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Silent Hill

Started by Why I Hate Tables, May 04, 2010, 08:22:01 PM

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Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: Little Hoover on May 11, 2010, 12:09:12 PM
Sill wondering if we're ever going to hear more details about SH2, and if they do adapt the game's story or just write a sequel to what they've already done. It's certainly a story that could work, but it'd be such a shame if they ruin it.
They already messed it up a bit by including Pyramid head in the first film. If they did adapt it though, Cameron Diaz would be perfect casting for Maria, right down to her creepy dead eyes. Wiki has this to say:
QuoteAccording to producer Don Carmody the sequel will be more accessible to the movie-going public, commenting,

    "Silent Hill is not a blockbuster game like Resident Evil or the other games out there. It's a connoisseurs' game. It has its own, rabid fan base. They're not cheap, these things. You have to appeal not only to the gamers, you have to appeal to a wider audience."
which is a bit cryptic. Appealing to a wider audience might mean making something minus the tasteless gore of the first film, like The Sixth Sense, for instance. On the other hand they could just be talking about going all commerce shaped and appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Ho hum. Whatever the films are like, they can't tarnish the games (because they're already filled with rust, arf) and I guess I always have the option of watching Jacobs Ladder through a piece of tracing paper.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Inspired by this here thread and by watching the film the other day, I dug out my copy of the first game and have just finished giving it a play (I got the Good+ ending, because I'm totally badass). The graphics are perhaps a bit worse than I remember - not helped by playing on a bigger, sharper screen this time. I remember reading a preview in Edge that said it showed a level of detail not seen in the Resi games, which was a a bit of a fanciful claim, even then. The controls and the voice acting are a bit shonky too and the monster designs are a wee bit crummy compared to SH2's psychologically freaktacular ... things (the NTSC version probably fares a bit better on that count, what with the knife wielding children). Despite all that though it's still a really effective, frightening experience. This is mostly thanks to the ace sound design of course. I recall Digitizer complained about the radio being a cheap way of building tension, but it's certainly effective. And there are points at which the music is almost unbearable (in a good way) even when you know there are no monsters about.

It tells a more interesting story than the film too. The film might be about something, but its histrionic Grand Guignol version of The Crucible is less intriguing and, with it's reams of last minute exposition, less well delivered for the most part than the game's tale of double crossing, drug dealing occultists.

Time to dust off the second game and maybe look at getting a copy of the fourth too. I'm not sure I'm all that fussed about any of the subsequent ones.

VegaLA

I've never played anyof the silent Hill games but a friend of mine picked up Homecoming this weekend and I sat in on the gameplay.
It looked and felt very much like the first Condemned game but not quite as disturbing. Actually the so far the only thing that I found distrubing was my attraction to the demonised Nurses with the chests half hanging out.

I should check into some clinic in Hollywood.

Cerys

Why, do they have demonised nurses there, too?

Glebe


j_u_d_a_s

Ok apologies for the lateness of this!

Silent Hill

With the original playstation1 game, the rules were being laid down. I mentioned that this was Konami's experimental student film in my last post in this thread. By that I meant that this was a game more about the ideas than the main plot. Because really as plots go, rescue your loved one is as old as time. Think of what Alan Moore did with the comics medium producing Watchmen for an analagous reference point.
I covered how it reversed the traditional gender roles by having a single father as the protagonist already. But the real big idea that's been in every single game after is the theme of duality. Get used to seeing that word a LOT in these updates. The most obvious example is the town itself as it physically shifts between worlds, but there's barely anything in this series which isn't what it seems at first glance.

One of the first things you notice about the opening moments of Silent Hill is that it's very big! The whole space left out for you to explore is surprisingly a lot larger than many other games would let you have. In fact, wondering around alone is something Silent Hill is very keen on you doing with a lot of the keys needed at opposite ends of the map. Despite the large space, or perhaps because of it, there's an intense feeling of claustrophobia. As you approach the ends of roads leading out of the town, you see nothing but a cliff and the dense mist hiding whatever is out there, if anything at all is out there. You're more or less alone on this different planet.

The town itself is something of an anomaly as well. Being as it is the very model of a white picket fence suburban neighbourhood. A half remembered picture postcard, warm comforting nostalgia wrapped in a dense cold monochrome fog. It's the very image of cosiness, and SAFETY, broken.
It's interesting seeing this environment as it's Americana viewed from the eyes of a foreign culture. As a born and bred Brit, I'm no wiser if this is an accurate representation of a resort town in North America. But to me, it FEELS real. Like a memory I've never inhabited. I could happily walk around Silent Hill if it weren't for it being literally a ghost town.
Further shattering this once warm environment are the nightmare creatures who inhabit this world. As already stated, they're still quite traditional videogame nasties. The dogs themselves being a throwback to Resident Evil, so because of this pre-conceived familiarity they don't get under our skin. Although the idea of using child like demons/monsters with knives is more than a bit brave.

Another familiar theme of Silent Hill are Hospitals, another use of a formally safe environment. As I touched on the subject in my first post, Hospitals are traditionally clean places. It's one of our shared nightmares to see one covered in grime, we all recognise it as not being right.
In Japan, hospitals are near sacred institutions too so the idea of one falling into such disrepair is horrifying. However, one shared cultural aspect of Hospitals is the presence of death. Every hospital has a ward that may as well be heaven's waiting room. A decidedly creepy idea in itself.

And here we have the heart of Silent Hill, the duality of life and death existing in the same space.

Carrying on examining gaming traditions, it's interesting to compare Silent Hill's structure with Resident Evil. As we all should know, Resident Evil largely takes place in one location. You run from room to room, solving puzzles to open up other rooms. Silent Hill does something similar but still in a traditional "level" sort of structure. The first "level" has you entering Midwich Elementary School where you do much the same thing, but halfway through you experience the first shift into the dark world. This is really what has come to represent Silent Hill, the visible change from the broken and harmless to the rusted and dangerous. You enter an industrial hell, the colour of rust being a deliberate choice to remind the player of blood. And as the game itself tells us, fear of blood also creates fear of the flesh. Silent Hill suddenly rewrites the rules, it lets us know visibly that we're in its world and we're not welcome. The shiftts in this game also seem to come with their own unsaid backstory. The cult symbols, the hanging bodies perhaps ritually slaughtered, the almost casual depictions of torture.

More to come...

Phil_A

Quote from: j_u_d_a_s on May 18, 2010, 02:50:34 AM

One of the first things you notice about the opening moments of Silent Hill is that it's very big! The whole space left out for you to explore is surprisingly a lot larger than many other games would let you have. In fact, wondering around alone is something Silent Hill is very keen on you doing with a lot of the keys needed at opposite ends of the map. Despite the large space, or perhaps because of it, there's an intense feeling of claustrophobia. As you approach the ends of roads leading out of the town, you see nothing but a cliff and the dense mist hiding whatever is out there, if anything at all is out there. You're more or less alone on this different planet.

I think this freedom(or at least, the illusion of freedom) is something missing from later games, particularly SH3 which doesn't even pretend not to be suffocatingly linear.
I've sometimes wondered if it would be possible to have a completely "open-world" Silent Hill in which you get the run of the entire town, but I guess this probably wouldn't work as nearly every game in the series to date has involved you being guided in a particular direction against your will.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: j_u_d_a_s on May 18, 2010, 02:50:34 AM
Ok apologies for the lateness of this!
I should think so too, you monster!

I jest, of course. I'm enjoying reading your posts very much. Really, how can anyone say that games (or at least these ones at any rate) aren't art when they can provoke such detailed analysis?

Really enjoying these posts, judas. I've now completely forgiven you for being touchy about Dr Who?.

I got out the original game, which I never managed to get very far into way back when, simply because I was shitting my pants. I got as far as the thing coming through the cafe window and then shit my pants and turned it off. The music/sound is just incredible, even now. I've heard very little in my life that can make me so uneasy.

I've finally got a working copy of SH2 as well and played for about five minutes before turning it off. I'm a big ponce, obviously. I had to turn off when the snake came out of the wall in Resident Evil: Deadly Silence.

I'll man up and give them a good go and then get more into this thread. Just watched the movie again last night, prompted by this thread. Until they go into the church, it's a fantastic psychological horror.

Little Hoover

5 minutes of SH2? So presumably you've just walked for a bit so far.

Yeah. I walked round some graveyard and talked to a woman and that was enough for one sitting. I might risk some more now.

Cerys

The woman in the graveyard?  Bloody hell, that means you've actually got that version.  I thought it was an urban myth.  Or are you winding us up?

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

#42
Edit: Ah, that version. Silly me.

Also, to The Boston Crab: Haha, you big jessie.

I'm confused! Did I imagine it? Or are you making fun?

Either way, yes, I get far too involved in games. I used to have nightmares about RE4 all the time.

eluc55

I thought that version wasn't released outside of Japan after all the trouble with the playground scene and
Spoiler alert
that dog thing
[close]
?

BC, did you import it, or was it just sold normally?

Well, I've Googled a fair bit and found no relevant reference to a graveyard or playground. Anyone care to enlighten me? Have I got the super scary version? :(

Basically, I just talked to some dizzy bird and then carried on looking round the graveyard, nothing scary about it as such.

And err I downloaded this off a torrent site, to be honest.

Cerys

I don't want to ruin it for you, but
Spoiler alert
if the kid you meet next to the police station tries to give you a piece of paper, for goodness' sake make sure you go and save before you accept it.
[close]

Quote from: eluc55 on May 18, 2010, 09:01:49 PM
I thought that version wasn't released outside of Japan after all the trouble with the playground scene and
Spoiler alert
that dog thing
[close]
?

The way I heard it, it was available for a short time but then Konami recalled it.  Does anyone actually know why?  Google isn't putting out.

Thanks. I'll be aware but I should just repeat that I'm only five minutes into it and the woman in the graveyard seems like a very natural part of the game thus far. I suspect I don't have some bizarro version. I've just passed here:



Then I done a poo, etc. and quit.

Phil_A

Ooh, I wonder if Bosto could've stumbled on the early beta version that includes
Spoiler alert
The Factory
[close]
? I've been curious about that for years. Hard to believe the final release version was so toned down...

eluc55

Are we talking about the same version? The one Bosto's descibing sees to be the one with the
Spoiler alert
horse/penis monster
[close]
and the
Spoiler alert
Mummy
[close]
chase scene in the
Spoiler alert
old fairground
[close]
.

Cerys

This is annoying.  Even Snopes doesn't mention it.  Bloody Snopes.

So, that screenshot is unfamiliar then?

I'm still not sure if this is a wind-up.

Cerys

Definitely different.  What's supposed to happen is James encounters a (really wimpish) critter in the graveyard.  (You can get the
Spoiler alert
steak knife
[close]
at that point.  It's a shitty weapon, but better than nothing.)

I'll play on then and look forward to
Spoiler alert
HORSE PENUS
[close]
.

Cerys

Keep us posted - I'm all excited now.

falafel

So is the special version the one that's
Spoiler alert
not an utterly tedious, shit and callow psychodrama with billions of locked doors, a script apparently written by a 'gifted' fifteen year old heavily autistic boy with a psychology A level who's just been on a creative writing course, voice acting straight out of El Dorado, and monsters that look like pointy bits of reanimated poo
[close]
? Because I've been after that one for AGES!

Glebe

Played SH3 again last night. I fucked up
Spoiler alert
fighting the Missionary guy on the rooftop
[close]
and used too many shotgun shells and health drinks, but I'm trying to keep saves to a minimum and I'm not going back through all that again. Currently saved at
Spoiler alert
the hospital. Finding the key code puzzle a bit tricky.
[close]
.

falafel

PS y'all should be grateful I refrained from posting in this thread for as long as I did. SH and me - well, we have a history, see.   A bad kind of history.

Glebe

And all-night-boggle-eyed-nerve-wracked-frustration kinda history?

falafel