Shattered Memories //game

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is the seventh installment in the widely famous Survival Horror franchise created by Konami. However, one can easily pinpoint those aspects of Shattered Memories that show to be extremely contrastant to the rest of the series. The game was confused for being a remake of the first game in the series at first, and, in fact, it still is, for those who still don't know much about it. However, even if it intends to follow the original steps Harry Mason went through when traversing the quiet town of Silent Hill, much of it is changed.

In its very concept, Shattered Memories is a completely new game. This time there are no monsters, there are no guns, there is no blood. All that remains is the mystery of a missing daughter and the truth that you may find hiding behind the dense fog that engulfs the town.

The game consists basically in three phases -- the investigation, the nightmare and the therapy. During the investigation, Harry will trace the very same path the player had to go through in the original Silent Hill, and find clues about his daughter's whereabouts, and halfway through that, meet a number of supporting characters. As soon as he gets closer to the truth he seeks, however, everything freezes and the nightmare sequence begins. In this phase, the will encounter the monsters the franchise is so famous for. However, this time around, you're not figthing. You're objective -- and Harry's -- during the nightmare sequences is simply escape. That what's of so unusual in Shattered Memories. You don't fight for survival, you run for survival. And when the nightmare is over, you'll learn that you've just gone a little further into discovering the truth, and each step you take brings you closer to it. After the nightmare comes the third phase, the therapy. The camera switches to first-person mode and you see a man in front of you.

The third phase, and one of the most interesting of the game, consists of putting the player in a first-person view and have a middle-aged man talking in front of you. That is the third phase -- the therapy, when you are made to see the truth, even if you don't want to.