I’m going to write two posts about Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for two reasons. The first is that the story is so important, I want to talk about it at length, but have it separate from the mechanics so there are no spoilarz. The other is just to fill up another blogging day. What? It’s not like I’m that complicated a creature. Can you blame me for wanting to have to write less?<\/p>\n
Anyway, mechanics. Of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.<\/p>\n
There were a lot of mechanical missteps in this game. They had the idea that this game should be accessible to anyone, not just gamers, and as such should not have any combat. This is something that I can completely get behind. I’ve liked watching my brother play other Silent Hill games because I liked the sort of things they were doing with the story. I’ve never been good with Survival Horror combat mechanics, though, and never really wanted to play them myself because of that. The moment I learned this wasn’t going to be something to worry about in this game, I really wanted to play it. Removing combat was smart.<\/p>\n
However, they replaced the combat with these “nightmare chase” sequences. They’re completely awesome in theory: tense chases where you’re running away from monsters you can’t fight, having to throw them off before they defeat you, and being unable to fight back. In reality, though, they are painfully trial and error. If you pull it off the first or second time, you have fun, but when you’re trying the sixth or seventh, the fun is gone. This happened often near the end of the game. Constantly, really. I often looked up a FAQ to alleviate this. I wanted to use the in-game map to find my way, but since you can’t look at it and run, it is pretty useless for these sequences, and I had to turn to text on the internet to get me through. That probably means it wasn’t doing what it was intended to do. I certainly had less fun doing that.<\/p>\n
They also decided that puzzles are a good thing to have. However, they too seem to be a bit off due to attempting to create a more “everyone” friendly environment. Most puzzles are “Oh, there’s a locked door, oh look, there’s an interaction point behind me, oh look, there’s a key.” They’re really simplistic and mostly involve using the Wiimote to open a door, or sift through a pile. It’s just a little too easy for my tastes, although it’s the kind of easy that doesn’t detract from the game at all. I don’t mind it, but surely it could have been better.
\nThe more involved puzzles were placed, for some reason, in the middle of the nightmare sequences. I liked these puzzles. They were fun and usually interesting. However, having to risk dying to go re-check a solution that you may have seen while sprinting but maybe not isn’t really the best way to go.
\nIf I had to pick one puzzle that I felt the game should have done more of, it would have to be the puzzle in the party shop. That used the “echo” mechanic, the Wiimote manipulation, and the environment to create an interesting way to come up with a passcode. You had to use echo information to find sounds, and then connect those sounds with numbers. It wasn’t TOO hard, but you did have to think for a second. It worked. It could have used more of those sorts of puzzles.<\/p>\n
The main problem, though, comes from the Wiimote itself. It’s just obvious at this point how badly the Wii should have had the motion plus stuff built into it from the start. Doing the motions for throwing monsters off of you feels REALLY good, much like some of the motions in Mad World… when it works. When it doesn’t register, then it’s really annoying. That’s the Wiimote’s fault, not the games.
\nSimilarly, I hate, hate, and still continue to hate pointing the Wiimote at the screen. It’s just inaccurate and annoying to do. Now, using the Wiimote as a flashlight is a great idea, and it’s fun enough. It doesn’t keep me from being frustrated about having to do it, though. A few times, I wondered if I would have been better off getting one of the ports to play, but I stuck with this one. It’s a minor concern, but if the game hadn’t been otherwise good, mostly in the story, I would have been complaining up a storm.<\/p>\n
Still, the “echo” mechanic, and the Wiimote being both flashlight and cell phone worked wonderfully. I would get a message and, even though I didn’t need to to hear it, I’d always hold the Wiimote up to my ear to listen. After I realized I could call any number in the environment and it would actually do something, I gleefully dialed everything I saw, just to see how Harry would react. I’d swing the wiimote around to point the flashlight at things for Harry to comment on them, and be happy about it. It was awesome. I could feel that kind of interaction and involvement in an adventure game story all day.<\/p>\n
And I was very involved in the story. But I’ll talk about that next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m going to write two posts about Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for two reasons. The first is that the story is so important, I want to talk about it at length, but have it separate from the mechanics so there are no spoilarz. The other is just to fill up another blogging day. What? It’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1096"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1102,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions\/1102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/getmeoutofthis.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}