Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Innovative"

The original Silent Hill received universal acclaim, named the best horror game ever by many and whatnot; so Konami had to fulfil high expectations when they remade it with Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for the PS2 and Wii. It has also been ported to the PSP, and I can say without a doubt that this is one of the laziest and most half-assed ports any console has ever received. The game itself is good, but the port isn't.

Maybe because they're so experienced in scaring us s***less, Konami has the presentation part down pat. A warning at the start states that this game changes according to how you play it (even the monsters evolve) and although the menus are basic they give the feeling of one of those REALLY scary horror movies. The game isn't really scary, but it sure makes us think it is at the start.

The graphics are good at a glance, but most objects have extremely conspicuous 'jagged edges' around them. While a lot of PSP games have this, they are far more pronounced in this particular offering. The lighting is absolutely horrible. If you press R to illuminate an object with your torch, it will mostly go completely black instead.

Some parts of the gameplay are very innovative. For example, a psychiatrist gives you a picture of a house and asks you to colour it, and in the next scene the house is of those colours. However, it's obvious that this game was developed with the Wii in mind, so these parts, while they work, don't control as comfortably as you can want. The main gameplay is pretty non-linear, and combat has been removed. The nightmares are all the same, and they all look the same and feel the same and play the same, so they're nothing to praise.

The PSP doesn't have a lot of really good survival horror games, and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories doesn't go in that list either. Overall, it's innovative in some ways, but the PSP version is an extremely lazy port job. If you can get either the PS2 or Wii version, then get that.