Review | Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Who remembers the first time they crapped their virtual pants playing the first Silent Hill on the PlayStation way back in 1999? The creepy fog, the enormous walking fleshy lamb chops, the goddamned blood-spattered fluffy pink bunnies… and that ever present fear that your busted up old pocket radio would suddenly spring into life and start emitting static which meant there was something around the corner that was going to try and eat you.

It’s been eleven years since the series first started scaring the bejeezus out of people and there’s been countless (well not quite countless but at the very least, counted) Silent Hill games and spin-offs, not to mention a blockbuster Hollywood movie, comics… you can even buy yourself a blood-spattered fluffy pink bunny although FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY WHY WOULD YOU WANT ONE?

While the series did have its ups and downs, with the release of Shattered Memories developers Climax Group look to have set it back on the path of truth and darkness; this is a beauty of a horror title and if you’ve not played a Silent Hill title (or a survival horror title at all for that matter) then Shattered Memories is the perfect place to start.

Essentially a re-imagining of the original title, Shattered Memories puts you back in the shoes of Harry Mason, who is searching for daughter in a creepy town called Silent Hill when she went missing after a car accident. As he explores the town, things start going very strange for Harry; it becomes very apparent that Silent Hill is one freaked out whack-job of a town.

Darkness plays a key role; for whatever reason Silent Hill has more than its fair share and luckily, Harry has a trusty torch. This is where Climax have done a beautiful job in making this title work so well on the Wii: you control the torch with the Wii remote and use it to shine the torch in all the nooks and crannies of wherever you happen to be. If you play this game with the lights out you really get drawn into the darkness and you get a little obsessed with shining your torch around to light everything up; it’s done so well and it’s lovely to see controls like this thought out and designed into the game from the beginning and not just tacked on as an afterthought. In fact the controls in general, from moving around to picking things up and interacting with objects just work, and work like you think they should.

The gameplay is also a little different than usual; combat has been completely done away with, forcing you to run from dangerous encounters rather than staying round to try and blast your way through and instead choosing to focus on solving puzzles, taking pictures with your cell phone to see hidden messages and exploring the environment to find clues. Throughout the game, you’re also given questions to answer by way of a storytelling technique that actually affects the way the game plays out. We’ll not tell you much more than that; part of the fun of a survival horror is how the story plays out.

No good horror game gets anywhere without an intense atmosphere and the graphics and audio are top notch. The sound design is fantastic; it keeps you right where it wants you to be at any time during the game. Only occasionally do you get a sense of how well you’re being manipulated but it’s only fleeting and pretty soon you’re sucked back into the nasty little vortex of “holy crap what the hell I don’t even.”

Silent Hill Shattered Memories is as good a survival horror as we’ve seen and we’ve seen a good few. It’s great to see titles making such good use of a platform; don’t think twice about going and picking yourself up a copy if you’re at all inclined towards giving yourself (and your mates) the heebeegeebees.   [8.5]