Silent Hill Shattered Memories...Thoughts?

[Residentconker]

From all the review i have been seeing it is one of the most mixed reviewed games i have seen in a long time.

I bought this on release day and am actually impressed by all the little clever things the game adds. be it the cell phone uses, the awesome flashlight, and the interesting little puzzles, all to the controversial topic of having no combat, which i found to be a very daring thing to try out and i like it, something different for once.

This coming from a guy who is huge fan of silent hill games and just games in general for over twenty years

anyways i was just curious what other gamers thought of this game?

 

[RiversEnd]

When I first saw it, I went, "AGGGGH! DESTROYING MY CHILDHOOD!! AGHBLLAAHHH!" Then I actually sat down, read some things and came back to the idea. I haven't played it yet, so for all I know, the gameplay overrides anything good I care to mention, but I'm a story-symbolism Silent Hill fan, so lets see.

According to one of the two walkthroughs I've seen, there's a huge focus on sexuality (No surprise. Sex sells.) particularly on the Electra complex. I'm really interested in that because I've never seen that explored anywhere in video games. It seems like they're putting some legitimate psychology into the game and possibly countering Walter in SH4.

Ditching the combat, while a good attempt to increase the fear, seems like it would be more frustrating than innovative. I'm the sort of person who panics under pressure so when I have three or so of those Cold Shocks (I think that's what they're called) trailing me while I'm trying to complete an objective will probably result in more "Game Overs" than I'd care to count.

I was amazingly irritated when I saw that they revamped the characters, Dahlia and Cybil in particular. My Cybil-induced raging mostly comes from the fact that I LOVED Cybil in the games (and movie, if you please) and felt she didn't need to change. The Dahlia-rage stems from the fact that, to me, Silent Hill 1 is simply not Silent Hill 1 without a crazy old church woman. Still, reading over some plot summaries, I think this updated Dahlia is serving the Electra complex theme of the game.

In conclusion, at first I was all, "They Changed It, Now It Sucks" but I'm feeling a tad more open-minded now that I've seen that they aren't trying to remake the game entirely faithfully. It looks like something I'm going to get sometime in the future.