[Toups]

se of the week, and slowly lose my sanity.

plenty of spoilers ahoy!!!

I started with the original bad boy of psychological horror, Silent Hill. Something about this game keeps it a fresh experience for me -- this is maybe the 4th or 5th time I've replayed through it and I find it just as gripping (if not always as scary -- playing late at night in pitch black makes a huge difference) each time.

Maybe it's because the game is so goddamned gorgeous. I mean look at this shit:















The game itself, for the time it was produced, is rather well-made if not particularly well-designed. That is to say -- the combat is nearly broken and any challenge you'd get from the game is made moot by the fact that:

a) the game gives far more ammo and healing items than you'll ever need
b) once you get the hammer, you can kill a good 50% of the game's enemies without any risk of injury, and the rest can either be shot/avoided with minimal health loss

As an adventure game it's actually rather well thought-out, at least moreso than Resident Evil where the puzzles are always of the "find all the crests so you can progress" variety and rarely get any more difficult than that. Of course, the puzzles rarely make much contextual sense, but given that the entire game is set in a bizarre nightmarish alternate reality, though don't need to -- and in fact, as you learn the true nature of the town (put simply: it's a creation of alessa who is trying to protect herself from outside intruders) they make enough sense for it not to be distracting.

The environments have such detail and nuance to them -- I swear that for every city block not a single storefront is repeated (unlike SH3, which... I'll get to later), and there's even a startling amount a variety to the interior environments, which are based upon generally pretty repetitive locales (school, hospital, etc).

(Man, now that I think about it, this game's pretty short. I mean there are only two specific locations where they throw puzzles at you and you have to deal with alternate silent hill, and all the stuff inbetween (exploring the town, the sewers) is pretty brisk and lightweight. And then there's nowhere, which basically just recycles environments from the rest of the game.

Somehow this game still feels epic to me though.)

I guess I might post more later! In the middle of part 3 right now! Then part 2, then 4!
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[Churippu]

I am glad someone feels the same way about the games never getting boring and they are always scary even when you know what is coming up!

[Craptastic!]

If you really want to lose your sanity, try getting all the endings too!

[RecessRapist]

WHY DOES EVERYONE HAS THE GAME BESIDE ME? D:«

Also Toups do you have the ancient version with knife-wielding demon babies or the new one with the little clawy demons instead?

[Toups]

[RecessRapist]

Well I don't know per se, since my only interaction with the game was watching my cousin play it when i was like nine, but I heard that in the very first version the little critters that stabs you are very small children with knives, and in the newer version they have been replaced by little demons with claws.

I'd check to see if its true, but wikipedia doesn't have anything on that matter.

[WarpZone]

[option]

[Adilegian]

[Toups]

[chompers po pable]

some sh3 SPOILERS...


though trying to explain the inexplicable urge caused by her "pregnancy" to sally forth could serve to confuse the player more.

Adilegian, i don't remember any platforming elements in 3, please refresh my memory.

3, despite being weak on a conceptual level, has some of the most gorgeous environments and set pieces on the ps2. and it is kind of fun to equip heather with the unlimited machine gun and the rocker outfit and tear through the game.

[Toups]

[chompers po pable]

[Toups]

There are some nice setpieces too!



Man, that reminds me of how much adventure game bullshit this game introduces to the series though -- like the bit where you get pushed into the subway track and unless you turn around and get back on IMMEDIATELY you die -- or the part where you look off the back of the moving subway car that you get on, and just by examining there, decide to jump off (and die) -- or the part in the sewers where if you cross that one bridge you WILL be killed by that tentacle monster with NO warning (though the solution to that puzzle is admittedly brilliant).

Seriously I thought that kind of adventure gaming died with king's quest.
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[chompers po pable]

i actually didn't mind these elements, and the tentacle monster "puzzle" was miles away from subtle...or perhaps i have played too many adventure games!

i had saved my game just moments before walking into the tentacle monster room, and i decided to view the death scene before reloading my save and continuing.

i think the puzzle involves a hairdryer? heather lol.

[Toups]

[chompers po pable]

that puzzle in particular is less shitty than the one involving the trash chute in sh2.

also, the one where you slip onto the tracks (attempts to) adds to the viseral "thrill" type of horror they were going for with sh3. i didn't mind it so much.

[Toups]

[chompers po pable]

[Rud31]

Hi guys. I tried to play this a few nights ago and couldn't get up the urge. I like the game a lot, but I'm not going to argue with Toups well made points. SH3 is a lot of nice set-pieces and a whole lot of coping out.
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[RecessRapist]

[sync-swim]

[RecessRapist]

That picture is kickass.

Also Toups you might wanna put a warning on the Sh3 spoilers I haven,t even got out of the mall yet :(

[Toups]

[Toups]

Also I just finished SH3!!

Man that game ends WAY better than it starts.

Why didn't they just START the game in Silent Hill?

Or like... at least in a location that's remotely interesting!

I'm going to upload some photos I took tomorrow!
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[Dark Age Iron Savior]

[chompers po pable]

i would play that game dais. more like i would play it.

[Wyndian]

I don't think Silent Hill 3's beginning is about "Catch a ride home" - isn't it rather "Get away from this scary Claudia and those ridiculous monsters in the mall"? This whole "running away, ignoring what you already know"-episode reminds me heavily of Jacob's Ladder, and I think that's the reason why the game starts the way it does.

Have you ever noticed how intense dreams, of whichever kind they are, can manipulate your behaviour the next few hours after you've waken up? I think Silent Hill 3 is pretty much the same there.

Spoiler galore (No marking text thingy in regards of the MacOs users):

With the dream and Claudia's presence, Heather had already been activated before the whole mess started. So it's only natural that she, carrying the demon, attracts Silent Hillish phenomenons on her way home.

/Spoiler

I personally like the duo of Silent Hill 1 and 3 most. Although 2 is an almost perfect grotesque mirror of one's soul, I like the "warmer" stories of 1 and 3.

[Toups]

My problem with 3 is really that the environments at the first half the game are both uninteresting and have no relevance to the plot aside from the fact that they are where Heather is when Claudia finds her. The shopping mall, subway, sewer, and office block are all really forgettable in my opinion.

Anyway! I'm playing through Silent Hill 2 now (in 480p and with surround sound! and yes it looks fucking GORGEOUS) on my xbox. I decided to take some comparison shots of the environments that were reused in Silent Hill 3. I have them up as a photo set here if you want to see them larger. These are grouped in two, with the SH2 shots being first.


Here are some shots of Jack's Inn:



slightly different ground texture here



the "no trespassing sign" is new and definitely more readable in SH3... it's also attached to a slightly different pole.




here's some shots from nathan avenue:



the red station wagon is still there but the sedan is strangely missing...



this van is in the same place, as well as the carpet draped over the fence in the exact same position



gas prices don't seem to have changed much, but the sign definitely looks newer in SH3



I guess we can blame this one on metatron?






the lakeview billboard is still there, but the car parked in front of it is gone. also, in SH2 you get a special camera angle when you approach this sign.






overall I like the camera in SH2 much more. it's pulled further back from the player and also tends to frame things more pleasantly. as can be seen here. also is it just me or is the sign more aged in SH3?

here are some shots of heaven's night:






the cans on the bar seem to have been replaced by... something I can't quite make out. wine bottles maybe?






I guess heaven's night had some patronage between the two games?






slightly different angle here, but not much difference otherwise. one difference I did note (but didn't get a shot of) is that there is grafitti that says "cookie" at the end of the alley leading to the club, that you can only see in SH3. That stretch of alley is shot from a bird's eye view in SH2 so you can't make it out.

here are some shots of munson street:






the station wagon has been replaced! how odd.



the 18 wheeler has also vanished! I wonder if it's driven by the guy who's supposed to star in silent hill origins?



end of the road for heather, but james can explore more if he wants.

here are a few shots I got in the hospital before I stopped:


some rather inscrutable changes here: for one, the cross poster seen in the SH3 shot was on a different wall in SH2 (not shown in the photo), and has replaced the bulletin board. in addition, the ventilation duct shown in the SH3 shot is about 5 feet to the left of where it was in SH2.



a few subtle (and strange) differences here: the cardboard boxes in the SH2 shot are gone and replaced with what look like jars. the lockers are also replaced with a small cabinet (visible in the next shot)



strange, huh?

is it just me, or is SH3 way foggier and less colorful than SH2? I like the overall look of the town in SH2 much better. maybe it's a matter of the engine they used for SH3 or something?

anyway, that's all I got. now that I'm playing through more of the hospital in SH2 I realize that there are more areas that have subtle differences and I wish I had gotten a few more shots. alas, this will have to do for now.

FKW ends when I say it does! Meaning... probably sometime tomorrow when I get off my ass!
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[Schwere Viper]

[Shapermc]

Man, the lighting really is amazing in the Xbox version. That looks so bad in SH3, but it looks really great in SH2.
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[Toups]

Yeah, these shots really do show off some pretty dramatic differences between how the two games look.
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[Toups]

[secondpillow]

Why does no one speak of SH4?

[Lestrade]

There's a reason for that... (it's not very good. :-( )
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[Rud31]

It doesn't lend itself to replays that well. I've been holding off till my memories of the game have mostly disappeared.
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[Toups]

[Craptastic!]

[Adilegian]

[aderack]

[Toups]