Kotaku recently got a glimpse of the new Silent Hill: Shattered Memories demo, and noticed a few very interesting things about the game. It is not a remake of the original Silent Hill. Instead, it's a complete make-over.
The gameplay has been reworked from the ground-up, with 50% of the game being action (though Konami didn't go into any details on the fleeing aspect), which may disappoint or delight long-time fans, depending on your perspective. And the Wii's interactive features will also play heavily in the game. Go to the source for more info on the demo.

Also, a few characters from the original seem to have gone through a make-over. Policewoman Cybil Bennett now has a new hairdo, a set of stylish sunglasses and a fair bit of cleavage this time around. That's a far cry from her more tomboyish appearance in the original game.

Discuss in the Silent Hill: Shattered Memories forum

Forgive the girly metaphor but a good makeover is what every game ported, remade or otherwise "re-imagined" on the Wii should be; and with any luck, it's what Silent Hill: Shattered Memories will be.
Even if that metaphor is lame, "enhancement" and "reinvention" seem to be the tactic developer Climax and publisher Konami are taking toward Shattered Memories, based on what journalists saw at the Konami Gamers Night event.

Even if that doesn't sit well with Silent Hill purists, it is still the right direction for a Wii game to go. And – back to that girly metaphor of the makeover – the bottom line for reinventing an experience and making it truly beauty is having a high level of accessibility. Shattered Memories will prove itself in how well it does both with fans of the original and with gamers not at all familiar with Silent Hill beyond that bothersome movie version.

"[Shattered Memories] really illustrates the difference between a remake and a re-imagining," Hulett said. "Because it's a re-imagining, it's a brand new story. If you have played it, we know you have – we've changed things and we know you're going to react to that." But, "whether or not you played the original, Shattered Memories has something for you."


"This is a game that's 50% action," said Barlow. He didn't say how much of that action was fleeing. But Hulett felt the need to address concerns he'd seen on the Internet about combat in general:
"We didn't take a normal Silent Hill game, pick up combat and throw it away, and then expect you to play the exact same game but without combat. This has been designed the way this is from the ground up. So the nightmare world [of Shattered Memories] is designed around the way the fleeing works."

Miss Razz via kotaku.com »