Topic: General Silent Hill Discussion Thread

[Lumi Kløvstad]

So holy crap Silent Hill (the original one). Having never played it before tonight, I was not used to the "HOLD UP TO MOVE FORWARD (regardless of camera angle or which way Harry is facing)" control scheme. I get attacked by the monsters at the start, and not being used to the controls, I panic while trying to fight them off and keep Harry alive while attempting to use the awkward (not bad, just clunky and awkward) controls to guide him to the exit. And then I scream bloody murder when Harry gets "killed", and breathe a sigh of relief when he wakes up in the diner.

THAT IS QUALITY GAME DESIGN.

No one has to TELL you how helpless your character feels. You feel it yourself. If every game were that well planned and thought out, no one would ever gripe.

Unfortunately, I've "gone native" on modern games, which are substantially easier. That Pterodactyl monster in the Diner has now kicked my pansy ass twice in a row, which leads me to THE survival horror dilemma: must I use bullets to kill this foe before me? I have a knife, 2 health drinks, and a gun with 15 bullets.

I really wanna save the bullets for a better time, but the knife just does NOTHING. So, do I force Harry Mason to die many horrible deaths trying to fend the monster off with the knife and try to save my bullets for when I might need them more? Ammo doesn't exactly grow on trees (or endlessly spawning comrades) in this sort of game.

But even if I do use the gun, there's no guarantee that it will be effective. Firing the gun may result in many wasted bullets, as Harry's never fired a gun in his life. He's no member of STARS, he's not some kind of psychic supersoldier, and he's not even a semi-violent criminal; he's just a scared father fumbling through Hell on Earth trying desperately to find his little girl and keep her safe.

And that's what I love about this series. You're basically you: not a fighter, and yet you've been called to fight for your right to live. Your tools are limited, and your weapons are even more so (unless you're Travis in Silent Hill Origins, in which case you should feel free to simply punch the whole damn continent to death). Many times you are better off running, or taking the long way around.

Even if you're not scared as a player, you identify with the fear of your avatar in the game world. Harry's panicked search for his daughter is something we can all identify with; even if we've never been there ourselves. There's very few things a good father wouldn't do to protect his little girl, and nothing, not police officers, not monsters, and certainly not the creepiest town in videogame history, is going to stop him until he's certain she's safe.

Shattered Memories took it a step further, with Harry being literally defenseless against the Raw Shocks that haunted 'Silent Hill'. And yet his search for his daughter was undeterred, and his flight from the monsters in the end only brought him closer to the truth (and what a truth it was).

I have played the first Silent Hill for less than an hour, and yet Harry Mason is believable enough, relateable enough, and determined enough to easily rank on my top 10 videogame characters, and Silent Hill remains one of my absolute favorite franchises on any system.

Discuss.

[X]

I haven't played nearly enough of Silent Hill to give any sort of in-depth analogy. But what I've seen so far is an interesting concept. Unlike Resident Evil that deals with a biological terror gone out of control, in Silent hill the horror is far more supernatural. I've seen my friend play through some of the first game and what I saw and heard did intrigue me. I recently bought the Silent hill HD collection although I am disappointed that the first game wasn't included. Why not? There's plenty of room on a Blu-ray disc. Just take a look at the MGS HD collection for a good reference on pack'n 'em in all on one disc. The music in the game really helped drive the point home. It fit the atmosphere of the game and you never knew what was around the next corner or room. The game set the tone and everything else fell into place. The only real element that I've noticed is the control factor. The early RE games for me are a little tricky to play because you have to point the analog stick 'Up' in order to move forwards rather then just aiming the stick in a direction you want to go and you would just go. Simplicity in itself but they didn't want to go the easy route. I don't know about silent Hill but in Silent Hill 2 the movement scheme is catered to moving around by just pointing the analog stick wherever you want to go. This is fine by me as I don't need any clunky control scheme to screw me up when I'm trying to survive. Some people out there would argue that the control scheme was intentionally made that way to help promote the difficulty. I simply can't agree with that logic. A game can be difficult without resorting to a cheap-ass move such as a bad analog mapping.

[Inccubus]

LOVE Silent Hill!
I'm so hyped for the Silent Hill haunt at this year's Halloween Horror Nights!!
That said, the Soundtrack of Downpour was pathetic. I want Mary Elizabeth McGlynn back.
Also, the entire concept of Book of Memories seems completely counter intuitive anything even remotely describable as 'horror'.

[Lelygax]

I've played SH1 and SH:SM more than the others, but didnt finished them (my dad finished 1 though). The atmosphere in these games is pretty scary, they knew how to do great survivor horrors in these days...
SH4: The Room is pretty scary too, I recommend that game. I've played some minutes of 2, 3 and Origins too, they looked very good too atleast in the beggining.

@X
Buddy, they did the controls that way because its more practical when you practice a bit, if they did Up move up, Down move down, Right go right, etc. You will be unable to aim up or down the way that we aim with these controls. Even if we could, it will be ankward because we will move easily, but will have to aim differently than the way that we moves, also I like to be able to walk backwards. In these days the great majority of games didnt used the 2 analog sticks, so it will be a hard time.
Now if they used the 2 analogs in this game I maybe will prefer the classic way to move too.

[PFG9000]

I love the classic Silent Hill controls.  My first game in the series was SH2, and what a brilliant gem that is.  But I played through it with the 2D control scheme (the more intuitive one where you just push the direction you want to walk in).  I played SH1 after that, and I hated the forced 3D controls at first.  I understand that they're horribly awkward, but once you get used to them, they're much more effective than the 2D controls.  I hate how SH4 took away the 3D option, so your only choice is to use the 2D controls.

I've played through all the games in the series except that Japanese-only GBA game and the Book of Memories spin-off.  I think a lot of the games are unfairly bashed, although SH2 is really far and away better than the rest.  But just because it's so amazing, the other games seem to get treated like garbage (especially SH4 and onward) when they're mostly very good.

One of my favorites is Origins.  That game gets trashed more than any except maybe Homecoming and SH4.  I've never understood why.  It doesn't do anything particularly new, but it's a great more-of-the-same installment if you're looking for a good SH fix.  And it really nails the atmosphere in the foggy outdoor areas and in many of the dark SH areas.  It's very impressive for a portable horror game, too.  Nobody really seemed to expect it to actually be scary, but I think it delivered in spades.

I was pretty impressed with Downpour too.  I admit my expectations were really low, but I think Vatra did a fine job capturing the SH vibe.  If it hadn't been so clunky when loading new areas, I don't know if I could fault it much.

[Lelygax]

I think that they bash Origins because of the PS2 port, seriously instead of being happy with the port they say "it have bad graphics, blah blah blah (old granny face here)".

[Laina]

One of my favorites is Origins.  That game gets trashed more than any except maybe Homecoming and SH4.  I've never understood why.  It doesn't do anything particularly new, but it's a great more-of-the-same installment if you're looking for a good SH fix.  And it really nails the atmosphere in the foggy outdoor areas and in many of the dark SH areas.  It's very impressive for a portable horror game, too.  Nobody really seemed to expect it to actually be scary, but I think it delivered in spades.

Agreed. Origins was pretty alright for a portable, filler title & it did a good job of capturing the old SH1 feel.

Personally, I just did not care for Shattered Memories. I could see what they were going for & I appreciate that-it was a fresh idea, a fresh take, a true "re-imagining" as they kept saying it was going to be. I just HATED the feeling of not being able to fight beyond belief. Now, I understand that was a core part of it, that feeling of helplessness, that desperation & terror, just wanting to get your child & get the hell out of that nightmare, but also curious to a point as to "Why? Why is this happening? What is all this madness? Why us?". I just couldn't stand it though. It wasn't fun, it was tedious & frustrating to me. I see what they were getting at, wanting to terrify you while getting you to identify with your character, really putting you in his shoes-I just can't stand being chased, never really being able to relax. My anxiety issues simply will not allow such things to happen, so I just couldn't get into it. Again, I DO understand why others did enjoy it. Just not my cup of tea though.

[Inccubus]

I don't think they should have even made that game part of the SH series. It's a very interesting experiment in using psychoanalysis to customize a game experience, but the connections to the rest of the series are tenuous at best and shoe-horned at worst. Independent of this, I really don't see it as a re-imagining of Silent Hill so much as a parallel sequel to SH3. Basically this: Silent Hill 3 assumes the ending where Harry escapes with the newly reborn Cheryl to be the 'real' ending. However, Shattered Memories assumes the 'Jacob's Ladder' ending where the entire game took place in Harry's mind as he lay dying after the car crash.

[Munchy]

Love me some Silent Hill. I'm not too keen on a lot of the recent ones, but as a survival horror fan these days you have to take what you can get.

I'm not really keen on the ever-present idea in the new ones that you have to do something wrong to be sent to Silent Hill. Sure, 2 is pretty much everyone's favorite, but 4 is actually the one that's stayed with me the most in terms of giving me nightmares. It's got that weird, superstitious feeling about it, where walking in the wrong place will get you cursed or staying near something for too long will just kill you outright. In that one the town's basically telling you, "Oh, you're not a sinful person? TOO BAD, WALUIGI TIME." That this crap is occurring in your own home made it really messed up.

I still need to finish Downpour at some point. I lost interest around the wrecked children's secret torture orphanage or whatever it was, and instead opted to watch the Two Best Friends Playthrough of it. It's not that the post-The Room games are completely bad, but the other developers just don't seem to quite get it. I admire them for trying; horror is an incredibly fucking hard thing to get right, especially in game form.

Now what really excited me were Hideo Kojima's tweets about a hypothetical SH game made in the Fox Engine. His comments were mainly that the graphics could be incredible due to the relatively small areas that would need rendering. Not to mention much of what's left of Team Silent is spread throughout Kojima Productions, and Masahiro Ito's interest was definitely piqued by these tweets.

[Inccubus]

I hated Kojima's 'input' on the direction of LoS's story and character development, but I actually thing his fucked up storytelling style might fit a Silent Hill game pretty well as long as he sticks to the established mythos.

[Munchy]

I remember reading that Kojima's input on LoS was mainly the look of Gabriel and effective motion capture techniques and things like that.

I also seem to remember his tweets expressing interest not so much in actually making a Silent Hill himself but having other people do it with his engine.

[Lelygax]

I've seen his engine before in some pre-E3 Konami shows, seems realistic.

[Inccubus]

I remember reading that Kojima's input on LoS was mainly the look of Gabriel and effective motion capture techniques and things like that.

I also seem to remember his tweets expressing interest not so much in actually making a Silent Hill himself but having other people do it with his engine.

I'm pretty sure the mo-cap advise was from his studio, not him personally. I recall cox tweets specifying that Kojima gave a few suggestions on both Gabriel's personalty and broad storytelling advise.

I'd like to see him do a Silent Hill gaiden, personally.

[Munchy]

Oh... I didn't remember that. Kojima's got some interesting ideas, but there are times when he seriously needs an editor. Like, bad.

I too wouldn't mind him doing a Silent Hill game, considering he's apparently the only one at Konami who has money and PR of any kind.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Oh... I didn't remember that. Kojima's got some interesting ideas, but there are times when he seriously needs an editor. Like, bad.

Hello MGS4 and Peace Walker.

Also Kojima, please cut down on the TnA in your games. I get that you're Japanese, but seriously. Shit's getting creepy.