Shattered Memories of a Beloved Franchise?: A Review of the Wii’s new Silent Hill game

I know, I know! It’s a rare review for us and rare Andrew sighting.

First up, some background may be in order. As you may already know, the Silent Hill series is one of my all time favorites. As is often the case with even a franchise of its age, after a while, the series has lost some luster. The original Silent Hill was a fantastic game and then Silent Hill 2 made all the right decisions everywhere possible in improving the game. Silent Hill 3 held its own and was enjoyable, but was not invigorating as 2. After that, the games declined steeply. Silent Hill: The Room didn’t feel like Silent Hill to me. The PSP entry (which I have not played) is supposedly pretty bad. Homecoming came out and I made a post, mostly singing its praises. I did not follow up on it, though; the game was promising and I thought it might be the kick in the pants the series needed, but I was wrong. Graphically, it was beautiful. Unfortunately, the flaws did end up being too numerous. The game was far too heavily combat-based, an annoying companion was added, and all this ended up making it too frustrating to finish. Maybe I’ll return to it, but I’m not too motivated.

When I first heard about a Silent Hill game on the Wii, I was very skeptical. Controls could potentially be a problem, the Wii has weaker graphics, Nintendo’s family-friendly reputation might make the developers hold back some content, and then there’s the whole recent history of sucky Silent Hill sequels. Then I heard there is no combat. What the hell? Is this going to be Myst on the Wii?? However, ALL of these preconceived notions ended up being false.

Well, Mike and company seemed to have more faith in the series than I had, myself, and actually picked it up for me as a birthday present. Of course, I played right away… and actually played all the way through. That may not sound like a big deal to you, but I rarely finish games, even ones I love. How far am I in Shenmue 2, again? I’m excited about Yakuza 3 coming to the PS3; have I even beaten the first one yet? No. But I digress.

This is a different type of Silent Hill game. It plays differently than the others and adds in a lot of new mechanics, many of which utilize Wii-specific aspects. Perhaps the very first thing you notice about the game are the graphics – they were pleasantly surprising. In fact, for a Wii, damned good, I’d say. Let’s be realistic, though; they are not better than, say, Homecoming. Close-ups on characters are well detailed with expressive facial features. The developers minimized the number of things on screen at once and add lots and lots of snow and fog. This allowed them a decent amount of detail on certain objects and eliminated pop-ups. There are a few cases of slow down, usually going through doors or during a chase. At the same time, this was pretty minimal and not much to complain about. Some of the shadows/lighting effects could have been improved too. Overall, for a Wii game, it’s pretty impressive.

One of the most impressive things, however, is the narrative. The game is actually a retelling of the original Silent Hill story. Harry Mason gets in a car accident and when he finally regains consciousness, notices his daughter is missing and then searches for her in this strange town called Silent Hill. This game’s story is this same basic premise and most of the game you are wandering Silent Hill searching for your daughter, meeting strangers, and trying to stay alive. However, the game does not take you right to the car accident. Instead, you begin in some kind of therapy session. Various portions of the game switch from third to first person perspectives. This in itself is interesting, like a novel switching between first and third person writing. All of these therapy sessions (though not exclusively) are in the first person.

Our psychologist starts off giving us a personality test. The questionnaire will tell you right away that this game is not your typical family-friendly Wii game. The questions ranged from simple, “Do you make friends easily?” to way too personal, so much that I actually felt embarrassed answering questions about my sex life while some friends watched me play. There is a surprisingly large amount of mature content in the game – actual mature content, not bouncing breasts ala DOA or GTA’s “Hot Coffee”, but intelligent, mature conversation in the context of relationships and realistic intimate encounters, some of it sexual.

The therapy sessions run intermittently between game play, and gets stranger and more intense between you and the psychiatrist as he tests and then lectures you. It appears he’s coaxing you into recalling flashbacks, which is where the game continues in the hopes of finally getting to some kind of admission out of you. This turns out to be a grand revelation at the end of the game.

For the main part of the game, you use the Wiimote to point at a direction as a flashlight and use the nunchuck to move forward or back or to the side. It’s very basic for the most part. The goals are mainly to go from point A to B and discover clues along the way. There is no combat, so for most of the game, you can take your time and explore. There are plenty of macabre and disturbing things. But unlike its “next-gen” console predecessors, it’s far more subtle. Instead of multiple dead bodies hanging from the ceiling on the first level, there might be a dead rabbit in a drawer you open. It doesn’t hit you right away with the heavy stuff. Instead it builds, so when you do discover an actual corpse, it’s more shocking and holds greater significance.

Even though you know there is no combat, it is still creepy with lots of loud noises and events to keep you on your toes. One of the most interesting features is the use of the Wiimote as Harry’s phone. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this – No More Heroes did this. However, it is the first time I’ve seen used as an integral part of the game. No More Heroes used it stylistically but with no real practical purpose. It is used stylistically here but it’s also integral to solving certain puzzles.

One of the things that Homecoming failed to realize is that it wasn’t the fighting of scary demons in Silent Hill that made it scary. It was NOT fighting the scary monsters that evoked this feeling. Our anticipation of danger helped frighten us. Instead, Homecoming crammed the game packed with monsters to the point that it was more frustrating than scary with its constant combat. Shattered Memories went with a complete 180 degree approach, having no combat at all. I was very skeptical of this. Although there wasn’t nearly as much combat in the original, there was SOME. The potential of encountering a monster at any corner was terrifying.

Although there is no combat, Shattered Memories does not turn out to be Myst. There are monsters. Yes, they can kill you. No, you can’t kill them. Instead, the game uses a series of chase sequences where you run away from the demons. To my surprise, the approach works for the most part. The first few chases are very exhilarating and terrifying. The monsters try to grab you and you must find your way through the nightmare world labyrinth of ice and doors that seem to take you in circles. In fact, most of the doors actually do take you in circles! As exciting as they are, after a while, they get more difficult and frustrating. You actually wish you could fight back, and the chases become more annoying than frightening. Thankfully, the game does not go overboard with them. There are about eight chases or so in total. This is maybe one or two too many, but not too many to actually make me quit (which I am prone to do).

Many will complain that the game is too short. As per usual, I leisurely took my time, exploring most of the game environments. I beat it within about 10 hours of game play. I thought the length of the game was perfect. The game has a story and told it, without bothering with too many pointless side-quests, or extending the plot so that it no longer made any coherent sense. There is also the fact that I don’t have time or the patience for 30+ hour games anymore

Lastly, when you load up the game, it starts with a disturbing, yet dubious warning that the game will psychologically analyze you to better frighten you in the game. As far as I can tell and from what I’ve read, the psychoanalysis the game performs changes the ending, but not much else. There are a few superficial cosmetic changes I could tell were obvious from my choices on these tests. The demons in the game changed their appearance in the game, I assume, based on my answers. They began looking more female towards the later stage in the game, as opposed to rather the blank and sexless hellspawn in the beginning. When I started playing the warning itself had a psychological effect and I kept wondering if what I saw was based on the psychological profiling. Probably not in retrospect and knowing what I know, but if you don’t know better, I could see it having an effect, in the same was as the way the Blair Witch Project announced itself a documentary, or Fargo stating it was based on a true story.

The game is not perfect. The chases get frustrating, some of scare tactics lose their effect, and I even ran into a serious glitch that forced me to reset. It is also not as good as Silent Hill 2. Nonetheless, this is a very worthy addition to the series, especially in comparison to more recent efforts. You have to appreciate the effort and the creativity the Climax team pushed. It is not a sequel, nor a straight remake, but an inventive and clever reimagining of the first with original game play and original narrative structure. They went above what was a tried and true formula to give you a new experience, while retaining the feel and atmosphere of the series and managed to get most of it right. They deserve serious kudos for that.