Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

It’s been a while since I’ve played a good, scary horror game. You can’t really count Resident Evil 5 or Left 4 Dead as being truly scary. Intense and gory? Sure. But not scary. We’ve had a couple stabs at horror games with Ju-On: The Grudge and LIT. Plenty of FPS games trade in shock as a horror substitute. However, what I want is the kind of game where forty minutes in I start getting creeped out by the sounds of my house creaking. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is going to be that kind of game. Here’s a spoiler-free First Thirty.

You’ve probably read about Shattered Memories’ psychological profiling. The game begins with you in a first-person view, inside a psychiatrist’s office. The doctor talks creepy for a bit and then gives you a seven question true-false quiz. Things like “I make friends easily… true/false.” I answered all seven accurately… that is to say, I didn’t try to game the system to make sure I got the sexy lady cop. (According to all previews of the game, how the female officer dresses is one of the items that the game changes based on your psychological profile.)

I’m about an hour into the game, and the psychiatrist has appeared two more times. Every time it is couched in the idea that I am telling him about what happened in Silent Hill. Like flashback therapy. I have had to do additional psychological tests during this sequences (coloring!), so it looks like the game is going to keep testing me as I play. For some parts, you’re expected to move the Wii Remote as if you are shaking your head yes or no. Which is a pretty hilarious use of motion controls.

Between the psych bits, I have been re-introduced to the world of Silent Hill. In the PS1 original, the town would cross over into a nasty rusted metal version (sort of like the Dark World / Light World of various Zeldas, except in Silent Hill the Light World is dark too), but in Shattered Memories the twisted version comes in the form of ice and snow. Apparently Silent Hill is in the midst of a massive blizzard. It’s a pretty slick conceit, because then the game can suddenly block you off from one area of the town by having a huge snowdrift appear. It also explains why the town is mostly empty. The first store you visit has a sign up that the owners have temporarily vacated due to the bad weather.

The Remote-as-flashlight mechanic is wonderfully well done. Your flashlight creates eerie shadows as you wave it around, plus you have a zoom-in option so you can really examine everything in the room. In a longstanding series tradition, Shattered Memories enjoys putting discarded children’s toys in these dark, abandoned environments.

So far, the real standout gameplay enhancement is Harry Mason’s cellphone. Looking sort of like a knockoff iPhone, you use it for an in-game map (featuring the ability to draw and leave notes on the map!), as well as general game options. You can store up to ten in-game photos on the cellphone, and the game borrows a little from Fatal Frame by letting you use the camera to reveal ghosts hiding in the environment. The cellphone is mimicked in real life by the speaker on the Wii Remote… meaning when you make a phone call the audio plays out on the Remote. It is fantastic. Call home and you get a creepy crying girl on the other end until the conversation is cut short by static. You’ll find various phone numbers around town that you can dial up whenever you like. Sometimes this creates a brief scene with Harry trying to explain his situation, but other times you just get an answering machine. Either way, it’s cool that the game goes to the trouble.

I’ve only had one monster attack sequence, and, yeah, you can’t actually fight anything. Basically you just run from whatever is chasing you. If a monster jumps you, you have to shake the Remote/Nunchuk to throw him off. Not my favorite use of motion controls. I’m assuming that if you don’t shake the creatures off, you eventually take damage and die, but I have yet to test that theory.

Only one bit of control weirdness to report. Apparently when you’re in run mode, the game assumes you want to open any door and vault any wall you may happen across. While being chased, the game is probably right. But I am usually running while exploring, just in the interest of saving time (hey, my daughter is missing!), so even in calm times, me holding down the run button makes the game think I want to blast through any door like the Kool-Aid Man. It’s not a big deal yet, but I imagine I’ll soon hit doors that I don’t necessarily want to storm through. In fact, the game lets you control the door so you can just peek through into the next room if you like… as long as you’re not running.

And yeah, I got the sexy version of the policewoman. When you first meet her the game puts you back into the first-person viewpoint, making it entirely possible to have your gaze rest on her unbuttoned top. I’m sure the game noticed how long I let Harry’s eyes linger there!

Tags: first thirty, Nintendo, Silent Hill, silent hill shattered memories, wii