“2 Player Reviews” is a series of articles in which two members of the Wing Damage staff separately review a game, so as to give our readers multiple perspectives on the subject matter.

Player 1 - Jonah “spambot” Gregory

Have you ever played a game that is actually playing you?

That is the claim that Silent Hill: Shattered Memories makes when you first boot it up. It starts with a “Psychological Warning” that the game will be profiling you as you play it. It is an interesting way to open a game, and is the developers way of letting you know you are in for a unique experience.

Shattered Memories is a re-imagining of the original Silent Hill for the PlayStation. Much more than just a graphical update, the developers have completely re-worked the entire concept of the series. Many of the characters are the same, and you still play as Harry Mason who is searching for his missing daughter, Cheryl. Beyond that, it is a totally new experience.

The game’s dark and spooky world is incredibly immersive. Not only does it feature some great looking visuals and believable characters, but the Wii remote lends itself perfectly to the interactions. Wherever you point, Harry points his flashlight. His cell phone is controlled with the d-pad, and all the calls come over the built-in speaker on the controller. You can even partially open doors so that you can use your flashlight to preemptively check out a room before fully entering it.

The most interesting part of Shattered Memories is the way that the world changes depending on your choices. At several points throughout the game, the story takes you to the psychiatrists office, where he will ask you a variety of different types of questions. How you answer them, in addition to the ways in which you interact with the world, will start to change things around you. Some characters will look completely different. Cans that with one choice may have been soft drinks are now beer. Conversations and messages you find will be completely different.

Being a Silent Hill game, you know you are in for scenes where the world changes from the normal level of creepiness to a monster filled nightmare world. In these segments, the world is frozen solid and you must run from the strange, faceless inhabitants to find the door to freedom. Here the game’s tension changes to terror. The best you can do is push them away or occasionally find a flare that keeps them at bay.

While I was not a fan of these running segments, the transition between worlds were some of the coolest parts of the game. I can’t really say more than that without giving away some very cool story elements that are best seen with a fresh perspective. Oddly enough, I found the normal world segments much scarier, even though there is nothing that can actually hurt you in them.

Shattered Memories has a very different feel than most games. There isn’t a lot of interaction with the world, and even with the changes it leads you down a fairly linear path. This did not detract from my enjoyment, however, as it made it feel like a visual novel more than a game. The story is intriguing as it unfolds and kept me interested all the way through.

Jesse and I have found that this is a game you must play by yourself the first time, then have a friend play through so you can compare notes. Anyone looking for an experience you won’t find in a million other cookie cutter games need look no further.

Player 2 - Jesse “Main Finger” Gregory

Silent Hill is a series I never got into. I’m not much of a “horror” guy and the subject matter of cults and the like I had no interest in pursuing. When I heard that Shattered Memories disassociated itself from the series’ original plot in favor of a psychological thriller, my interest was piqued. While the basic plot of novelist, Harry Mason, searching for his seven-year-old daughter, Cheryl, after a car crash is in tact, the rest is radically different.

The gameplay in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is divided into three distinct varieties. You will start the game in a therapy session. In these sections of the game, you will be asked personal questions and perform simple tasks with no correct answer. This is one of the game’s many ways of building your psychological profile that will affect your playthrough.

A majority of the game is spent wandering around the seemingly abandoned town of Silent Hill. Unlike the therapy sessions which are in first person, these are controlled in third person with the Wii remote aiming Harry’s flashlight. The atmosphere throughout these sections is very unsettling. You’ll come across significant objects as you explore that will send voicemails and text messages to your cell phone. You’ll also get messages from taking photographs of nearly invisible things. The voicemails come out of the Wii remote’s speaker by default which adds an extra layer of immersion.

The third gameplay style is the “nightmare” sections. The town will become encased in ice and you’ll have to run away from invincible monsters. If they latch on to you, you must fling the Wii remote and nunchuck to the side they’re grabbing on. This works well most of the time. You’ll also be able to knock over obstacles as you run by swinging the nunchuck to slow the monsters down.

These sections are mazes. Since the ice makes landmarks almost non-existent and there are often many directions to choose from, you’ll have to find a safe spot to check your map. Checking your map means actually pulling out your cell phone and taking a look at the screen. Unfortunately, Harry can be a little slow at putting his cell phone away which can result in some unwanted monster attacks if your spot wasn’t as safe as you thought.

Strangely enough, wandering around the “normal” version of the town is much creepier, despite its lack of monsters. The chase sections in the nightmare world focus more on a frantic adrenaline rush that, while intense, is less scary than the superbly designed atmosphere of the town. These chase sections are easily the least interesting part of the game, though they admittedly take some interesting twists in the end portion.

Inversely, the transitions into the nightmare world are great. When I first started, I figured the balance between when each gameplay style would appear would become formulaic. I was completely wrong. The nightmare world can come while you’re wandering around or while talking to somebody in a cutscene. On top of that, the frequency in which they appear is also very unpredictable. On my first playthrough, I felt like I could enter the nightmare world at any point in the game.

Both versions of the world have some puzzle solving elements. There are some cool puzzles, but unfortunately they’re very few and far between. More often than naught, you will need to find a key to unlock a door. The keys are always very close to the doors you need to unlock. Occasionally, I’d have trouble finding one, but only because of my utterly terrible observation skills.

One of the game’s most interesting features is the psychological profile built as you progress. Your responses in the therapy sections, your eye movement during conversations that take place in first person view, which areas of a building you visit first, objects you zoom in on while wandering the city, and the phone calls you do or don’t make are only some of the many things that will contribute to how the game profiles you. These actions will not only determine your ending, but also the physical appearance of characters and monsters, the cutscene dialogue, which phone messages you receive, and even which locations in branching paths you can enter.

Many of the therapy sections are more than a simple “yes” or “no” question. One situation had me ranking four people in order of blood guilt. Another had me place pictures of people I thought were dead on one side and pictures of people I thought were asleep on the other. It’s these non-binary decisions combined with the sheer number of other variables that make it great for multiple playthroughs.

Even with these variations, the core story will be the same. The story is one of the game’s biggest strengths. I always wanted to play more to try and find out what was happening. Though I had my own theories, the ending completely took me by surprise (in a good way). It’s not a particularly long story, but it is one you will want to visit multiple times (even if the psychology profiles didn’t exist) because the ending will make you realize how significant every tiny detail in the game is within the context of what you now know.

Everything in this game works toward immersion. The different features of Harry’s phone and the camcorder-style pause menu make for one the coolest UIs around. The graphics, while not HD, are very detailed. Everything from signs to individual books on shelves to scraps of paper lying around can be seen in unique detail. The environments are extremely varied and feel very “lived in”. Thanks to avoiding reusing assets and filling the locations with more stuff to look at then you even have time for, this is one of the most believable cities I’ve ever seen in a videogame.

The characters’ faces are very well modeled and animated, and look more relatable than many I’ve seen on HD systems (*cough* Assassin’s Creed II *cough*). They’re also very naturally voiced. You won’t find awkward pauses or poorly delivered lines here. The soundtrack, composed by Akira Yamaoka, is as great as his past works. That along with impeccably executed sound effects, make the audio one of creepiest aspects of the game. I was very impressed by the subtle changes in the music that were triggered by going to different areas of the map.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is more of an interactive story than a game. More clever puzzles and enemy variety could have really pushed the game to outstanding heights. Fortunately, the story is fantastic with lots of layers and dynamic aspects that wouldn’t work in any other medium. Unless you can’t handle the spookies, Shattered Memories is a story worth checking out.

This review is based on the Wii version of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories purchased by the WingDamage Staff.

Tags: 2 Player Reviews, Akira Yamaoka, digital novel, horror, Konami, PS1, ps2, psp, Silent Hill, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Wii

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.