Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Yahtzee discusses why Silent Hill: Shattered Memories just wasn't that scary.

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[Regiment]

Wow, Yahtzee's getting more forgiving.

It's nice to see people remaking things in such a way that makes them different, rather than dull retreads. If I wanted to replay game X, there's always game X itself.

 

[Evil the White]

An interesting article. I can see some of your points and agree with them wholeheartedly. One of the scariest moments in gaming for me was the crawl through the ghost ship in Metriod Prime 3, where you spent the first fifteen minutes of it (if you were quick) walking around without seeing an enemy. And when one did jump out at you, it as threatening, because they were the hardest enemies at this point, and just one was a substancial threat. The fact that many of the corridors were dead ends, some of which with indications that they could be unlocked, without saying so outright (not until later on, when you wrapped up everything else) made it more interesting to explore peice by piece, as well as give an insight into the Space Pirate enemies, showing that they were scavengers looking for parts. The bodies that you oud littered everywhere reacted to your movements by disintergrating, whereas others did nothing, making it feel more threatening because of the unknown damage.

 

[yourbeliefs]

While I did truly enjoy playing SH:SM, Yahtzee is correct in that the game really isn't that scary, which does hurt things a bit. I did find the Nightmare sequences to be rather "thrilling" at times with Harry bursting through doors, throwing down lockers while crazy screeching "things" chased after him, but it didn't compare to the other games where monsters could be ANYWHERE and the limited visibility made things even more tense.

It seems like the developers realized that the Silent Hill series was about 2 main things: Horror and loneliness/fear of the unknown. When you weren't fighting off monsters in SH games you were typically wandering around just trying to see what was going on and get to your next destination. SH:SM does a GREAT job with that and I was genuinely intrigued by the numerous areas and set pieces that Harry ended up in, and him finding all the creepy voice mails and texts along the way. It seems though that as good as they did with that, they sacrificed quite a bit in terms of genuine horror and fear.

 

[SamElliot'sMustache]

You make a great point about the cleanliness of the environments in Shattered Memories, and how that and the lack telegraphed fear moments pretty much undermined the horror of the game. It ended up feeling like an episode of Twin Peaks as a result, which is fine, but just not Silent Hill.

Also, the monsters were fairly generic: even if their appearances changed, their behavior didn't, so it didn't really matter. Maybe if in the next one, Climax codes four or five different types of beasts, with specific personalities, that alter based on the whole psychoanalysis thing, that would help. That, and add a lot more uncertainty (open a door on "normal" Silent Hill, and going into another room, without warning, and finding the Otherworld), grit, and grime.

 

[Xorghul]

Wow, Yahtzee's getting more forgiving.

He must be getting old and sentimental.

Anyhow, entertaining and interesting article as always Yahtzee.

 

[Kelbear]

I think they lost sight of "atmosphere" as the major selling point of Silent Hill. Just keep building up that sense of dread, let the thrill build continually instead of brief spikes.

And definitely make the player fear the enemy. I don't know how you can reconcile a kick-ass hero with the horror genre. If I'm capable of utterly destroying any enemy in my path, why should I fear what's around the corner? Or perhaps increase the penalty for failure, not necessarily a huge burden, but I liked Fable adding scars to your character for losing a fight.

Wear that player down and make them genuinely concerned about risks.

 

[saintchristopher]

I said the same things when I reviewed the game months ago; it doesn't really work as a horror title, but it is still compelling enough from a storytelling perspective.

As someone who lists Myst in their all-time top 10, it didn't really bug me that there were moments of certain safety, and I found the regular atmosphere creepy without being oppressive. I mean if you're looking for an oppressively tense atmosphere, this would no doubt disappoint. But if an adventure game with a creepy, psychological-thriller ambiance is what you're after, I think you could do worse than Shattered Memories.

 

[Skops]

Nobody needs to explain WHY Shattered Memories wasn't scary. Just play the game, they'll figure out why themselves.

 

[bmart008]

Having only just played through the first silent hill, and just getting the second one, I'm not interested in this remake, or any really. The whole point of the originals is that they're just that, original. Even though the older game looks like to quote Yatzhee ass made out of lego. I was freaked out, yet glued to my console (in my case the PSP as this was played as the downloaded version off PSN).

Horror films usually are too much for me, but playing horror games are much more interesting. For one, the heart pumps more,but unlike the horror movies you can hit the monster in the face with a pipe. Half of the reason I don't like Horror movies is because the people in it are so incredibly stupid that just adds frustration to the experience as well as the if you touch me I'll either jump a mile in the air or drop kick you.

What this game does it seems is prevents you from fighting back, while the earlier games in the series do let you fight back, but makes it almost not worth it. Like he says, it's the difference between American horror and Japanese horror, in the former you're a victim, the the latter still a victim, but you've got the strength to fight back or at least the will. If you've got no ability to fight them off, it's just a guided tour of Silent Hill where you have to sprint to catch the next bus.

 

[CyricZ]

Yeah, I think you might be getting a bit jaded on the horror aspect, sir. I've been playing horror games for some years and the Raw Shocks in SM still made me as tense as crap.

Yes, the "this is safe, this is not safe" aspect did lessen the blow a bit, but here's another thought on the subject: always being in danger in older SH games kinda wears a bit thin after a while, because you're always expecting things to shamble about after you no matter the situation. Being suddenly thrust into Frosty Land at the drop of a hat forces you to abandon any kind of pretense of exploration and switch right to "scamper off" mode, offering a more jarring shift of mood than "mist to rust", at least for me.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

I have only watched a walkthrough/ending on youtube, so what I have to say may not reflect the experience.
It seems to me that SM isn't trying to be a real horror game, it's more focused on the experience of total uncertainty, a more human vision of the usual horror one can expect from this series. This is of course better than Homecoming, just to give an example, but not nearly as enticing as SH2. However, I never found SH2 to be scary, it was just a profound sense of "wrongness" if that makes any sense; the world was filthy and devoid of life, strange creatures roam around, but don't really do much unless you get too close (or investigate, perhaps?), the characters acted strangely and unpredictably, and nothing made much sense until close to the end. I don't know if this can actually be called horror, but I still find it preferable to anything else I've come across.

Anyway, it's a great article, and I hope some devs/publishers take note of it

 

[Olenthros]

These horror games are just not doing enough to play with our emotions. Hell put in some more characters and set it up in a way to where the player cares for them or wants them around cause their beneficial then put the player in a situation where unless something was done the character would die and even if successful kill the character later there is nothing like the sense of helplessness to add to the tension. Heck even make the player put in a situation where he has to kill this other caring/beneficial character or die himself mess with the head a bit more. Some of these horror games use weapons make those games have situations where there will be so many enemies they run out of ammo or the weapons become innefective or quit function like their supposed to in other words give the player control and then chip it away till they don't have control. I have to agree with yahtzee though the majority of horror games just don't take advantage enough of the immersion a player can experience in a video game and make things really really scary.

 

[CyricZ]

I have only watched a walkthrough/ending on youtube, so what I have to say may not reflect the experience.
It seems to me that SM isn't trying to be a real horror game, it's more focused on the experience of total uncertainty, a more human vision of the usual horror one can expect from this series. This is of course better than Homecoming, just to give an example, but not nearly as enticing as SH2. However, I never found SH2 to be scary, it was just a profound sense of "wrongness" if that makes any sense; the world was filthy and devoid of life, strange creatures roam around, but don't really do much unless you get too close (or investigate, perhaps?), the characters acted strangely and unpredictably, and nothing made much sense until close to the end. I don't know if this can actually be called horror, but I still find it preferable to anything else I've come across.

Rather well put. I've always felt one of the defining aspects of proper horror gameplay is a lack of comfort. When you're uncomfortable, you're more open to suggestion, or more suspicious of things that seem wrong, and then horror can truly take hold.

To be honest, I did feel it in this game, because I knew the rules would be changing, so instead of knowing I could sink in to the old standby of "cult, mist, rust, blood", I had to alter my expectations. It worked for me, at least. >_>

 

[katsabas]

Wow, Yahtzee's getting more forgiving.

If you love a series, you tend to be. Liked Yahtzee's points, especially the Kiss My Ass segment cause this part of horror games tends to give the most scares.

 

[TarkXT]

I think Dead Space deserves more credit then it gets. Yes, it has cheap scares, yes it seems to emphasize combat more than evasion (a real shame but there you go). But it's full of atmosphere. The ship you're on literally seems to crawl and breath at times. I think the problem with the story was that they made the character a silent protagonist that we were supposed to "feel" for. Sadly I really couldn't. They should've given him a dialogue. :\

 

[Eremiel]

Yahtzee should really, -really- play Call of C'thulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

 

[Quorothorn]

Ah. This reminded me that I need to play Silent Hill 2 this summer.

Good points here about the "telegraphing" and the linearity issues. I'm not sure what Yahtzee would make of this (given that he is on the record as disliking RE1, 2 and 3), but I thought the early Resident Evil games did what he wants horror games to do: make the player feel lost and threatened.

 

[Jared]

That's one of the things that really did Urk me a little, lack of enemies in both worlds. It felt like I was a headless chicken half the time just trying to go from A to B.

I really wanted...more I supppose. It was a good game bit it left me wanting