Silent hill downpour has been released today and as a silent hill fan I must admit that I'll probably pick this up later on today, anyone else going to get this?
[quote name='"gedio"']been pushed back another two weeks over here. Got Alan wake 2 in the mean time.[/quote] Wait.. Alan wake 2?!
Update when you get Silent Hill. Interested to know what you think, i saw it got a few mediocre reviews.
[quote name='"TheDankDude"']Update when you get Silent Hill. Interested to know what you think, i saw it got a few mediocre reviews.[/quote] Found out its not out here till the 30th
It's the same crap every "Silent Hill" has been after the real series died out. That is, after the third game. The Room is semi-decent because of its storyline. If you like psychological horror like Silent Hill, I'd tell you to steer clear from this game. Especially when the main theme is made by Korn.
They're equally shitty with Origins. Not worth your money. Team Silent doesn't exist anymore, the Silent Hill games experienced a huge, saddening downfall after the third game. Now it's just a lame Alan Wake ripoff with recycled old monster designs.
I haven't played the game yet but been anticipating it more than anything else for a long time as Silent Hill is my fav game series, and the first 2 games are possibly my fav games ever. I actually came to this subforum just to post a thread but then noticed there was one already haha, trying to make up for Konami dropping the ball on advertising/making people aware the game exists by spreading word wherever I can, as it's doomed to sell fuck all if noone knows about it. Aside from the horribly written IGN review (which seriously seems like the reviewer played the game for half an hour before writing the review, as there are no details at all about the game other than technical issues) and a handful of average reviews, the general consensus is that despite the technical issues (frame rate lag, screen tearing, texture pop-in) and boring monster designs it's easily the best SH game in a long time, reading impressions from hardcore SH fans and it's overwhelmingly positive despite the technical problems. Also I've read a couple of reports of people installing the game to their 360 hard drives and loading it from the 'My Games' icon instead of the disc launcher and finding it less buggy then, and apparently some people's second playthroughs have been almost glitchfree which is pretty confusing The 360 NTSC version is PAL compatible, so I'm expecting my copy tomorrow (Monday) or Tuesday as an Australian ebay seller called zoowhouse has copies in stock, so I ordered mine last Thursday. I wish I knew the NTSC version was gonna be compatible, I woulda preordered it weeks ago if I knew that was the case. Check the Destructoid and RelyOnHorror reviews, or the user reviews on Metacritic (could be spoilers there though) for a better idea of if you think this game is worth buying.
If you hate Silent Hill, you'll like Downpour. And Origins. And Homecoming. They're equally boring waste of money that have nothing to do with the legendary games. Except for retconned character connections and re-re-reused monster designs. In other words, if instead of making a game they were having sex; they'd be about to shoot another rancid load of stupid shit into a decomposed corpse of a once-beautiful woman.
Silent Hill 2 was the only SH I played, though I watched my friend play a bit of 1 and 3. I've heard of the massacre that was Homecoming. Part of me still wants to pick up Downpour just because some of the screenshots are really nice, but I might just wait until the new-price is lower. I wish there was another Siren game. The controls were shit, but I was as tense as I was playing SH2. I miss survival horror games.
I don't really think that "If you hate Silent Hill, you'll like Downpour" statement is true at all. If anything, hardcore fans of the original games are more likely to find Downpour enjoyable than casual gamers, let alone people who actively 'hate' Silent Hill. Also, there are no reused monster designs in Downpour, let alone "re-re-reused", though unfortunately the monster designs in the game are fucking terrible/generic and easily the biggest downside of the game for me. I love the game overall, but whoever designed those Prisoner Minion things should literally be executed in public. And the screamer 'move' where she screams and a white ball of 'energy' or whatever the fuck appears on the screen is fucking ridiculous, and it's basically a ripoff of a move that Sindel from Mortal Kombat 3 does. The Prisoner Juggernauts remind me of a Double Dragon boss, and are not the least bit scary despite them not appearing till near the end of the game, and they're clearly supposed to be one of the scarier/more threatening monsters, like the Missionaries/Scrapers in SH3 or the Abstract Daddies in SH2, but they fail fucking badly. Even if they were in a game like Dead Space or Resident Evil they would be lame, let alone Silent Hill. The Doll enemies are cool though, the sounds they make when you hit them really evoke sympathy, it's disturbing to strike something and hear it react in a way that makes you feel sorry for it, like so many classic monsters from the older games. Aside from the creatures and a couple of other things I think this is a great Silent Hill game that I think is as good or better than any game in the series after 1 + 2. Don't be mistaken into thinking Downpour is some "hollywood" bastardization of Silent Hill. The developers clearly have alot of love for the series and I can safely say this game was made for Silent Hill fans, for the most part. There are virtually no attempts to make the game appeal to casual gamers or people who have never played a Silent Hill game before, so I think they did a great job all things considered. The game is definitely far from perfect (I've played through it twice since my previous post in this thread) but it's definitely a well-crafted addition to the series as far as I'm concerned, and I'm someone who thought even Silent Hill 3 was too much of a departure from the original two, so I'm not the type of person who blindly loves every game in the series just cos it's a Silent Hill game. I'll admit it's not nearly as scary as the original games, and the monster designs are absolutely abysmal with a couple of exceptions, but overall I think it's one of the better sequels. I think the story is among the best in the series, as is the atmosphere, and the level design is top notch, and the exploration is indisputably better (i.e. more in depth) than it has ever been, and that's not even a subjective thing, it really is. Pros: - Atmosphere and exploration - Level design - Original, unique otherworld - Some extremely original set pieces - A couple of puzzles that rival anything in the old games - Great final boss battle - Exploration in both the town and buildings is way more detailed and rewarding than ever before - Engaging and disturbing story, likable protagonist and likable characters in general - Decent voice acting for the most part, with a couple of exceptions - Pretty good soundtrack, probably better than any of Akira Yamaoka's post-SH4 scores, but it sometimes misses the mark in terms of actually suiting Silent Hill - The actual town of Silent Hill is explorable and makes the game feel alot less linear than most of the post-SH2 sequels. - Optional sidequests work surprisingly well and I've enjoyed the ones I've done so far, which is only 4 out of a possible 14. Cons: - Worst monster designs ever - beyond pathetic - with the exception of the Dolls who are pretty cool and actually feel like Silent Hill creatures, and of course the final boss who I also liked - Hit and miss audio design, sometimes it's great and other times it's too sparse, really needed more industrial and ambient noise, and the creatures should have sounded more disturbing to make up for their generic appearance - Clumsy combat, but this is almost a pro for me as Silent Hill games should never have 'good' combat, after a few hours I actually ended up liking the combat (though I avoided it wherever possible) but most people probably wouldn't. - Bland blue look to the streets in the town, almost no fog. Rain has kinda replaced both the fog and the radio static that used to be heard whenever a creature was nearby. Rain isn't really scary and the lack of fog took away from the atmosphere on the streets, and the police walkie talkie thing was a poor replacement for the radio static which would have made the monster encounters scarier, since you'd hear it before you saw them, rather than them just appearing on the screen all of a sudden which really sucks. - The actual town of Silent Hill has a subtle eery atmosphere to it, but I don't think it's really enough, it feels more like a dilapitated ghost town than a place where something is seriously wrong. And the town has very little to do with the story which took away from the impact of the game as a whole, as it ended up feeling like it could have taken place anywhere and the fact it was Silent Hill was almost irrelevant at times. Also the town pretty much always 'feels' the same, whether it's raining or not, it never gets darker or shifts to the otherworld which I thought was a huge missed opportunity, though I guess designing an otherworld transformation for the entire town and fitting it into the game would have been virtually impossible. - Otherworld sequences, while very original and engaging, may get annoying on multiple playthroughs as they feel very 'choreographed' to the point where it may get old after a while - The Void chase sequences that usually happen at the start of shifts to the Otherworld are pretty lame, not at all scary and in my case they caused the frame rate to drop to like 1FPS whenever it got close, which thankfully wasn't that often. - Technical issues like framerate, luckily I experienced very little of this (playing on 360) and it sounds like the PS3 version is worse in that regard, aside from when the void would get close to me the frame rate was pretty steady, with only little 'hiccups' every now and again that I barely noticed. - Lacks the feeling of suffocating "something is seriously fucked up here" dread from the original, and given the horrifying themes of the story I think this game should have had that sort of atmosphere, rather than the more subtle and understated approach they took. - Map would have been better if it had been separate from the journal and you could access it by pressing Y (or triangle if on PS3), rather than having to open the journal to read it. Also the scrolling in the journal is inexplicably poor, you can only scroll in set 'areas' of the page rather than gradually scrolling, no idea why something that minor was neglected to be done properly I probably forgot a couple of positives and negatives but better leave it at that. I'd rank this game near the top of the post-SH2 sequels, probably around equal with 3+4, and definitely alot better than Homecoming (though sadly Homecoming had better monster designs, and more fluid combat, but Downpour beats it easily in pretty much every other category)
The only thing making this game a Silent Hill is the title. It has nothing to do with the game, the title is in there for the money. It's just another Alan Wake with some "scary" moments. Why would I find it more enjoyable to play a desecration of the original, geniuine Silent Hill games? What good are improved graphics when all they show is disappointing and saddening shit that has simply nothing to do with the initial reason to become a loyal fan? Especially when the game has none of the horror-factors that made it unique once. Ah well at least there's Korn's awful main theme, making the show even less bearable. Vatra games, rot in hell! Pros: - Bumpmapping Cons: - All that was not mentioned - The cons you mentioned
Based on your comments, it seems like you either didn't play the game at all and are basing your above statements on preconceived notions, or you only played the first hour or so (which is the only bit that resembles Alan Wake in the slightest), because what you're saying is frankly not true... I started a third playthrough on this game since posting the previous comment here and the only thing that has changed is I like it WAY more than I did when I posted before, and I already liked it alot then. I think it's probably the best game in the series after the first two. Since you listed "All that was not mentioned" under "cons", would you care to provide some specific examples from your experience with the game? Cos it seriously sounds like you haven't played it. Edit: More informationz. Honestly, all you're doing here is regurgitating other people's ill informed opinions, i.e. saying the game is like Alan Wake, or that it's just attached to the Silent Hill name so it will sell more. The Silent Hill series hasn't been selling big numbers for a long time, even the biggest games in the series weren't massive commercial hits by any stretch of the imagination. Konami/Vatra will likely make very little profit off of this game, and Konami didn't even bother promoting or advertising it so it's very unlikely to be a big seller, most people probably don't know it exists and it's been out for nearly two weeks. If you had actually played the game for yourself instead of just blindly spouting misconceptions you'd see that it's not really that type of game at all. And for the record, this game is nothing like Homecoming, anyone who has played it would be able to tell you that. Also you mentioned earlier that "Team Silent" doesn't exist anymore. You might not be aware, but Team Silent was just a name given to the various groups of people who worked on the first 4 games, it wasn't actually a set 'team' of the same people on every game, which should be obvious given the clear differences in all 4 of the original "Team Silent" games, common sense dictates that they weren't all made by the same people. People didn't even start referring to them as that till years after the last "Team Silent" game was made. Team Silent is bordering on mythical and if you're basing your opinion on the game not being developed by "Team Silent" then that is very lulzy indeed. It's actually ridiculous to see someone passing off all these secondhand ignorant opinions as their own, like you just blindly believe the 'general consensus' formed by a bunch of random unenlightened strangers to be the truth, without having the capacity to actually think and judge for yourself. lulz.
So because I disagree with you, my opinion is misguided and taken from others? How's that not ignorant? I have eyes and years, I can see the game is shit and has nothing to do with Silent Hill. The actual game was psychological horror & included certain trademarks that were a huge part of the atmosphere, which hasn't been since The Room. And thus, we have a bunch of crap that should have never been; Origins, Homecoming, and Downpour. "Team Silent is the designation used to refer to the now-defunct team responsible for creating the Silent Hill survival horror video game series for publisher Konami, and developing Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill 4: The Room." So "lulzy" that, son.. I prefer the Silent Hill games that were made by its creators. Not some random assholes who think Korn and Silent Hill are a really good combination. Oh and more cons? How about the Otherside looking like a Ratchet & Clank map, hmm? If you experienced terror while playing R&C, then I understand. I know I didn't. The mentioned games have been nothing but a sad attempt at shocking people, much like Marilyn Manson. Konami should have just buried the series indefinitely, until/if new worthy ideas would show up. If Silent Hill isn't making anymore money, why keep pissing on its grave anyway?
Sure you're not saying it's a bad thing it's got nothing to do with the cult and the God and all the other ridiculous shit?