Topic: Interview with Tomm Hulett about Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

[NWR_Neal]

We got to talk with Tomm Hulett, associate producer atKonami, about the Climax Studios-developed Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. There-imagining of the first game in the series comes out today and is the latestsurvival horror game exclusively on Wii.

Nintendo World Report (NWR): What are theorigins of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories? Why did you decide to go back tothe original story?
 
Tomm Hulett (TH): There were a fewreasons why going back to "the start" made sense.
 
First of all, we definitely wanted to make a Silent Hillgame for Wii.  We had a lot of cool ideas, so we just had to make ithappen.  However, it dawned on us that since there hadn’t been a SilentHill exclusively for a Nintendo platform (outside of Japan),there would be a lot of consumers on Wii who maybe haven't ever been to SilentHill before.  It wouldn't be fair to throw them headlong into a continuingstoryline, or the deep lore of the series, without giving them a startingpoint.  So we decided to revisit the first game.
 
However, on the other hand we knew there would be returningfans–and they're very familiar with the original storyline, as it was at least touchedon in three games and the movie.  So how do we please both groups?
 
Well, we decided to re-imagine Silent Hill.  It startsat the same place the series as a whole did–with Harry Mason searching for his daughterin a lonely, creepy town.  But beyond that, we've completely changed the game so that returning players will have a whole new experience. We really playwith their expectations.  For example, the lead antagonist in the originalgame was Dahlia, the leader of the cult (and a haggard old woman).  Youcan see in our trailers, Shattered Memories has a "Dahlia" but she'sa hot young party girl.  What's that all about?  This is the kind of twistawaiting returning Silent Hill fans.


NWR: How was Shattered Memories affectedby the other games in the series?
 
TH: Silent Hill is a very belovedfranchise–and I'm one of its biggest fans.  So are all the fine people atClimax.  There are definitely nods to most of the classic Silent Hill gamesthroughout Shattered Memories.  I can't say too much, but in re-imaginingthe original, we did choose to focus on a lot of the psychological elementsthat entered into the storylines from later titles in the series.


For more of the interview, go here

[Seacor]

Was there a healthy advertising budget to market this game?

[broodwars]

Was there a healthy advertising budget to market this game?

Obviously it pales in comparison to the one EA put into Dead Space: Extraction. 

I see Climax did a nice little dance around answering the interesting questions, but I expected as much.  Considering I was the only person who had pre-ordered Shattered Memories when I picked it up an hour ago, I'm really curious just how many pre-orders is considered "healthy" for this game.

I actually really feel bad for Climax, because from the looks of it they've really tried with this game but Konami's screwed them over with absolutely no advertising as they slip this game out a few weeks before Christmas.

[NWR_DrewMG]

To be fair, with an established franchise like Silent Hill, which has been around the better part of a decade, advertising is far less important than it would be with Dead Space Extraction.    The only problem is that this is the first Silent Hill on a Nintendo console, so there's a lot of Nintendo-only gamers out there that have never experienced the series.

I'm very much looking forward to this game (and slated to review it for the site) as I just played Silent Hill 2 a few months back and really enjoyed it.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"TH: I think in general we see a lot of companies watering their games down for the Wii, instead of creating a compelling experience like they would on any other platform. But that tide seems to be changing slowly, so hopefully we can start seeing more fully fleshed-out games on the Wii. There's a lot of untapped potential there for immersion."

He answered without using the word "mature."

Excellent.

[NWR_Neal]

Konami's screwed them over with absolutely no advertising as they slip this game out a few weeks before Christmas.

You do realize the interviewee is from Konami, right?

[broodwars]

Konami's screwed them over with absolutely no advertising as they slip this game out a few weeks before Christmas.

You do realize the interviewee is from Konami, right?

Must have missed that, but whatever.  All that refutes is that I mislabeled exactly who was dancing around your questions.  I'm playing the game right now, it is a good game, and Konami's done nothing to make sure people know that because for all intents and purposes Silent Hill is a new IP when it comes to Wii.  The people who generally following Silent Hill ("core"-type PS2/PS3/Xbox 360 users) probably don't own a Wii.  It's a new game that needed marketing, and it's not getting it (at least on Wii).

[Mop it up]

NWR: Would it be a good game for people who have never played a survival horror game at all?

TH: I've actually seen a lot of comments from people online who generally avoid survival horror saying they are excited because the Wii features sound really cool in Shattered Memories. Hopefully they can work through their fears and experience a brand new genre to them! Anyone who enjoys horror films should easily transition into Shattered Memories, whether they've played all the other horror games or not.

Looks like the response was a bit different than what you predicted, Vudu.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Neal, I haven't checked out the link to the rest of the article yet, but it appears that you have quite a few spacing errors in the forum posing of the article above.

off to read the rest now.

[vudu]

Neal, I haven't checked out the link to the rest of the article yet, but it appears that you have quite a few spacing errors in the forum posing of the article above.

The spacing errors all occur where the line breaks in the original article.  There's no space after the last word in each line, so it runs into the first word in the next line in the forums. 

[BlackNMild2k1]

I figured that might be the problem, that's why I specifically made the comment about the forum posting of the article. I've noticed things like that happening when I've tried to copy/paste things lately.

In general I think the Wii is great for point-and-click adventure type games and first-person shooters. I'm surprised there aren't a lot more games in those genres available on Wii.

We are all baffled by this, it isn't just you.
Z&W2 where are you? All of the LucasArts PnC catalog, where are you? Doom, HL2, Portal (at the very least), Halo clones, all sorts of FPS.... where the hell are you?

The Wii should be flooded with those types of games yet they remain absent. The only thing he didn't mention was over the shoulder 3rd person view games. where are those games too.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

oh laffo, Game Informer just reviewed the game.  All kinds of hilarious jurnalizm.

Some media publications are just inept at the kinds of controls that regular people are capable of.

And considering GI is closely tied to GameStop, you'd think the magazine would make an effort to hype and promote every game and be an ideal "catalog" to help sell games via GameStop.  But no, they run their business like Elephants perform Ballet.

[broodwars]

oh laffo, Game Informer just reviewed the game.  All kinds of hilarious jurnalizm.

Some media publications are just inept at the kinds of controls that regular people are capable of.

Pro, I just read that review and having played a significant amount of the game (I'm probably at least halfway through, if not 3/4 of the way through) I can say that's a fair review.  I don't have as big a problem with certain aspects of the game that that review does, but for certain gamers that review is spot on.  This game requires an extraordinary amount of patience, especially since the motion for "throwing" monsters doesn't quite work all the time and the chase sequences in general are frustrating due to a lack of direction (it's incredibly easy to get lost when there's no obvious sign that you're doing anything wrong, and there's never time to check your GPS).  I enjoy both halves of the game in general, but man this game can piss me off sometimes.  It's definitely a worthwhile game, though, that's surprisingly well-written.

[AV]

the no weapons thing is something that sticks in my head. I understand that feeling because in RE0 I ran out of ammo and had to just run several times on GAMECUBE. 


However the fact you never have a weapon just doesn't seem like a good choice. Finding a gun and only having the existing clip would be interesting. You got 6 shots, make every shoot count.  Or using some wood as a baseball bat but learning it has no or little effect might be more scary because you have the illusion you could fight back. I do see in some videos that it shows you the motion your supposed to do ingame, I think that is a mistake and it would be more immersive if they never told you and you figure it out.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Getting lost is immersive.  Not everyone likes that degree of immersion.