OMG Nintendo

You may remember that I was skeptical about Silent Hill: Shattered Memories back in April, when it was first announced. A completely combat-free horror game has been tried before, and it usually winds up as, at best, an interesting train wreck.

The Wii version of Shattered Memories (and only the Wii version) was playable on the E3 show floor, so I finally got to take it out for a spin. Admittedly, games that depend to any real extent on atmosphere aren't particularly good in that environment; one of these days, I hope to see an E3 that has the Horror Room, a darkened area far away from the show floor where you get headphones, near-absolute silence, a dude who's specifically there to pummel anyone who speaks above a whisper, and possibly fresh undergarments in a box by the door.

Shattered Memories starts with an odd disclaimer. The game, it says, adapts itself to your actions and decisions, it "plays you as much as you play it."

When you press start, you're in first-person mode in a psychiatrist's office, who gives you a brief true/false questionnaire:

1. I make friends easily.
2. Having a drink helps me relax.
3. I always listen to other people's feelings.
4. I prefer abstract ideas.
5. I have enjoyed role-playing during sex.
6. Working to a plan or schedule is best.
7. I have never cheated on a partner.

Your answers apparently influence other characters' reactions to Harry throughout the game. A cop will ask if you've been drinking, for example, and for some reason, answering "False" to #7 surprised the hell out of the psychiatrist.

For whatever reason, Shattered Memories seems to have reimagined Silent Hill as a place that plays on an entirely different set of fears. The original game's Otherworld was created by a girl who was caught in a house fire and should have died, so everywhere you go, it looks like it burned down five minutes ago.

In Shattered Memories, the Otherworld is an ice age, striking without warning and freezing everything solid in its path; when the world shifts for the first time, a nearby car's alarm goes off as it's suddenly locked inside a small glacier. The game's art, shown on the demo kiosk, is that of Cheryl, sitting on a swing, frozen to the core.

There are two big problems I had with the demo. One is that it's actually sort of boring. Without an inventory system or any actual puzzles to solve, you spend most of your time simply exploring the town to no real benefit. To overcome one obstacle, you pick up a soda can and shake a key out of it; to overcome another, you turn a dial, then press a button. The first few minutes of exploring Silent Hill feel like the first twenty minutes in Silent Hill 2, where you're simply walking down a path for a disturbingly long period of time.

The controls on the demo unit were also extremely sensitive. Getting too close or too far away immediately interrupted the Wiimote's signal, and you have to constantly babysit the Wiimote pointer to avoid spinning in place or facing the floor. During the demo's climactic chase sequence, where Harry must flee from monsters through a building that's locked in ice, it felt less like a race for survival and more like an all-out wrestling match with the Wiimote.

I'm probably going to play the final version of Shattered Memories, if only because I'm a dyed-in-the-wool horror fan, and I know a demo on the show floor isn't the best place to form a valid opinion. I was wary going in, though, and this didn't help matters. I'm glad to see Climax's "reimagining" is actually taking the game off in new directions, and Silent Hill games traditionally start a little slowly, but I have my doubts.