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Silent Hill: Shattered Memories |  | From: Konami
Category: Video Games
List Price: $29.99
Buy Used: $14.98
as of 7/30/2010 15:32 CDT details
You Save: $15.01 (50%)
New (9) Used (6) from $14.98
Seller: goHastings
Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 1494
Platform: PlayStation2
Genre: horror_action_games
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Edition: Standard
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Discs: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: PlayStation 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.8 x 7.4 x 0.6
MPN: 20186
Model: 20186
UPC: 083717201861
EAN: 0083717201861
ASIN: B002CZ7FW2
Publication Date: October 31, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | A re-imagining of the original Silent Hill that turns everything you thought you knew on its head | | • | The game watches you and adapts to your actions to create a unique experience to each player and intensify their fears | | • | Implementation of a cell phone as the user interface, which acts as a story telling device, map, puzzle helper, and camera that provides seamless flow with no interruption in gameplay | | • | New nightmare sequence focus on escape and evasion rather than direct confrontation | | • | Silent Hill: Shattered Memories will feature an all-new soundtrack by acclaimed series composer Akira Yamaoka |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Silent Hill Shattered PS2
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| Customer Reviews:
 As a fan, loved the play. Still, wanted a new first game and not a "reimagining" June 16, 2010
TastyBabySyndrome ("Daddy Dagon's Daycare" - Proud Sponsor of the Little Tendril Baseball Team, USA)
When I heard a reimagining of the first game was coming, I was there and waiting. When I played it, however, I saw a few flaws in some of the stuff. The worst of these were the combat problems, where you find yourself running a whole lot more than simply dishing out the pain. This was a real problem with the whole of the system and, truth be told, it hurt the impact. That said, however, this was a great play because I expected a lot less. A ported over game that is older in graphics? not normally a grand thing. Still, this was fun.
One other thing I want to say about this was that its soundtrack was great. I love SH sounds anyhow but, when the singing comes in, this makes a lot of it better. And, as has been the case since three, there are around four songs you can listen to this way. They mingle in with the whole of the experience, giving it a frightening theme. too bad the enemies were more the same than different - like in old games - or I would have loved this piece of SH lore. Still, it does add something in and, truth be told, additions are more to love when it comes to this series.
Not many horror-based franchises can say that they have so many good games. Barring the Room, I would say they all have something great to offer (and the room even has the soundtrack going for it).
Pick this up, take 4-8 hours and beat it, and feel good about the fun run. They are always creepy, after all, and this is being judged as a SH game and not as a game in genral. Otherwise, it wouldn't be so easy to knock.
 Success and failure, all on one disc.... May 23, 2010
Review Lover (At a place...)
On one hand, this game has certainly reaffirmed my interest in Silent Hill, and my love of the series and its mythos.
On the other hand, I've just spent four hours slogging through one of the ugliest PS2 games. Ever. And the gameplay ain't no peach, either.
So how do I rate this game?
As a standalone videogame, "Silent Hill: Shattered Memories" is awful. Or at least, the PS2 port of it is awful. I haven't played the Wii version, so I can't comment on that. As a re-imagining of the original, it's a resounding success, and poses a number of interesting questions about the francise's future (as well as its past: had the Silent Hill movie been given to a grownup director, instead of the teenage grownups who actually made it, probably it would have come out a lot like this...).
There's not much to say regarding the game itself: the graphics are PS1 standard, with the exception of human characters, which look pretty decent. The frame rate is abysmal and textures slide around, glitching in and out of view at will. Level design is excellent, though, and its organic nature and attention to cryptic detail will leave you scratching your head on occasion.
This is an extremely easy game - there's no combat, and practically no puzzles. If the game were prettier I would suggest that it's like an interactive movie, of sorts. There's a decent amount of tension to be gleaned from the creature chase sequences, but that's only because you have no other choice but to run. Apparently there are hiding places: I used none, and completed the game first-try, without a walkthrough. Checkpoints are regular in the extreme and there's no bosses. Not even a painting of Pyramid Head.
But of course, this does make it easier to grab all the endings, should you want to see them.
But overall, as a game in its own right, the PS2 version of "Silent Hill: Shattered Memories" is not good. It's ugly, it's buggy, and the excellent storyline is demeaned by its insane easiness.
However.
As a redux of the original game, "Silent Hill: Shattered Memories" works extremely well. The creature design is stupid, and the ice motif (instead of the series staples of blood and rust) doesn't grab me in general - but is used to great effect, particularly during the real-world-changeover sequences.
The characters of Cybil, Dr. Kaufmann and Lisa are all satisfyingly reworked, with more realism and more pathos because of this. And, as much as I can't stand Emos, Dahlia Gillespie's makeover is pretty decent, and this is thanks to an excellent script and some very good cutscene direction. Harry's a lot more sympathetic and likable now, and the "Heather" nods to Cheryl's character made the hair on my arms stand up more than once.
Plot-wise, this is a great effort, and there's enough psychosexual ambiguity and twists & turns to keep the most avid Silent Hiller glued to the control pad until the end of the game.
I don't think this is a canonical SH game - and yes, Silent Hill 2 remains the holder of the Best In Series title, by a WIDE margin - but as an interesting side-step, "Silent Hill: Shattered Memories" achieves great things.
Just don't expect to LOVE it.
A Different Type of Nightmare May 21, 2010
Felixpath (Vermont, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Can you mess around with a winning formula and still produce a winner? I've been dubious of "Silent Hill: Shattered Memories," because it's the first game in the franchise to be made for the Wii and features a radically different gameplay style. I've loved all the Silent Hill games, to the point where I can forgive them for technical blunders (Silent Hill 4's obnoxious item management) or poor aesthetic choices (SH: Homecoming presenting itself like a heavy metal video). Having played the PS2 port of Shattered Memories, I'm relieved to report that the experiment is a success and the game, while imperfect, is an interesting and engrossing entry.
Shattered Memories throws out the entire established backstory of Silent Hill and completely re-imagines the concept of a haunted town that preys on the mind. You're still Harry Mason, a humble writer hunting for his lost daughter in the wake of a car crash. Now, however, the town is locked in an intense blizzard and most of its residents are staying indoors. Residents? Actual people?! Yes, this is a kinder, less hostile Silent Hill. The snow is quite lovely, in fact....except when the world around you suddenly shifts into a blue, frozen dreamscape and you must flee from packs of screaming, faceless demons. You can't fight the monsters; you can only run, hide, evade, and search madly for the exit door. The "Dark World" sections are nicely gripping and actually kind of fun, which may be a problem for an alleged horror game. (More on that later.) Meanwhile, whenever the world isn't coated in ice, Harry must explore various areas and interact with various people in the search for his daughter.
I have to call BS on the game's "psychological profiling" gimmick. Shattered Memories starts with a scene in a psychiatrist's office, and the narrative keeps pausing to return there as the doctor picks the brain of his patient (you) and takes you through a series of activities designed to reveal your personality. Yes, the game changes according to your behavior and choices, but the changes are mainly minor ones, having to do with the clothing and some of the dialogue delivered by the supporting cast. It's kind of neat, I suppose, but it falls short of the hype. A game that truly molds itself around your choices has yet to be made; this isn't it. And the gimmick has its flaws; there are points where you must choose one of two possible paths (laundromat or dress shop?) and I kept missing out on the "choice" because I obliviously blundered through whichever door I saw first. So how is the game supposed to paint an accurate portrait of me?
The main strengths of Shattered Memories are its story and atmosphere. The graphics are so-so but the falling snow and empty streets fill you with the sense of melancholy and isolation that are proper for a Silent Hill game. Each character you meet is like a beacon of warmth. Because the game was made by an American studio, nothing is lost in translation; the dialogue is natural and realistic, even witty. Harry Mason himself has a wry sense of humor, which is great when previous SH protagonists have been deeply depressed, bland, or both. The mysteries of the storyline work well: Harry begins to discover things that directly contradict his own memories, and reality itself keeps changing. Is he going mad? Did the crash do something to his head? If he finds his daughter, will she be the same person he remembers? These questions, and the flawlessly-executed twist ending, keep the player engaged. The music is soft, melancholy, and ominous. The gameplay is a bit simplified, sadly; most of the puzzles are along the lines of "Door is locked, key is somewhere nearby." The areas are quite linear, and the overall gameplay time may be the shortest yet for a SH game. But there are some nice touches. Harry uses his cell phone for everything, and you can call various numbers to solve puzzles or check in on other characters. Also, the world around you contains traces of other peoples' memories, which you can pick up or record on your phone; it's not necessary to do so, but it adds much to the overall themes of memory, love, and loss that run through the game. A huge problem, as others have noted, is that Shattered Memories is not scary. Even the Dark World, with its doll-like monsters chasing you down, can't achieve a true sense of terror or dread.
In the end, I'm glad that the creative minds behind Silent Hill decided to try something so different; it shows that they're not content to stamp out the same game over and over. Shattered Memories has its faults: mediocre graphics, dumbed-down gameplay, and lack of frights. But the story is mysterious and absorbing, the characters are great, and if the psychological profiling gimmick disappoints, well, at least they had the audacity to try. I enjoyed this take on Silent Hill and I think it's a perfectly worthy addition to the series. After puzzling my way through the snow and ice of a very different haunted resort town, I'm eager to see where my favorite survival horror franchise takes me next.
 Shattered Mold May 5, 2010
lastunusedname (The city...of Townsville!)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am a Silent Hill nerd. Needless to say, I periodically check the internet for new games in the series and as soon as I found out about Shattered Memories, I shifted between hopeful and skeptical like the titular town shifts between eerily atmospheric and disgustingly hellish. I stayed more on the good side when I read Akira Yamaoka would be involved, but then I saw it would be combat free. Both of these once-rumors are true. But is that good? Read on and see.
First, the sound. I listen to Akira Yamaoka's Silent Hill OSTs like most people listen to Maroon 5 except the former doesn't make me wish guitars hadn't been invented. Its a long story, but GameStop messed up my pre-order and the copy I bought here had no soundtrack. And I really wish it had because the music in this installment is not bad by Silent Hill standards, real good by general music standards. Some of the tracks (I got the OST elsewhere) are, frankly, cacophonous while others are hauntingly beautiful due in part to returning vocalist Mary McGlynn. But the music is not the only sound. I didn't find the enemy sounds all that scary, but the ambient sounds and hints of what might lunge from the darkness put the fear of Samael into me. At times, its just footsteps, but even they aren't just 'guy walking'. They have that special echo that I hear whenever a detective in a book is searching for clues, which is very fitting because...
Without combat, Shattered Memories busies the player with seeking out clues as to Cheryl's whereabouts and with finding lingering spiritual residue around town and hearing a little horror skit on a cell phone. Basically, in addition to a father searching for his daughter, you're a detective of sorts. I would have liked to bash some of the more persistent demons with the classic steel pipe, but the searching and unraveling is engaging and interesting enough that I was almost never all that worried about it. Besides, they only come during events. Most of the time, you're free to look around without worrying about being grabbed from behind and you can enjoy it more. Every Silent Hill game has lots of environment to take in, but the demons always felt like you were in a gallery being hurried into the next room. Now, you can take it at your own pace, which I find to be a nice change.
In between sections of town, we see scenes of someone being analyzed by a psychiatrist. That someone is you. The former bastard, now creepy shrink Dr. Kaufmann asks some unseen person questions and gives them tests (one of which is, I'm not joking, coloring a picture of a smiling family), which the game then analyzes and adjusts the main game to. I said in my review of Prototype that I liked the feel of not being accountable for your actions, but this game goes in the complete opposite direction with it. Looking at posters changes who Harry Mason is if you do it enough. This is an absolutely brilliant addition to the series and when the next one comes out, I'd like to see it again.
I also liked hearing some of the best voice talent the anime industry had to offer appearing here including Kirk Thornton and Laura Bailey. While my concern about whether this means the anime industry is sinking and games are a life raft or if the actors just expanding their careers is neither here nor there, but I am a bit surprised they were chosen over less specialized talent. No doubt they pulled off the roles, but its somewhat unusual for voice actors who primarily do anime to have featured roles in a game like this. But I guess it is becoming more commonplace and if my concern for the industry is notwithstanding, I'll accept it gladly. Thornton does a good Harry Mason in all his potential aspects but Bailey's Dahlia sounds enough like Lust (FullMetal Alchemist) that they remind me of each other, especially now that Dahlia is sexier in both body and personality. But thats good because it makes for a good segue.
This is a re-imagining of the original Silent Hill for the PS1. When I say re-imagining, I don't mean its been made prettier. I mean its an altered cast in a completely new world, doing completely new things in completely new ways. If not for the names of the characters, this could easily pass for a whole new game. But the biggest change is to the history of Silent Hill in the form of one chain reaction starting thing.
There is no Alessa.
If you know what that means, you've begun to grasp the depth of the differences between this and Silent Hill 1. It means that, if this were the 'real' Harry Mason story, none of the other games could have happened in any way. Its the Batman Begins of the series, but its a dead end. Nothing involving The Order can happen in this timeline. If you just want to play a good mystery, great, but if you care about Silent Hill as a whole, this will either frustrate or intrigue you.
You'll notice I gave this game a two star fun rating. Its not an accident. This game is really good. Its well-made, written, acted, scored and modeled. Its beautiful visually and audibly, yet its ugly emotionally and psychologically. It plays well, rewards ingenuity and induces floods of adrenaline during the chase events. The mystery is deep and intriguing, the twist at the end would put M. Night Shyamalan in his prime to shame and made me actually care about everything. Its just not a lot of fun. Most of the game is just looking for stuff and making the static on the phone loud until you find a spot to take a picture and hear a short play about dying or passive fantasies a man has about his daughter. Its easy to make Harry a blend of all the possible personalities just out of habit of looking at everything. Its interesting but not always entertaining.
Final word, buy it, but only if you can devote yourself to it. If you can't find an hour or more regularly to let yourself live the game, don't bother. Silent Hill is not a game, its an experience. If you can't truly experience it, I can't recommend it. But if you can, I can and enthusiastically do.
Could one of the PS2's final releases also be one of its most brilliant? May 3, 2010
Menbailee (Chicago, IL)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Seldom does a putative remake breathe such originality into a genre. The original Silent Hill and its first sequel both took gaming forward as a medium for storytelling. Shattered Memories qualifies as the first Silent Hill since then to accomplish the same, and it does so by re-imagining the original's concept from the ground up.
Although you can connect this story with the other Silent Hill games if you want to, it stands on its own. Do not expect a rehash of familiar gameplay elements, a directly connected plot, or least of all a direct remake of the original. Do expect psychological horror which adapts and responds to your own particular anxieties.
The visuals in Shattered Memories look impressive for the PS2 and do not differ enough on the Wii for me to care. Your flashlight plays off corners and shapes in detailed shadows, and most environments involve surprising amounts of detail. That detail becomes doubly impressive on a second play, because much of it varies depending on your own decisions.
I find more intuitive controls slightly difficult to imagine. The left stick controls movement. The right stick controls which direction you point your flashlight. In comparison with the Wii release, some may find the Wiimote's direct control of the flashlight more immersive, whereas others (myself included) prefer the PS2's conventional buttons during chase sequences.
I've avoided giving anything away about the story or characters, which is the real draw of Shattered Memories. The themes and ending shape themselves around what you as a player reveal as your own fears or insecurities. I have known this game's finale to send more than one thirty-something male into tears--for different reasons and with a different ending according to the person. Even if Shattered Memories isn't for you, it's inarguably unique.
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