Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Hits December 8th

10 Comments Posted November 13, 2009 - By Stephen Johnson

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Horror title Silent Hill: Shattered Memories will be hitting shelves on December 8th for the Wii. The launch date of the PSP and PS2 versions of this game should be announced soon.

Shattered Memories is based on the original Silent Hill and sees the return of protagonist Harry Mason. He still searching for his daughter in the ghostly town of Silent Hill, meeting disturbing characters, and generally being terrorized by horrible creatures and/or circumstances.

It's not old news, though. Shattered Memories features a new "psych profiling" mechanic that analyzes player actions and bases some gameplay on the unique psychology of each player. Also: There will be no combat. You won't be fighting anything; you'll just be destroyed.

I love this series and have hope for this game, in spite of the last few, lackluster forays into the Silent Hill universe. But I'm not sure the whole "no-combat" thing is a step in the right direction. I'm probably the only person on earth who liked the combat in the first few games. Yes, it was terribly unwieldy, unsatisfying, awkward and usually futile, but it fit with the story. You're a real guy in a terrifying situation; why would suddenly be an expert at hand-to-tentacle combat or an crack marksman? How often do you just happen to find boxes of bullets lying around in real life? I thought making it look like you're giving players the option of battling baddies, but making it ultimately depressing, weird and terrible, was an interesting choice on the part of the developers. But, hey, I could be wrong. Maybe the fighting mechanic wasn't made that way for creepifying effect; maybe the combat just sucked. Either way, I usually fought as infrequently as possible in the older Silent Hill titles.

I checked this game out at E3, and the demo level was solid. Patrick Klepek went a little more in-depth at E3. Read his preview here.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to this title, or am I the only one?

Tags: PlayStation Portable, Videogames, Wii

Comments

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thepsychogamer

I see the Silent hill series to be like destroy all humans, sonic, and guitar hero, all started out great, but quickly fell from grace

Posted: November 13, 2009 10:07 AM | Reply | Report

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SmokeyThom

Why in the world would i play a game that i can't fight crap in... at least give me a hostage situation and a get a gun. Is there anything better than merking things these days? Let me guess, it's like Indian Jones running from the big rolling bolder... only your "scared of deth by a creepy beast or ugly monster, and so you run? don't get me wrong, if this is a mystery, then i will love it(but i also love video game combat, and if they are making games that you watch now... then count me out.

Posted: November 13, 2009 10:35 AM | Reply | Report

-2 thumbs up thumbs down

3 Replies
Sentient010

I love silent hill it is my favorite franchisee of all the survival horror franchises. Silent hill is always trying to go against the norm and yeah maybe the last few silent hill games haven't been exactly stellar(still had fun though), but they also were not handled by the same creative team that gave us the first 4. If i remember correctly some (even the orig creator) went on to create siren. But sill the last outing had the best combat (even though they've never really been about the combat)of any of them yet the story was a tad stale(although having the pyramid head fellas turn you into one of their own was frickin amazing!!!) and if i remember correctly puzzles were absent through out most of the first half . with this new re imagining i believe konami can once again have a silent hill that instills intense psychological fear and gives us a story to really care about,I know some might not agree but one of the best aspects of sh4 for me, was running from those very awkward, terrifying ghosts. not being able to fight is going to be amazing. It heightens tension and brings the puzzles front and center(hopefully).which if your a fan of the series you want some darn puzzles!!! Plus the terrain changing aspect is going to give you so many reasons to go back and play again. I will stick by you konami, I know you can do it!!!!

Posted: November 13, 2009 11:27 AM | Reply | Report

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deadpai

I'm definitely excited for this game! I'll try anything Silent Hill.
Even though it's definitely going to be different, it seems like it'll be different in a cool/scary way, rather than a "trying too hard to be like other games" way like Homecoming was.

Posted: November 13, 2009 11:28 AM | Reply | Report

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JDarkley

I was not a fan of the idea at first, but the thought of having to run away rather than fight enemies is a unique take on survival horror. I know that that was supposed to be the idea in the "classic" Resident Evil and other such games, but it wasn't very well implemented in my opinion because you could always shoot or club things all it would cost is ammo (even if there wasn't that much of it). Once I found the shotgun in RE games, I felt safe because I knew I could kill anything but Tyrants or Nemesis with it. And what did players do when we encountered these enemies? We ran, and we're terrified. Thus, it the game is built around that mechanic it could be truly terrifying.

Posted: November 13, 2009 11:56 AM | Reply | Report

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Carnage_Asada

Hey was "Homecoming" good? I never played but thought it was interesting.

Posted: November 13, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Report

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1 Reply
Blue_Vortex

I'll give it a try

Posted: November 13, 2009 3:18 PM | Reply | Report

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thesilentmole

I personally am excited for the no-combat situation. It helps add to the terror. Which dreams woke you up with the most fear? Ones where you were fighting off monsters with chainsaws or ones where you were running for your life because you have nothing to fight with. Harry Mason is not a hero. He's a regular man, a man who is scared to death because, let's face it, he's kind of a coward and using up all of his resolve just to BE in this nightmare world. That beings aid if the running-away mechanics end up crashing and burning, then it's just bad all around anyway.

Silent Hill 4 had the best combat, if we're gonna talk about that. :b

Posted: November 13, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Report

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1 Reply
crapinstien

Hmmm... now that I have been thinking about it I didn't like Haunting Ground or the last Clock Tower (which was similar to Haunting Ground) because all you did was play hide and seek... Parts of the terrifying Siren: Blood Curse was like that as well, when you had to play as the little girl... I LOVE being scared, but I DO NOT like having anxiety attacks while I game LOL
I was not thrilled with the last Silent Hill for the PS3/360, it had a US dev, and they just don't get this kind of game.

I hope this game is good. I'm still getting it on day one. **fingers crossed**

Posted: November 14, 2009 7:35 PM | Reply | Report

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okami_shiranui_kun

really a silent hill game? o-o i mean didnt they have a silent hill game or is this like a continuing of the 1st one? e-o im so not much into silent hill especially after seeing the movie but i also dont think all movie games r gud accept resident evil but resident evil always has a different plot to the story though and they keep u really challenged to like from tomb raiders underworld or something like that for the PS3

Posted: December 15, 2009 8:54 PM | Reply | Report

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