Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

[RobinHood3000]

Does no one remember Clock Tower on PlayStation?

It was scary as hell because the villain kept attacking you with giant scissors while you were trying to solve the puzzles. If you got caught there was a panic scene where you tried to escape and hide.

I remember seeing that a little while back, just saw the beginning of it being played. I thought that was intensely scary, there was one point where the player character had just climbed into a loft to hide from the villain. The villain left, and you temporarily thought you were safe, when all of a sudden, the scissors come punching through the ceiling (which you've just climbed closer to not 2 minutes ago), and you have to make a run for it again. Positively terrifying.

 

[JackShandy]

Wait... you mean Shattered Memories never started to combine the dangerous world with the safe one?

That's like rule number one for horror! If there's a safe place, it should slowly but surely become invaded and dangerous, eroding the one place the player felt they could relax. Didn't they play The Room?

 

[Jhales]

That game is: Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Pretty fun game, and that scene is butt-clenchingly nerve-wracking. By the time you escape the hotel proper, you are forced to leap an alleyway onto a rickety fire escape (all the while not looking down, because the protagonist is afraid of heights and will 'wig out' if you do) and then have to duck/run through a hallway to avoid being shot should you cross a window.

The following bits have you breaking into a police office and clubbing a police officer over the head with a crowbar, and finally navigating your way out of a mutant-fish-people-infested town.

If you can find it in a games shop, you'll likely find it for cheap. I recommend giving it a try, especially if you like the Cthulhu Mythos.

Ah, right, so that's the name. I've never read any of the books, or even really looked into the mythos.

 

[Cyglor]

Ah, right, so that's the name. I've never read any of the books, or even really looked into the mythos.

I highly recommend you do, and kick things off reading some of H.P. Lovecraft's stuff, as he set the greater part of the foundation for the mythos. The guy's writing can take forever and a day to scare you sometimes, and by then the *BWEEEEEEEE* shock factor might have faded, but by the time you finish almost any of his stories, you usually feel really... icky.

It's also good to keep in mind that, for his time, he came up with truly bizarre stuff.

 

[bunjithewolf]

So, horror is something we can truly laugh at because we know it's not real but at the same time somewhere in our heads there's a strange paranoia that is real. I think Stephen King's "IT" pulled that off with Tim Curry's clown character, the clown itself is so ordinary (for the most part) but so creepy it sends a chill because of how out of place it is. Irony can also add to the foundation of comedy and horror, as in both cases what is least expected is often what provides the most effect. I believe there is confusion in what is truly frightening, that being the idea that gore is scary; gore is just a "Gross" factor (or enviromentalist) and nothing more which may agitate people with a blood phobia or something along thos lines. Another example of horror would be capcom's shining gem and jackassery at the same time being the trial version of resident evil 4. The game had no health meter nor ammunition meter (both of which add to the suspense), great atmosphere and it tapped into the psyche of real and un-real which made it scary, though it did have the cheesy "Pop" effect I think it was well used in that particular instance. While I have watched the decline of horror movies and come to enjoy them as nothing more than either gore fests or in my opinion of them, B-movie comedy films, I feel as if I've seen most tricks to horror and I fully agree that gaming is the best medium for horror and suspense as it puts you in the perspective of the character making it a step or two below the actual drill.

 

[bawkbawkboo1]

Nearly two years old, and it's still "The New" Prince of Persia, eh?

I was thinking that, but then again how the hell else are you supposed to identify it? I guess he could say "PoP 2008", but whatever.

I noticed that a lot of the things mentioned here are properly done in Eternal Darkness, which I replayed recently. It's as awesome as I remember it to be. Specifically some of the insanity effects where your head explodes for no reason are a great example of the effective use of #1, #4, and #5.

 

[Richard Minton]

News flash: When doing a re-imagining of a game, you have to actually have elements of the previous game, not make a whole new game; otherwise, that would be called a ? sequel?, not a re-imagining. Aside from namedropping, there was no remnants of the original game to be seen in this idea. The story, characters and ideas veered away from Silent Hill. It?s the same as doing a remake, just worded differently. A re-imagining of a cat is still a cat with additions and improvements, not a dog.

Now for the game, it was boring, repetitive, felt very linear, and wasn?t all that scary. It?s for people who haven?t seen a thrilling ghost movie or went through a haunted attraction, not an avid fan of horror or Silent Hill. And something running at you may seem tense at first, but when you actually delve into those moments, it utterly seems pointless and has no real sense of dread behind it. Intentionally impairing the character without choice is a clichéd method of creating fear. Having ideas shifting between whether to fight or run seems more realistic, anyway.

The psychological profiling is basically a set of guidelines, that when chosen in the right order only changes vanity and ending aspects, and nothing more. When thinking of Silent Hill psychology, no one is wondering whether an individual dresses like a slut or not, or whether or not a place is a diner or bar, they want to see messed up stuff happening on the screen.

And speaking of which, a singular monster that only changes through vanity aspects, a scare does not make. The original one had monsters based on the inner machinations of the individual being troubled, but this " re-imagining" lazily used one monster - and very weakly, I might add- to emphasize a sense of who the character was and how they felt. Hell, there was barely any real sense of psychology in this game, only environmental and individual changes. Where were the moments when the world suddenly turns on itself and creates a delusional dimension that violates the inner sanctum of someone's darkest demons ? Ice isn't just going to cut it, it's only scary to aguaphobics, or however you pronounce it.

How can you even remotely be scared of this? It doesn't even make you feEl uneasy or dread going into the next area, especially when there's nothing really roaming around blocking or making you cower. You run around a lifeless, boring town talking to uninteresting people and get chased by creatures that really don't change beside what I've said previously.

Good graphics, mediocre controls, but nothing really interesting to be seen. It's only for casual gamer, not fans of Silent Hill.