Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Comments by Rob Fahey

The lack of combat worries me somewhat.
It can work, the Clock Tower games proved that, but for me that style of gameplay makes a second run through almost impossible to stomach. After all, once I know all my goals and which route to take, anything that then chases me halfway back across the map is just an annoyance and absolutely no fun at all.

Still, Kudos to Climax for giving it a go.

EDIT: Oh yea and FIRST!

Anyone remember the chase scene in Call of Cthulhu, where you have to escape from the motel? That was one of the most intense moments in gaming EVER! I'm hoping that Silent Hill isn't just about running, running, running but actually finding ways to slow down your enemies. Looking forward to this game.

I don't mind the lack of combat but yes, if it is just running all the time it will get tiresome pretty quickly, you can only have so much intensity in a single action. Sounds very interesting though and the thought of finding places to hide and fumbling around in the dark with just a flashlight intrigues me especially if they get the sound right, hearing creatures near you as you hide in a cupboard, stepping out and frantically waving your torch around to find them, bit like some of the scenes in The Decent

The fact that Konami no longer considers the franchise important enough to handle development in house is a clue as to where this is going.

Well combat was always the weakest element of SH for me so I'm interested in the new take.

I haven't got the Wii anymore tho so hoping the PS2 version is just as good. Did you get a look at that Rob?

I hate Silient Hill combat (though I didn't mind it in SH4), so I'm glad it's out.

And I certainly wouldn't worry about Konami not doing it themselves, sometimes a franchise can benefit, like Metroid Prime.

@bad09

I'm not sure there is a PS2 version...

Although Origins was a bit dull, this looks like it could be interesting. The series needs this kind of change, no point in just making another game in the same vein as 1-4.

Bottom of the article (and on my wanted list) Evolution ;)

I really enjoyed (and applauded) Hunting Ground for its lack of combat - it really added an element of fear as you were being chased (and sometimes played with – like a cat playing with its prey). If this can do the same and build up those same feelings of being a helpless person in a scary situation then I will be all for it.

Silent Hill (for me) was never about the combat, it was about the atmosphere and the narrative. I always saw the gunplay as a necessary evil.

Nice in-depth preview as well :)

Good preview, Rob.

I'm not sure if this game actually does fit into the canon.

With Harry's recollection limited to a time before his demise he couldn't possibly be wandering around with a device like a modern mobile phone which has been mentioned as an integral game play device in various previews. The events of the first Silent Hill are never pinpointed exactly but fit in somewhere between 1980 and the mid eighties. Harry will be dead long before mobile phones are commonplace objects.

At best he would be carrying around one of those massive primitive bricks used in the mid to late 90's even if he wanted to remember using a device he couldn't possibly have had or used at the time of the events.

This sounds very clever. And PSP too?

Does anyone really give a flying fuck about video game canon? It's a fucking joke. Look at Resident Evil or Metal Gear Solid, for prime examples. All over the place like a mad woman's shite.

If Climax get this player-analysing thing right, you can expect it to be ripped off for the next five-ish years as it gets incorporated into every genre. "We invented it and we're calling it Evolverlution." sez EA in their latest press release...

I may be wrong, but this was'nt shown at E3 was it?

I consider that to be quite worrying, the opportunity to showcase the chase sequence etc would have been i thought quite important considering the autumn release.

Either way its certainly on my "watch" list.

@cappy

Silent Hill is set in 1986 :)

edit: and Harry dies in 2003.

playing original Silent Hill on the PSP, and yes the combat is rather painful, but just running away hardly seems fun either.

Shattered Memories is sounding pretty decent to me.

The lack of combat is good news because it was one of the things I disliked about the recent Homecoming. It's just not fun fighting respawning enemies with weak weapons and hardly any health items. It might add to the tension and atmosphere but it also piles on the frustration factor IMO.

I've never played the PS original, my first Silent Hill game was the superb PS2 sequel so this is a both a worthwhile game for me and one that interests me because of the improvements and tweaks. Looks like this will be my first new Wii game in over a year! :)

Two of my favourite moments in gaming involve being chased. The seminal rooftop escape at the beginning of HL2 and the equally brilliant rooftop chase in BG&E.

I'm hoping for rooftops.

Sounds delicious. I quite like the lack of combat.

EDIT: And if you've ever played the criminally poor-selling Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, you'll know how epic a chase sequence can be. Frantically closing the bolts on doors and hiding from mutant fish-men was awesome.

@ZuluHero

Silent Hill is set around 1980 according to most timelines Silent Hill fans have decided on.

Silent Hill 3 is definitely 16 years later though. Most tellingly at the beginning of the game, Heather a teenage girl, somebody in the social grouping most likely to have a mobile doesn't own one and has to call Harry from a public phone. It is most likely some time in the mid 90s.

Recollections of wandering around Silent Hill with a modern camera phone are highly unlikely for somebody dead before such things existed as common household items. It really smacks of ruthless brand exploitation when you take that many liberties with the source material. It's a Silent Hill game because it will sell more as a Silent Hill game. I would actually be more inclined to buy this if it was an original project and just let Silent Hill rest in peace.

I don't mind the subtraction of combat. In many Survival Horror games these days, the enemies actually lose their fear factor after a while when you figure out how many hits it takes with weapon x and how to kill the monster without being hit. After that point fighting them feels mundane rather than scary/risky. I hope this new direction works out and even if it doesn't kudos for trying something different - not many people around at the moment willing to take risks.

Cheap shoddy wii/PS2 shovelware cobbled together. Lets hope not , but the signs are not good. Silent Hill ended after the 3rd game for me and I also have a liking for 4 even though it is somewhat outside the cannon and very annoying unkillable ghosts...
This thing just sounds like a wand waggling PG13 load of old crud to me, as crap as the movie, origins, homecoming etc.
Silent Hill was TEAM SILENT. everything produced afterwards is a mockery and an insult. GO TO HELL SHATTERED MEMORIES or no as hell would be too disturbing for your new PG13 demographic!!!!!!!!!!! make it an "ice world" instead *VOMITS*

The preview raised my interest in a game I previously only had a passing interest in. Silent Hill 2 - the only one I've played thus far - is one of my favourite games. The demo of the first game was enjoyably discomforting, so I'd like to play that (PSN, please!).

Fleeing in games can work when done well. The exhileration in Mirror's Edge proves that.

I love the idea of what they've done with this - Silent Hill shouldn't be about fighting monsters.

Looks very nice. I always thought that the SH games would be better with less combat.

Absolutely psyched for this game, the personal profile thing sounds ace. Here's hoping they pull it off.

Haunting Ground comes to mind. When you searched somewhere, you would get chased by Debilitas and Co. only to encounter them again when you return to where you left off. It was very irritating for me and made Haunting Ground the worst Survival Horror game ever.
I hope Shattered Memories doesn't follow the exact same formula. Luckily I'm a massive fan of Silent Hill and I'm sure they'll do a brilliant job at making this work out.

@cappy
Just a quick events timeline for you :)

--------------------------
- Alessya was born in 1972 (as per her birth certificate in the hospital found in SH1)

- At 7 the ritual is performed to summon ‘god’ – with her power she transposes her 'sprit' into baby Cheryl. This would make it 1979 (Harry's journal points to this date when he mentions vacationing with his wife and finding baby Cheryl)

- When Cheryl is 7 she wants to go to silent hill, so that would make it 1986. (Newspaper headlines found in game are dated 1986)

- In Silent Hill 3 Heather is 17 (as it says in the manual). That would make it 2003. When she returns home, Harry has been killed by the Order.


----------------------------

It’s probably worth noting that given the traumatic events that Harry is recollecting, modern objects can find their way into memory regardless of if they existed or not.

This is the same thing as when you are shown a photo that you are in that you can’t remember, you mind will convince you that you were there. There have been various psyche tests with people that have been ‘photoshopped’ into a photograph. The person that is shown the photo will swear blindly that they were in fact there and will even recall events of that happened around the time the photo was taken – even though they were never there at all.

I can’t remember the name of the test, but the basically its just a mind-coping mechanism (we'd probably all go mad otherwise without it! :P).

This also seems prevalent with the new look ‘other world’. Harry seems to be recalling a place that is cold and barren, and that is what we are seeing in this game, his recollections. It's not about what 'we' remember Silent Hill to look like remember :)

The title "Shattered Memories" is pretty fitting in that regard :)

This sounds really good so far. Never played SH1 as the PSX passed me by while I was laying on my megadrive and N64, and always avoided the sequels for fear of losing the plot. A revisit will hopefully bring me up to some sort of understanding.
As for the Mobile Phone, what ZuluHero Said is a fair enough point. Memories are distorted long after the time of the event, and after such a traumatic event, he could quite conceivably fill in the gaps.

Has the potential to be great, I like the sound of the focus on the psychology - echoes of SH2. But after SH4 and Homecoming, I remain very cautious.

@sigmagoat

Wow. Just wow.

@ZuluHero
I can't believe anybody took the time to piece it all together but somebody at Silent Hill Heaven did.

From clues in the games such as Alessa Gillespie's diary it was determined that Claudia was 6 in 1972 since Alessa gives Claudia who is a similar age, a birthday card marking her sixth birthday in 1972 placing her year of birth as 1966. Claudia's age in Silent Hill 3 is 29 establishing that the events of Silent Hill 3 occur in the mid 90's

They are out a few years here and there with a few details but nobody is perfect, not even Team Silent. I don't care how out of touch with reality Harry is he can't imagine technology that doesn't exist when he dies. It's an enormous plot hole that no scenario will cover over.

Sounds interesting. As much as I love Silent Hill, I must go out as the heathen because I personally found Silent Hill 2 timid and dull, but then equally I am aware that some young men with a beautiful girlfriend/wife found it extra-disturbing as they progressed (It's not that I dislike SH2 though, please don't misunderstand, it was very clever but for me too clever and I was too detached from it).

However, this looks interesting. I will mourn the dirty hell dimension but this seems like necessary move - Silent Hill is supposed to be a reflection of inner fears and thoughts, and so far it's always been more or less the same style. Remember that the first game started off originally with snow falling from the sky, so Harry being cold, alone and scared does logically dictate a cold, frozen hell dimension.

No combat is fine with me as well, although they need to bypass a few of the issues that brings (I remember some of the bosses being tremendous fun in the original).

It's a dangerous road they're taking and yes I'd rather see Silent Hill develop more than milking the franchise. But in truth, it sounds okay, and if it can be kept intuitive this could be an excellent title. But it's sure as heck not going to be as easy as Resident Evil was to prequel and remake - when your raison d'ętre is to screw with peoples heads, that needs to be kept solid or you're just ruining a perfectly good franchise waiting for a rebirth.

@Cappy

"I don't care how out of touch with reality Harry is he can't imagine technology that doesn't exist when he dies. It's an enormous plot hole that no scenario will cover over."

Parallel. Universe.

Parallel universe pah!

Harry Mason clones genetically programmed to love mobile phones and infuriate monsters with jungle music ring tones.

But seriously, Origins dates the fire as 1973 + 7 years for Cheryl's age when she returns to Silent Hill = 1980. Heather is 17 in Silent Hill 3 so it can't be later than 1997. No bloody camera phones even if you are in psychiatric therapy, Shattered Memories could be no later than 1997.

From clues in the games such as Alessa Gillespie's diary it was determined that Claudia was 6 in 1972 since Alessa gives Claudia who is a similar age, a birthday card marking her sixth birthday in 1972 placing her year of birth as 1966"

there was a birthday 'letter' but it was unsigned:

"To little Claudia. Happy 6th Birthday. I love you as if you were my real sister. Here's to you!"

Wow, is it just me, or are some people being way too anal over possible dates for the setting of the game series? What are you all going to do if this one is set, more or less, in the present day and all the dates are different? Are you going to demand Konami and Climax go back and change dates and remove things that couldn't have existed in the previous games, or are you going to go all emo and slit your wrists (prays that miracles do happen)?

@PrivateFloyd

Yes, this was shown off at E3, there's plenty of coverage and video playthroughs of the demo over on IGN, for starters.

@YenRug

You get passionate fans in all aspects of life...

@Cappy

Yeah you really have to let it go, it's a reimagining so they can set the date whenever they like. More than likely it will have no direct connection to the other games.

@sigmagoat

Although you seem pretty set in your prejudices, SH:SM is rated M, not PG13.

Another hero behind a keyboard.

I wonder, do you often suggest that people commit suicide when you disagree with them YenRug? Did you wish death on mummy every time you had to eat your vegetables? What a credit to the human race you are.

Read the article, Climax assert that Shattered Memories is canon, it's supposed to be part of the existing series. It seems to me like they're just slapping the Silent Hill brand onto a concept they already had. Another cynical effort to fleece long suffering Silent Hill fans, if they can't even pay attention to trifling details such as fitting into the series story arc it doesn't bode well for the game overall.

@Cappy

Ooooh, did someone mention the word "canon" in the article? And have you completely misconstrued that to have a completely different meaning to the context it was used in? A big fat YES is the answer!

This change does, we're assured, have strong roots in the new storyline and the characters who inhabit it. It does fit the Silent Hill canon - every character has always found their own personal hell in the otherworld, after all. Another thing that has generally changed from character to character, though, is the monsters - and that's one aspect which Climax refuses to talk about.

Come on, point out where it says that Climax says the whole game is canon; I'm just looking for that little bit where it says they actually have used the rusty chainlink fence motif, rather than ice; how about the bit right at the start that says they they weren't charged with "re-imagining" the setting and were in fact told just to make a Wii update with added waggle.

I don't know about you, but the only mention of canon in the article seems to be of Rob Fahey's doing and is referring to how the individual shapes what happens to them, in Silent Hill, not how this is an exact recreation of the original game

When did anachronism become an unacceptable plot device? Someone page Shakespeare, stat!

Everything is allowed one macguffin, Hitchcock told me this the other day.

Regarding the 'snow' at the beginning of the first Silent Hill; was it not ash from the fire?

Read the article, Climax assert that Shattered Memories is canon, it's supposed to be part of the existing series.

This simply isn't true, and at no point in the article do I make that assertion.

The exact quote I have from the developers is this: "There is a way of looking at the game in which it fits with the events of the rest of the series - but then again, there's an argument that if you want the Silent Hill series to all fit together, the only endings that make sense are the UFO endings..."

So they have paid attention to the rest of the series, WITHOUT being entirely devoted to the canon. This is a new telling of a similar story; it's set in the present day, with different events and characters, but, as far as I can gather, similar themes and a broadly similar story arc. It's not designed to be an exact match to SH1 - quite the contrary - and the team hasn't gone out of its way to adhere to the already stretched thin canon of the Silent Hill series.

Think of it as a re-think of the first Silent Hill story in broadly the same way that the Christophe Gans movie was, and you'll be on the right track.

Any chance of putting the transcript up as EG have done with other interviews? Anyway a good way to sum it up is that its like how long running anime shows have spin offs that adhere to an alternative timeline that has some ties to the other shows.

The gameplay and atmosphere sound pretty good, but WHY OH WHY do they have to mess with the original storyline? There were no walls of ice in Silent Hill when Harry visited the town PERIOD, just some snow and fog (Wait!! the fog will be there right?!?!?).

Was it that hard to come up with a new character instead of ruining the good memories I have playing the first game? I have no problems with trying something new in a gamefrancise and it might work, but keep your filthy paws of the first game Climax....

>The lack of combat worries me somewhat.

The fact that it's a dual release with the ps2 worries me even more.

Aww I didn't know about the disbanding of Team Silent, I was hoping they still had something up their sleeve to show us at TGS. I'm glad at least that a good developer has taken over and that the series is not dead.