So a bunch of ice puns last issue becomes this month’s feature on Silent Hill: Shattered Memories? Is Nintendo’s first Silent Hill game hardcore enough for you? This is an exceptionally chunky issue (in a good way), so dodge the pyramid heads, watch out for the dog overmaster, and read-a-long!

Issue #241, May 2009
featuring Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii), Punch-Out!! (Wii), G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Wii, DS), Rabbids Go Home (Wii), Let’s Tap (Wii)

Dude. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is sounding really good. Although positioned as a reboot of the franchise, don’t make the mistake of assuming this is some kind of flaky PS1 port jacked up on waggle controls for smacking fleshdactyls with lumber. Not only does the game turn the original storyline on its head, but it also has no combat at all. Speaking as somebody who still suffers from flashbacks of getting stuck inside five-second attack animations while taking damage from an enemy who moved four seconds ago, I’m calling that a step in the right direction.

So what makes this look like the Silent Hill franchise’s departure album? First of all, it’s the attempt to subtract traditional video game elements like the ever-present examination text boxes. Then there’s the appropriation of Wii-specific tricks that have been used to great effect in previous games… like LIT‘s first-person flashlight and No More Heroes‘ Remote-as-phone-speaker. Now add in a storyline that changes as you play it, to an extent far more complicated than “did you get the good ending or the bad ending.” Check out this list of features and see if you’re as psyched as I am (especially now that Fatal Frame 4 has been seemingly barred from release):

• No door textures painted on walls. Every locked door can be opened. You can even crack the door and peek into the room with your flashlight if you think something scary may be hiding inside.
• The Remote will ring when you get an incoming phone call. That famous Silent Hill enemy static sound will also come from the Remote.
• How you play the game (and answer an early psychology mini-exam) will determine what characters you meet, what locations can be explored, even how the enemies manifest themselves. “Every piece of voice changes [according to your psychology profile].” – Sam Barlow, lead designer
• Far less backtracking than previous games. Puzzle solutions will be nearby “not five rooms back.”
• The game’s main inventory interface is hero Harry Mason’s iPhone clone… which acts as your map and in-game camera as well as a phone. (Call 911 and then feel like an idiot as the dispatcher can’t hear you because you’re talking to a Wii Remote. Now that’s horror!)
• “Rusty brown corridors were a perfect fit for the PlayStation back in 1999, but we wanted to push the visuals much further.” – Tomm Hulett, producer

Worst Idea of the Year So Far: Kingdom Hearts on Wii as envisioned by NP reader “roxasthemighty”:

“When you think about it, that series is more suited to the Nintendo fan base. I think Square Enix should get together with the developers of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn to make a strategy-type Kingdom Hearts where you would control Sora, Donald, Goofy, Riku, etc. on a grid-based map. When you attack an enemy the game would become an on-rails fighter in which you use the Wii Remote to swing the Keyblade or use spells.”

Um, no. After reading that capsule proposal, I’m not even sure I want Donald Duck in the next Kingdom Hearts.

Wishing you had a side-scrolling 2D real-time strategy game on WiiWare? How about if it showed up with a visual style reminiscent of Castle Crashers or Fat Princess?

Meet Swords & Soldiers, coming very soon according to the official website. Controlling one of three factions (Viking, Mayan, and an Asian culture to be named later), S&S simplifies the RTS for consoles by making it 2D and adding a tower defense element. You’ll hustle for resources as per norm in RTS games, but after your attack units are built, they march on to the enemy base automatically. Using the Remote as a pointer, you’ll select spells and give orders to your troops.

Unfortunately, NP does not offer an official release date or a price point. There will also be no online multiplayer.

Despite that, I’m embedding a gameplay trailer because I am already hot for this one.

Swords & Soldiers is from the same gang that gave us de Blob, but we won’t hold that against them.

So if a franchise has five installments since 2002 but none ever made it out of Japan, does that make it a new IP from our perspective? The Legendary Starfy comes to your US DS this June. If you don’t follow the import scene, Starfy is a Nintendo-published series created by TOSE. You may know of TOSE because of the company’s bizarre attitude of almost never putting their name on the games they develop. The Starfy series being one of very few exceptions across thirty years of working on Nintendo games.

To date, Starfy’s only appearance on our shores was as an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros Brawl. (Where he was called “Stafy” since that’s closer to his Japanese name.) The game we’re getting is the second DS Starfy title, which was released in Japan last year.

While you’d be forgiven for assuming his adventures take him to outer space, Starfy actually does most of his platforming underwater, according to Wikipedia. As a star that fell to Earth and masquerades as a starfish, Starfy’s levels alternate between land and sea, with the usual patterns of sub-stages and boss fights.

I’m sure that since Starfy is supercute and his chosen genre is portable old school platforming, his relative newness won’t be enough to get him past the Nintendo haters’ gate as they continue to complain about the lack of new IP. When you hate, you hate for life.

Voice actor Jennifer Hale is totally working on Brutal Legend, but Nintendo Power doesn’t want to name names for some reason. In the interview with Hale, NP describes her current project as “a game featuring Jack Black written by Tim Schafer.” Jennifer herself, responding to a question about standout game scripts, says “One I worked on written by Tim Schafer (don’t know if I’m free to say the name of the game yet): fantastic, funny and so cool.”

At this writing, Brutal Legend is not scheduled for release on any Nintendo platforms, ahem.

You may know Hale’s name from just about every single game with awesome female voiceover work, including Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid 4 and the Metroid Prime series. And no, she doesn’t play video games.

Shop Channel Staff Picks: Gradius Rebirth (WiiWare), Life Force (NES), Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen (SNES)

Top scoring Wii review: Klonoa, 9.0 (all scores out of 10)
Top scoring DS review: a three-way tie for 9.0… Rhythm Heaven, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Pokemon Platinum
Lowest rated Wii review: Don King Boxing, 5.0
Lowest rated DS review: Dokapon Journey 4.0

Other notable scores: Excitebots: Trick Racing (Wii) was given 8.0. Steal Princess (DS) hit 6.0. Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars – Director’s Cut (Wii) scored 7.0. Old school adventure The Dark Spire (DS) is a 5.0. And poor Major Minor’s Majestic March only managed a 6.0.

No, you’re not getting any details – Smash Bros and Kirby creator Masahiro Sakurai is working on a new game. It has nothing to do with anything he has ever done before, and we’ll likely not get any details for another year or two! So stop asking!

Take the red pill – Rabbids Go Home is apparently not another junky minigame collection! It’s an action-adventure-exploration game where you help the rabbids shoplift junk so they can build a tower to the moon.

For the six of you who still moon over Working Designs – He brought us Arc the Lad, Lunar: Silver Star Story and Elemental Gearbolt, and now the former president of Working Designs, Victor Ireland, is back with a new company and a new game. The company, Gaijinworks, was announced some time ago, but the debut title is new info: Miami Law, a DS adventure game. It sounds like something in the Lux-Pain / Phoenix Wright / Hotel Dusk mode.

Firebrand’s solo adventure – This month’s retro game flashback is Gargoyle’s Quest for Game Boy, one of my very favorite GB games. Released in 1990, this game took a mid-level baddie from Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins and made him the hero of a side-scrolling RPG-lite adventure with stunningly large and detailed sprites (for 1990 Game Boy, anyway).

Spoiling is half the battle – The movie is called G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and so is the game… except that the game is a sequel. So I guess Cobra makes it through the movie more or less okay.

That’s a good price for no controller – Yuji Naka’s Let’s Tap, that game where you place the Remote facedown on a box and tap to play, is slotted for a June release at only $30. Unfortunately, there’s only five games on the disk and one of them is a sound visualizer.

He’s busy… IN SPACE – Mario will not return as the boxing referee in the new Punch-Out!!

Next month in Nintendo Power… “a special report on Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter games,” plus the inevitable 9.0 review for Punch-Out!!