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Silent Hill: Shattered Memories - |OT| of Not Your Father's Silent Hill

RyanDG

Member
Lime said:
Has anyone tried this on the Dolphin emulator?

It locked up on me pretty much immediately and I haven't tried messing with it since. Don't know if its an issue with my settings are what, but I'll play around with it once I finish the game the first time.
 
Man, Im so stuck. Spoilers for about, I dunno, 5 hours in. I got to the
Pawn shop, met my wife? Then fell down a giant hole and am now stuck in a gigantic pitch black room that only illuminates a single chair. Where do I go? I tried searching the walls and got nothing
 

Ridley327

Member
One thing that I will comment on so far is how much I appreciate the fact that the bulk of the game runs at 60 fps, even with the impressive lighting effects.
 
Snapshot King said:
Man, Im so stuck. Spoilers for about, I dunno, 5 hours in. I got to the
Pawn shop, met my wife? Then fell down a giant hole and am now stuck in a gigantic pitch black room that only illuminates a single chair. Where do I go? I tried searching the walls and got nothing

You just search around for a bit for stuff on the floor. Can't wait for your twist-reaction :lol
 

Amir0x

Banned
I played a few hours and it hasn't really changed what i thought going in. It's not Silent Hill, it's not creepy or tense at all for me. So I'm not even sure I really want to bother continuing :/

Unrelated, I didn't expect to like Spirit Tracks after Phantom Hourglass but it's actually preeetty good! So at least one of the two games I got surprised me
 

Teknoman

Member
Ridley327 said:
One thing that I will comment on so far is how much I appreciate the fact that the bulk of the game runs at 60 fps, even with the impressive lighting effects.

First 60 fps survival horror game?
 
Amir0x said:
I played a few hours and it hasn't really changed what i thought going in. It's not Silent Hill, it's not creepy or tense at all for me. So I'm not even sure I really want to bother continuing :/

The twist is worth experiencing, IMO. Plus it's really short. Really short. If you beat it, you will have spent a total of 6 hours at the absolute most of your life on it. :lol
 
slasher_thrasher21 said:
Your jerking it wrong!
I take great offense to that remark.
Amir0x said:
I played a few hours and it hasn't really changed what i thought going in. It's not Silent Hill, it's not creepy or tense at all for me. So I'm not even sure I really want to bother continuing :/

Unrelated, I didn't expect to like Spirit Tracks after Phantom Hourglass but it's actually preeetty good! So at least one of the two games I got surprised me
Yeah, I'm probably going to give Shattered Memories another go tonight, but man, those chases are annoying, and man, those exploring scenes are boring.

That's what I've been hearing about Spirit Tracks, so I might give it a shot, even though I sold Phantom Hourglass shortly after beating the first dungeon.
 
brandonh83 said:
You just search around for a bit for stuff on the floor. Can't wait for your twist-reaction :lol

Well, so far, I'm worried it's going to be too similar to the film
Jacobs Ladder
the silent hill 1
bad bad ending
or the SH
2 twist. =\
.

Haven't gotten there yet though, and yeah, I figured it out. That shit is trippy.
 

Bizzyb

Banned
Amir0x said:
I played a few hours and it hasn't really changed what i thought going in. It's not Silent Hill, it's not creepy or tense at all for me. So I'm not even sure I really want to bother continuing :/

Unrelated, I didn't expect to like Spirit Tracks after Phantom Hourglass but it's actually preeetty good! So at least one of the two games I got surprised me

Funny, That's what it says on the Box.
Can't believe you only play survival horrors to be scared...:lol
 
Snapshot King said:
Well, so far, I'm worried it's going to be too similar to the film
Jacobs Ladder
the silent hill 1
bad bad ending
or the SH
2 twist. =\
.

The part you're at is the only part of the game that tried to be Silent Hill, so it was my favorite part, by far. And the twist/ending is amazing.

Funny, That's what it says on the Box.
Can't believe you only play survival horrors to be scared...

He's right, though. It's not SH-like, and it's not scary. And yes, you know for me it's sort of like watching a horror film, I watch/play to be scared, or at least to be totally creeped/freaked out. Which sort of goes hand in hand. It's unfortunate that this game never crosses any sort of quality threshold when it comes to fear, of any variety.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Bizzyb said:
Funny, That's what it says on the Box.
Can't believe you only play survival horrors to be scared...:lol

Not scared, tense. I play all survival horror games for the atmosphere, creep factor, tension. Any good survival horror game MUST have this. The ice world is about the least interesting, least creepy, least-Silent Hill like thing ever. It's actually almost bizarrely terrible.

I didn't expect everything there to be so bland and unremarkable. It's not even like there's anything cool to see there :/
 
Amir0x said:
I didn't expect everything there to be so bland and unremarkable. It's not even like there's anything cool to see there :/

This is what I keep trying to argue, the game just never offers up anything interesting to look at which is what I meant when I was saying that it has bad art direction.

This is the exact, EXACT same hardcore fan reaction seen from a lot of people when RE4 came out. Deal with it.

RE4 made the series more fun, but the series stopped being the series at the same time. That was disappointing and that's why us hardcore RE fans (those of us who didn't like the direction) were upset. Is it really that much to ask for more of what made the series great while implementing change?
 

Amir0x

Banned
Snapshot King said:
This is the exact, EXACT same hardcore fan reaction seen from a lot of people when RE4 came out. Deal with it.

Yeah except RE4 was excellent, and actually WAS a good game in its own right. Unlike the positive reviews suggest, I don't even think it's a particularly good game at all. The flashlight is about the only neat thing, along with the way the game uses the controller's speaker.

All the other gameplay parts are pretty fucking bad actually. The chases aren't just bad, they're fucking BORING.

I'm an honest guy. I didn't like Phantom Hourglass, spoke out against Spirit Tracks. Now I'm playing it, it's great, and I'm saying so.

If Silent Hill Shattered Memories turned out to be a decent game, I would say so. It's a terrible Silent Hill game, true, but it's an exceedingly mediocre game period.
 

Bizzyb

Banned
Amir0x said:
Not scared, tense. I play all survival horror games for the atmosphere, creep factor, tension. Any good survival horror game MUST have this. The ice world is about the least interesting, least creepy, least-Silent Hill like thing ever. It's actually almost bizarrely terrible.

I didn't expect everything there to be so bland and unremarkable. It's not even like there's anything cool to see there :/


Eh, that's unfortunate for you then I guess.
 

Teknoman

Member
Ridley327 said:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Silent Hill just killed my TV. And I just got the bulb replaced this year, too!

Mega sadface.

ORIG_silent_hill_4_the_room_11.jpg
 
I dislike it but I respectfully praise where the story goes. Not necessarily how it gets there, the plot overall felt largely empty and uneventful to me, but I felt that the writer had a very strong idea and I feel that they at least executed the conclusion well.
 

Ridley327

Member
The worst part was that I was excited to play 1 vs. 100 tonight.

My 2 cents on the "why I play horror titles" thread that we seem to be on now: The esteemed Drinky Crow mentioned in a Killer7 thread once about how it was a game in the "museum game" genre that also featured titles like Shenmue and SH2, and that really got me thinking after I read that. I mentioned before that I was initially quite cold to SH2; the gameplay was pretty fucking terrible, it was hardly scary on any level and I was convinced that what good the game had achieved was undermined by the fact that it was a miserable experience getting to it. I left the game untouched for a couple of weeks while I cranked away at Ico, not expecting to get back into, perhaps ever again. I can't recall what spurred the desire to want to play it again, but I was back at it and I decided to do something differently this time: I stopped to smell the roses. Inspired largely by not wanting to engage in, well, anything related to the gameplay or progression, I just walked around Silent Hill and took in the sights. It was then that I realized that I was enjoying myself in the game this way; really enjoying it, at that. When I read that post by Drinky, it finally gave a phrase to what I had felt about SH2 when I replayed it. The concept of walking around in fully-realized world is something that appeals to me in a far greater manner than I had previously thought, and it didn't require a game to have amazing gameplay or, as often is the case for the horror genre, even good gameplay.

Incidentally, this moment of clarity also confirmed to me why I knew Super Metroid wasn't going to be topped for me, as it takes that princple and adds top-shelf gameplay to the mix.

/rambling semi-coherent musings based out of deferred rage over broken TV
 

Nemesis_

Member
slasher_thrasher21 said:
I think if this game came out without the Silent Hill title. People would appreciate it more. Bummer.
I would never have bought or played The Room if it didn't have the Silent Hill title. It's one of my favourite in the series for what it brings to the table in terms of back story.

But the fact you're saying it can be released with the Silent Hill title and appreciated more has me worrying even more now.

Either way, waiting for my copy to arrive. Should be here today....Damn UPS.
 
Nemesis556 said:
I would never have bought or played The Room if it didn't have the Silent Hill title. It's one of my favourite in the series for what it brings to the table in terms of back story.

But the fact you're saying it can be released with the Silent Hill title and appreciated more has me worrying even more now.

Either way, waiting for my copy to arrive. Should be here today....Damn UPS.

Well I say that because the hardcore SH purist will probably hate or dislike this game very much because it strays so far. I am in the minority of hardcore SH fans that thought this one was excellent. So in that respect, the hardcore purist might have found a game to enjoy had they not stacked it up against one of their favorite series.
 
So, played for hours. Got to the school. Loving pretty much every minute. Planning on doing a straight run through...

and then it glitches out on me.

I'm in a corridor in the school. I have no icon on screen. I can't aim my flash light about but i can turn it on and off. I can't run. I can't bring up my phone to save or anything. I can't hit A to interact with anything and don't get the prompt to.

I can slowly walk around, but I can't do anything at all.

so I sigh. reset the game, hoping, PRAYING that it auto saves occasionally.

it doesn't.

i will start over again another day. so so annoying.

you might consider what i'm about to write a spoiler, but honestly, I'm writing it to warn anyone from causing the same glitch I did.

when coming down the stairs in the school, and seeing the shadowy ghostly looking thing, DO NOT, i repeat do not pull out your phone to try and get a picture of it.

i did. when i put away the phone, everything was as i just described.

it's annoying because i don't know if i should do everything the same again (ie try and make all the same decisions, look at all the same stuff) or not. i was enjoying it so much too.

grargh.

my ability to cause scripting errors is unsurpassed. i should have known better and been saving.

so, that pile of crap aside i have to say this: the atmosphere is amazing. the exploration is great. i love the chases (as predicted) mainly because of how confusing the environments are and how feeble your map is in that situation.

i love making my own notes and scribbling on my own blocked streets. i love the phone stuff. i love the wii mote stuff.

i love all the side stories you find, reminds me of the Walter Sullivan stuff in SH2, but there's a lot more of it. some of it is really disturbing. what i picked up of Pigtails is really fucking freaky.

Amirox, no offense, but if you hated Phantom Hourglass, you have a very very different taste in games to me. even if we both love Windwaker so much.
 
brandonh83 said:
Can't wait for your twist-reaction :lol

Damn, that's a hell of a twist. Unfortunate I started to get an inkling of it being a possibility half way through. Are there multiple endings? If not, man, some analysis of that stuff is required.
 
plagiarize said:
So, played for hours. Got to the school. Loving pretty much every minute. Planning on doing a straight run through...

and then it glitches out on me.

I'm in a corridor in the school. I have no icon on screen. I can't aim my flash light about but i can turn it on and off. I can't run. I can't bring up my phone to save or anything. I can't hit A to interact with anything and don't get the prompt to.

I can slowly walk around, but I can't do anything at all.

so I sigh. reset the game, hoping, PRAYING that it auto saves occasionally.

it doesn't.

i will start over again another day. so so annoying.

you might consider what i'm about to write a spoiler, but honestly, I'm writing it to warn anyone from causing the same glitch I did.

when coming down the stairs in the school, and seeing the shadowy ghostly looking thing, DO NOT, i repeat do not pull out your phone to try and get a picture of it.

i did. when i put away the phone, everything was as i just described.

it's annoying because i don't know if i should do everything the same again (ie try and make all the same decisions, look at all the same stuff) or not. i was enjoying it so much too.

grargh.

my ability to cause scripting errors is unsurpassed. i should have known better and been saving.

I got the same glitch, I was pretty far in the shcool too. Opened the phone to look at some photos and got a prompt saying the data was corrupted and I got stuck just as you described. I had saved many times before, but the game just deleted my save file. I'm so pissed right now.
 

Meesh

Member
Amir0x said:
If Silent Hill Shattered Memories turned out to be a decent game, I would say so. It's a terrible Silent Hill game, true, but it's an exceedingly mediocre game period.
And that about quells any interest I had, Amirox says it sucks, it must be so. Did you rent or buy??I'd hate to sink 50+ just to find out you didn't like it, it's also kind of hard to go by reviews these days...
 

AKingNamedPaul

I am Homie
plagiarize said:
So, played for hours. Got to the school. Loving pretty much every minute. Planning on doing a straight run through...

and then it glitches out on me.

I'm in a corridor in the school. I have no icon on screen. I can't aim my flash light about but i can turn it on and off. I can't run. I can't bring up my phone to save or anything. I can't hit A to interact with anything and don't get the prompt to.

I can slowly walk around, but I can't do anything at all.

so I sigh. reset the game, hoping, PRAYING that it auto saves occasionally.

it doesn't.

i will start over again another day. so so annoying.

you might consider what i'm about to write a spoiler, but honestly, I'm writing it to warn anyone from causing the same glitch I did.

when coming down the stairs in the school, and seeing the shadowy ghostly looking thing, DO NOT, i repeat do not pull out your phone to try and get a picture of it.

i did. when i put away the phone, everything was as i just described.

it's annoying because i don't know if i should do everything the same again (ie try and make all the same decisions, look at all the same stuff) or not. i was enjoying it so much too.

grargh.

my ability to cause scripting errors is unsurpassed. i should have known better and been saving.

so, that pile of crap aside i have to say this: the atmosphere is amazing. the exploration is great. i love the chases (as predicted) mainly because of how confusing the environments are and how feeble your map is in that situation.

i love making my own notes and scribbling on my own blocked streets. i love the phone stuff. i love the wii mote stuff.

i love all the side stories you find, reminds me of the Walter Sullivan stuff in SH2, but there's a lot more of it. some of it is really disturbing. what i picked up of Pigtails is really fucking freaky.

Amirox, no offense, but if you hated Phantom Hourglass, you have a very very different taste in games to me. even if we both love Windwaker so much.
I just got a the hugest shit eating grin thinking of this. I ALWAYS make a big deal about how each new protagonist writes on the map, and the thought of writing on the map myself is just a little touch that goes a loooong way with me.

I will love this game :\
 

beef3483

Member
Evilink said:
And that about quells any interest I had, Amirox says it sucks, it must be so. Did you rent or buy??I'd hate to sink 50+ just to find out you didn't like it, it's also kind of hard to go by reviews these days...

Pfft. I will never trust the opinions of a person who buys/plays games he knows he won't like.

And the rest of the opinions are all over the place.
 

Nekofrog

Banned
Coming from a die hard fan of Silent Hill since the very first game (which I bought a week after it came out from EB, only to find it had been USED and reshrinkwrapped and the disc had gunk all over it -- HOW DO YOU DO THAT TO A WEEK OLD DISC, REALLY?!), I thought it was common knowledge to NEVER EVER EVER listen to what a Silent Hill fan thinks about a new Silent Hill game.

I mean come on, to be honest, most of us are entirely stuck in the past and will NEVER get over it. So ignore what we say for the most part, and just go for it.
 

scitek

Member
brandonh83 said:
I dislike it but I respectfully praise where the story goes. Not necessarily how it gets there, the plot overall felt largely empty and uneventful to me, but I felt that the writer had a very strong idea and I feel that they at least executed the conclusion well.

God, could your impressions of the game have been more inconsistent? I don't know if it's humanly possible.

EDIT: The motion controls are fucking awful, btw.
 

Meesh

Member
beef3483 said:
Pfft. I will never trust the opinions of a person who buys/plays games he knows he won't like.

And the rest of the opinions are all over the place.
It's true, the reviews are bi-polar, "oh my jezuz, good new creative direction" or "lord fuck!! what is this shit???" I'm still tempted to rent...

As far as opinions go, If they have some merit, I'm easy going. Opinions make the discussion afterall, and I respect anyone who isn't out to insult another person for the sake of their thoughts...

...oh hell, I'm just going to rent it...I wanna make sure I don't like it, that way I'm not disappointed(?).
 

hellclerk

Everything is tsundere to me
Interview

Interestingly, G4 was incredibly positive on the game back at E3. the whole deal is pretty inconsistent, and some of these scores don't match the reviews either...
 

Fady K

Member
brandonh83 said:
I thought Homecoming was a fuckton better than this game, and if I'm the only person in existence who believes so, so be it.

This one has a lot of good things going for it, but they're all the things that, IMO, don't matter the most with this series. No one has to agree, but it's one man's opinion.

I have a feeling i'll be joining you soon :)
 

gamingeek

Member
Gamepro video review Shattered Memories
http://www.gamepro.com/video/videoreviews/135364/silent-hill-shattered-memories-video-review/

1up review

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3177239


Developer Climax Studios calls Silent Hill: Shattered Memories a "re-imagining" of the original Silent Hill, but that's a bit disingenuous. The only thing that ties this game to Silent Hill, the series or the game, are the characters' names, a few of the location names, and the fact that you start out by searching for your daughter. Otherwise, Shattered Memories could have been set anywhere, and called "Icy Ghost Journey." It's a good-looking game, and it makes great use of the Wii Remote, but it's not scary or challenging enough to make a real, lasting impression.

The game is very short, which speaks more to excellent pacing and a streamlined approach rather than a lack of gameplay. My first playthrough didn't take more than six hours, and I appreciate how Shattered Memories abandons fetch quests (a staple of other Silent Hill games). But the few puzzles the game contains are childishly simple.


Throwing enemies off when they jump on you involves jerking your remote and Nunchuk as if you were actually trying to cast the them off of you. But it usually takes several throws to get even one enemy tossed, and they gang up and surround you very quickly. Pair that with the fact that it's too easy to get lost in the game's frozen, nightmare sections, and it just sets you up to die over and over again, in frustrating succession, until you've learned the path the game wants you to take.


Altogether, Shattered Memories presents something that will drive away Silent Hill veterans, who could care less about the plot that completely redefines what Silent Hill is, while newcomers will find a confusing, muddled tale with frustrating chase sequences. It's praiseworthy that Climax tried to take the franchise in a new direction and created such a beautiful world, but Shattered Memories' faults stand out too starkly. If the developer had tried to keep anything from Silent Hill, they should have ditched the faux plot relationship to past games and gone after what makes Silent Hill truly unique: the psychological scares.
 

Amir0x

Banned
plagiarize said:
Amirox, no offense, but if you hated Phantom Hourglass, you have a very very different taste in games to me. even if we both love Windwaker so much.

Zelda is one of my favorite franchises. My taste is to not be insulted by preschooler difficulty, mediocre dungeons and puzzles, and bosses so easy they go down in literal seconds.

Spirit Tracks is everything PH should have been. But, that's definitely a topic for another thread. Like the Spirit Tracks thread! Go go go!

Evilink said:
And that about quells any interest I had, Amirox says it sucks, it must be so. Did you rent or buy??I'd hate to sink 50+ just to find out you didn't like it, it's also kind of hard to go by reviews these days...

You should try it out, some people like it, some people don't... I don't see how my opinion should be the end-all-be-all. It is for me because it's my opinion, but you might have a different experience.

Personally, I am shocked at the ice world. I knew it wasn't going to be appealing as industrial rust, and I knew the game wasn't going to have any of that strong Silent Hill atmosphere. But it goes beyond my fears: the ice world is devoid of any curiosities, making for exceedingly boring spans of time in this game. It's not even very fun to explore because it's so uninteresting.

The chase sequences are just fucking terrible. I'm not sure who thought that was a good idea. It is worse than any Silent Hill combat. Maybe even worse than all Silent Hill combat combined. That's not even hyperbole. The first time it happens you sorta try to pump yourself up to get yourself into it. Like "OH SHIT HERE SOMETIME COMES I GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE" but then the game reveals immediately just how predictable and inflexible it is, and then everything starts becoming routine, and then it goes immediately to rolling your eyes every time it happens.

And most of these issues have nothing to do with it being a bad Silent Hill game. That affects me as a fan, sure, but the issues have to do with bad game design period.
 

gamingeek

Member
Phantom Leo said:
Wow! Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is GOOD! Really, REALLY GOOD!

I've never been a big fan of the originals, mainly due to the tank-like controls of the characters, but this one is totally different.

The flashlight mechanic works brilliantly. Where you point with the Wii-Mote is where the flashlight shines.

The Wii-Mote speaker is used as the static detector of the game to warn you of nearby paranormal anomalies or enemies. It also doubles as your cell-phone ear-piece. You put it up to your ear to hear incoming calls.

Your cell phone (which simply wouldn't have existed when the first came out) has a touch screen that leads to a camera, a GPS, and of course your phone, voice-mail and notes that you may have gathered.

I love the way you hold up your cell phone side-ways and need to keep a steady hand to take a good picture!

I love the way this game makes use of all of the features of the Wii. I love the amount of interactivity the wii-mote now allows. You need to throw your enemies off of you. You need to "pinch" objects between your thumb and pointer finger (A + B on the controller) to interact with them, then motion to use. ALL. VERY. COOL.

The psychological evaluation near the beginning of the game has you even nodding or shaking your head with the wii-mote!

All of this is EXTREMELY important to the game-play, as the more you PHYSICALLY interact with the game, the more you FEEL you are part of the world, and the more you get "into" it! AWESOME ! ! !

Extremely atmospheric. Totally perplexing. I LOVE the way your decisions "color" your world (sometimes literally!)... This is the type of game the Wii was MADE to play and SHOULD BE a resounding success for anyone who is able to or willing to play it!

It should go without saying, but if you own a Wii you owe it to yourself to at the very least PLAY this game!

1
 

gamingeek

Member
Gamesradar review
http://www.gamesradar.com/wii/silen.../a-2009120893944270045/g-20090406122311501091

Gamesradar US said:
As you explore this newly refurbished Silent Hill – which features impressive graphics and some of the best natural-looking people on the Wii – it’s difficult to not be constantly creeped out by the spookily empty, snowed-in burg. Nearly every room is lit only by your flashlight, with eerie background noise and a moody soundtrack that sets the tone for Harry's search (though the music doesn’t reach the intensity or inventiveness of some of the past games). The puzzles are pretty clever, with logic and observation usually being key, without the obtuse or silly solutions that plague so many survival-horror games.

Now, take that nice stuff we said, and flush it all down the toilet as you enter the Nightmare world. This screws up the game in two ways: first, since only this mode carries the threat of attack, it removes some of the scares.

All those near-identical monsters are also really annoying, as the beasts let out the same stock scream over and over while lunging to hug you to death.

The second (and worst) way this mode hurts Shattered Memories is by being no fun at all, and even excruciating to play. If they jump on him, they can be shoved off by swinging the Remote and Nunchuk in one of four directions, but the game often has trouble catching your movements here, and several times we whipped ourselves in the face with the cord as we tried throwing something off our back, making the frustrating ordeal even more annoying. Oh, and you have to run from these unkillable things while trying to find your way through the maze the land has morphed into, and if you hit a dead end, you'll see you've collected quite a herd of monsters directly behind you

7/10
 
GrimReaper said:
I got the same glitch, I was pretty far in the shcool too. Opened the phone to look at some photos and got a prompt saying the data was corrupted and I got stuck just as you described. I had saved many times before, but the game just deleted my save file. I'm so pissed right now.
i didn't get a prompt but i feel your pain. didn't want it to happen to anyone else. sorry to hear you got stung too... which is a shame because i'm definately one of the people that really enjoy the game.

the chase sequences seem to be the most devisive. i love the panic. i love the 'oh shit where the hell am i supposed to go' feeling. i love running for my life. i think they're scary and fun.

so it's that type of situation where selfishly i'm really happy about them, but clearly they're going to get in the way for a lot of people who other wise (or with something else) would have enjoyed the game more.

edit: also doesn't boot on any version of Dolphin I have currently. will look into it more another time.
 

Nemesis_

Member
Could someone confirm that there's some pretty bad and purposeful audio distortion during the third Psyc appointment? I'm a bit concerned my disc fucked up.

For those wondering, it's the bit just before the school.
 
Nemesis556 said:
Could someone confirm that there's some pretty bad and purposeful audio distortion during the third Psyc appointment? I'm a bit concerned my disc fucked up.

For those wondering, it's the bit just before the school.
i didn't experience any.
 
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