Fatally Framing Nintendo?

Nintendo now owns Fatal Frame. Who knew?

Never saw this coming, though in light of Spirit Camera for the 3DS I'm not surprised. Check out Rely on Horror's article for the details that have revealed themselves so far.

It remains to be seen if North American audiences will ever see fruit from this union, given that the two Wii releases (so far and coming) never made it to our shore. I guess Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and other Mature titles for the Wii sold well enough for Nintendo to go into acquisition mode.

Winter: snow in Summer

Its amazing how much work can be put into a game that never gets released. Winter is one such game.

n-space, a seasoned maker of games (17 years), recently made a name for themselves porting Activision's Call of Duty franchise to the DS, but a few years ago they worked on a survival horror title that looked a little familiar. IGN has an extensive amount of material documenting everything n-space did to bring this title to Wii fans. Unfortunately, we'll never get more than this peek.

The biggest question for me is why didn't Konami work with them on a Silent Hill title? Shattered Memories is certainly great, but I imagine it would not take much effort to reskin some of this game's assets to bring it into the Silent Hill family much like what was done with Silent Hill 4: The Room.

The 3DS brings the horror, at least in Japan

The 3DS is starting out with a bang when it comes to horror, already lining up its second Resident Evil game next month. And while most of us are probably waiting for Spirit Camera to make its way state side, Japan continues to one-up us, and now gets Night of the Sacrifice on the Wii--and it uses the Balance Board, believe it or not. To wrap your head around this whole Balance Board and horror thing, just click over to Nintendo World Report and get the details first hand.

Great Memories of Shattered Expectations

GameSpite has an interesting reflection on Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and its role in the survival horror genre. The article is concise and to the point, with some interesting reflections on this title's place in Silent Hill history and the tension that results from its challenges to what has come before.

Having still not yet finished this game myself (shame on me), I do think that it tries to do many interesting things, including trying to create a profitable game on an experimental platform. The HD gaming revolution is its own worst enemy, raising the costs of development sky-high, and this high cost is killing the smaller and more experimental games that were such a large part of the past two generations of console gaming. HD gaming is causing developer flight to the more profitable portable and social platforms available with the iPhone and Facebook, and ultimately limiting what is being published on consoles. Combine the gimmick of motion controls, with a huge install base, and old school non-HD development, the Wii "seems" to be a system ripe for the picking, but this is obviously not the case for a large number of its releases.

Click on over to the article, Shattered Expectations: A Lonelier Silent Hill.

Destructoid and the emasculation of Harry Mason

Wow those Destructoid folks posts some interesting things when they go beyond the usual gaming news practice of regurgitating press releases (like so many other site do). Digging around Destructoid the other day I found another in-depth article on Silent Hill, focused on Harry and the role of men in the Silent Hill games.

This specific essay addresses the recent Wii game that so many gamers seemed to either miss, dismiss, or just not play. I have it near the top of my "to play" pile once I decide I am sick of multiplayer Call of Duty.

Shattered Memories character designs

For the past four years, character designer Jeen Lih Lun has worked on wide range of games for Climax, including Overlord: Dark Legend, Gormiti: The Lords of Nature!, and Silent Hill : Shattered Memories.

HellDescent.com found these character renderings in the wild (they always find all the good stuff) and posted a nice feature on Jeen's work--or you can cruise by Jeen's own site to view them and see what else she has been working on. There are SPOILERS to be found for those of you who have yet to play this interesting take on Silent Hill, so reader beware.

I am far more interested to peek into the artist's process of generating creative solutions within the constraints of the Wii and last gen consoles, then I am looking at the back-end of games on HD-consoles.

LIT lights up the Wii with a demo

In the mood for a trip to Silent Hill, but need something a little different? The WiiWare game LIT now  has a free demo available for download on the Wii console as of this past Friday (February 4). For Silent Hill fans, this game delivers a nice slow burn of creepiness as you maneuver through a high school beset with shadowy horror. Sure, its another school, but at least its not the "same" school we have already visited in our many trips to Silent Hill.

LIT is a puzzle game where you activate lamp switches and break glass windows to create paths of light that will enable you to reach a room's exit. Malevolent creatures hide within the shadows and will take any opportunity they can to grab you and absorb you into the darkness should you make a mistake. Obstacles located around the room mean there is some decent problem solving on each level. And, every couple of levels presents you with a boss fight. Bosses tend to be aggressive, and can break the rule that monsters exist only in the shadows of the rooms you are traversing. While there are trial and error elements to the puzzle solving, the game really does build a nice, constant tension, and when you accidentally step into the dark and are pulled under by the the hands of unseen terrors, you can't help but jump, no matter how many times you misstep to your doom.

Grab the demo from the Wii Shop Channel while it is available, and give it a try. LIT definitely got some fun gameplay and nice polish, and it might help scratch your Silent Hill itch on the Wii for a while.