped in a dark, cramped room. There is no light but when you feel around, you can find a door. Until you find the door, tell me - do you remain calm or do you panic and hyperventilate?" and if you answer that you panic, the game could deduce that the player has claustrophobia and make certain sections of the game cramped and claustrophobic. That's mere nitpicking though, and suggestions should they ever make a sequel in this style.

The game has a very strong sense of immersion. The atmosphere is thick, Silent Hill feels abandoned and eerie - and oddly enough, the knowledge that the people there aren't all dead or ghosts actually makes the game a little creepier; imagining that someone is watching you from their window with discontent or that you could actually have a friend in all of this - but you are alone, always so alone. Akira Yamaoka's music, as always, is fantastic and helps make the atmosphere tense, and there are moments where you'll hear odd sounds that genuinely seem threatening.

Another thing that adds to the overall atmosphere are the Echoes. Echoes are events that either take place in the forms of lost memories or ghostly images hidden around the town. If you see odd distortion and ghostly figures, you can take pictures to reveal their shapes and will receive messages or pictures that add up to several subplots; and the same is said about verbose echoes, where you follow radio and flashlight distortion to items that played a pivotal role in the subplots to discover more messages.

These sub-plots help the game by making Silent Hill feel like a real place; telling tragic stories of poor mis-guided souls in the town. Probably the most disturbing of the subplots are "Babes in the Woods" and "Stranded." 'Babes in the Woods' tells the story of two young boys foolish enough to play around in the woods at night, and when you find the ghost image of one of the boys drowning, his hands clasping on the bars of a grating in fear, you get a downright chilling 9-11 call as his friend explains that the other is drowning due to their games at an isolated pump-station. "Stranded" tells the story of a murder (and possibly more) of a young woman in the middle of the woods after an encounter with a band of hicks; it is an old idea, but the way you discover and unravel what happened and see some of the messages (Probably the most disturbing is one from innocent bystanders who claim to have seen a naked, bloodied, and sobbing woman running through the woods from some unseen force and decided to take a picture, included is a photo of a genuinely terrified person.) that piece the story together. Finding these things doesn't really affect the plot, but as said before - it only makes the atmosphere thicker and makes Silent Hill feel like a real place.

The graphics are good, but could be better; and no, I'm not riffing on the hardware of the Wii. I am taking the Wii's hardware fully into account, and I am saying that some of the visual rough edges could have been ironed out as I have seen the Wii pull them off better. The biggest problem I am hinting at is the shadowing. It isn't necessarily awful, it's still impressive and moody to see shadows cast and bend from every object and angle, but the shadows feel like blocky objects due to the fact that they have no transparency and are either a solid gray or a solid black. They never feel soft. It also has a tendency to render the shadows in an awkward way, cutting out parts of objects and making their shadows distorted; and sometimes it casts things like Harry's arm in a somewhat startling glitch (When a black hand comes and creeps its way out of the corner of the screen is pretty creepy, eh.) or when opening a door, you might see the doornob shadow floating ahead of you separated from the door and quite huge.

That's truly nit-picking though since otherwise, the graphics are good. There are lots of neat special effects, the animations and character models are actually quite good and the town looks fantastic and so does the icy otherworld. There's a great refraction effect on both shadows and objects when you shine your light on blocks of ice and the transformations between the otherworld and real world look great, with objects getting frozen and lumped together, buildings distorted and twisted like something from a German expressionist film and frost crystals slowly spread across the ground and turn into solid ice.

The rest of the production values are great. As always, Akira Yamaoka's music is haunting and absolutely gorgeous; also as always, I rushed out to own the OST. Also the voice actors are simply stupendous, and it is nice to hear voice actors in a Silent Hill game that are actually as talented as these actors are. They really make their characters feel emotive and genuine; and I love the actor playing Dr. Kaufman. He turns Dr. Kaufman into a somewhat sinister character, he often messes with your brain and delivers harsh ultimatums and truths, and yet can also speak in a soothing but deceptive voice. It's yet another compliment to the beautiful story, which really is one of the best ever told in a video game and easily the best since... well, Silent Hill 2. Go figure. The story is tragic, intelligent, and has a smart and comprehensive twist. It doesn't feel forced, there is no necessary "recap" like all those saw movies do, and the shock is doubled by the fact that after you get over the first level of shock - you realize just how much sense it all makes. The story and characters were already great, but the twist is just so incredible - and it adds even thicker layers of depth and emotion to the already beautifully written tale.

The biggest flaw of Shattered Memories though is that it rarely ever moves past being "Creepy" and becomes scary. I knew that it wouldn't inspire the same amount of fear as some of its esteemed ancestors, but I still feel Climax could have done a better job. Probably the largest contribution to the lack of genuine, constant fear is that there is no threat of death in the real world - and if you can't tell the difference between the otherworld and the real world, you are either blind or have a few screws loose. It does fit with the more realistic plot to keep the monsters in the Otherworld, but why couldn't this make it like past Silent Hill games where the Otherworld bleeds into a purgatory like "Foggy world," or in this case "Snowy World"? Not having to worry about a monster giving chase while you freely explore the world and not gaining the feeling that you are alone, unsafe, and that at ANY moment a monster could shamble your way like in past games; it somewhat diminishes the possible scare factor, which could have been very high had Climax made more use of the sort of things mentioned above.

Wrapping this up - the last knock I have against the game are the puzzles. Don't get me wrong, there are some clever and well thought out ones that challenge your brain but most are key fetch puzzles, and they are a waste of your time as the keys are often hidden only 10 or so feet away from the thing you need to unlock. While it's nice that I don't have to run halfway across town to find a key hidden in some abstract object and then run back, it feels like a waste of time and unnecessary padding to have to turn back, go around the corner, and find the key so close and that there are so few of the good puzzles inbetween.

Yet if you can forgive its flaws - you will find a beautiful, artistic, and unique experience. This is a must play for any fan of interactive fiction whether you are a fan of Silent Hill or not.