Silent Hill: Shattered Memories Comments by Rob Fahey

Team Silent have been gone a LONG time, Silent Hill 3 was the last one they had a hand in. The Room, Origins et al are all outsourced extensions of the franchise.

The Room wasn't "outsourced" as such - the team that worked on it was pretty much what was left of Team Silent, but it was originally planned as a new franchise for them. Instead it became their last installment in the series.

The original creators are spread all over the place. The director of the first game (and the second, I think) went off to do the Siren series for Sony, for example, and I know that one of the key art people is working for EA in the USA - I have a suspicion that he was involved in Dead Space, although I haven't actually checked the credits on that.

Well yeah Shinji but it was their last full-on Silent Hill. And to be fair, I had a lot of fun in The Room - it wasn't a great game by any standard but it went to show three things;

1) A small enclosed prison is probably the best way to hub everything.
2) Ghosts are truly misrepresented.
3) Shoehorning in references to another game doesn't work.

Origins was a pretty decent affair but it was certainly nowt special, and Homecoming... err... I enjoyed it but I missed the batshit insanity bollocks of old.

But in any case, Shattered Memories is as good a reimagining as any I guess, and until Capcom do a remake of Sweet Home or do a follow-up to Haunting Ground (exactly who at Capcom do I need to give sexual favours to for that to happen? I'm serious, I will perform any and all lewd acts to get a sequel to Haunting Ground!) we have to hope that this game returns us to the kind of fucked-up bricked-turd brain-destroying plot buggery that I actually enjoy and we really need more of.

Of course all this is pissing in the wind because the best horror game ever has already been made and if you really want to fuck with your head then go and get Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly, everything else that comes now is merely trying to veer off the path to Nirvana - may get their eventually, but why sidetrack when the path there has already been forged and you know goes straight to perfect gaming horror bliss?

The Room wasn't "outsourced" as such - the team that worked on it was pretty much what was left of Team Silent, but it was originally planned as a new franchise for them. Instead it became their last installment in the series.

@Shinji yeah it was a shame they did that as Shadow of Memories showed the staff could well go on to other styles/variations of games, and ultimately Silent Hill 2 was let down by its survival horror origins, which is why despite some reservations really keen on seen what comes out of Shattered Memories and the removal of combat.

I'm excited about getting to play as Elvis Costello

Did anyone ever unlock the chainsaw in SH1? Or was that just a lie?

@Tonka

I did, as well as getting the second petrol-powered item going (was it a drill? Been way too long since I played it to remember properly). There was also a Katana and a laser-pistol you could unlock, but to be able to get all these items you had to start of on the easiest game mode, each successive playthrough bumped the difficulty level up one step.

I am incredibly sceptical of the "no combat" route taken by the game.

Demento (or haunting grounds) on the PS2 proved that, while while being unable to attack can increase the tension in a game, it can very easily and all too often fall into frustration.
I can't see climax getting it right.

@YenRug
I thought it was a lie. Wow. Shit...
Well.. now I kind of feel like replaying it.

You got the chainsaw on your second playthrough IIRC.

The petrol station near the church had the petrol container and you had to combine it with the Chainsaw found (obviously) in the "chainsaw shop" :S

Can't wait for this (first wii games i've said that about in a long time!!)

Though wounder if it'd be better being a new franchise or at the very least a new new silent hill.

For people who played the original it going to be odd reliving the memories but without attacking stuff, unless they play on that with the main character not wishing to admit to the theropist that he attacked things.