G4TV

When Silent Hill: Shattered Memories was announced Konami went out of their way to stress that this would be a re-imagining of the original Silent Hill and not a remake. The underlying plot remains the same: you’re still Harry Mason and you’re still searching for your daughter in the abandoned town of Silent Hill. After that, the game looks completely new and, thankfully, looks to the use the Wii Remote in all the right ways.

The gameplay is primarily centered around exploration and puzzle solving and you’ll need a flashlight to navigate the dark streets of Silent Hill. Hold the Wiimote in your hand. That is your flashlight. Point it where you want Harry to look and you’re good to go. Remember the creepy radio static from the original? That’s going to be emanating from the remote speaker. The developers are going for immersion this time around. In addition to the flashlight controls, they have removed all non-essential game menus. There is no inventory management and you won’t be reading text when you examine an object in the world.

In the original Silent Hill, if you wanted to read a newspaper headline you’d walk up to the newspaper and press a button to examine it, bringing up a bit of text about the paper. In Shattered Memories, you just point your flashlight at the paper, zoom in, and read the words. Any additional information is conveyed through Harry’s vocal reaction to that you’ve looked at.

Click through for the rest of the preview.

You’ll also get a cell phone that is used to replace the menu system, much like Grand Theft Auto IV. It features a map with GPS, camera, and can dial out. This is great for immersion as you’ll find billboards with numbers on them. Call them and you’ll get some extra details about the world of Silent Hill. The camera is potentially the coolest feature as it will let you take pictures that reveal ghosts. Snap one and you might receive a chilling voicemail. 

Puzzles have also been simplified, and you won’t be doing any backtracking. The solution to every puzzle will be in the immediate area and based on interacting with objects. For example, a key to unlock a door might be hidden in some soda cans sitting in the back of a truck. Using the Wiimote, the player can pick up and shake each can. When you hear the key clinking around, tip it over and the key comes tumbling out. A puzzle like this isn’t too difficult and shouldn’t send too many players running to a FAQ. The developers have been clear that they want everyone to be able to finish this game.

As for the horror elements, expect to be creeped out by the spontaneous transformations of your surroundings and being chased by demonic creatures. Unfortunately, one chase sequence I was shown used the dreaded quick time event Wiimote shaking to escape the clutches of a monster. Looking past that, the chases looked good, and were full of tension and Harry can even look back over his shoulder while running to see how close enemies are. The developers also promise that the game will adapt its scares based on the decisions you make in the game.

The game, however, features no combat. Shattered Memories has no inventory system and the focus is mainly on the flashlight. This isn’t a bad thing, though. The game will feature a new soundtrack, composed by Silent Hill legend Akira Yamaoka, which is excellent news for series vets. Graphically, the game is about what you’d expect from the Wii. In fact, the lack of draw distance is good for some unintentional nostalgia.

Shattered Memories is being developed by Climax Studios (Silent Hill: Origins) and will be released later this year for the Wii. It will also be ported to the PS2 and PSP at some point, but is definitely a Wii game first. In fact, I don’t even know how these new features will play on platforms without motion controls. This is also the third Silent Hill game in a row to be developed external studios and not by Konami Japan and it makes me wonder if we’re ever going to see another game in the series from Team Silent.