Re-imagined Silent Hill Announced

Konami has announced that a new Silent Hill game, titled Shattered Memories, is due out this fall for the Wii, PS2, and PSP. "While the game shares its twisting plot with the original PlayStation game, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories takes a different path in many, many ways. Characters can be approached but will offer different responses and be found in different places, while new clues and gameplay paths can be followed." The Wii version will make full use of the Wii Remote, taking the role of both phone and torch, as well as being used to "pick up, examine and manipulate items to solve puzzles along the journey." According to the Opposable Thumbs blog, the choice not to develop for the PS3 and Xbox 360 was due to the development costs associated with those consoles.

SH-Origins

[valentingalea]

It's from the guys that did the PSP/PS2 Silent Hill Origins... so don't expect much:(

Centralia Pennsylvania

[Gnaythan1]

I never played silent hill, but liked the imagery, and heard from someone it was based on a small town that had an underground coal mine catch fire.

I did some research and found out such a place really existed. Ever since then, Centrailia Pennsylvania has fueled many of my role playing game settings. Appaerently it caught fire many years ago, and has been burning ever since.

Wow.

Re:Why re-imagine?

[fastest fascist]

Don't try to leverage an old product and rape the memories of the fans of the original.

At least they're pretty honest about it: Silent hill: Shattered Memories

Re:Centralia Pennsylvania

[Sockatume]

The place with the coal fire was the inspiration for the movie (hence in that film it's smoke, not fog, everywhere), but not the game.

Re:SH-Origins

[Sockatume]

Not exactly. Origins was originally being developed by Climax Studios' LA branch, who were unceremoniously sacked around the game's original release date amidst rumours that the project was falling apart. It was brought across to Climax's UK branch, reworked over about 18 months, and published. So I have to wonder if they'll do better with a cleaner slate.

No and no.

[Cathoderoytube]

Silent Hill officially ended with 3. That's when the creators decided to finish everything up and that was that. I see no reason to continue playing the series. I know other people play it for the horror atmosphere, but even then it took a nose dive when it was taken over by a different developer. I'm no fan of bringing back stories that the creators decided to finish or are unable to continue for some other reason. Say as a result of being hit by a truck for example..

Re:No and no.

[djnforce9]

I have to agree with you there. Silent Hill 4 just felt outright different than the other 3 and I didn't find it as scary nor enjoyable (the invincible ghosts being one of the most annoying additions ever). The 5th installment I couldn't really try to its fullest extent because the PC version was ridden with audio bugs (e.g. sound being stuck in left channel only) ruining the scary atmosphere. It was also more "combat based" (including quick time events) rather than a being weak, helpless, and scared character like in Silent Hill 1-3. I have not tried silent hill origins though but I heard it was just more of the same (although it was nice to know how Silent Hill's current state originally came to be). It is kind of cool to have the original remade with what is likely a graphical upgrade (and of course new paths to keep things fresh). What made the original Silent Hill so scary was the "sound" but the graphics just couldn't deliver what the audio was building up towards (e.g. that hanging corpse at the end of the alleyway near the beginning is a good example of what I mean as it was not as horrifying as you would expect) due to the limitations of the PSX hardware. Since this is geared towards Wii, PS2, and PSP as opposed to PC, Xbox 360, and PS3, I won't expect a "high definition" remake but it'll certainly look better than the original version and could potentially scare you even more by providing more vivid visuals than what the PSX delivered