|
|
View previous topic :: View next topic
|
| Author |
Message |
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
 Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 8:54 pm Post subject: [FKW'07]Silent Hill 2 Screencap Thread |
  |
|
Just like the title says. Taking requests, BTW. I prefer storefronts and background shots. Also set pieces. I am strolling through town on an Easy playthrough and taking snapshots.
Also, spoilers. (Duh?)
_________________
Last edited by Adilegian on Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:32 pm; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
 |
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 9:52 pm |
|
|
| internisus wrote: |
| You're doing a great job for avatar positioning and cinematic framing. I hope you do the whole game like this! |
That's kind of my idea right now.
I have just noticed that the stoplights and the crosswalk signals change in Silent Hill 2.
Other images:
And I think this is a really sweet detail. Remember that first mutilated corpse James ran across? This was the map he left. It's strange to think that we're basically looking at a dude who met Game Over in some other sequel of Silent Hill.
Also! Gozo's Sushi is the only store actually open in Silent Hill!
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:17 pm |
|
|
| Churippu wrote: |
| That "There was a hole here. It is gone now" has always creeped me out beyond belief for some reason. |
Have you ever gotten the unintelligible whispering in the apartment with the balcony? A friend was over while I was showing him the XBOX version, and he's played this game to hell and back. The whisper was new to both of us, and it's really, really frightening. It has an assuring tone that you want to trust.
A few more, with some shots inside the apartment complex coming up next post.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:21 pm |
|
|
Inside the apartment. Some of the screencaps are washed out because the caps appear darker in WinTV than they actually turn out. This leads me to overcompensate on the brightness in the program.
And there are lots of good camera angles in the apartment!
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:37 am |
|
|
| Shapermc wrote: |
Can you get some really good images of the sign of Metatron (sp?)
Thanks! |
I'll see if I can find it in this game. I remember that it showed up a lot during SH1 and SH3, but I don't know if it showed up in SH2.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:36 pm |
|
|
Doublepost!
_________________
Last edited by Adilegian on Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:36 pm |
|
|
| tacotaskforce wrote: |
| As for the wispering, I remember it was something to the effect of "Get out of here James. Leave here now." but played backwards. |
That's awesome. I think I'm going to throw the game into my PC's DVDROM drive and rip all the audio to see what I can see.
| tacotaskforce wrote: |
| I'm not really sure what to make of the corpses in SH2. Most of the corpses in Silent Hill (in foggy Silent Hill at least) seemed to me to be members of the cult that Dahlia had offed before you'd gotten to the town (for example one of the cult members was the police chief, and you get a key early in the game from a bloody squad car next to one of the cliffs). In SH3 the corpses were your allies. With the exception of one room in the whole game if you saw a corpse in a room it meant there would not be any enemies in the room, and the corpses would often have useful items for you. |
My theory is that each successive Silent Hill game ret-cons the nature of the Otherworld in the town.
In Silent Hill 1, the Otherworld was a creation of Alyssa designed to protect herself from Dahlia and the cult.
In Silent Hill 2, the Otherworld was a residuum of the cult. The Otherworld syncretically merged with the psyche of an individual who entered the town. In this way, the experiences are forged from a marriage of the history of the town and the individual's own unconscious mind. This is my explanation why, for example, Pyramid Head both reflects the history of Silent Hill as a Civil War prisoner camp and James' need to punish himself.
In Silent Hill 3, the Otherworld was an active part of the cult. It apparently was not bound specifically to a geographical location, but it penetrated the lives of those who had become involved with the cult.
In Silent Hill 4, the Otherworld was simply a generalized power that could be stimulated via ritual. I thought it was great that Walter Sullivan's achievement was very much NOT the cult's. He had secured his fetishized mother, but that was all despite Dahlia having bred him specifically as a tool to manifest the god of the Silent Hill cult.
So, with that said, I think that the corpses in SH2 were probably other people who had gotten trapped in the Otherworld that lingered after the events of Silent Hill.
For example!
Take the guy who you get the apartment key from. He strikes me as someone who got snagged into Silent Hill in the same way that James was. You find the note in the trailerhome (“I’ll be waiting at Pat’s Bar,” or something) that leads you to the bar, where you see this:
You also see this:
From the looks of it, whoever drew this map entered Silent Hill from the northwest, whereas James had entered from the east. He got into the eastern downtown area through the apartments, and he tried to get into all the closed stores. He was only able to enter the trailerhome and the bar, and he had noted on his map the only alley where he hadn’t explored.
And, of course, the corpse you find where he marked “?” holds the key to the apartment complex. This suggests that that’s the guy’s corpse.
Then there’s the corpse you see with all of his notes strewn across the street. He had arrived in Silent Hill with a friend who claimed not to be able to see the demons. I would guess that those two guys arrived in town together. Either that, or the guy who got through the apartments was in collusion with one of the other corpses on the street. (It doesn’t make much sense that he’d write a note to James, after all.)
It’s also neat to see how the corpses suggest different means of death. The guy with the apartment key doesn’t even have a face, whereas the other corpses simply appear to have been eviscerated. Compare that with James’ vision of Angela’s version of Silent Hill later in the game—one dominated by the image of fire (purification and judgment) rather than water (baptism and rebirth)—and it seems as though each of the corpses died at the hands of demons whose forms were appropriate to those persons’ individual unconscious minds.
It would also explain the HOLE note on the wall. It’s a manifestation of someone else’s hell.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 5:27 pm |
|
|
| internisus wrote: |
| Wow, very nice summary right there. I love your thinking on the corpses and agree that it's a very interesting implication that they were themselves exploring the town in their own ways, and that you can guess at what it is they saw. |
Thanks! I’m now remembering exactly what I loved about Silent Hills 1, 2, and 4.
Occultism is one of my lighter hobbies, and it’s been so since late high school. I’m not Wiccan or anything, but I’ve been interested in occult systems (particularly Yeats’ prophetic system described in A Vision) and a lot of the guttered Hebraic mysticism that blended with European folk superstition during the 17th through early 20th centuries.
One of the prizes in my library is a copy of Francis Barrett’s The Magus: a Complete System of Occult Philosophy, which has its share of gyromantic circles and other peculiarities. One of the gems: “If a woman takes a needle, and bewray it with dung, and put it up in earth in which the carcass of a man has been buried, and carry it about her in a piece of cloth used at a funeral, no man can defile her as long as she carries that.”
That’s one hell of a chastity belt! It’s a lot of associative and sympathetic magic, basically, of the sort that Frazer wrote about in The Golden Bough. Good stuff!
I’m also very interested in existential phenomenology, which sharply slants my understanding of what goes on in Silent Hill 2.
And the Silent Hill series gives me a playground to exercise both these interests liberally!
| boojiboy7 wrote: |
| Man, I really wish I had been able to participate in this. Well, I have a three day weekend, so I may be playing through some SH2 on my own for the project. |
Do it!
| boojiboy7 wrote: |
| I mean, it is convenient to view the world as a creation of James's head, but it obviously isn't just that. To try and figure out where the "real world" i.e. actual Silent Hill and also the Silent hill of the cult (the Otherworld, which in 2 seems to be the only world) ends and James mind begins in pretty difficult, though should be interesting to examine. |
I think of Silent Hill as a brusque violation of existential isolation. I think that the physical place has a memory, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear.
It’s Friday. The Writing Center’s deader’n dead for the remaining two hours I’m on the clock. Time to theorize.
The fictional history mentions that Native Americans regarded the place as sacred and that it became darker and more dangerous after Europeans settled the place. Those Europeans had questionable religious notions, mixed their beliefs with the indigenous religion, and evolved into the Order as it appears in the first Silent Hill.
Here’s what I think the genealogy of the cult is!
Harry Mason runs across the Balkan Church. I take this as an ineloquent, Engrish way for the developers to have stated, “This is a Christian Church, and it is a Balkan variety of Christianity!” Because, shit, there is no religious community in America that goes by the name “Balkan Church.” It’s not a denomination.
I had researched the runic characters used in the Seal of Metatron (later revealed in SH3 to be a symbol of the cult), and I had learned that other Silent Hill fans were way ahead of me. They were a Hungarian variety. This would imply that the immigrants who had moved into the area were Greco-Slavic.
By geographical proximity and the Order’s apparent organization, I assumed some connection between the regional beliefs of the original Slavic immigrants and the old cult of Dionysus. Similarities: (a) use of hallucinogens, (b) matriarchal order, (c) shunned for witchcraft, and (d) bent upon destruction. The latter part connects the two for me in particular since Dionysus is often interpreted as Satanic, especially in contrast with his antipode Apollo, and both the Order and Dionysus seek to manifest an unregenerative chaos in the world.
So there’s my theory on the origins of the cult of Silent Hill: Bacchic miscreants immigrated to America and possessed the eldritch spiritual energy of Silent Hill. Since the only means available to apprehend the energy of the area were through the indigenous religion, the Order resulted as a syncretic fusion of indigenous ritualism and a Dionysus cult.
With this in mind, I think that the spiritual sentience of Silent Hill exists independent of human will, just as your cognition exists independent from mine. However, much as an individual’s consciousness and memory are only formed through interaction with the external world, the specific contents of Silent Hill’s place-memory are determined by the people who live there.
The images that dominate Silent Hill (such as Pyramid Head) recur with such force because of the intensity and longevity of exposure that the place-memory had to those forces. In other words, the pyramid-hooded executioners killed so many people for so long in the area that their images persist within the place-memory. As well, because the immensity of Silent Hill’s cognition far outweighs the cognition of an individual person, ghosts (which are arguably comprised of an individual’s desire to remember or to be remembered) are magnetically attracted to the place.
Silent Hill’s place-memory is the stage and prop room for the Otherworld.
Barring the Otherworld retconning of Silent Hills 3 and 4, the cult is largely dead by the time that James shows up with a letter from his dead wife. This is important, I think, because it allows for the possibility of multiple, subjective experiences of the Otherworld. (E. G., the corpses found in the streets.) The Order previously governed and directed the Otherworld, but, without their existence, it continues to operate as they had conditioned it.
In a sense, Silent Hill’s Otherworld is a traumatized, shapeshifting god.
The medium of the Otherworld is the same stuff that makes up the human unconscious memory, and I think that it reads an individual’s unconscious memory when they establish a certain relationship with the town. Silent Hill becomes both the dream and the dreamer: it becomes the stage on which the dream-events occur, and it becomes a participant within the dream that supplies form to content.
The content is James’ desire for punishment mixed; Pyramid Head is the form.
That’s how I think it works. Chalk it up to the convergence of my personal obsessions.
Will probably have more pictures later tonight!
EDIT: Some scanned images from The Magus for shits 'n giggles:
Please note that I am not a wizard. I am a Presbyterian who is often curious about the ways of wizards.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:33 pm |
|
|
Alright. More pix. Nao.
Before new stuff, a rehash:
The more I look at this picture, the more I'm confused. What exactly distinguishes Old Silent Hill from the Silent Hill that James goes through? Judging from the first game, I thought they were basically a drawbridge apart from each other... yet the sign says that Old Silent Hill is 50 miles away.
Now, for more Apartment scenes:
^^^ Backboard reads "Travis Painting Service," I think.
^^^ The room where James finds Angela. If I recall rightly, the flesh and concrete texture of the ceiling is the same as the room where James fights the "False Daddy" monster.
^^^ This confuses me. I remember that James observes, "Just a strange painting" when looking at the map. I don't know exactly what's happening with the painting, but I guess Silent Hill's Otherworld is Republican. Or Angela's Dad was.
The second Pyramid Head encounter:
^^^ Viva Blue Velvet.
In the pool:
Eddie Dumbrowski:
Jumping between apartments:
DOING WHAT NEEDS TO BE FUCKING DONE:
Angela:
Pyramid Head showdown number one:
And the Walter Sullivan connection:
Will respond with textings later!
EDIT: I had accidentally posted this as an edit to the initial post. Apologies. All is restored.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 4:13 am |
|
|
Okay! I'm at Brookhaven Hospital, and I've been dallying as much as possible to see what's around. After getting out of the apartments:
^^^ Looks like they put the texture on backwards. The warning sign looks as though it reads ON GNIKRAP.
Then I met Laura. God, I hate Laura. Better than Sherry Birkin, though.
Then came Rosewater Park.
Meeting Maria.
A couple of flashbacks to the Lakeside Hotel home video, blurred during the Maria meeting:
And then on our way out of Rosewater Park. Notice how the fog has gone from gauzy white to rust. (iambic pentameter lol)
Instead of going straight to the Bowl-O-Rama, I ran checked out the storefronts on the roads behind the apartments. Here are the things I saw!
^^^ This makes me think of Twin Peaks.
Then I ran along the road that runs to the Historical Society.
^^^ This is weird because all of the other speed limit signs in Silent Hill read 15MPH. This doesn't reduce the speed limit at all.
^^^ The text in the middle of this billboard reads, "9 Rod From Here." I think this was an attempt to convey, "Just one mile on the right!" But "rod?" No, it's not metric, but that doesn't necessarily mean we use it, Japan.
Or am I missing a bowling pun?
^^^ It's hard to read, but this says, "PIZZA."
Obviously, I couldn't yet enter the Silent Hill Historical Museum. Got to check out the boating company, though.
^^^ This reads, "Toluca Lake: Keep The Nature."
At end very end of the road, I found that the bridge was totally wrecked. Also, there was another mutilate corpse with a map.
In the near future: the Bowl-O-Rama and Heaven's Night.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:38 pm |
|
|
Bowl-o-rama post coming soon, but I just noticed that the lake on the last image I posted is spelled "Toruca Lake." They're usually so good about avoiding that stuff.
EDIT: Also, I noticed that the markings on that map appear waterlogged. This might suggest that the poor guy tried to swim across the river! To no avail, clearly.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 8:12 am |
|
|
As promised, now, an update with Bowl-O-Rama and Heaven's Night pictures.
Outside the Bowl-O-Rama, where the fog is crazy thick:
^^^ One of two wall paintings on the inner side of the bowling alley's parking lot wall.
And inside Bowl-O-Rama:
^^^ In this picture, James is looking at the sole bowling pin standing in the entire alley.
Heaven's Night:
^^^ I think they screw this camera angle around to get a sense of how tight a fit it would be for James to get inside there.
And there we are up (mostly) to date! I'm in the Hospital now, and God damn the AI programming on Maria. She needs to learn how to behave like Ashley from RE4: when I aim a gun, get behind me and get low. I got my first game over because James shot Maria when she was off-screen. >=(
I'll be uploading a recording of the intro montage (with that awesome music) shortly. If I can get a copy of the PC version of the game, I'll even try to put together a little package of the sound effects.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:52 am |
|
|
| Lestrade wrote: |
| Oh man, is there any way there can be a Zip made of all these lovely images? |
Oh sure! I can get one wrapped up as soon as I finish the game. I just got out of the hospital, so there's only the SIlent Hill Historical Society and the Hotel left, I think.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:47 am |
|
|
Quick update. Recording of the intro sequence can be gotten here:
http://www.adilegian.com/Video/SH2Intro.wmv
It's 46.4mb large. I've got a startling revelation! Might post in a bit, but I'd like to wait until the thread resets to a new page before I post any more images. This page is already heavy enough!
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:22 am |
|
|
I'm going to reply to everyone in reverse order.
Hey, thanks! Yes, I hear "dead wife" and "laundry." The last part of the byte has too many sibilant sounds that drown out the vowels, so I can't make out the rest.
| Schwere Viper wrote: |
| It's too bad Adilegian is out of the apartments. I wanted to ask if he could take a picture of a certain bit of graffiti. |
What was it? I'm probably going to run through the game a second time after I beat it, so I'll be able to snag it then. There are certain shots that I'd like to retake with the distortion filter turned off, and I recall that the option to turn it off becomes available after you beat the game.
| Schwere Viper wrote: |
| That image reminds me...is it just me, or can anyone else see something like a Moai head in those bootprints sometimes? |
I can see it if I don't think about it, weirdly enough, but I become unable to see it when I look for it. Thank you for breaking my mind.
| Lestrade wrote: |
| Apartment hallway with my cell phone. I was going to do something Silent Hill-esque, but I don't think I have to! Creepy! |
This is frightening to me.
| Mister Toups wrote: |
| I guess the good Mr. Adilegian will have to take shots so we can settle this once and for all! |
Proper "netiquette" dictates fisticuffs at dawn on the east side of the gallery. I am available should you need a second.
| extrabastardformula wrote: |
| I think it's similar to the scene where the player and James see the fire (or maybe James just feels it as he comments on it being hot as hell but no mention of flames) and it's made explicit that different people perceive what's going on in Silent Hill. James's comment about it just being a strange painting is the same sort of thing, an indication that you are receiving a different image of what's happening that your in game avatar is. There's likely a lot of other things that the player can see which James can't. |
I always thought that it was significant that the player and James shared the same perceptions and mis-perceptions. I feel as though the game breaks down and becomes weaker when that connection is lost.
I kinda just chalked the painting comment up to a gap between the stage design guys and the guys writing the text. This would be understandable to me if it was done quickly, since not everyone knows the exact shape of other people's country off the top of their heads.
| shapermc wrote: |
| I can't find a good image of it anyfuckingwhere. Also, I'm not sure what it is a symbol for. I don't think the metatron symbol is even in the game. |
I think the player encounters that symbol in the Historical Society building, which is where I'm headed now. I'll see what I can do!
I'm afraid that I might not be able to get a good angle on the image though. I remember being intrigued by the symbol during my most recent playthrough, but wishing I could have seen more. My gut instinct (from my hobbyist occultism) is to say it's a diagram relating certain symbols with zodiacal phases. The outer ring looks very similar to the outer ring on a zodiacal chart, and I think I can recognize some of the zodiacal symbols on its fringe.
Actually, it looks a whole lot like some of the charts I drew up a while back to help myself understand Yeats' occult system in A Vision. I'll check my pictorial resources and see if I can find anything similar to that.
| wackodave wrote: |
| Those stoplights are very Twin Peaks. I wonder if that's why they went to the bother of having them change. |
I want a goddamn Twin Peaks videogame. =(
| wourme wrote: |
| Also, here's a site that has lots of good screenshots from 2, 3, and 4. |
Thanks!
| Churippu wrote: |
| D: Yes, the whispering is horrible when you are playing the game next to a sleeping friend and you all the sudden shout "OMG DID YOU HEAR THAT" and they go "what? huh?" cause you know they just woke up and all "No" they say and you try and get it to do it again and it just doesn't and then your friend thinks you are crazy and it is time to turn off the game. True story folks. |
Something very small like that whispering sound makes me very agitated. I simultaneously want to throw the controller down and change the lightbulbs (or something manual to get my mind out of the game world), and I want to investigate to find out what it was. The area where it happens is great for this, too, since it seems to offer escapes that turn out to be more enclosing.
| RecessRapist wrote: |
| Could you take captures of the bowling alley when you get there? Its my favorite part of the game. I guess its because of the feeling of safety it provides. And the music is soothing too! |
Did I get everything you were looking for?
| boojiboy7 wrote: |
| Dammit, Adilegain, you need to move to Cleveland or something so we can talk this shit out. I mean, I am still definitely going to do it on this board, but yeah. This is going to give me a lot to think about this weekend. This is officially Silent Hill weekend now for me, with some Chulip if it shows up and wrestling if my friends come over to break it up. |
I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts. This series is probably among my top two favorites (MGS being the other). Silent Hill 2 stands out to me as the last time the games kept moving in what felt like the right direction, so I have special affection for it.
| shapermc wrote: |
| Anyways, I would love to sit around and chew this over with a few people in a coffee shop setting or something. Perhaps even with a program that would allow a free-camera type exploration of the game. |
That's close to why I'm trying to get hold of the PC version of the game. I'm hoping that I'll be able to access the texture files on that platform better than I can on the PS2 disc.
| chompers po pable wrote: |
| the character in the center of the seal looks like the character for "Mind" from what Adilegian posted. |
You know, I hadn't even considered using those symbols as any kind of key to discerning the patterns on that painted symbol in the screenshot. Here's hoping I can crack a texture file and find it.
| internisus wrote: |
| My only disappointment in SH2 was that, excepting events from the Historical Society onward, the town's transformations into its Otherworldly form were uninteresting. Without question, the most distinctively frightening and interesting aspect of the first game was the fact that the town transformed into something horrifying when Harry needed a new route to open up. |
I'm not sure I entirely agree. I think that the town adjusts itself to the needs of the particular pilgrim, and there are more than a few instances in Silent Hill 2 when it does just that.
The apartment buildings' Otherworld really begins when James crosses from the first into the second building. We see some of the trademark chain-mesh fences that seems to be a property of the town no matter whose delusions are being enacted. In particular, though, we see a lot of standing water, water-damage, and rot. I think that the fact that the apartment buildings are so crammed together (at their fire escapes, of all places) suggests that the Otherworld has altered their physical locations to assist James' progress.
It's also interesting to note that the passage through the apartments marked on the map James finds in the Bar is no longer open to him. I expect that the passage marked on that map existed for that particular traveler, but its recurrence is unlikely for anyone else.
Likewise, the marked change from the normal Hospital to the Otherworld Hospital comes when James seems literally wheeled out of reality. Once he defeats the hanging monsters, the camera tilts up to the sound of distant sirens, and the first-person perspective watches the ceiling scroll past—all wire-mesh, of course—until he is dropped in an area depicted on his map as a spacious Garden. However, he sees that it's just a cement enclosure exposed to the elements. (In that space, it is raining for perhaps the only time in the game.) Then he gets into environments that are more familiar to those who went through with Harry.
All the familiar motifs are here: wire-mesh walls, industrial fans, and fleshy sinew binding everything together. But, still, there are transformations more particular to his circumstances. Everything seems mildewed, as though the area had just been drained of water.
I'm struck by the notion that, when a siren resounds and a person is taken to a darker form of their environment, the sentience of the place (what I have referred to earlier as its place-memory) has decided that the person has proven himself capable of handling a more intense immersion in both the town and himself. Consequently, we get the familiar images of constriction and entrapment impressed upon the town by Alessa, and we also get representations of James' psyche.
The traveler and the town fuse in an attempt to destroy each other, while generating a new reality in the process. The new reality only sustains itself as long as both parties struggle against each other.
It's interesting that someone only attempts to communicate directly with James via letter at the end of the Hospital setting. The author is implied to be a doctor who mentions a vaguely Nietzchian abyss (what with the staring into and staring back and so on), and the doctor speaks as though he has also played the town's game—and lost. I would wager he's one of the spirits attracted to (or collected by) the sentience of the town.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 7:45 am |
|
|
It has also come to my attention that I am apparently James Sunderland.
Similarities: larger than average nose; deep-set eyes; high cheekbones; reddish hair; exact same boots; exact same first name.
Differences: height; preferred wardrobe; Sunderland's jaw is more square than mine.
For comparison:
I tried to find photos of myself that were close to the FMV perspectives and expressions. I don't have that many photos of myself!
This gives me something to shoot for on Halloween. Now to find my doppelganger and have him go as Pyramid Head.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:12 am |
|
|
| Pijaibros wrote: |
| I would love to try and play this again. One problem...I am too scared to do so. |
You and me both. =( I'm taking one for the damn team, here.
I just triggered the setpiece fright in the Toluca Prison in the women's bathroom. You go to the stall at the end, and James will knock on the door. You expect there to be some kind of SH3-esque knocking back, but there's nothing. Then RIGHT WHEN YOU GET TO THE EXIT, you hear the sound of a door smashing down along with a feral, female scream.
And then you BOOK IT man.
EDIT: As I think I wrote before, I'm waiting for this thread to jump to the next page to post another gallery of pictures. In the meantime, though, I am here:
=(
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 8:13 pm |
|
|
Excerrent. The deluge resumes.
I've got—God—224 screencaps from the Hospital alone, so I'm going to be selective on what I post in the thread, for the sake of my bandwidth. No worries about missing out on anything, though. I'll upload a .zip file with all this stuff as soon as I get 'em done.
There's another picture I'm dying to get that I forgot about. The HOLE text actually changes when the time turns to Dark Silent Hill, and it's creepy.
So! Hospital.
^^^ INFOMATION lol
Next time: Silent Hill After Hours, Silent Hill Historical Society, and the Toluca Prison.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 10:51 pm |
|
|
Okay. Two parts to this one. Silent Hill After Hours shows the town after the Hospital. There are nurses in the streets (oh God), darkness viscerally seems to encroach upon light, and there's a lot more of the transformations we saw during the Dark Silent Hill scenes from the first game. (Wire-mesh grates for floors and stuff.)
^^^ That red symbol on the front looks like it's supposed to be the Recycling insignia, but I don't think I've ever seen a red version of it. As it appears on the trashbin, it looks like a cross between the Recycling and Biohazard insignias.
Which might be useful to have in the right circumstances.
^^^ I offer this lonely wall as a way to approve of my nickname and Boojiboy's new signature.
^^^ I think this says H. M. N. CORPORATION.
^^^ This is very scary to me for personal reasons.
^^^ This is the entrance to the area that connects both halves of south Silent Hill since James can no longer go back through the apartment areas.
^^^ This is just great. I love how scarily erotic they made these monsters pose. It makes me think of a street hooker... and it also makes me think of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker videogame.
^^^ *cries*
^^^ I really like the attention given to the shadow of the CAUTION sign here.
^^^ OBEDIENCE DIE!!
On my way out to the Historical Society, I took some recaptures of the roadside billboards.
^^^ Text at the bottom of the billboard reads: "The Storys of the Truth."
pluralistic reality(ies) lol
Text below the billboard title reads: "The Early Day of 'Toluca'." Kinda cute, because it's got the quotation marks around the name Toluca as they would have appeared around the name in katakana.
^^^ I think this is a nice touch. One of the roadside billboards has been knocked on its face.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 10:56 pm |
|
|
More Silent Hillery.
The file names here all read "HistoricalSociety," but that's mainly because I was too lazy to change the names once I realized I had gotten into Toluca Prison.
As promised, I paid extra special attention to the Satanist's cell. Here are all the pictures from it.
^^^ Anyone else see the scary faces in the bricks to the immediate right of the window? (Also slightly further away to the left.)
Shooting Puff the Magic Dragon.
^^^ THIS is the door that scared the bejesus out of me.
And that's it for the Historical Society and Prison! Oh, I remember that there was a pretty big hubbub over the presence of ButterCake in Silent Hill 3, and I found a box of it in SH2. Here's a large screen cap of it in the Prison.
http://www.adilegian.com/Images/SH2/ButterCake.jpg
The Buttercake box is in the lower left hand corner.
EDIT: Made this one a link because it's effin' huge.
_________________
Last edited by Adilegian on Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:33 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:08 am |
|
|
Oh snap.
Just got my copy of SH2 for the PC. Time to get some textures.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:31 am |
|
|
| Mister Toups wrote: |
these things -- they're basically the closers from SH3, right? |
Kind of. These things will shoot spikes at you through their feet when they walk near you, and I don't remember the Closers doing much besides clubbing.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:46 am |
|
|
Texture files on the PC version of the game are cracked. (Well, I used a program that someone had written several years back. But anyway! All of Silent Hill 2 lies naked before me.)
Sample:
^^^ All of the items as they appear in the menus.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 1:49 pm |
|
|
Got some things that might interest a few of you....
^^^ The raw texture file for the Pyramid Head painting.
^^^ The inmate billboard from Toluca Prison. Looks like they just copied something from Alcatraz.
^^^ The menu in the dining hall.
^^^ The texture file for the wall with the occult symbol on it. This is probably going to be the most direct image we can get of it.
^^^ The other wall.
^^^ Texture file for the Pyramid Head engraving on the front of the scaffold.
^^^ I have no idea where this face appears in game. It makes me think about Josie from Twin Peaks.
^^^ Images used on the hidden paintings deeper in the Silent Hill Historical Society.
I'm going to build a small library of the signs and junk seen around town.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:54 pm |
|
|
| Mister Toups wrote: |
I wonder if this is high enough resolution to blow up into a small-sized poster?
I mean I'd love to have it at the same size it appears in the actual game (like basically taking up an entire wall) but I'll take what I can get. Can something like this be done at Kinko's, I wonder? |
I bet Kinko's would do that. I don't know how it would look blown up, though. (Not saying one way or another, here; just confessing ignorance.)
I had you specifically in mind when I uploaded this. To gauge from your previous post, I figured you might get some use out of it, so I'm glad I guessed right.
| Mister Toups wrote: |
| That's amazing. I wonder if it never got used? Or was used so subtly that never consciously saw it? I'm dying to know if and where it shows up, now. |
All of the texture files are grouped according to which area uses them. I'll riffle back through and see what's nearby the wooden faces. That might give us a hot-or-cold notion.
| Mister Toups wrote: |
| Wait, where do you see these? They're all new to me. I like the exterior shot of... is that the prison? |
These pictures appear near the beginning of the Toluca Prison area, right after James descends the long abyss staircase. Here's the screen cap.
This is what you see when James looks at them:
It's strange how that picture of the Prison Camp looks exactly like its remains when James leaves the place. I'm unsure whether or not the Prison area is a fabrication of James' imagination, or if the town actually puts him inside it via its own special physics.
Here are some shots from the back of the prison.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:45 am |
|
|
| shapermc wrote: |
| Anyways, I'm glad that you grabbed the other side of that prison cell, I really wanted to know what that was. Any chance of blowing them up, cleaning them up and then deciphering them? |
Blowing them up should be easy, but I'm hardly proficient in Photoshop beyond simple tasks. I'm curious about the symbol, too, and I'm guessing that they simply took a stock occult symbol and applied it to the texture file.
It'll probably be easier just to find what their source image was. That ought not to be too hard. I'll see what I can do over the next week or so.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:47 am |
|
|
Quick housecleaning note here: in order to free up some space on my server (and reduce the load on my bandwidth everytime someone checks the thread and reloads the images), I'm going to take down the images I've already posted and zip them for future download.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 1:04 am |
|
|
Here are my shots from the Labyrinth. I'll try something new for the remainder of the gallery images. After I post the screencaps from a given area, I'll post any of the texture files I've got if they seem relevant.
In one of the labyrinth paths, James can actually enter a room considered Pyramid Head's residence. It's unexpectedly clinical.
James has the Great Knife equipped on that last shot.
I'm interested in the three carcasses in the room. I wonder if they're intended to represent James, Angela, and Eddie. Though Pyramid Head himself doesn't seem to visit Angela or Eddie, I guess this could be considered the locus of the Force of Punishment within Silent Hill.
Here are some textures from PH's room.
Here's the texture image for the rotating cube's face:
James gets the wire cutters from the snapping circuit board after he visits Maria. The texture for the circuit board itself is surprisingly detailed, considering how small it appears on-screen.
Here are some textures from the hallway and room from the boss fight in Angela's Room.
And then there's this strange piece of machinery located in the room model file. I have no idea what this was intended to be!
Maybe it was supposed to appear as the operating mechanism for the sexualized pistons in the walls?
I don't know what exactly happened to Maria, but part of her face looks weirdly reptilian. Here's the character texture. (It's classified as an item in the game, I guess because she just lies there.)
I like the ground textures in the graveyard a whole lot.
I really like the textures of the hallway leading up to Eddie's area. You can see bulletholes dripping blood in the wall as the hallway gets bloodier.
AND THAT'S IT. Whew.
Next up: Boat Launch. After that comes the Hotel.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 6:30 pm |
|
|
| Schwere Viper wrote: |
| The Labyrinth was one of the absolute scariest places for me. The map making itself up as you go along, and walking through a maze of bare, dilapidated hallways with only a flashlight providing a dim light... |
The thing that gets me about the Labyrinth is how comparatively plain the walls are compared with the rest of the environments. They really do seem like vanilla constructs from the mind, all of them intent upon appearing exactly like the others.
| Schwere Viper wrote: |
| Burns, maybe? Looks like a mix of bruising and blisters. |
Maybe so. I thought it might be a visual reference back to Mary’s physical deformity with her illness. I don’t have access to that texture file at work, but I’ll post it once I get home.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 6:47 pm |
|
|
I’ve spent the past five hours tutoring students and reading War & Peace. I’m English’d out. Time to bring this thread one step closer to glory.
The boat trip!
This is really interesting to me. The picture in the historical society showed that the loading dock was the back of the Prison, and the Boat Launch definitely appears on the map behind the Historical Society. So we can assume that the Prison actually existed, and that James took an Otherworld path that utilized both the Prison’s abandoned memories and James’ own confusion (manifested as the Labyrinth).
I’m guessing that, in reality, he didn’t go much farther than a few rooms after he met Eddie by the corpse. I mean, I’m pretty sure that Eddie didn’t go through James’ labyrinth, but through his own path. It makes sense that the meat locker wouldn’t be very far away from the mess hall, so I expect that the Labyrinth was wholly James’ creation, while the Prison was the creation of the town.
I thought it was also interesting that James couldn’t see Eddie’s manifestation of Silent Hill, whereas he could see Angela’s flames. I suppose this might be due to the fact that James empathized with Angela. Both of them were there with the intention of accepting punishment for what they did: James came to the town in order to kill himself, and Angela... well, she recriminates herself harshly to the extent that she blames herself for getting raped by her father.
Eddie, on the other hand, is much more extroverted. He’s pretty damn prepared to attack others as a way of dealing with his anxiety.
On second thought, perhaps Eddie’s version of Silent Hill wasn’t influenced by any particular element—water for James, fire for Angela—but simply decorated with bulletholes and blood. I also now suspect that all of his slayings were symbolic suicides, since he always dramatizes the pleasure he gets from killing another person by pressing the barrel of his pistol to his temple and then “killing himself.”
Here’s the texture file for these signs and junk.
And here are some more texture files picked out of the environment model files.
Some background wall textures, along with textures for the fountain statuary.
Here is a tree texture file that includes a strange desert landscape. I don’t recall having seen this in the game.
And here’s a texture of the front of the church that James enters when you get the Rebirth ending.
Someone posted a YouTube video showing some exploration of that island on foot using a camera hack for the PC version. Obviously, the island isn’t a proper gameplay environment, since it’s just a dramatic set for the end scenario. Still, kinda cool!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxvF2_QbbKQ
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:44 am |
|
|
| Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh wrote: |
| Also, is it possible to find that island in the middle of the lake? I always search for it. |
You mean during the boat rowing sequence?
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
Adilegian
Rogue Scholar
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
|
| Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 9:36 pm |
|
|
SNAP.
I had cleared all those out to make more room for other things on the server. Hm. Let me see what I can do for you once I get home.
_________________
|
|
| Unfilter / Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
