Seldom does a putative remake breathe such originality into a genre. The original Silent Hill and its first sequel both took gaming forward as a medium for storytelling. Shattered Memories qualifies as the first Silent Hill since then to accomplish the same, and it does so by re-imagining the original's concept from the ground up.

Although you can connect this story with the other Silent Hill games if you want to, it stands on its own. Do not expect a rehash of familiar gameplay elements, a directly connected plot, or least of all a direct remake of the original. Do expect psychological horror which adapts and responds to your own particular anxieties.

The visuals in Shattered Memories look impressive for the PS2 and do not differ enough on the Wii for me to care. Your flashlight plays off corners and shapes in detailed shadows, and most environments involve surprising amounts of detail. That detail becomes doubly impressive on a second play, because much of it varies depending on your own decisions.

I find more intuitive controls slightly difficult to imagine. The left stick controls movement. The right stick controls which direction you point your flashlight. In comparison with the Wii release, some may find the Wiimote's direct control of the flashlight more immersive, whereas others (myself included) prefer the PS2's conventional buttons during chase sequences.

I've avoided giving anything away about the story or characters, which is the real draw of Shattered Memories. The themes and ending shape themselves around what you as a player reveal as your own fears or insecurities. I have known this game's finale to send more than one thirty-something male into tears--for different reasons and with a different ending according to the person. Even if Shattered Memories isn't for you, it's inarguably unique.

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But I love pretty much all the games, even the ones the rest of the fans seem to hate. This game is not what I was expecting, but I loved it nonethless. It's just way too short!

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I am a Silent Hill nerd. Needless to say, I periodically check the internet for new games in the series and as soon as I found out about Shattered Memories, I shifted between hopeful and skeptical like the titular town shifts between eerily atmospheric and disgustingly hellish. I stayed more on the good side when I read Akira Yamaoka would be involved, but then I saw it would be combat free. Both of these once-rumors are true. But is that good? Read on and see.

First, the sound. I listen to Akira Yamaoka's Silent Hill OSTs like most people listen to Maroon 5 except the former doesn't make me wish guitars hadn't been invented. Its a long story, but GameStop messed up my pre-order and the copy I bought here had no soundtrack. And I really wish it had because the music in this installment is not bad by Silent Hill standards, real good by general music standards. Some of the tracks (I got the OST elsewhere) are, frankly, cacophonous while others are hauntingly beautiful due in part to returning vocalist Mary McGlynn. But the music is not the only sound. I didn't find the enemy sounds all that scary, but the ambient sounds and hints of what might lunge from the darkness put the fear of Samael into me. At times, its just footsteps, but even they aren't just 'guy walking'. They have that special echo that I hear whenever a detective in a book is searching for clues, which is very fitting because...

Without combat, Shattered Memories busies the player with seeking out clues as to Cheryl's whereabouts and with finding lingering spiritual residue around town and hearing a little horror skit on a cell phone. Basically, in addition to a father searching for his daughter, you're a detective of sorts. I would have liked to bash some of the more persistent demons with the classic steel pipe, but the searching and unraveling is engaging and interesting enough that I was almost never all that worried about it. Besides, they only come during events. Most of the time, you're free to look around without worrying about being grabbed from behind and you can enjoy it more. Every Silent Hill game has lots of environment to take in, but the demons always felt like you were in a gallery being hurried into the next room. Now, you can take it at your own pace, which I find to be a nice change.

In between sections of town, we see scenes of someone being analyzed by a psychiatrist. That someone is you. The former bastard, now creepy shrink Dr. Kaufmann asks some unseen person questions and gives them tests (one of which is, I'm not joking, coloring a picture of a smiling family), which the game then analyzes and adjusts the main game to. I said in my review of Prototype that I liked the feel of not being accountable for your actions, but this game goes in the complete opposite direction with it. Looking at posters changes who Harry Mason is if you do it enough. This is an absolutely brilliant addition to the series and when the next one comes out, I'd like to see it again.

I also liked hearing some of the best voice talent the anime industry had to offer appearing here including Kirk Thornton and Laura Bailey. While my concern about whether this means the anime industry is sinking and games are a life raft or if the actors just expanding their careers is neither here nor there, but I am a bit surprised they were chosen over less specialized talent. No doubt they pulled off the roles, but its somewhat unusual for voice actors who primarily do anime to have featured roles in a game like this. But I guess it is becoming more commonplace and if my concern for the industry is notwithstanding, I'll accept it gladly. Thornton does a good Harry Mason in all his potential aspects but Bailey's Dahlia sounds enough like Lust (FullMetal Alchemist) that they remind me of each other, especially now that Dahlia is sexier in both body and personality. But thats good because it makes for a good segue.

This is a re-imagining of the original Silent Hill for the PS1. When I say re-imagining, I don't mean its been made prettier. I mean its an altered cast in a completely new world, doing completely new things in completely new ways. If not for the names of the characters, this could easily pass for a whole new game. But the biggest change is to the history of Silent Hill in the form of one chain reaction starting thing.

There is no Alessa.

If you know what that means, you've begun to grasp the depth of the differences between this and Silent Hill 1. It means that, if this were the 'real' Harry Mason story, none of the other games could have happened in any way. Its the Batman Begins of the series, but its a dead end. Nothing involving The Order can happen in this timeline. If you just want to play a good mystery, great, but if you care about Silent Hill as a whole, this will either frustrate or intrigue you.

You'll notice I gave this game a two star fun rating. Its not an accident. This game is really good. Its well-made, written, acted, scored and modeled. Its beautiful visually and audibly, yet its ugly emotionally and psychologically. It plays well, rewards ingenuity and induces floods of adrenaline during the chase events. The mystery is deep and intriguing, the twist at the end would put M. Night Shyamalan in his prime to shame and made me actually care about everything. Its just not a lot of fun. Most of the game is just looking for stuff and making the static on the phone loud until you find a spot to take a picture and hear a short play about dying or passive fantasies a man has about his daughter. Its easy to make Harry a blend of all the possible personalities just out of habit of looking at everything. Its interesting but not always entertaining.

Final word, buy it, but only if you can devote yourself to it. If you can't find an hour or more regularly to let yourself live the game, don't bother. Silent Hill is not a game, its an experience. If you can't truly experience it, I can't recommend it. But if you can, I can and enthusiastically do.

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Just finished very first play-through of this game-very interesting re-imagining. This very much reminds me of the conversations I was having back when the original SH came out for the PSone. What if Harry is really....or Cheryl....what about Dahlia? I don't want to spoil ANYTHING, so I will stop there so you get the idea.

Graphics-pretty ugly for a such a late PS2 title. I really wish they would stop just scaling down the engines and dragging them onto the PS2 without optimizing it first. Some textures cut in and out when viewing them, particularly posters. Also, can we at least try to anti-alias this thing. Some areas, with our swinging flashlight painfully illuminating the lack of A-A, were pixelated nightmares. Also, I noted that the top and bottom of the screen had some distortion-was this intended to make it look like video tracking or a graphical glitch. Dunno. Finally, FMVs were washed out, faded, with an obvious resolution shift.

Deep Breath....that's really my only complain for the moment, though

Gameplay-Wow. A game that responds to how you play it? Balderdash. I couldn't believe this was even possible. But it is-you can have a completely different experience depending on how you play, and how you respond to the "good doctor's" questions and exercises. There are a few places where you will notice obvious forking-you can only take one of two paths-and it is clear that this transforms the scenes ahead, and of course the ending. I really liked exploring each area for these markers, as they set up a great binary opposition in terms of your path-good or evil, easy or difficult. For some reason, all my scenes, interactions, and even scenery was vaguely sexual. Gotta wonder if that was intended or just "my play-through," but that is a digression. I plan to go through it again and try for a different scenario. Side note-you also have collectibles that come up in various spots-mementos-that just give you a little bit more to do.

Now for my last gripe-the "dog runs," or at least that is what I call them, the scene's where you are running for your life from your enemies, pulling down objects to get them between you and your attacker. I really liked the visceral sense of combat in the older games-stalking your enemy with a lead pipe and beating them to death in brutal fashion. I was very disappointed that this was missing. The new feature-running and hiding, with an occasional flare to keep enemies at bay-frustrated me to no end, but I felt that this wasn't the whole of the game, so I can let it slide. Plus, it gets you EVERY time when one of the ankle biters latches onto you and have have to time your button presses just right to get them off of you. Try this on when you have three of the things trying to give you hickeys. Not fun. Thankfully, the game is forgiving if you die during this, and restarts you at the beginning of the run.

All in all, I REALLY enjoyed this game. I believe that for such a late title, the graphics could have been polished/optimized a bit more for the system (I hear the Psp version is the best one to get), but I am not dissatisfied with my purchase. It's not going to be for everyone, but it is a worthwhile entry and new direction for the series.

Ankle biters...

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Brilliant addition to the Silent Hill series. I'm glad they didn't just make a straight remake of the first SH game. There is nothing that can be done to make the

original trilogy any better! The timing for this new Silent Hill couldn't be better!!

Silent Hill proves once again it's reigning status in it's given genre. Simply superb!

5 stars!

Highly recommended!

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I have been with Silent Hill since the first game came out. I can still remember the goosebumps I got playing the first few that followed it, lots of freak you out scares that have stuck with me. Images that stick in your mind. The only thing scary to me about this particular game is that it has Silent Hill's name attached to it. I wanted to love it. I wanted it to be the game that proves the American developers really can keep the series going with quality games but it isn't.

I wasn't frightened or unnerved even once by anything that happens in this game other than the fact that if you walk too close to a wall the screen goes completely black because the lighting is so poor. The overuse of shadows creates frustration rather than suspense. I had the surprise ending figured out not even halfway through the story - that is the biggest disappointment, too, because when I'm playing a SH game I don't want to know where the story is going until I'm at the end. I want the kind of shocker moment SH2 created, the kind of moment that totally changes your perception of everything you've seen up to that point. The graphics are ugly. The controls are frustrating. If I wasn't so stubborn I'd have quit long before I finished it. The psychological profiling the game uses seems pretty sad, too. The assessment in the end credits was totally off compared the answers I'd given and the changes that take place during a second play through are just that - changes in scenery or character outfits that do nothing to scare. Seriously a stuffed mountain lion turned into a stuffed goose the second time around and that was supposed to frighten me because???

That being said this game wasn't ALL bad. I admire what they tried to do and hope they'll build on and fix the concept if they make another game. It was better than Origins and the soundtrack, as always, is awesome. It's just a sad reminder that the series has lost the shine it once had all those years ago. I'd rather replay SH2 any day.

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Just finished my first play through last night...Not sure what to make of this particular Silent Hill game.

I enjoyed it a lot, which I suppose means I should be giving it a great review. But I can't somehow feel a little cheated.

I play Silent Hill games mainly because of the story, and this one had a great story. But I do miss a little bit of the challenge of killing monsters and the puzzles were just so simple that they should not have been an obstacle at all.

But I do not want to take away from the great things this game provided. I don't want the next SH creative team to read this and say "well they didn't like Shattered Memories, so let's stay away from that".

I liked the icy-nightmare environment, a nice change from the older rust-and-blood-covered nightmare environments the other games had. I personally hate snow and cold weather so this adds to my ecstatical agony. In fact, beaucoup thumbs up on the environment altogether; scary where it needed to be and everything else was very David Lynch-esque.

I liked how Climax brought something new to a familiar environment. Having Harry, Cybil, Dahlia, etc in this game as new characters was a great twist that I welcomed. It actually took me some time to figure out that SM has nothing to do with The Order or birthing a God or any of that mess. Once I got past that, it increased my obsession to get to the end of the game quicker.

The Psychology system is to me the best feature. I played it as honestly as I could the first time and it was very enjoyable, almost customed to my aesthetic synapses. In the middle of my 2nd play through right now; making absurd and false decisions in the therapy sessions, and already I can see a big difference in a lot of the game. The psych profile at the end credits creeped me out a bit too because I was shocked at how accurate I think it was. The Psych system is a great feature and I sincerely hope other game makers use it more frivolity in the future.

The ending did throw me off for a bit, but after a few seconds of soaking it in I thought "damn, haven't we seen the whole Fight Club/Jacob's Ladder-type endings a bit too often in SH?" SH: 2 and SH: Homecoming I can remember for sure. Might be others because I never unlocked all the endings for all the other SH games. Not saying it's a bad idea, just that this game is driven on story alone since there is no combat system; if you're putting that much thought into the story itself, the ending should not be as cliché.

I think this was still a fun game to play. If I could make it better, I'd do the following: Better written ending (for reasons posted above). And add some boss fights. The whole running from monsters in the nightmare-world is cool and all, but throw the general audience a bone once-in-a-while and have Harry fight a boss-type monster at the end of some of those sequences.

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When I heard a reimagining of the first game was coming, I was there and waiting. When I played it, however, I saw a few flaws in some of the stuff. The worst of these were the combat problems, where you find yourself running a whole lot more than simply dishing out the pain. This was a real problem with the whole of the system and, truth be told, it hurt the impact. That said, however, this was a great play because I expected a lot less. A ported over game that is older in graphics? not normally a grand thing. Still, this was fun.

One other thing I want to say about this was that its soundtrack was great. I love SH sounds anyhow but, when the singing comes in, this makes a lot of it better. And, as has been the case since three, there are around four songs you can listen to this way. They mingle in with the whole of the experience, giving it a frightening theme. too bad the enemies were more the same than different - like in old games - or I would have loved this piece of SH lore. Still, it does add something in and, truth be told, additions are more to love when it comes to this series.

Not many horror-based franchises can say that they have so many good games. Barring the Room, I would say they all have something great to offer (and the room even has the soundtrack going for it).

Pick this up, take 4-8 hours and beat it, and feel good about the fun run. They are always creepy, after all, and this is being judged as a SH game and not as a game in genral. Otherwise, it wouldn't be so easy to knock.

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Can you mess around with a winning formula and still produce a winner? I've been dubious of "Silent Hill: Shattered Memories," because it's the first game in the franchise to be made for the Wii and features a radically different gameplay style. I've loved all the Silent Hill games, to the point where I can forgive them for technical blunders (Silent Hill 4's obnoxious item management) or poor aesthetic choices (SH: Homecoming presenting itself like a heavy metal video). Having played the PS2 port of Shattered Memories, I'm relieved to report that the experiment is a success and the game, while imperfect, is an interesting and engrossing entry.

Shattered Memories throws out the entire established backstory of Silent Hill and completely re-imagines the concept of a haunted town that preys on the mind. You're still Harry Mason, a humble writer hunting for his lost daughter in the wake of a car crash. Now, however, the town is locked in an intense blizzard and most of its residents are staying indoors. Residents? Actual people?! Yes, this is a kinder, less hostile Silent Hill. The snow is quite lovely, in fact....except when the world around you suddenly shifts into a blue, frozen dreamscape and you must flee from packs of screaming, faceless demons. You can't fight the monsters; you can only run, hide, evade, and search madly for the exit door. The "Dark World" sections are nicely gripping and actually kind of fun, which may be a problem for an alleged horror game. (More on that later.) Meanwhile, whenever the world isn't coated in ice, Harry must explore various areas and interact with various people in the search for his daughter.

I have to call BS on the game's "psychological profiling" gimmick. Shattered Memories starts with a scene in a psychiatrist's office, and the narrative keeps pausing to return there as the doctor picks the brain of his patient (you) and takes you through a series of activities designed to reveal your personality. Yes, the game changes according to your behavior and choices, but the changes are mainly minor ones, having to do with the clothing and some of the dialogue delivered by the supporting cast. It's kind of neat, I suppose, but it falls short of the hype. A game that truly molds itself around your choices has yet to be made; this isn't it. And the gimmick has its flaws; there are points where you must choose one of two possible paths (laundromat or dress shop?) and I kept missing out on the "choice" because I obliviously blundered through whichever door I saw first. So how is the game supposed to paint an accurate portrait of me?

The main strengths of Shattered Memories are its story and atmosphere. The graphics are so-so but the falling snow and empty streets fill you with the sense of melancholy and isolation that are proper for a Silent Hill game. Each character you meet is like a beacon of warmth. Because the game was made by an American studio, nothing is lost in translation; the dialogue is natural and realistic, even witty. Harry Mason himself has a wry sense of humor, which is great when previous SH protagonists have been deeply depressed, bland, or both. The mysteries of the storyline work well: Harry begins to discover things that directly contradict his own memories, and reality itself keeps changing. Is he going mad? Did the crash do something to his head? If he finds his daughter, will she be the same person he remembers? These questions, and the flawlessly-executed twist ending, keep the player engaged. The music is soft, melancholy, and ominous. The gameplay is a bit simplified, sadly; most of the puzzles are along the lines of "Door is locked, key is somewhere nearby." The areas are quite linear, and the overall gameplay time may be the shortest yet for a SH game. But there are some nice touches. Harry uses his cell phone for everything, and you can call various numbers to solve puzzles or check in on other characters. Also, the world around you contains traces of other peoples' memories, which you can pick up or record on your phone; it's not necessary to do so, but it adds much to the overall themes of memory, love, and loss that run through the game. A huge problem, as others have noted, is that Shattered Memories is not scary. Even the Dark World, with its doll-like monsters chasing you down, can't achieve a true sense of terror or dread.

In the end, I'm glad that the creative minds behind Silent Hill decided to try something so different; it shows that they're not content to stamp out the same game over and over. Shattered Memories has its faults: mediocre graphics, dumbed-down gameplay, and lack of frights. But the story is mysterious and absorbing, the characters are great, and if the psychological profiling gimmick disappoints, well, at least they had the audacity to try. I enjoyed this take on Silent Hill and I think it's a perfectly worthy addition to the series. After puzzling my way through the snow and ice of a very different haunted resort town, I'm eager to see where my favorite survival horror franchise takes me next.

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It was a fun game with a nice plot and the ending personality evaluation and tests were fun...but I really wish I'd waited until I could afford to get it in the Wii instead of the PS2.

The font was difficult to read, no matter how I adjusted my TV and I even changed TVs and it was the same. It was rather slow to load and had to pause at times in the middle of the game [like when a door opens] so it could re-load itself.

I kind of missed the weapons and the different kinds of monsters Silent Hill usually cooks up...this particular game only has one kind of monster. It was easy to get lost and get turned around and it got slightly repetitive, running blindly and wildly through mazes, while monsters came out of nowhere and tackled you faster than you could run and it was difficult to navigate around since you can't draw on the maps or get maps for buildings.

I did enjoy the game for its uniqueness, but it could've had a...uh more interesting environment, there wasn't much to explore or any random items to pick up [besides mementos] and there was no healing items [you find a place without monsters and stand there to heal].

It's worth a play through despite the good and bad but it's probably much better on Wii or PS3.

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I have played all of the games in the Silent Hill series. And this one has the shortest game play by far. From start to finish I clocked in only 7 hours, a bit too brief for me. It appears to have great replay value, which hopefully makes up for the brevity of the game.

It is broken down into three 'play' areas. The first is a therapist's office where you are put thru tests, which determines some of the game play. The second is the actual story of Harry trying to find his daughter Sharon. And the third is the frozen world.

The therapist's office is interesting, as it determines part of the story line. I have only played once, but look forward to going thru a second time with different answers to see what happens.

The Harry/Sharon storyline is similar to other Silent Hill games. You can expect simple puzzles and lots of shadows and darkness in your search. As usual your only light sometimes is your trusty flashlight. This time Harry has a cell phone to receive messages, make calls and take pictures with. It also contains your map, which is very helpful. Overall the story is good with many interesting characters. The only downside is the graphics; it is very choppy and pixilated at time. I even lost sight of Harry a few times when I got to close to a wall.

Lastly you have the frozen world. This is very different than previous games; everything turns to ice as opposed to fire or blood. During this time you run, and run, and run. You cannot kill the creatures that attack, you must simply evade them. I found this to be my least favorite. It is difficult to see and spending 5+ minutes of doing nothing but running is not my idea of fun gaming.

Shattered Memories is a good game if you are a Silent Hill fan. If this is your first SH game you may be a bit disappointed.

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Well,I didn't know that this was a new game,just discovered it on amazon.com just now.I haven't played any of the silent hill games yet,but I plan to in the very near future though.My freind completed it once,like 10 years ago,(first one)and It was awesome.All that I remembered was that he needed a special weapon to defeat the final boss,from what I can remember!The story was horrifying,somewhat original(I say somewhat because of the Resident Evil games that were out at the time.)I know that there are alot of SH games on the PS2,wich is really cool!I love a good horror movie or game now and again.I am hoping that when I get my slim ps2 next week that it is backwards compatable for the first SH,If not I'll have to start with SH2 which is okay too.from what I've seen and heard it is an awesome franchise of horror games for the ps2 and should be lots of fun when I play it!

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On one hand, this game has certainly reaffirmed my interest in Silent Hill, and my love of the series and its mythos.

On the other hand, I've just spent four hours slogging through one of the ugliest PS2 games. Ever. And the gameplay ain't no peach, either.

So how do I rate this game?

As a standalone videogame, "Silent Hill: Shattered Memories" is awful. Or at least, the PS2 port of it is awful. I haven't played the Wii version, so I can't comment on that. As a re-imagining of the original, it's a resounding success, and poses a number of interesting questions about the francise's future (as well as its past: had the Silent Hill movie been given to a grownup director, instead of the teenage grownups who actually made it, probably it would have come out a lot like this...).

There's not much to say regarding the game itself: the graphics are PS1 standard, with the exception of human characters, which look pretty decent. The frame rate is abysmal and textures slide around, glitching in and out of view at will. Level design is excellent, though, and its organic nature and attention to cryptic detail will leave you scratching your head on occasion.

This is an extremely easy game - there's no combat, and practically no puzzles. If the game were prettier I would suggest that it's like an interactive movie, of sorts. There's a decent amount of tension to be gleaned from the creature chase sequences, but that's only because you have no other choice but to run. Apparently there are hiding places: I used none, and completed the game first-try, without a walkthrough. Checkpoints are regular in the extreme and there's no bosses. Not even a painting of Pyramid Head.

But of course, this does make it easier to grab all the endings, should you want to see them.

But overall, as a game in its own right, the PS2 version of "Silent Hill: Shattered Memories" is not good. It's ugly, it's buggy, and the excellent storyline is demeaned by its insane easiness.

However.

As a redux of the original game, "Silent Hill: Shattered Memories" works extremely well. The creature design is stupid, and the ice motif (instead of the series staples of blood and rust) doesn't grab me in general - but is used to great effect, particularly during the real-world-changeover sequences.

The characters of Cybil, Dr. Kaufmann and Lisa are all satisfyingly reworked, with more realism and more pathos because of this. And, as much as I can't stand Emos, Dahlia Gillespie's makeover is pretty decent, and this is thanks to an excellent script and some very good cutscene direction. Harry's a lot more sympathetic and likable now, and the "Heather" nods to Cheryl's character made the hair on my arms stand up more than once.

Plot-wise, this is a great effort, and there's enough psychosexual ambiguity and twists & turns to keep the most avid Silent Hiller glued to the control pad until the end of the game.

I don't think this is a canonical SH game - and yes, Silent Hill 2 remains the holder of the Best In Series title, by a WIDE margin - but as an interesting side-step, "Silent Hill: Shattered Memories" achieves great things.

Just don't expect to LOVE it.

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I'm a big fan of Silent Hill series and have played SH1, 2, 3, 4, and Origins. Though I would've played 5 (Homecoming) if only the controls were inverted. Anyway, I wasn't too sure what to expect in Shattered Memories but I picked it up right away at a local store since I wanted to play it right away.

On with the good part.

First impressions of the game was pretty interesting since the concept is new and a little different. You first answer a questionaire about yourself which will decide what ending you will get. The game is more interactive such as having to open up cabinets and finding keys to open lock doors. Opening up desk drawers to find mementos. You get to use a cell phone to call phone numbers you find in the game. Receive text messages, receive phone calls, and take pictures using your cell phone. There are also a few puzzles to solve and some interesting scenes to watch as you progress more into the game.

Getting into the nightmare mode was kind of trip since it's not the bloody, rusty scene most people are familar with in the SH series. Instead places are covered in glaciers of ice. What's pretty fun is that while in nightmare mode you're only option is to run since there are monsters that will chase you no matter what you do. There are guide markers to help you open a door, climb a wall, hide, etc. There's also a flare to use to prevent the monsters from chasing you but it doesn't last long. If the monster grabs you, you press a certain button to take them off of you. You can also pull down objects nearby to block the monsters for awhile.

Now on with the bad part.

This game is pretty much linear, a little repetitive, and not difficult. It's pretty cool that the game is interactive but it kind of feels more of the same. As you go to each stage, it's always about finding a key somewhere to open a lock door. Then you explore the stage looking for clues on where to go. As you are about finish the stage you enter the nightmare world. You are given markers (which makes the game kind of easy) to help you run from the ONLY ONE type of monster in the game. Don't expect to see any other monsters since there are no bosses. I was really disappointed by this. Also, you don't have a health bar in this game but you can die if the monsters grab you too much.

After passing the nightmare world, everything goes back to normal and you go back to your psychiatrist and do another questionaire/experiment. Later on, you'll realize that you can't decide on what you want on the questionaire/experiment in order to find the different endings. After all this, you go back into the game and you repeat what you just did the last time. Figure out how to get into the next stage by finding a key, entering another stage, finding mementos, taking pictures, solving some puzzles, entering the nightmare world, finishing the nightmare world, go back to psychiatrist, and repeat.

I won't talk about the story or who you will meet but I was surprised by the ending. But don't expect this game to be entirely similar to SH1. Think of it as having the same characters and setting, but different plot. I also felt that the survival horror aspect of this game to be somewhat weak and there was no nostalgia. I realized that this game was intended to be on the Wii, so there's no way of seeing a port to PS3 or Xbox 360. I still think Konami should've done a full remake of SH1 by keeping the story the same with the graphics in 720p/1080p. Overall, I think this game deserves to be a rental.

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ive played all the silent hill games and heard that they were redoing 1 with a young dalia, no weapons, and lots of changes. and i really did try to dislike it. but with the story making changes depending on your visits to the shrink, changes in character appearances and actions and even which building were available to enter based on your choices, i began to get into it. yes, the chase scenes are kind of repetative and the monsters all the same, but it was still fun running, grabbing flares, throwing obstacles behind you, etc. my one big complaint is that, when things change, it looks more like stone than ice in most places. the ending may not be what you wanted and it might not fit the other games but it wasn't what you expected and thats part of what makes a silent hill game. they arent supposed to be carbon copies of each other, they arent supposed to have an easy answer. and yes, there are multiple endings. they could have easily used the "good" ending but set it after game 3 if you think about it... thats what i thought they were shooting for at first. the problem is, as it stands, it makes it kind of hard to do more sh games, but who knows. (on a negative note, the graphics seem to be something you might see on ps1...)

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