So this year has not exactly gone according to plan. I knew I was going to be busy, but I wasn’t prepared for just how busy. There was a lot that went on in my personal life that prevented me from working on everything I wanted to work on. However, I was still able to produce a number of articles and stream a few things here and there that I still really enjoyed – and hey, I released two video essays as well that I am exceedingly proud of still. I’ve also been able to produce a lot creatively, and I got in touch with myself again for the first time in many years. I broke through the gender binary that felt like it had been holding me back for, well, my whole life, and I finally feel able to do anything I want to. I can dress how I want, identify how I want, and just generally imagine myself as one day being happy in my own skin. That is the most remarkable thing to write, and I’m really happy about being able to do so.

I played through a few games this year, so I figured I’d make a series of articles about my favourite horror games that I’ve played this year. They aren’t in any particular order, I don’t think – unless my subconscious has something it isn’t telling me. I’m going to write about six games in this retrospective series, and hopefully there’s at least one game in here you haven’t yet tried – but I do feel like I’ve discussed almost all of these games at least once before, in some capacity. But without further ado, let us get started with:

6) Silent Hill: Shattered Memories | Climax Studios, 2010
“I love my daddy.”

This is a game that I did really love on my first playthrough, but I think I forgot just how clever it is. It has been a centerpiece of my studies this year as one of the key games I’ve been writing about, so my various replays and examinations of the game’s structure by watching others play through it has been enlightening. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (hereafter referred to as Shattered Memories) is a retelling of the original Silent Hill’s (1999) story. Harry Mason crashes his car outside Silent Hill. His daughter Cheryl, who was also in the car when it crashed, goes missing. Thus begins a journey through the psychological mindscape that is Silent Hill. But unlike in previous games in the series, the key motif of Shattered Memories is ice, rather than rust, water damage, or blood. The ice is striking, visually separating Shattered Memories from the rest of the series. It also serves an important narrative purpose, symbolizing repression as Silent Hill itself appears to prevent Harry from learning the truth about the situation he finds himself in.

Shattered Memories’ main gimmick is the psychological profiling that the game performs. This is an explicit gameplay mechanic, spelled out from the moment you boot up the game and get the warning, “this game plays you as much as you play it”. Everything you do in the game seems to have weight and consequence. Even if that’s not quite true, the stuff you look at does alter how the game perceives you. Enjoy staring at a pin-up calendar on the wall in the first building you enter? The cop you meet shortly after will be oversexualized for the rest of the game. You have a habit of looking at the drugs and alcohol scattered throughout the world? Well, the game’s going to think Harry has a history of substance abuse, and dialogue will change to reflect that, as well as his appearance.

The game is not particularly subtle, but not many Silent Hill games are when it comes down to it. Enormous mutilated representations of one’s own sins are just kind of there for a player’s perusal through most of the series. What makes Silent Hill interesting, and what keeps me coming back to each entry, is the subtleties within the obvious symbolism. What exactly does something mean to the viewer? Enough subjectivity is still allowed within each environment and monster design that the player feels like the game means something special to them alone. That remarkable quality enables each playthrough to feel fresh. As we age, we relate differently to each game we replay. The magic of Shattered Memories, even so long after the game’s original release, is that the game actually does change alongside you. My newer playthroughs showed me a different side to my own gameplay styles, and the psychological profiling might be broad, but it felt surprisingly apt.

Perhaps my favourite moments in the game are the therapy sessions played from a first-person perspective inside the office of Doctor Kaufmann. Here, the line between player and character is so blurred as to be impossibly vague. Do you answer the psychological questions from your own perspective, or do you try to roleplay a character? The psychological sessions do reveal just how rubbish a psychiatrist Kaufmann is, but they also encourage you to reveal a lot about yourself. Are the people in these photographs dead, or are they just sleeping? Do you blame the princess’ death on the prince that tried to force her to marry him, the king who agreed to it, or the bull who killed her when she was trying to run away? How did you see yourself in high school? The intimacy of these moments reveals more about yourself than you might initially think. It begins to make you question – how much do I want this game to know about me? What is it going to do with this information? While the game is nigh inaccessible now outside of emulation, it is still very much worth tracking down to play for yourself. A haunting score by Akira Yamaoka creates all the atmosphere you need as you wander through a forest, the snowy winds howling. A dated mobile phone interface with a phone camera is the last layer of immersion you need to complete the experience. The game is obsessed with objects, psychological horror, and ruins – and so am I. 

If there was one game on this list you can expect a video on next year, it would probably be this one. I’ll see about making it a shorter one 🙂