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indigozealAs I write this blog post, I am lying on the sofa trying hard not to just curl up with my head in my hands. Shattered Memories is all over-the-shoulder 3-D, and it's just making me utterly nauseous. Maybe I'll adjust, or maybe I'll move my chair back from the TV a bit...or maybe I might be ditching Mr. Mason 2.0 for Mr. Townshend shortly.
Outside of motion sickness triggers: I have to say I'm on the "rubbish" side of the divide so far. The controls are atrocious - kind of a weird half-tank control, half-"regular"-style where one analog stick moves Harry back & forward, but only in this really stiff, cardinal-directions-only way, and the other analog stick twists his body slowly around. It's way worse than either of the established survival horror control schemes, and I'm shocked that the folks who cry foul over tank controls haven't screamed bloody murder over this. Gameplay is largely limited to "press X to not die" moments - or, rather, "press X to open door" or "press X to listen to answering machine" or "press all kinds of buttons to operate mundane household objects in a mundane manner." I can see that they're going for puzzles with the last part, requiring you to figure out what kind of analog-stick rigmarole will cause Harry to shake a key out of a soda can, but, you know, I've never really felt the need to play a soda can-shaking simulator. (I know that this is probably meant to set up "can't get the car keys in the ignition" moments of tension in chases later on, but - really, come on.)
Also, you have to mash buttons to open doors. That is the stupidest thing.
I understand that the game's "psychological profiling" takes into account how long you look at certain items & whatnot. I was initially worried when I heard about this mechanic, as I'm a completist who likes to take my time examining everything, but there's no point to doing so in this game - there are no items to miss, and I can't control Harry well enough to look at anything that well. That says a lot about the game, doesn't it? "I can't look at anything, and furthermore, I don't care to try" - there aren't many worse complaints.
The game isn't exactly subtle about its "psychological" material elsewhere; its opening scene is of Harry & Cheryl at an amusement park putting their heads through a knight & damsel cutout, which is repeated three times in a row, just in case its significance eluded you. I answered the opening psych questionnaire, saying "yes" to abstract ideas and schedules and "no" to cheating on partners and drinking to relax, and it resulted in Cybil looking like Marge Gunderson from Fargo (and being a condescending git, all ho-hum handwavey about Harry's missing daughter) and Harry being a bespectacled dweeb. But then again, the psychologist (the Kaufmann analogue) is a Vince McMahon lookalike who knocks back whiskeys before sessions, so perhaps I shouldn't hang too much on the game's psychological pretensions.
My heart sank when I saw Victor Ireland wannabe Tomm Hulett, the man behind most of the cut-rate U.S. knockoff Silent Hill installments, with a producer credit in the opening. His presence was keenly felt early on in a lovely (and quite huge, just so you won't miss it) bit of restroom graffiti about gang rape.
Living in New England with snow season coming down the pike (making its debut this week, actually), I have to say that the "snowy night" setting was probably the most unsettling part of the game for me. Not much more says "urgency" like no more light and snow coming down. It's tough for me to find ice scary, though, and that's what the Otherworld is apparently made of this time around.
Really, though, 45 minutes in, there's nothing compelling here - no letters from dead wives, no living nightmares about knife-wielding kids in alleys, no rooms chained from within and mysterious holes in the walls and God knows what else. It's a very humdrum experience that's nearly devoid of actual gameplay and is making me physically ill. I don't know if I'm going to be able to tough this one out.
.
Outside of motion sickness triggers: I have to say I'm on the "rubbish" side of the divide so far. The controls are atrocious - kind of a weird half-tank control, half-"regular"-style where one analog stick moves Harry back & forward, but only in this really stiff, cardinal-directions-only way, and the other analog stick twists his body slowly around. It's way worse than either of the established survival horror control schemes, and I'm shocked that the folks who cry foul over tank controls haven't screamed bloody murder over this. Gameplay is largely limited to "press X to not die" moments - or, rather, "press X to open door" or "press X to listen to answering machine" or "press all kinds of buttons to operate mundane household objects in a mundane manner." I can see that they're going for puzzles with the last part, requiring you to figure out what kind of analog-stick rigmarole will cause Harry to shake a key out of a soda can, but, you know, I've never really felt the need to play a soda can-shaking simulator. (I know that this is probably meant to set up "can't get the car keys in the ignition" moments of tension in chases later on, but - really, come on.)
Also, you have to mash buttons to open doors. That is the stupidest thing.
I understand that the game's "psychological profiling" takes into account how long you look at certain items & whatnot. I was initially worried when I heard about this mechanic, as I'm a completist who likes to take my time examining everything, but there's no point to doing so in this game - there are no items to miss, and I can't control Harry well enough to look at anything that well. That says a lot about the game, doesn't it? "I can't look at anything, and furthermore, I don't care to try" - there aren't many worse complaints.
The game isn't exactly subtle about its "psychological" material elsewhere; its opening scene is of Harry & Cheryl at an amusement park putting their heads through a knight & damsel cutout, which is repeated three times in a row, just in case its significance eluded you. I answered the opening psych questionnaire, saying "yes" to abstract ideas and schedules and "no" to cheating on partners and drinking to relax, and it resulted in Cybil looking like Marge Gunderson from Fargo (and being a condescending git, all ho-hum handwavey about Harry's missing daughter) and Harry being a bespectacled dweeb. But then again, the psychologist (the Kaufmann analogue) is a Vince McMahon lookalike who knocks back whiskeys before sessions, so perhaps I shouldn't hang too much on the game's psychological pretensions.
My heart sank when I saw Victor Ireland wannabe Tomm Hulett, the man behind most of the cut-rate U.S. knockoff Silent Hill installments, with a producer credit in the opening. His presence was keenly felt early on in a lovely (and quite huge, just so you won't miss it) bit of restroom graffiti about gang rape.
Living in New England with snow season coming down the pike (making its debut this week, actually), I have to say that the "snowy night" setting was probably the most unsettling part of the game for me. Not much more says "urgency" like no more light and snow coming down. It's tough for me to find ice scary, though, and that's what the Otherworld is apparently made of this time around.
Really, though, 45 minutes in, there's nothing compelling here - no letters from dead wives, no living nightmares about knife-wielding kids in alleys, no rooms chained from within and mysterious holes in the walls and God knows what else. It's a very humdrum experience that's nearly devoid of actual gameplay and is making me physically ill. I don't know if I'm going to be able to tough this one out.
.
