When I was a kid, my older brothers, cousins, and I would play a game called "Wolfman". It may've been our own invention, or it may've been part of every American's childhood. We had rather expansive front- and backyards, with plenty of nooks, shrubs, and other hiding places. At night, one person would be the "wolfman" and would find a hiding place, while the others would walk around outside. In the dark, it was almost impossible to tell where the wolfman was — until he suddenly jumped out at you and gave chase! His victim had to either make it to a predesignated safe point or else fall prey to the wolfman. It sounds like a silly game, but for a little kid, having someone (or something) leap from the shadows, snarling, screaming, and running after you was both exciting and terrifying.

It's that love of terror that drove me to recently start playing Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for the Wii. I've been a huge fan of Konami's survival horror series, at least until recently. The first three games were disturbing, but as the fear began to be replaced with fighting, I lost interest. News that the franchise's progenitor would be remade as a Wii exclusive piqued my interest — though would the series' latest direction be overcompensated for by the remake's gameplay?

Shattered Memories changes the game with the elimination of any and all combat and inventory. Harry Mason, still our accidental hero, no longer forages for bullets, health tonics, maps, melee weapons, artifacts, or any other items. All the supplies he's afforded are a flashlight and a smartphone, the latter which provides him with voice mail, text messages, a GPS, a camera, and more. It's a clever way to incorporate all the game's metadata into an organic game mechanic that draws the player into, not out of, the experience.

As a result, gameplay is bifurcated into two very different styles. The first is exploration, where Harry investigates the town of Silent Hill for clues to his missing daughter's whereabouts. Although there are few, if any, threats to Harry's wellbeing during these stages, and the puzzles are not particularly difficult, it is a unique opportunity to become familiar with the people and history of the accursed town.

At key points in the plot, the town freezes over — this game's equivalent to the "shadow world" seen in other Silent Hill games. As almost any average Joe would do in such a scenario, Harry doesn't fight the nameless, faceless beasts that emerge from the dark. A safe point is marked on his map, and he must run like hell to get there while evading these demonic souls. When Harry encounters a creature, all he can do is run or light a flare to ward them off. Hiding places simply postpone the inevitable, as the monsters can smell fear and will quickly out Harry. Should he find himself overwhelmed by the devils, a thrust of the Wii controllers in right direction may temporarily shake them.

Harry jumps chasms, climbs walls, and opens doors without assistance, so all players need to do is point and run. With enemies hot on Harry's heels, there's no time to check the map, resulting in the terrifying possibility of Harry finding himself right back where he started. And with no loading times between areas, making it from one room or building to another does not provide the haven it once did, a console generation ago.

I learned all this from terrifying, hands-on experience. As I frantically searched for an escape, the savages continuously hounded me, shrieking with delight and frustration as they bounded across the frozen landscape. At one point, over Harry's increasingly ragged gasps, I could hear my tormentors behind me. Stumbling, I passed a statue of some sort, and without slowing down, I waggled the nunchuk, sending the figure crashing down behind me. I hoped it would delay my pursuers long enough for me to make it through the next door and find myself somewhere new and possibly closer to home, but I couldn't be sure.

Up until then, I hadn't encountered anything about the game that scared me the way the first Silent Hill did a decade ago. But as I toppled that statue, not knowing if it would help me but knowing I couldn't stop to find out, I felt a familiar chill down my spine. It was terror, hopeless, helpless, and desperation. I was alone in the dark, and no one could help me.

It wasn't Harry who was being chased. It was me — by the wolfman.

Here we are, a month since Christmas, and I still haven't shared with you my favorite gift. Although the first two seasons of Big Bang Theory comes a close second, tops still goes to this handmade present:

A handmande Pac-Man scarf, from one geek to another.

The lovely lady seen here stayed up until 4 AM on Christmas Eve, crocheting this gift just for me. I'm not sure which of the two I love more! Apparently the ghost was originally going to be a cherry, but a lack of red yarn led to this superior alternative. Not only does the scarf perfectly fit my interests and personality, but it's stylish in all settings, especially the ones I frequent, such as the Funspot arcade in Laconia, NH:

Pac-Man is coming at me from all sides!

I guess there's hope for us geeks, after all!

(Photos courtesy Steven Kahm and Andy Molloy)

Vandal Hearts II is one of my all-time favorite RPGs. I'm not usually a fan of tactical games and have earned much vilification for being the one gamer on Earth to have disliked Final Fantasy Tactics. But Vandal Hearts II earned sixty hours of my time, something I'm rarely able to devote to any single title but which this game warranted. The first Vandal Hearts, along with Wild Arms, were the games that convinced me that the leap from the Nintendo 64's cartridges to the PlayStation's CD-ROMs was warranted, and I was playing Vandal Hearts II well after the PlayStation 2 was launched. The series thus bookended my experience with the 32-bit gaming era, but I was eager for more.

So I was excited to learn in the past few years that Konami was considering reviving this decades-old franchise, and when news came last year that the form would be an Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network game, I considered it my good fortune, as I'd just gotten an Xbox 360 a few months earlier. Yet no gaming site I followed seemed as interested in the title as I was. I checked them regularly but found updates rarely. Finally, Konami emailed me this week: Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment had been released on January 20th.

As I'm currently in the middle of three other games, including one RPG, I did not rush to purchase this title, but it was easy enough to move the demo to the top of my queue. The trial version of Flames of Judgment, supposedly a prequel of the game's predecessors, consists of two battles with some storyline in between. Having played only that much, I can offer only first impressions.

The most significant, or most immediately apparent, departure from Vandal Hearts II's battle system is the ability to change weapons in mid-battle. Heroes can attack from a distance with missile weapons, then switch to melee gear when the enemy draws close. Although many gamers will appreciate this versatility and realism, I don't prefer it. It's not that the system is inherently bad; few people complained that Final Fantasy VI's espers allowed every character to learn the same magic spells, for example, as doing so did not diminish the party members' unique attributes, such as Sabin's blitzes or Setzer's slots. But I did not expect to see such adaptability in Vandal Hearts. One of my favorite attributes of Vandal Hearts II was that each character was essentially a blank template, to be crafted into any sort of warrior needed: fighter, archer, mage, and more. Whatever the person's equipment was defined their purpose, which was fixed for the battle. What I've seen of Vandal Hearts: FoJ is that characters can more easily fill each other's voids should one fall, which for me eliminates some of the tension of battle.

Beyond gameplay and into mechanics, the animation style has taken a turn for the cartoonish, which doesn't match the game's mature themes and Teen rating. It also seems harder than I remember to adjust the camera to get a good view of the 3D playing field. Cinematic interludes feature voice acting, but the game's main dialogue is presented via text — unusual for this generation of RPGs, but not for a 500-megabyte download.

It's been more than a decade since I first played Vandal Hearts II, so my memories and expectations may both have been distorted by time. Even if not, it's unfair to expect a franchise to remain unchanged over so long a period. Either way, I'm not sure Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment will draw me into the tactical RPG genre the way its predecessors did.