Okay, this apparently went live Tuesday on the front page of Kombo.com, but I was too distracted by my recently defunct computer to notice. Anyway, I hope you take a moment to hop over to Kombo and check out my first guest article for them!

Over the years, my obsession for the Silent Hill games has nestled into my life like an infection. Akira Yamaoka’s music, which balances so beautifully against Mary Elizabeth McGlynn’s and Joe Romersa’s haunting vocals, effortlessly spreads its tendrils under my flesh. The gritty visuals poison my veins, the nightmarish town rots my bones, the psychological illusions deceive my brain, and the lingering terror grips my soul in my sleeping hours. Despite its deathly visage, I can’t help but experience a sort of inexplicable, Gothic fascination for the series whose stories have always rattled me. But when the recent Shattered Memories caused my dry throat to constrict and my eyes to wet, I knew the usual horrors weren’t culpable.

Hooray! It’s been half a year since my demo and Konami interview at San Diego Comic-Con, but I finally sat down to play Shattered Memories. So … did I enjoy it? Well, that’s a tricky number. The game is quite a mixed bag of good and bad, but ultimately one lone feature redeemed the entire game for me. Find out what over at OneMetal.

Silent Hill has dramatically evolved since the original game, presently a decade behind us. Now Shattered Memories lifts the ashes and exchanges the rust-colored decor for a colder touch. Put down the chainsaw and stop running—the latest installment dares you to revisit the classic town and remember everything you, and Harry Mason, tried to forget.

Shattered Memories logs a relatively short length, and the gameplay and story elements are profoundly redesigned. In fact, fans will recognize the changes before they even start pressing buttons. The game invents more personality for characters, polishes familiar locations with fresh attributes, and incorporates the depth absent in the first run-around. Borrowing the first-person technique utilized in The Room, the psychologist sessions allow the game to profile you by translating various exercises, like coloring a picture or answering intimate questions, into Harry’s adventure. The characters and locations might remain, but this isn’t the game you remember. Shattered Memories molds to your unique personality and develops a new and engaging spin on an old story.

I’ve been meaning to catalog the full Silent Hill history for awhile, but now couldn’t be a more perfect time. Unless I’m screwing up the math (which is possible, trust me), then January 2010 marks the full ten-year anniversary of the survival horror series. What better way to celebrate than to take a look back on the years with all their missteps and achievements? … Okay, well, I guess we could all dress up as the crazy gang of monsters and characters and put on a performance enacting famous scenes from the video games in a thematic party, but maybe that’s a little much. Eh, there would be punch, though.

Who’s your favorite Silent Hill individual?

For the last ten years since its 1999 debut, the Silent Hill video games have launched gamers into the heart of a macabre town crawling with unearthly creatures, cult secrets, and enough horrid psychological chicanery to justify a happily executed lobotomy. Despite the series’ notable footprint on the surface of the survival horror expanse, each installment bears its respective weight in flaws as terrifying as its disgusting creatures and unsettling music. So what makes Silent Hill unique and massively popular among horror addicts? Here’s a rundown of the Silent Hill landmarks that established the series and an envisioning of what fans can expect in the years to come. Feel free to add your own tribute in the comments below!