I...I...love silent hill. Alongside Metal Gear Solid, it's a series that I really hold dear. It's a series(like metal gear solid) that I've been playing ever since the PS1 days fanatically. I've played every single silent hill over 8 times each. I love the storyline, I love the atmosphere, I love the game play, I love pretty much everything about it. And of course loving something for this long, will result in a pretty strong attachment and conservatism regarding the series.
What should be common knowledge now is that the next Silent Hill(now titled Silent Hill: Homecoming) was handed off to American Developers"The collective". When outrage initially was expressed from the Silent Hill community, the damage control casuals of the series took offense. What should be noted to these people is why people got so mad. First off, the collective made the davinci code, and "buffy the vampire slayer" games. Gee, sounds promising.
The main issues overall though, are:
1. They aren't team silent. Period. These games have such a personal touch on them that straying from the original developers causes such a serious impact it's ridiculous. If you don't know this you're obviously just a casual of the series. The thing is though, had someone like Hideo Kojima did the game I wouldn't have been angry. Now you're probably saying, "is it because he's asian", it's not. If capcom did the next Silent Hill I'd commit suicide. It's because Kojima has that personal touch and attention to detail in his games. He has the capacity to make a good horror game.
2. Americans have different approaches to "horror". I'm American. I know this. How many people have told you the Japanese version of the ring, and the grudge were better than the American remakes? I swear to God, I actually gave them a chance until I started hearing details. Now the protaganist of the next game is COMING HOME FROM A WAR and has to find his brother. Not only that, but now the game is centered towards combat. The developers themselves have stated that, now your character isn't so hopeless anymore, you can fight the monsters more effectively now.
GOD DAMN IT you're SUPPOSED to feel hopeless in silent hill. The fact that you aren't so prepared in combat is WHY the monsters are scary. The monsters in God of war would be pretty damn scary had you not had the power of kratos. The abilities of the protagonist affect the horror just as much as the power of the monster. I DO NOT WANT an action game. I want a horror game. A known victim of this is Resident Evil.
For every hardcore silent hill fan out there like me, there's about 3 hardcore resident evil fans. And the way I'm acting now, is how they were acting when Resident Evil 4 arrived. It transformed the series into an action game. And received very high critical and commercial success. It's obvious that the general public just prefers that more than tension and atmosphere. So of course, Resident Evil 5 will follow the same course. Forget infected brain eating zombies, mind controlled African humans are far more frightening. :rolleyes: The collective sees the success and Resident Evil 4's action based gameplay and thinks "me too", obviously.
Just look at how the casuals reacted to the metal gear online beta. Metal gear solid was doing just fine when only the hardcore fans were playing it. But now that MGS4 is the major blockbuster ps3 exclusive all the little novices to the series are hoping out of cod4 and asking Metal Gear Solid to change too. Kojima did a nice job of blending stealth and action in the game so far and I thank him for that.
Contrary to my prediction, there are still some good horror games coming out this year. Alone in the dark, Siren's PS3 remake(the demo is very very good), And fatal frame's next game which will be appearing on the wii. It still just hurts that Silent Hill of all games had to be deaded. The only games that succeed nowadays are games with action and online multiplayer. Single player games, which sadly include horror games are gonna become a thing of the past. And leaving their gameplay elements with them. Yay. I'm done complaining now.
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Look, I loved my PS1. Graphically though N64 delivered a better overall experience. The difference that gave PS1 an advantage was CD storage PS1 had some beautiful cut scenes, but in terms of graphical power N64 hands down was better. PS1 had WAY more GAMES though. I think Developers preferred the tstorage over squeezing everything onto a cartridge with VERY limited space!
GameCube same thing Nintendo went with storage that was limited, but had games using multiple disks. RE4 is one port that clearly showed GC advantage. Rouge Squadron 2 and Luigi's mansion were beautiful launch games. Again PlayStation didn't Limit developers storage space. Nintendo's mini discs were expensive, and developers went with PS2! PS2 I am pretty sure has the largest game library of all consoles. Maybe not if you in include the vast amount.of.shovel wear on current consoles.
After that ugh, Nintendo seems to have given up on graphical power. Switch 2 games look really good, but I am usually going to buy ports on PS5/Series X.
N64 had some stunning games, but a lot of the library ran poorly. PS1 games tended to hit a playable 30 more often, albeit with less complex geometry and less/no filtering of textures, and the inherent flaws in how PS1 rasterises graphics.
I played loads of both back in the day and I definitely preferred the solid geometry and smooth textures of N64.
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I don't know if they'll die out, but they sure as hell won't be scary anymore. They'll go from "survival horror" to "survival beat-em-up". It's a real shame.
The Siren PS3 remake is a very good sign though. If you don't have a japanese PSN account you should watch youtube videos of it. It's very good.
%100, I've been saying for years that gaming's new found popularity is actually ruining it, and everyone disagrees. I HATED cod4 multiplayer, refuse to touch Halo, refuse to buy anything that says xbox or wii, etc etc. It sucks though because all I do these days is wait for something quality and having a personal touch to it, while the developers must like it because more people buy there video games, it's also a curse because they deliberately mold the game to attract a larger audience, and that to me destroys the essence of what a truly good gaming experience is. What happened to all the old quirky pc gaming market with games like American McGee's Alice, o right those types of games will never be reproduced simply because they do not attract "mass" appeal. F*ck the free world.
I never really cared for survival horror, res 4 was good, it was one of the few survival horror games that was made correctly, I prefer stealth action or when a small part of the game is survival horror ie: Uncharted,Resistance, I find that more interesting, there is often too much atmosphere in survival horror games, don't take this the wrong way because I am anticipating Fallout 3.
thanks for the fine post, i share the same ideas..