there was a THREAD here (SILENT HILL)

[moxie]

the Silent Hill franchise has been licensed out yet again, this time to a rather obscure Czech developer by the name of Vatra Games. (I have no idea who they are so if anyone can provide more info that would be great!)

Rather than aping the blood-and-rust style of previous Silent Hills, they've expressed an interest in trying a new aesthetic. It doesn't look nearly as outright scary as previous titles, but the blue and gray color scheme certainly contributes to a unique, morose atmosphere, and the blood, rust, and metal isn't completely gone from the Otherworld. Unfortunately, judging by videos it still seems to transition in that cheesy, oh noo the world is peeling away! style.

The main character this time around is apparently going to be an escaped convict by the name of Murphy, finding himself in Silent Hill after the bus he's riding in crashes due to mysterious circumstances. ( :boo: ) Considering the running theme of the protagonists having huge skeletons in their closets, it's a no-brainer that 'ol Murph's got a doozy or two in his past.

CONFIRMED STUFF so far
-The combat is going to be a mix of Origins and Shattered Memories; meaning weapons can and will break, and fleeing is just as if not moreso viable than fighting.

-You can carry one weapon at a time, so you can't carry around 5 tvs and 3 pool cues in your back pocket anymore.

-Old-school Silent Hill puzzles are back and their difficulty will be able to be selected independent of the game difficulty.

-There will be a subway system to make travel easier.

Spoiler: media. some spoilers!

E3 Teaser Trailer
Behind the Scenes of the E3 Trailer
Silent Hill Downpour Interview And Gameplay 2011


GameInformer article scans
Interview with the lead producer from Konami about Downpour.
New (as of 24 January) Screenshots from Joystiq
Sr. associate producer Tomm Hulett and producer Devin Shatsky Interview
Composer Dan Licht Interview
Screen shots from GameInfoLink.com

 

[moxie]

I really want to like this! Shattered Memories tried something new with the series and I really appreciated it for it, but it was a huge bomb. I'm hoping the same thing doesn't happen to Downpour. I don't want Silent Hill 2 and 3 to be perfectly recreated for nextgen, I just want a scary mindfucky game! Outside of Silent Hill and a few other series you're limited to shit like Dead Space and FEAR, that don't even succeed on a basic, jump scare abusing level.

The new monsters are honestly pretty spooky looking, and one of the most welcome changes that I hope sticks is de-emphasizing combat. Nothing makes the fleshy abominations of Silent Hill less scary than realizing you can easily dispatch them with a baseball bat in one-on-one combat.

 

[Venetia]

Unfortunately, judging by videos it still seems to transition in that cheesy, oh noo the world is peeling away! style.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA STOP IT STTTTOOOOPPPPPPPPP

euiefffeejjjjjjjjjjj

 

[Venetia]

ok


ok

okok
ok



when there was no ~*~slick movie fx~*~, it forced the player to question whether or not this all was in the main char's MIND.

like they would get a headache, black out, and wake up in poopstown. or they would be wandering down this hall that is WAYYY too long and eventually looks like an umbilical cord or something, and then boom, poopstown. or things would just really slowly transition, getting worse and worse with time, until boom, poopstown.

an additional psychological effect to this was that it always kind of felt a little like you could go back. like there was a way out, you just had to run backwards. you collect your cool and maybe mr. monster will go back under the bed for a while.



but then that ~"everything;s flakin away! sick effect, bro!"~ shit introduced in the movie fucked everything up.

it seems to imply that there is magic afoot. that the shit going down is the TOWN fucking with the CHARACTER, and not the CHARACTER'S own personal torment being personified through the TOWN.

it also implies that you're fucked. shit's not going to normalize until you meet some obtuse goal set by something else.


in SH5, the main character would just look about in dumbfounded awe as colors stripped away. that implies that all of this is happening TO him, and not BECAUSE OF him. there was no culmination. it was just "la dee da", and then ~fx~ while he went "well ... fuck. :/"


writing convincing transitions is much harder than "yay let's do a star wipe here" but god damn it does no one see the artistic value in forcing the player to question things??

 

[Venetia]

i read on a kotaku article that vatra is specifically looking to walk in the footsteps of SH2. that's a good thing.

but will they be able to pull off THAT level of writing? with that intensely disturbing backstory, which is never handed to you, but instead seems to make more and more sense afterwards?

in SH2, you walk into a fight with a boss that looks like a fucking dirty mattress filled with body-like shapes, in a room full of puckering sphincters. afterward, the young woman you've been talking to just walks into a fire. she doesn't TELL you "yeah my dad touched me a lot so i burned him to death, and here's my comeuppances i guess lol!!!" you just have to kind of put the pieces together and figure it out. (and what a nasty conclusion.)

im worried that vatra will just do a lot of shocking content and snuff crap and hand you the explanations (like in SH5 where you're forced to kill your own mom and then right afterward, you find a description basically just telling you verbatim why the "order" was displeased with her :/ ... again, making you the victim instead of the wolf in sheep's clothing.)


i don't know .... my hopes aren't high for this one.
we'll see :/

 

[moxie]

until we get more info on this there's not much to talk about except dread honestly, so here's alotta dumb words about a mostly mediocre past silent hill and what it did right imo~

Silent Hill 4 is kind of a joke in a lot of ways (stock screaming, burping enemies, jaguar dogs, etc.) but one thing that it did really well and no silent hill has succeeded in since was having a really unique, focused atmosphere.

Being trapped in your apartment, looking out the peephole desperately trying to get someone's attention while they stand just a few inches away gossiping about you, trying to call the first phone number you see in the hopes of talking to someone, anyone, and all of that stuff contributes to really lonely and tense feelings in-game.

At the halfway point when the "Otherworld" starts invading the apartment, it honestly succeeded in making me super tense. The game spent the whole first part of the game establishing how safe the apartment was, whether you were willing to be there or not, and then it just starts fucking you in really subtle ways. (and then as the hauntings get worse, some not so subtle)

The isolating and voyeuristic themes are touched on in really interesting ways too. Spying on Eileen (was that her name? i don't remember) always made me feel really uncomfortable, but at the same time, it was the closest you can get to contact with a person who isn't doomed or crazy. Then halfway through the game it starts turning it on you in really unexpected ways - you look through the peephole expecting to see her as usual and suddenly her silly little stuffed rabbit is looking directly at you, pointing in a very accusatory way. At one point you come across her giant head in a random room in the hospital, with eyes that stay fixed on you while she breathes heavily. The entire water prison is built around themes of voyeurism. Stuff like that really shows attention to thematic detail to me.

 

[Venetia]

man that shit was fucking BRILLIANT. i barely remember anything interesting at all about the locations you went to through the holes, but god damn the apartment parts were just so fucking well done.
there've only been a few games that have pulled off that same feeling of utter wrongness with surroundings that were once familiar and peaceful.

 

[moxie]

the only level that immediately springs to mind is the water prison level because of how well it tied in to the themes of the game, and it made me genuinely squeamish reading the notes all of the kids left behind and seeing what happened to them too. (also it was the first level to introduce double-heads and fuck those guys they were terrifying)

silent hill 4 could've been such a fantastic game because of the little touches like that, it's a shame that what we got in the end didn't really live up to the fleeting brilliant moments it had

as far as actual scares go, i think 3 is probably my favorite honestly

once you put aside the stupid cultist/demon baby bullshit you realize how well-crafted it was, the attention to detail in the background concerning things that a lot of people won't ever even see, and the protagonist and how well all of the monsters and symbolism fit the fears and anxieties of a teenage girl. i think my only complaint would be how quickly heather gets over everything going around her and starts throwing around snark like she's a whedon character.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

3 and 2 are my favorites. :X

I used to be scared to death to play 1. When I did back then, I freaked out at every little thing.

I haven't played 5 - which is probably a good thing.

My friend once said they should just leave Silent Hill alone.

I probably won't be playing this one unless I hear good things about it.

 

[candle]

4 is the only one out that i haven't finished. i just havent gotten around to it, yet.

 

[Venetia]

i have still never seen light/shadow effects in a game that look as good as the ones you see in SH3. just heather's stupid god-damn pocket flashlight hovering as she breathed was mood-setting.

everything was affected INTENSELY by light. typically i balk at games that throw you in the dark on purpose, but with light effects like that, darkness became a part of the CORE ELEMENT of the game instead of an environmental hindrance.

Spoiler: oh gog that mannequin room

i nearly pissed my damn self when i walked into that little mannequin storage closet. i was already unsettled by flashbacks of the double-legged mannequins from SH2.

then i saw that one mannequin which, if i remember right, looked strangely like heather. hmm. i went towards the door, and BZZT! the humming fluorescent overhead dies. that is immediately followed with a blood-curdling "AAAAAAUUGGGH!!Hhhhh ..." that sounded like Heather.

I glanced back with the flashlight, and then saw a glean of red. Something had decapitated the Heather-mannequin ... And it was bleeding :X

There were no other cues. No monster fights. If you didn't look back, or if your flashlight didn't hit it, you wouldn't have even seen it. But when I saw it, I could only go "ohfuckohfuckohfuckwhatwhatwhatwhat"

Spoiler: or, christ, the fucking bathtub/mirror

so i walked into this random room. it served no real purpose but to scare your poop's onto the floor. i still think about it when i see clawfoot tubs :x

it was a square room without anything in it but a clawfoot tub in the center, not visibly connected to any plumbing, and a wall-height/wall-length mirror on the back wall. if i remember right, all the ambient sound kind of snuffed out in there. so i went "?" and messed about.

i can't recall if i had to interact with it or if it did it on its own, but black bile started seeping out of the faucet on the tub. instead of acting like liquid, it sort of crawled ... sprawling itself slowly over the room. after being fixated on it a moment, i noticed heather's reflection in the mirror: she seemed to be decaying (and only in the mirror: in reality she looked fine, her HP was fine). it was working so slowly, i could only just stand there and wonder about it.

once the mirror-heather had decayed down to just being a gorey mess, real-heather (who had not been visibly reacting!) suddenly cried out, and died. Just, boom.

The room's ONLY purpose was in fucking with you. Awesome.

Spoiler: a great moment in the house of horrors

my favorite part was the haunted mansion spoof in the theme park. you're guided along by that over-the-top, ridiculous voice. you keep expecting it to be the worst, most horrendous part of the game. But it is a fucking regular theme park haunted house. I was lolling left and right after way too many "FUCK!" suspense moments.

and then at the end you get to this part with a descending spiked ceiling. the overhead speaker goes "Watch your Head!" or something to that effect. No matter how fast you try to run, the ceiling will ALWAYS impale your skull, because there was no formal "crouch" ... Unless you remember that Heather kind of stoops over when wielding a weapon. That teensy amount of space is the only thing that saves you.

It took me like 3 tries to figure it out, and I only did on accident. That was pretty clever. You don't think the ceiling will just stop, so you scramble. Loved that.

Not to mention, Valtiel: The motherfucker follows you the whole time. At a few points, you see him helping you, by killing other monsters.

And that one quote by the detective, in the car, when Heather is going off about the monsters, and he looks over, and goes, "They look like monsters to you ...?"

It made me wonder: Maybe the town is actually filled with normal people, and all of this is just an illusory pretense to disguise murder of actual people? This probably wasn't the case, but the fact that it made me question it was awesome.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

I almost wanted to say what the real theory is on that statement made by Vincent, but I don't want this to become a "Let's theorize SH thread". XD

Star's been getting into SH himself, and I think he likes the series. I need him to play 1, though. He's missing the beginning.

 

[moxie]

i'm interested, go for it

since we're suffering a drought of info (silent hill downpour: awful water/rain puns mandatory itt) we may as well use this as a general silent hill thread anyway

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

I get all my theories from Silent Hill Heaven. Good site for them, too. o.o

There are indeed several levels of the town: Normal, Misty and Otherworld.

Also, there is truth to Vincent's statement. He's referring to the Scrapers and the Missionary.

Spoiler

I thought it was pretty obvious that Vincent was referring to the Missionary and Scraper monsters, which are volunteer cultists given monster appearances by Claudia to feed Heather's hatred, and thus the God.

 

[moxie]

I never thought of it that way. Mostly I just ignored the cult stuff honestly - in a different game it could've been interesting, but I always felt it was way overshadowed by the cool psychological elements of Silent Hill and always wished they'd put more emphasis on that.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

I pay more attention the psychological aspects as well - which is why I Silent Hill 2 is one of my favorites. Same with Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (I know I'm strange).

 

[Venetia]

Ahhhh damn. man i could swear it was the detective that said it. i can picture it right now.

it has less of an impact when a member of the order says it :<


also yeah the cult isn't super interesting as a plot device, outside of their lore. the gods and the explanations of "mystical" things, and their rituals and such, are really interesting.

but i much prefer the cerebral approach in SH2 of "this shit looks this way b/c it's all metaphorical for james's personal demons", as opposed to the "them's witch's!" of most of the rest.

 

[Anski]

I honestly like that they're taking a different swing on this. Lord knows we're tired of Final Fantasy by now, and so many other things because they just don't change.

I've enjoyed every Silent Hill except Homecoming because it was pretty much Silent Hill: The Movie: The Game. Shattered Memories, Origins, all of it was enjoyable to me, and i'm glad to see the Horror genre spike a little bit with shit like Alan Wake, Siren and now this. Sure, it may suck, but at least they're deciding to try and take the formula outside into the rain and work it a little bit instead of taking the formula from one rusted desk over near the rusted window and changing nothing.

 

[Venetia]

i dig that ... i just don't get the blue thing. it's basic color theory. blue =/= scary. ever. ever ever ever. opposite of scary.

also alan wake was executed TERRIBLY imo. jesus CHRIST. like i was digging it during the town parts, but then you just get to the "hey it's night, so run around the forest" parts, and then it's always the fucking same: killing the bad guys is so fucking annoying and there is no pay off but you can't run from them because they're faster, so there's not even any fear, just annoyance. also blue. BLLLLUUUUEEEEE. Blue everywhere forever. Bleh

I guess the one game i can think of that pulled off creepy with blue was ECCO: The Dolphin. But that wasn't even meant to be scary, it just was. The sound design and the duality of the themes was the biggest creep-factor. You have this absolutely adorable fucking little critter, in this gorgeously pixeled little world, and everything hurts you EVERYTHING HURTS FOREVER and your breath is running out YOU'RE SUFFOCATING OH GOD. That hollow music in the background set a great mood. And when Ecco got hurt he'd go "BWAAAAAUUUGGHGHGHGH" and freak your shit right out the room. And then randomly you get to these queer crystals that talk at you, or some Ridley Scott-looking motherfucker would come flying out at you from nowhere. God damn that fucking game was so badass back in the day.

But no one does mindfuck horror right anymore ... they all go the melodramatic or the plain-old-gore route instead of a straight mindfuck approach

 

[moxie]

I'd like to think they aren't outright going for AAA SCARY w/ the blue and rain motif. It seems very desolate and depressing, so maybe they're putting atmosphere and psychological shits first with less of an emphasis on outright horror. Whether it'll work or not is questionable but anything is better than Homecoming imo.

I really wanted to like 0rigins, they had a lot of good ideas but implemented them in strange ways. Breakable items to increase tension regarding powerlessness - they let you carry around 10 TVs in your pocket. More unique puzzles involving the environment shifting - they give control of the Otherworld shifts to YOU, thereby taking a lot of the horror and unexpectedness. One step forward, two steps back kinda stuff.