HorrorTober 3 - Silent Hill : Shattered Memories (Wii) Quick Review
The third review for the horror month. I know I've tried to stay away from big name games on this blog, and Silent Hill is definitely a big name. But somehow, Shattered Memories fell short of the main series. Is there a reason why? That's why I picked this one, to find out if it stands up among it's bretheren, or if it deserves to be almost forgotten.
The story is a re-hash of the original Silent Hill on PS1. Harry Mason is driving with his daughter, Cheryl, when they go veering off the road. Harry awakens to discover his daughter missing from the car, so he wanders into town hoping to find her. (Cue Vanessa Carlton's A Thousand Miles...maybe being sung by Terry Crews). Wandering through the town of Silent Hill, Harry meets various residents of the town, as well as some uncomely creatures that think he's extremely huggable. He refuses to let anyone (or thing) stop him from insuring his daughter's livelihood and safety. Spliced into the story of the game are first-person visits at a psychologist's office that will analyze you as you play, and these can effect the course of the story, as well as some of your choices as Harry.
You control Harry with the WiiMote and Nunchuk, using them to discover secrets, solve puzzles, and keep him alive long enough to find Cheryl, experiencing the game in explore mode while you try to find her, and nightmare mode when you're running from the creepy looking manifestations of the town. So, how does this one do? Let's find out, looking at the good and bad sides of this game before finding out if it's worth it.
The Good
- Non-Canon. From the original game, the one thing that stood out the most was the story. It did an amazing job setting up the mythology of the town, and just when you thought you had figured one person out, they completely changed leaving you clueless as to who you could and should trust. Shattered Memories explores roughly the same story, but it puts more focus on analyzing the person playing the game. So because of this, things might or might not happen the exact way they did in the original game, making this one more of a spin-off title. The cool thing about this is it gives the game a little bit more freedom on what can happen to you while you're in the town.
- Walking In A Winter Wonderland. You know how Silent Hill has the dark version of town, and it looks all rusty, bloody and broken? Shattered Memories completely changes that to a snowy, icey almost-Santa's village. And it's absolutely beautiful. It's incredibly hard not to stop and look at everything you come across in the nightmare chase sections. Really, the only word to describe how it looks is just beautiful.
- Being Analyzed. My first reaction to this game, and the psychologist sections specifically, was that it was ridiculous. Just let me play the damn game, don't give me a personality test to make me get more in touch with myself. But then, I saw that it can determine so much about the game and my opinion completely changed. Your answers on the tests determine how other characters look when you see them, which options you have for exploring, even down to how things look. One of these scenes involves you coloring a scene of a house with a car and a couple in the front yard. After you've finished coloring the house, in the next cutscene, a few things look exactly how you color them. Did you color the car bright pink? The car along the sidewalk is bright pink. Did you color the couple's clothes red? Once they come to the door, they're wearing red. There's been a few games that have pulled this before, but this is one of the coolest ones because you get to see visual representations of everything you say and do in that office.
The Bad
- No Combat. Yup, you read that right. There's not one moment of combat in the entire game, unless you call shaking off the weird creatures "combat". The only time you deal with them is when Silent Hill turns into Santa's Village and you have to run from them. If they catch you, a graphic comes up on the screen showing you how to move the WiiMote and/or Nunchuk to free yourself. It's cool, but it takes away one of the greatest aspects of this game series. It was terrifying finding yourself trapped in a corner with two or more nurses twitching their way to you, and trying to determine if what you had for weapons would be enough to save you. Hell, Silent Hill 2 features an area where you can go down and swipe Pyramid Head's massive knife and tote that around to whack things with. But running away? That should be an option, not a main mechanic.
- First Person Door Entry. Every time you open a door in this game, it switches to first person momentarily (the rest is played out in third person from behind Harry). The idea of it is so you can determine how fast you go through, and use your flashlight to peek through the crack and see what's on the other side. The problem? This same thing happens during the nightmare scenes, and it makes the game lag heavily. The point of the nightmare sections is to always be moving, and fast. So you're sprinting, you get to a door and by the time the game makes it to being in first person view, you've already burst through to the other side and have to be back in third. It's extremely annoying when you're doing this inside a building and there's a quick section with a few doors right in a row. By the time the game catches up with you, you might be getting jumped by one of the creatures and helpless for a few seconds.
- Carpal Tunnel. Shattered Memories requires you to always be pointing the WiiMote directly at the TV. Why? Because not only is it how you look around, it's also how you control Harry's turning in the game. If you're not pointing it as close to dead center as possible, Harry starts spinning off in some stupid direction and you have to recollect yourself. It gets extremely tiring. Some of the cutscenes happen from Harry's perspective, so you still have keep your WiiMote aimed or you might miss something. Even the scenes in the Dr's office require it! The only time you get a rest is if you pause, or in the full movie cutscenes, but the latter aren't consistently long enough to really get a rest.
Is it Worth it? / Horror Level
If you can separate the fact that this game is strictly a retelling of the original game, then it can be worth it. I say again, it can be. It's a fun experience, the visuals are amazing, and seeing stuff from your therapy sessions come to life in the rest of the game is a really fun touch. However, this game comes nowhere close to standing up to the original source material, or the rest of the series for that matter. Maybe if there was combat in it, Shattered Memories would have a fighting chance. But without it, you don't miss a lot skipping this game. Especially with the $20 price tag that gets slapped on this one. If you can find it for around $5 go for it, cuz then it's worth it, but as fun as this one has the potential to be, it's not a $20 game.
As for horror, this one falls short here too. In the exploration areas, your main mechanic is discovering things. The "scariest" thing that happens is there's ghostly images you can find, and you can use your phone to uncover them. These, though, are completely stationary and don't offer much for shock value. And again, with being forced to run in the nightmare sections, it's not that frightening. The game tries to be scary, but it just fails across the board.
So one last time, Silent Hill : Shattered Memories is fun in and of itself, but not for the price that's on it. Find it cheap, or don't find it at all, that's my honest suggestion with this one.
The story is a re-hash of the original Silent Hill on PS1. Harry Mason is driving with his daughter, Cheryl, when they go veering off the road. Harry awakens to discover his daughter missing from the car, so he wanders into town hoping to find her. (Cue Vanessa Carlton's A Thousand Miles...maybe being sung by Terry Crews). Wandering through the town of Silent Hill, Harry meets various residents of the town, as well as some uncomely creatures that think he's extremely huggable. He refuses to let anyone (or thing) stop him from insuring his daughter's livelihood and safety. Spliced into the story of the game are first-person visits at a psychologist's office that will analyze you as you play, and these can effect the course of the story, as well as some of your choices as Harry.
You control Harry with the WiiMote and Nunchuk, using them to discover secrets, solve puzzles, and keep him alive long enough to find Cheryl, experiencing the game in explore mode while you try to find her, and nightmare mode when you're running from the creepy looking manifestations of the town. So, how does this one do? Let's find out, looking at the good and bad sides of this game before finding out if it's worth it.
The Good
- Non-Canon. From the original game, the one thing that stood out the most was the story. It did an amazing job setting up the mythology of the town, and just when you thought you had figured one person out, they completely changed leaving you clueless as to who you could and should trust. Shattered Memories explores roughly the same story, but it puts more focus on analyzing the person playing the game. So because of this, things might or might not happen the exact way they did in the original game, making this one more of a spin-off title. The cool thing about this is it gives the game a little bit more freedom on what can happen to you while you're in the town.
- Walking In A Winter Wonderland. You know how Silent Hill has the dark version of town, and it looks all rusty, bloody and broken? Shattered Memories completely changes that to a snowy, icey almost-Santa's village. And it's absolutely beautiful. It's incredibly hard not to stop and look at everything you come across in the nightmare chase sections. Really, the only word to describe how it looks is just beautiful.
- Being Analyzed. My first reaction to this game, and the psychologist sections specifically, was that it was ridiculous. Just let me play the damn game, don't give me a personality test to make me get more in touch with myself. But then, I saw that it can determine so much about the game and my opinion completely changed. Your answers on the tests determine how other characters look when you see them, which options you have for exploring, even down to how things look. One of these scenes involves you coloring a scene of a house with a car and a couple in the front yard. After you've finished coloring the house, in the next cutscene, a few things look exactly how you color them. Did you color the car bright pink? The car along the sidewalk is bright pink. Did you color the couple's clothes red? Once they come to the door, they're wearing red. There's been a few games that have pulled this before, but this is one of the coolest ones because you get to see visual representations of everything you say and do in that office.
The Bad
- No Combat. Yup, you read that right. There's not one moment of combat in the entire game, unless you call shaking off the weird creatures "combat". The only time you deal with them is when Silent Hill turns into Santa's Village and you have to run from them. If they catch you, a graphic comes up on the screen showing you how to move the WiiMote and/or Nunchuk to free yourself. It's cool, but it takes away one of the greatest aspects of this game series. It was terrifying finding yourself trapped in a corner with two or more nurses twitching their way to you, and trying to determine if what you had for weapons would be enough to save you. Hell, Silent Hill 2 features an area where you can go down and swipe Pyramid Head's massive knife and tote that around to whack things with. But running away? That should be an option, not a main mechanic.
- First Person Door Entry. Every time you open a door in this game, it switches to first person momentarily (the rest is played out in third person from behind Harry). The idea of it is so you can determine how fast you go through, and use your flashlight to peek through the crack and see what's on the other side. The problem? This same thing happens during the nightmare scenes, and it makes the game lag heavily. The point of the nightmare sections is to always be moving, and fast. So you're sprinting, you get to a door and by the time the game makes it to being in first person view, you've already burst through to the other side and have to be back in third. It's extremely annoying when you're doing this inside a building and there's a quick section with a few doors right in a row. By the time the game catches up with you, you might be getting jumped by one of the creatures and helpless for a few seconds.
- Carpal Tunnel. Shattered Memories requires you to always be pointing the WiiMote directly at the TV. Why? Because not only is it how you look around, it's also how you control Harry's turning in the game. If you're not pointing it as close to dead center as possible, Harry starts spinning off in some stupid direction and you have to recollect yourself. It gets extremely tiring. Some of the cutscenes happen from Harry's perspective, so you still have keep your WiiMote aimed or you might miss something. Even the scenes in the Dr's office require it! The only time you get a rest is if you pause, or in the full movie cutscenes, but the latter aren't consistently long enough to really get a rest.
Is it Worth it? / Horror Level
If you can separate the fact that this game is strictly a retelling of the original game, then it can be worth it. I say again, it can be. It's a fun experience, the visuals are amazing, and seeing stuff from your therapy sessions come to life in the rest of the game is a really fun touch. However, this game comes nowhere close to standing up to the original source material, or the rest of the series for that matter. Maybe if there was combat in it, Shattered Memories would have a fighting chance. But without it, you don't miss a lot skipping this game. Especially with the $20 price tag that gets slapped on this one. If you can find it for around $5 go for it, cuz then it's worth it, but as fun as this one has the potential to be, it's not a $20 game.
As for horror, this one falls short here too. In the exploration areas, your main mechanic is discovering things. The "scariest" thing that happens is there's ghostly images you can find, and you can use your phone to uncover them. These, though, are completely stationary and don't offer much for shock value. And again, with being forced to run in the nightmare sections, it's not that frightening. The game tries to be scary, but it just fails across the board.
So one last time, Silent Hill : Shattered Memories is fun in and of itself, but not for the price that's on it. Find it cheap, or don't find it at all, that's my honest suggestion with this one.
