All sorts of thoughts are racing through my head as I sit in a demo room at Konami's Manhattan Beach, California office is mid-March while waiting for company representatives to boot up the Wii action-horror game Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. I think, this title came out of nowhere -- a real surprise. Does that mean I should be worried? And then, well, it is developed by Climax, the same studio which did Origins for PSP and more recently the good-looking Overlord: Dark Legend for Wii. These guys seem to know what they're doing and they have demonstrated a certain respect for Nintendo's console, something of a rarity for a third-party. Hopefully they don't eff this one up because if it's an on-rails shooter, I don't think I'm going to be able to fake enthusiasm. Forty-five minutes later, I'm calling my editor, Mark Bozon on my cell phone. "Man, you're going to hate me," I say. "I just saw what could be the most impressive third-party game on Wii." There's nothing better than being unexpectedly blown away.
Bear in mind, I spent about 15 minutes with the game and my experience was eyes-on, not hands-on. Still I've been doing this for long enough to spot a quality project when I see one and Shattered Memories has incredible written all over it. The specifics will follow, but here are the footnotes: absolutely outstanding technology, superbly implemented controls, extremely moody atmosphere and smart design. Rarely do I walk away from a demo without any negatives, but the only thing I could come up with as I relayed my experience to Bozon on the phone was so trivial that that it was barely worth mentioning.
You're going to read this a lot -- in previews, interviews, whatever -- but while Shattered Memories is based on the characters and events that powered the original game, it is not so much a remake as it is a re-imagining. You play as Harry Mason, crashed on the side of the road in the middle of a snowstorm. He wakes to find his daughter gone and proceeds to look for her throughout the eerie town of Silent Hill. If you played the PlayStation game, this probably all sounds familiar, but rest assured that the plot diverges quickly. Take, for example, the very presentation of this initial setup, which is already different.
The game opens on a psychiatrist's office. A man, presumably the physician, pours a glass of alcohol. It's snowing outside. As he sips, the phone rings. "A new patient is here -- they're here early," a voice says on the line. "That's fine. We can start now," replies the psychiatrist. Then, abruptly, the scene changes to Harry as he falls from his wrecked car to the snowy pavement below and loses his glasses.
The flashlight looks pretty good in this screen. In motion, you'll be blown away.
Back in the office. "I'm glad you came. Just turning up shows your commitment to the process," says the psychiatrist. "I've read your notes. The other therapist didn't work out for you. This will be different. No notes. No drugs. No theories. We go back from the start. Understand what happened."
This is not a cut-scene. You're able to look around in first-person view while he talks. The office and therapist come to life with realistic detail, the latter donning fluid animations. "Take a look at this short form," the therapist says and hands you a paper. This is where Shattered Dreams really separates itself from any Silent Hill game prior. Labeled Garner Sobel Personality Inventory Form, the paper contains a series of true or false statements that must be filled out via the Wii remote -- just point and click to check the boxes. Two examples: Having a drink helps me relax. I always listen to other people's feelings. The moment you make selections, the game begins your profile and it continues watching and evaluating you as you play.
"You've been unfaithful. Is that true?" he asks. You can answer simply by pointing at the screen and moving up and down or left and right with the Wii remote, in effect nodding yes or no.
The scene changes to the wreck again. "Cheryl! Cheryl! Sweetie?" Harry cries out, but there's no answer. He picks up a flashlight. There are snow particles swirling around in the background, which looks fantastic.
Armed with the flashlight, you take control and everything you do is being monitored, considered. Based on your actions, the game itself changes on the fly. The design of the world. The characters. How they treat you. Everything. When Harry inevitably walks into a deserted office setting and looks around, the game will be analyzing your decisions. If you immediately look for a map, it'll think you're practical. If you look at a girlie picture instead, not so much. Either way, these decisions will incite changes, possibly even some with consequences.
Here's an example. As Harry explores the town, he will soon see through the snow some kind of open establishment. Based on the choices he's made previously -- both in the profile and presumably along the way in his snowy travels -- something will have changed. In some cases, he'll see an open diner. In others, an open bar. As I watched, it was the latter. Harry walks inside, confused, and chats with a bartender.
"I knew this weather couldn't keep everybody away," she says. "Name your poison." He explains that he's there looking for his daughter, shows her a picture and she tells him where she could be hiding on such a snowy evening. "Oh, ****. I'd offer to call for help, but the phones are all out because of the storm," she adds. Harry, meanwhile, is clearly still out of it. He notices to his astonishment that his own ID indicates he lives in Silent Hill. "That accident of yours -- you take a knock to the head?" the bartender asks. A few minutes later, Harry finds himself trekking through the snow again. "**** -- I should have known where I am," he says. "What the hell is wrong with me?" He decides to go back the way he came and looks to his cell phone for guidance. As it turns it, that's a good choice because this iPhone-esque device -- an integral component of the game -- is your one-stop hub for all the information and tools you could possibly need. The minus button brings up the device. You can dial numbers, use a camera (whose viewer shows a slowed framerate a la iPhone) to take and store pictures, check text messages and voice mail, look through your phone book, and access game options and settings. In my demo, one of the Konami reps tried to dial 911. "911, what's your emergency?" a voice asks through your Wii remote. Harry responds on-screen. There's some kind of interference, though and the 911 operator cannot hear him. She keeps asking if anybody is there and then hangs up. It's a very effective means to maintain Silent Hill's trademark sense of isolation.
What's the point of taking pictures with your cell phone? Konami showed me. As Harry approaches a dilapidated children's playground, he notices that something is off about a swing-set's color -- that it looks a bit more static than the rest of the environment. He cues his phone, snaps and picture and sees his daughter in the photograph. That, in turn, triggers a voicemail to his cell. He brings it up and listens. "Daddy, I'm hurt," the message plays. Voicemail messages like these occur regularly and both help drive the storyline and offer players guidance. Later, when the town is transforming right before Harry's eyes into something much more nightmarish, his phone rings and his daughter screams, "You have to run, daddy. You can't fight them. Run!"
This is, of course, Silent Hill's transformation from lonely small town to nightmare world. In the original game, that alternate locale was hellish, bloody, rusty. Not so in the re-imagined Wii title. It's icy. And the world distorts dynamically right before your eyes. Even as Harry's daughter screams for him to flee, the buildings around him take on an icy glaze, distort, change shapes, pillars shoot upward from the ground and the scene darkens. Snow particles freeze in midair. A car alarm goes off in the distance. The entire display is breathtaking -- easily one of the most impressive presentational feats on Nintendo's console.
Use Harry's iPhone-like cell to take pics, listen to voice messages, dial numbers, hear distortion and more.
Harry runs toward a dark alleyway. He's looking around with the flashlight. There's a dumpster on one side. As he walks around, he hears more and more static through his cell phone, which is the game's audio cue that something important or horrific is probably very close by. Suddenly, directly opposite a sheet of ice, a skinny, deformed Silent Hill monster comes shambling forward and crashes into the frozen barrier, staring and shrieking at him. It then runs off, presumably to find another way toward him. The entire scene is definitely unnerving and atmospheric. This is the first glimpse of these gruesome foes in the game and it won't be long until it returns.
The controls seem very fluid. Nunchuk's analog stick moves Harry responsively around the world. Hold Z and he'll run. C button will cue a quick 180-turn. The A button is for actions: accept phone calls, activate puzzles, etc. B-trigger, meanwhile, is used in conjunction with A to pick up items -- a pinching mechanic, if you will. D-Pad navigates the phone. D-Pad left cues a quick-select map, useful for finding spots throughout the snowy environment. Right executes a quick-select camera. And down triggers a behind-the-back view of the action so that Harry can actually look behind himself to see enemies chasing, as they often will. It's pretty frightening, to.
In fact, because Harry has no weapons at his disposal to speak of -- this is a choice designed to heighten the sense of defenselessness and amplify fear; I've seen some reader complaints about this decision, but I love it -- he'll have to be quick on his feet to outsmart the mutilated enemies who pursue him. They aren't exactly dumb, either. They will hunt the character relentlessly, following him through the world, smelling and tracking him, communicating with other enemies to find him, and more. They'll go through doors, too, and over fences. At one point in the demo, Harry attempted to hop over a fence -- a seeming canned animation -- but got pulled back off it in mid-climb by one of his grotesque chasers. Even if he had made the jump, the creature could still hop over it, too, and continue the chase. Oh, and that minor gripe I called trivial before -- it's just that during the demo, I saw Harry pulled off fences three or four times, which seemed repetitive.
Shattered Memories is undeniably a hardcore game overrun with storyline, but you won't find traditional text overlays and cues in the world. Harry talks to himself as he explores the world, offering some guidance, but mostly the town itself presents all the information you could need. Crisp textures nurture environments and objects that feature more than enough definition for examination purposes. Signs and papers can be read easily. Harry's cell phone does the rest. It's very seamless. And the seamlessness is continued via a streaming engine that renders load times one-hundred percent obsolete. Wherever Harry goes, inside or out, is just there.
Silent Hill's 3D engine is one of the best on Wii. You will, of course, see the return of filtered graphics, a stable of the franchise, but the character designs and animation, the make-up of the environments and the effects that bring everything together are all nothing short of amazing. The single most impressive thing about the game is the flashlight, which frankly kicks the one in Namco's action-RPG Fragile to the curb. It's perfectly mapped to the Wii remote so that Harry can quickly point and illuminate anything on-screen and it simply looks incredible. It casts shadows on just about everything -- even on snow flakes. And all the while, the framerate never hiccups.
Shattered Memories ships for Wii later this year. PS2 and PSP versions are also planned, although Wii is the lead platform. After only 15 minutes with an unplayable demo, the title has shot up to the top of my must-have list -- and once you see this sucker in motion, you're going to know why.
