This is not the Silent Hill you may remember...

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

After the success of the Resident Evil series, Silent Hill quickly followed suit in the Survival Horror genre, but quickly separated itself from the main pack by adding in far more psychological elements to the game. While the series itself has always gone on something of a rollercoaster in terms of how well it was received, it never stopped the madness running, and now we’re returning to where it all began, going back to the beginning to re-examine the roots of the series.
So, how does it compare to the rest of the franchise? Well, let’s find out...

Crashing Start
After seemingly watching a home movie, and then witnessing a car crash, the first real piece of gameplay comes in the form of a Psychiatrist’s meeting. Fans of the first game will recognise Dr. Kaufman, although his role is certainly a lot different this time around. One quick form and some head shaking later, and we’re whisked back to Silent Hill, where Harry awakes from his car crash to find his daughter, Cheryl, missing. Then you’re finally in control of Harry himself, and are quickly introduced to the rather simple control system. All you can do is walk, run, point your flashlight about, and zoom in on things to maybe get a reaction. You quickly realise that there’s no inventory screen, no health bar, and most notably, no weapons. A few simple puzzles and some phone jiggery-pokery later, you find that the world is changing before your very eyes, twisting and freezing over. And it’s heading your way...

Over Simplified
Ok, maybe less of the cliffhangers and more of the description, right?
Well, it can certainly be said of the transition from the normal world into the frozen hell of the nightmare world are certainly something to see. Done completely in real-time, you can move your character and look are as the area changes around you. As unsettling as it is however, you’ll quickly come to dread these transitions for another reason, but more on that later. As already stated, you’ll quickly come to realise that this game is very different from most survival horrors. With no weapons and inventory screens, it can feel rather bizarre, and a little worrying as you wander through the snowbound streets of Silent Hill, waiting for the first enemies to show up. However, this feeling really doesn’t last long, as you’ll quickly realise that the monsters only show up in the nightmare world, and that as long as things aren’t frozen over you’re free to explore as you wish. To a point anyway. By and large, you’re led down a fairly linear path, following the only route that’s available to you. You’ll occasionally come across the odd puzzle, but most are very easy, some really only need you to cross a room to find a key. While long-time Survival Horror fans might cringe at the almost laughably easy puzzles, it does give a certain reality to the areas you explore, and the puzzles don’t feel like they’re just shoehorned in to add minutes to the gameplay.

Below Zero
Of course, that’s how gameplay works in the normal world. Once things switch over to the nightmare world, the gameplay changes. Rather than allowing you to proceed at your own pace down a linear path, you’re now confronted by the game enemies, and are forced to run through an area to find the exit, so that the nightmare will end. While I think that the idea for this section was for it be a tense run through the dark, while creatures nibble at your heels, it really just becomes an effort in patience, as you try to work your way through the maze-like halls and corridors of the frozen nightmare world while occasionally being stopped when a monster grabs you. This can quickly become annoying as the monsters can ran just slightly faster than you can, and so they’ll always catch up with you in the end. While doors and ledges are given a bright blue glow to aid you in pelting through the area, you’re only ever given a vague direction in which to go, and as your map can only ever be accessed in real-time, when you’ve got monsters right behind you, stopping to check your map is not a good idea. Of course, there are also time when you can hide, but these are never useful either, as the monsters can find you far to quickly, so just continuing to run is often more productive. On the brighter side though, quite literally, you can sometimes find flares on the floor that will give you a temporary reprieve from their attacks. These are few and far between though. As always said, I think the idea was for it to be tense and nerve-racking, but it really ends just as just being annoying.

All In The Mind
The other side of the game though, is the mental aspect. Throughout your adventure in Silent Hill, you’ll find yourself whisked away to Dr. Kaufman’s office, where you’ll be given a series of mini-games of a sort, where your actions and answers will affect the game. Some are blatantly obvious, and some are subtler. In fact, some are so subtle, that I didn’t even realise it until I looked back on what I’d just done. By and large though you’ll probably not notice the changes that these test bring on the game, although they do have a secondary purpose that I can’t go into due to major spoilers.

Missing, Presumed Lost
One of the biggest surprises was the relatively short length of the game. While this stopped the simplistic gameplay getting old, and the nightmare world section from getting too annoying, it still game as quite a surprise when the games ending seemed to leap up at you. Especially when comparing it’s locations to the original game. While there is certainly incentive to replay the game, including collectables and multiple endings, you can’t help but feel that it ended far too soon.

Summary
Gameplay: 7/10 – While the controls work very well, there isn’t really a whole lot to the gameplay in terms of depth. Simple puzzles, and rather annoying nightmare world section, but still reasonably enjoyable.
Sound: 7/10 – By and large, the background music is mostly forgettable, and is also unnecessary for the most part.
Graphics: 8/10 – Pretty good, although probably not the best you’ll get on the Wii. Still, by and large it looks quite good.
Lifespan 7/10 – The game was a lot shorter than I was expecting, and while there’s certainly incentive to go back for multiple runs, you can’t help but feel it ends all too soon.

Final Score: 7/10
While it’s enjoyable while it lasts, there are a lot of annoyances in the game that would throw traditional Survival Horror fans off. While fans of the series would be able to point out the differences between this game and the original’s storylines, of which there are many, this alone might not make up for the annoyances of the nightmare world. But all in all, if you like horror games, you should consider giving it a look, as there’s a lot of fun to be had if you can look past the bad.