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Silent Hill

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

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Still Not George

As great as the first 3 games were and are, the fourth fucked with my head much more.

Why, you might ask? Why would the universally-slated-as-a-disappointment The Room fuck with your head more than the others? What on earth could be weirder than the fucked up shit in SH2, for example?

THIS FUCKING THING IS WHAT:



There's video on YouTube too, you can look that up for yourselves.

(I should mention that I found that picture by entering "Giant Fucking Head" into Google. It was the second result.)

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

#61
Christ on a chuffing bicycle!

I'd heard about the big giant head, but even so. Sweet crivens!


Phil_A

Quote from: Still Not George on May 19, 2010, 08:33:20 PM
As great as the first 3 games were and are, the fourth fucked with my head much more.

Why, you might ask? Why would the universally-slated-as-a-disappointment The Room fuck with your head more than the others? What on earth could be weirder than the fucked up shit in SH2, for example?

THIS FUCKING THING IS WHAT:



There's video on YouTube too, you can look that up for yourselves.

(I should mention that I found that picture by entering "Giant Fucking Head" into Google. It was the second result.)

Flawed though it was, I think The Room actually affected me more than the other games in the series. I rarely have nightmares, but while I was playing I used to dream constantly about what was waiting for me back in that bloody apartment.

There's a great review here which I think really nails what The Room is actually about - namely, the idea of escapism itself, that notion that most of us would rather escape into a fantasy than actually have to deal with the problems waiting at home.

mikeyg27

I actually recoiled away from the screen when I scrolled down to that picture just now. Christ. Actually, it seems like the sort of thing Eternal Darkness would throw at you to fuck with your head (it certainly does the opposite, making all the enemies seem tiny).

This thread has got me started on SH1 for my first ever playthrough. Enjoying(?) it so far, although the controls seem a little cumbersome.

eluc55

I'v just bought the Wii version off the back of this thread too.

j_u_d_a_s

Takayoshi Sato who's responsible for the character designs and CG cut scenes in Silent Hill 1 and 2 has written a great article about videogame modelling and animation here - http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4283/the_dust_of_everyday_life_the_art_.php

If you've ever seen the making of SH2 dvd, it's great to see him expand on techniques and approaches he touched upon there.

Little Hoover

Oooh the narration on that making of dvd is so embarassing, but worth it for the actual bits of insight from the producers.

As a side note, the dvd has trailers for other games, including some fascinating early development footage of Metal Gear Solid 2.


El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: The Boston Crab on May 19, 2010, 10:07:04 AM
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:



She's in the version I played too. Don't remember it mentioning anything about it being a different version in the download title though, weird.

Cerys

This is just getting weird now.  Where did you get yours from?

El Unicornio, mang

I got it off a torrent site, either Demonoid or isohunt, a few years ago.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Makes sense that they'd label it the same as a regular copy. Easier to remain clandestine that way.

Cerys

You have no idea how jealous I am right now.

http://bit.ly/b9r25h

That's the one I got, if you're interested in trying.

Cerys

I can't get it to work!  This is a conspiracy.  Fucksakes.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I'd say that's a good thing, Cerys. If what I've heard about that version is true, you shouldn't have it within ten miles of your kid.

You have to download the No-CD patch mentioned in the comments.

Cerys

No, I mean I can't get it to download.   But I reckon Claude is right. 

El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: eluc55 on May 19, 2010, 10:40:51 AM
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]
.

This bit had me stumped for a whole night, until I realised I needed to get on the
Spoiler alert
abandoned candy floss (or 'cotton candy' as it's called in the game) car thing
[close]
and let the
Spoiler alert
mummy
[close]
follow me into the
Spoiler alert
boarded up ghost castle
[close]
.

DJ Solid Snail

I talked to that woman in the graveyard at the start of mine, too (Angela, is it?). Gives the impression that the voice actors are all getting paid by the minute. I have the PS2 version with the free DVD, which seems to be the most common one around. Is that bit not in the PC version, then?

mcbpete

It's internet banter. Supposedly it's 'hilarious'.

Anyway, yeah I love the atmosphere on SH4 with the continued returning back to the bedroom waking up. It reminds me of the confused feeling you get if you go for a quick nap during the afternoon and you wake up with it dark outside and you haven't a bloody clue what's going on. I might have a Silent Hill marathon and replay 1 to 4 before continuing my somewhat failed attempts at progressing in SH5.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

It's not internet banter. We're just pwning the noobs.

I hope none of you make it out the wreckage.

mcbpete

You mustn't pawn the noobs Claude, they've been in the family for 12 generations. I know times is tough but I'm sure we can come up with the money some other way ...

Cerys

Quote from: The Boston Crab on May 22, 2010, 07:24:10 AM
I hope none of you make it out the wreckage.

It had to be done <evil grin>

eluc55

Well, as I mentioned above, I brought the Wii's Silent Hill: Shattered Memories off the back off this thread, and I have to say, I owe you all a massive thanks; it was one of the best put together, wholly satisfying, and most intelligent games I've played in years. Seriously. I fucking adored it.

The fact you have no weapons completely changes the dynamic of this sort of experience. You spend most of your time armed only with a (very responsive wii mote) flashlight, walking around unpopulated, but incredibly creepy locations, solving puzzles, uncovering the story and looking out for weird shit going down, then just as you uncover something or meet someone crucial to your understanding of events, the entire world is covered by an incredibly impressive layer of ice, the ground cracks and breaks away, metal warps and buildings split... and your left totally alone in the same location, only hunted by terrifying shrieking monsters which scuttles down the walls, under the ice, and out of cracks. You can run, and push things in their path to slow them down, but as more and more join the chase, pursuing you through doors, and stopping to sniff you out if you hide in cupboards or under frozen cars, it gets harder and harder to escape. Without hyperbole I can honestly say it is the single scariest thing I have ever done in a computer game. Even when playing with a friend, the two of us were crawling up the walls during those bits. And its all the more effective as these sections only appear every once in a while, so when they do happen, the fear and tension is all the more real. You're not fighting monsters throughout, so when you do have to face them (or run screaming in the opposite direction), its a real event. 

On a separate note: I'm really pleased they took this game as an opportunity to remake the original Silent Hill, and dumped all the rubbish about Gods and Cults and "real world" explanations. Like Silent Hill 2, this game is really about psychological trauma and personal demons; there no attempt to suggest these are things summoned by The Order, or anything like that. They exist in the mind of the character, or are possibly manifestations of those issues created by the supernatural town. That all the explanation you get.  Like all the best moments in the series, its very hard to know who and what is real, and what's really happening.

And then there's the ending: I really cannot emphasise enough how strongly I recommend fans of the series getting this game, so I'm not going to go into details. But I just have to acknowledge how clever it is, and how it totally changes everything you've done, effectively demanding a second play through. It's one of the most impressive ending to a computer game I've ever played, to be honest -
Spoiler alert
I can't think of a single other game that integrates such an intelligent, game changing twist. Totally changing your perception of everything that's happened, altering the significance of everything you've come across; people, places, events, memories, the creatures, the places. 
[close]

Play this game.       

Little Hoover

hmm I enjoyed Shattered Memories but I don't think I would really say it was scary, the things that chase you just aren't very interesting creatures, and whenever you're in the normal world, you're perfectly safe which just kills a bit of the tension. It's very interesting but not very scary.

eluc55

You see I thought that the "frozen world" bits were really scary; not specifically the monster design... but the combination of music, sound effects, the lack of any weapons and sense that you cant stop running for one moment, the way that the world changes (I loved seeing the previously dead bear reared up behind the ice when I fled through the hunting lodge), the simple fact there's a very palpable sense of panic when your lost and they're seconds behind you.... and crucially, the context; the bulk of the game is made up of the exploration and puzzle solving between these sections, and as you say, you're basically safe at these times... but its also building up the suspense, unravelling the story, getting you primed for the big reveals that then result in the world freezing over and the shit hitting the fan for the next ten minutes.

I really thought that sudden change in tone was what made it so effective, certainly on that first run through.

The school? You didn't shit yourself in the frozen school? If not, you have bigger balls than me, sir.

j_u_d_a_s

I'm enjoying Shattered Memories from what I've played of it so far. But I'm with Little Hoover with this one, it's an interesting use of videogames as a medium and highly effective when played on the Wii. I appreciate they've tried something very different for this "re-imagining" but it's just not very scary, or at least not the kind of fear you associate with the Silent Hill series. Yahtzee wrote a fantastic article about the lack of scares - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/7510-Extra-Punctuation-Silent-Hill-Shattered-Memories

Another thing that makes it less scary for me was the use of camera. In the previous games, the camera was mostly behind and above the character invoking feelings of isolation and powerlessness.


If you look at this screenshot of SH 2, James takes up roughly a twelfth of the screen for instance.

Whereas in SHSM


Harry looks much more dominant in the environment.

Another aspect I've noticed is how the colour saturation is a lot higher in Shattered Memories too. Previously Silent Hill was seen as a decaying lifeless ghost town. Shattered memories is too clean and bright, causing a disconnect with the fractured/distorted soundtrack by Yamaoka.
I often remember the absolutely nerve scraping fear I would have in merely opening the door back in SH3. Each room was vastly different and I had no idea what to expect. When the otherworld takes over in Shattered Memories, I know I've already seen the worst. The ice theme is very well done but it's just not as effective as what's come before.

Little Hoover

This might be of interest to people an Interview with a man named Jeremy Blaustein who works on translating a lot of Japanese games into english, including Silent Hill 2,3 and 4. and Metal Gear Solid

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/jb/jb.htm
Quote
"Silent Hill 2 was a game intended from the start for the USA, because it had more blood and everyone was becoming hypersensitive about violence and gore in Japan."

The other big series Blaustein is known for working on is Konami's Silent Hill, parts 2, 3 and The Room. The second holds a particularly special place in his heart, since he came

"Forget about having started the game, even while Owaku was throwing around ideas for his story, they called me in to have a big conference and meeting about what I thought would be acceptable themes in America. There was a solid team of about four or five guys, including Owaku and the monster creator guy, Tsuboyama."

With Blaustein having such a direct influence on the game, I thought it time to clear up a few questions which fans of the series have been asking over the years. Two long-running debates held by fans, such as those on igotaletter.com, pertains to the nature of Angela's past, and also what is being said during the 'voice whisper' which can occasionally be heard while playing.

Blaustein stated categorically that the abuse Angela is speculated to have endured at the hands of her father, did indeed occur as part of Silent Hill 2's back story. He explained, "This is an easy issue to clear up. From the very earliest conversations that I was in on (the pre-script writing meeting), the team had the intention of including incest and sexual abuse in one of the character's backgrounds. They wanted, remember, to get at the very heart, or maybe I should say edges, of psychological pain. So we all knew precisely what we wanted with Angela in terms of her dialogue on paper and as performed. As you can see, it is also well reflected in her appearance. We thought about it all the time, in every scene. Just watch the scenes again. She gets physically ill when she thinks about her experience. It seems clearly depicted if you know what you are looking for."

"As for the whisper, I am pretty sure it is just a little loop of one of the actors doing what we called at the time 'butsu-butsu' or 'hitori-goto' (mumbling or talking to himself) in the recording booth. I think they just snipped a loop and added some reverb. The Japanese sound guys would NOT have known what he was saying either, if I am right, because it was just unscripted adlib."

"I would say it was without a doubt the single biggest influence I've had on a game. I don't think there was any other game where I was ever asked to have that much of an affect on the story. It was also unique in that series that I did all the translation myself, and I did all the direction myself - the voice direction and motion capture directing. It was completely unprecedented."

Blaustein went on the share his personal reflections on the game, especially the emotional impact of the letter James Sunderland writes, and revealed an interesting anecdote from the recording booth. "I was reading through a SH2 FAQ and came across 'the letter' from SH2. I really loved it and wanted more readers to have a chance to see it. The scene where Maria reads it, if you have never seen it, is one of the three most emotional moments I have ever had with the actors. The actress cried after she read it and many of us were getting a little misty-eyed. Try to listen to it on Youtube if you can. It was a great moment."