chaobell | Silent Hill: Happy Winter Fun Land (Reply)

As a combination reward for finishing Gateway to 8K and Christmas present to myself, I went and got Silent Hill: Shattered Memories today.

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuck

I had to put it down for the evening after only about two hours, not because I don’t like it, but because I had to put it the fuck down because I did not think I could deal with another bit like the part I had just finished tonight.

(spoiler level: just got to the high school)

Yes, this is more or less a retelling of the first game. However, shit most definitely ain’t right here. Specifically, something is seriously wrong with Harry 2.0. For starters, he has a driver’s license with an address in Silent Hill on it, but when you get to that house there are strange people living there and they have lived there for a long time.
While I’m on that subject: the game learns from you. Every so often it plops you down in a therapist’s office, and it adjusts things based on how you answer his occasionally embarrassing personal questions (I’m pretty sure the particular version of Cybil I got has something to do with that; if the trailer is to be believed, there are at least two versions of her) or what you do with the other various things he has you do (the aforementioned house and its occupants? Colored to match a coloring page he had me do).
The whole cell phone thing: I like it. I sure wish I could save photos taken with it to the SD card (what the fuck, Konami, how hard could that have possibly been) but oh well. Also, yes, your monster-proximity and other kinds of static do come out of the Wiimote speaker, which is exactly as freaky as you might imagine.
So let’s talk about the new and improved Otherworld:fffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuck.
I admit it–when they first started talking about “no actual combat” this and “ice” that and no weapons and no lovely Silent Hill blood-n-rust I kind of went >:/. I mean, shit, that’s what Silent Hill is, that’s what it’s always been, why fuck with that? And come on, what the hell is so scary about ice anyway?

I repeat: fffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuck.

I mentioned that I had to put the game down for the evening because I didn’t think I could deal with another bit like the one I’d just finished tonight. The bit in question was the second Otherworld bit. See, since you can’t actually fight the monsters (aside from throwing them off you if they grab you), you have to run from them. And they are not stupid. You can hide in and under things, but they will eventually find you and pull your ass out of your hiding place. You can pull things over to slow them down, but that will not stop them. You can find flares that will keep them away for a while, but they eventually go out. The only way to get out of this shit is to reach a certain point on the map, which is easier said than done because it’s kind of fucking hard to check your GPS to make sure you’re going the right way when you have THINGS chasing you.
I’m glad I live in a part of the country where it doesn’t snow or freeze very often because if I had to go outside into knee-deep snow and frozen shit after playing this I would cry. And make sure I had my cell phone and a flashlight.
As for the monsters themselves–I haven’t gotten a really good look at any of them yet because I’ve been too busy FUCKING RUNNING AWAY FROM THEM. The bigger ones seem to be some sort of living puppets, and I’m not sure but I thought I heard that the appearance of the monsters themselves was one of the things affected by stuff you tell the therapist. At any rate, they’re bipedal, naked, humanoid, and just not-human-looking enough to be creepy. Nice.
So far, I like Harry 2.0. I enjoy the occasional smartass remark he’ll make about something I make him look at (a few condoms in a cabin, including one that appeared to be used, set off a snarky little “no bareback in the great outdoors?” remark). But, uh… did I mention that there seems to be something seriously fucking wrong with him? More on this as the situation develops.
[ETA] I forgot to mention one of the niftier functions of the cell phone–a soothing balm for those of us still butthurt about the lack of Fatal Frame 4 in the US. I am talking about the whole Echoes thing. Sometimes the camera will make strange noises. If you follow those noises to their source, you’ll get freaky messages on your phone. Or maybe you’ll notice something weird about your surroundings. You can take a picture that reveals something interesting. Sometimes this is necessary to proceed in the game, usually it just seems to be icing. There are also mementos you can collect. What function, if any, these serve remains to be seen but knowing Silent Hill games, they probably unlock some sort of New Game+ bling.