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Silent Hill Downpour |OT| Rain, Rain, Go Away

cant wait to play a real Silent Hill game again after that Shattered Memories abomination. I'm still not completely sold on it (or maybe more accurately I'm just unsure as to this developers pedigree and respect for what makes SH games good), but from what I've seen it definitely has the best potential to be a legitimately decent SH game since the Room at least

Shattered Memories was fantastic.
 

Stinkdog

Neo Member
This. I hope less combat, much more creepy exploration. And no infuriating chase sequences!

Chase sequences have been confirmed. They were in the E3 2011 demo. Whether or not they are infuriating remains to be seen.

I'm not holding my breath for this game to revitalize Silent Hill. I'm not sure there is a team of devs that could make one at this point.
 

kyubajin

Member
I'm really expecting the game to be good, from everything I've seen so far it sure does. I for one did enjoy Homecoming and SM for what they were. So if is game can deliver and improve upon those, I don't see why it can't be decent at least.
 
Is there any spoilery footage that shows off anything interesting and unique or just the same old stuff we've been seeing since forever? Demon world chase scene doesn't count as it didn't really grab me.
 

Killer

Banned
http://i.imgur.com/LLShC.gif[/img]

7ISi1.jpg

that should be the thread title.

this and resident evil should be long dead. They both lost it after the second game( especially Silent Hill).
 

Mr_Zombie

Member
That ad can't be real. Was it made by Konami's janitor's 10-year-old son or something? The font it uses and the effect of water drops on the font is just horrible. And the tag also fits an erotic/porno movie more than something that should be a psychological horror :(.
 
and the game looks incredible annoying at trying to guide you (glowing object, button prompts everywhere).
Fairly certain I remember them saying you could either turn that off in the menus, or it goes off on the harder difficulty.

ahh lol I remember I pre-ordered this from amazin!

unfortunately I cant remember for which system lol.

it'll be a surprise when it comes!!!
Just check your open orders!
 
I knew I wasn't mad!


Mescaline, have you finished playing/reviewing it yet? I assume you're waiting on embargo at this point.

We weren't sent a review copy as they only wanted us to write a preview. Company politics, I'll never understand...

I'll get a retail copy once it's out though, so I am in (almost) the same position as you guys!
 
Bah! I'm sorry, I was under the impression it was the full version.

Dang it, the longer I stay in this thread the more tempted I am to pick it up before a price drop. I'm almost certain this will drop $20 within the first couple of weeks, too!
 
So now Ami is confusing me. Shattered Memories is an abomination, but this game, THIS GAME is a saving grace?

Well, he didn't say this game would be a saving grace. And Downpour looks much closer to a "real" SH game to me than SM, which I didn't feel was like a SH game at all. Not to mention it wasn't scary in the slightest, nor was it even seemingly trying to be. Aside from a few cool things here and there it was a pretty piss-poor, watered down SH game with pretty much the worst possible way to handle the otherworld sequences-- in that you can't explore, you're just running around like a fucking chicken with your head cut off. Those sequences might have worked if they were actually intense with better gameplay mechanics, but alas.

Downpour may not come close to being as warped and genius as the older games, but at least they seem to be trying to make something that resembles a SH game. Whether they pass or fail has yet to be determined but it looks a lot closer to home for me than SM ever did.
 

Amir0x

Banned
So now Ami is confusing me. Shattered Memories is an abomination, but this game, THIS GAME is a saving grace?

It's not really near as odd as you think. I like the SILENT HILL series of games. Shattered Memories was something else, a farce parading in Silent Hill garb. Even if I liked the horrendous chase sequences and insultingly transparent "psychological" effects as related to the questions you answer early on, or the limpdicked ice world as if that's a suitable replacement for industrial rust-and-iron, i still would be more interested in this title. SM may have been enjoyable to some, but I want to play a real Silent Hill game that actually understands what the series is about, not some experimental tripe that understands not one thing about what makes this franchise compelling.

This game MAY do it, it MAY not. I just glad to see them returning to attempting to do what SH is about. As I said I am not sure they'll do it either (Vatra doesn't inspire confidence), but I am engaged and ready to buy.

Now i hope this explains it and we don't have twenty more posts by people who can't accept strong opinions in opposition to their own getting hung up on an incidental part of my post instead of what the post was actually about :{

you can turn everything off.

Oh thank God. Do we know if we're getting a demo for this game? It seems like it would be a good idea after the last few Silent Hill missteps in Homecoming and SM to see how the game plays in demo form

It seems so. It's just that Konami, in typical ass-backwards fashion, decided to reveal the date with as little fanfare as possible.

I have the feeling Konami just doesn't know what to do about anything anymore. They've fallen so far from the great company they once were :(

That ad can't be real. Was it made by Konami's janitor's 10-year-old son or something? The font it uses and the effect of water drops on the font is just horrible. And the tag also fits an erotic/porno movie more than something that should be a psychological horror :(.

It's so hilarious. Seriously, is that the tagline they'll use in a commercial?

Flashes of horrible things stalking in the fog. beatings with a steel pipe. "coming soon..." a women screams in agony as she's tortured. a child's laugh echos creepily down an empty alley. "the seminal horror series returns to form..." hobbling beasts start to surround our hero. it starts to rain. "Silent Hill: Downpour" our hero proceeds to start fighting for his life. "Let's Get Wet." *commercial ends*
 

Drewfonse

Member
Amazon is offering a $10 credit for pre orders on Downpour. I loved Homecoming, and if this is at that level, then I'll be happy. And yes, I realize that I'm in the minority about Homecoming.
 
Amazon is offering a $10 credit for pre orders on Downpour. I loved Homecoming, and if this is at that level, then I'll be happy. And yes, I realize that I'm in the minority about Homecoming.

I liked it too, although it's one of those games where I totally understand why others didn't. I like horror titles in general, so even crappy SH is still "good" to me. Great SH is heads and shoulders above every other horror title in gaming, while decent or even lackluster SH is still a bit better than most offerings in the genre these days.
 
No demo coming as far as i know.

Fairly certain I remember them saying you could either turn that off in the menus, or it goes off on the harder difficulty.

Yeah you can. But the whole game has been built around that stuff and people who have played the game says it isn't a good idea to play without glowing stuff. I guess it makes it really hard in combat to find new weapons when the ones you are using breaks. Will try and turn all of that shit off (trophies too, ffs that was annoying in the gameplay video, fuck this gen and mandatory BS like that).
 

Himself

Member
No demo coming as far as i know.



Yeah you can. But the whole game has been built around that stuff and people who have played the game says it isn't a good idea to play without glowing stuff. I guess it makes it really hard in combat to find new weapons when the ones you are using breaks. Will try and turn all of that shit off (trophies too, ffs that was annoying in the gameplay video, fuck this gen and mandatory BS like that).

I was just thinking how annoying it's going to be playing through the silent hill hd twins and having fucking cute trophy icons popping up with their dings. Annoying. I hope next gen includes to option to turn trophy/achievement notifications off. They just don't belong in certain games.
 

Mzo

Member
I was just thinking how annoying it's going to be playing through the silent hill hd twins and having fucking cute trophy icons popping up with their dings. Annoying. I hope next gen includes to option to turn trophy/achievement notifications off. They just don't belong in certain games.
Next-gen is going to have a confetti bomb go off in your face and put little digital party hats on any on-screen character.
 
I was just thinking how annoying it's going to be playing through the silent hill hd twins and having fucking cute trophy icons popping up with their dings. Annoying. I hope next gen includes to option to turn trophy/achievement notifications off. They just don't belong in certain games.

Yeah I have a friend who hates the idea of this and I don't blame him. Personally I don't think it will bother me too much but I could see it taking people out of the atmosphere for a bit.

I don't really mind it in the HD collection because I have played those games so many times already. I just hope Downpour's atmosphere is good enough to be bothered by them.
 

legacyzero

Banned
I'm in the same camp about Shattered Memories. Good game on its own, TERRIBLE Silent Hill game.

As for Downpour, I wouldn't be so cautiously optimistic about this game if I didn't hate Tomm Hulett so much. Between the Silent Hill HD collection voice work fiasco, and the fact that he really just doesn't seem to "get it".

I'm not really sure if I like the nightmare parts of the game either. They look cool, but just aren't terrifying like the old school ones. I dunno maybe I'm missing something.
 
Planning on getting this.Will take about 2 weeks to get to my location here at work. Though its pretty much the last game I'll be playing till my contract is over and I go back home to my family! AWW YEAH!!! So Silent Hill Downpour will be my last game here, lets hope its AWESOME!

Though to be honest I've appreciated all the Silent Hills for different things. Some of them had better features or gameplay then others,etc, but I've still really loved them all.
 
As for Downpour, I wouldn't be so cautiously optimistic about this game if I didn't hate Tomm Hulett so much. Between the Silent Hill HD collection voice work fiasco, and the fact that he really just doesn't seem to "get it".

I wouldn't be so quick to blame Tomm about everything. The voice fiasco is certainly not his fault and when he talks about horror and such he's very well spoken and actually says a lot of the right things. Unfortunately he's a producer so he's the face we see when these issues arise; he's pretty much who we have to point our fingers at, but there's no way he's solely responsible for some of the messes going on with the franchise.

And sometimes I get the impression that he himself is annoyed with a lot of the crap that goes on. I'm by no means some Tomm Hulett defense force and for all I know I could be completely wrong, but it just seems like he's the one that has to take responsibility for things that he isn't necessarily responsible for. I don't think he sits around twiddling his thumbs cycling through different ways that he can shit on the franchise next but at the same time he does have to be the "voice" for the higher-ups.

That, and having to be rational with SH fans... yeah, not a job I would particularly care for, but someone's gotta do it! Also, if Downpour sucks, Tomm wouldn't be the guy to blame there as he's mainly just a producer. He didn't write the story or direct the game which are things that would dictate the quality. He calls a lot of shots I guess, it's just hard to really know what shots.
 
Gotta agree with ya on all that Brandon. I'll be keeping my eyes out on this thread on everyones impressions after this releases to keep my excitment tamed till my copy arrives.
 

legacyzero

Banned
That, and having to be rational with SH fans... yeah, not a job I would particularly care for, but someone's gotta do it! Also, if Downpour sucks, Tomm wouldn't be the guy to blame there as he's mainly just a producer. He didn't write the story or direct the game which are things that would dictate the quality. He calls a lot of shots I guess, it's just hard to really know what shots.

Aint that the truth LOL
 
Gotta agree with ya on all that Brandon. I'll be keeping my eyes out on this thread on everyones impressions after this releases to keep my excitment tamed till my copy arrives.

Honestly I'm not really sure what my final "prognosis" on Downpour is. I think it certainly has a lot of qualities about it that I felt were lacking or just completely non-existent in Shattered Memories, but when it comes to the story or how scary it all actually is, who knows?

With this series, I've found that you just never know for sure until you're at the end. I hated Shattered Memories, but then the ending was pretty amazing so that made me lighten up about the game. I thought Homecoming looked great and while I liked the game enough, it was very lackluster in a lot of places.

It's just so hard to know before actually playing it which is why I don't board the hate train every time some shitty pictures are released with bad textures; if the game sucks it won't be because of the graphic fidelity or bad looking combat. All of the games have bad looking and even worse playing combat, so that won't be anything new at all.

Mainly the disbanding of Team Silent is what got a lot of people into the doom and gloom mode concerning the franchise, and they have every right and reason to feel that way, but that's not to say that someone else out there can't do a good job. A lot of people seemed to like Shattered Memories so clearly it's not all doom and gloom.

I will personally be judging the game on its own merits; I'm not looking for a SH game like the first 3 or 4 because that team no longer exists, and that's why I'm excited about the notion that Downpour is taking elements of the older games but infusing them into a new kind of visual style as I noted in the OP. I would rather them make it fresh without trying to "copy" the older games just because that's what the fans want.

Homecoming I felt tried too hard to be like the older ones, but that game didn't understand the sensibilities of the older games. For example there were vagina doors with teeth that you had to slice open with a knife. It was pointless and in your face, while the other games took such fuckupery and did a good job with concealing some of it with shadows and placing them within camera angles that make it hard to make out exactly what it is that you're looking at-- it's the power of the unknown. Something is there, you can sort of see it but you have no idea what it is or what it's doing there. This is ten-fold more effective than flat out showing the player everything. The older games were completely messed up, but there was a sense of restraint in the execution nonetheless that made all the difference.

Like in SH3, when you're in the bowels of the church at the end, there are places in the environment that look like exteriors-- parts that it seems like you're looking out of a window into an empty and bottomless sky, drenched in a red-orange hue-- although you're supposed to be underground, it looks like you're miles up in the sky. That's what I loved about the older games, they took twisted visuals and executed them in a way that made you want to analyze and think about it. Homecoming did the direct opposite by making a big deal about its twisted visuals.

Thus, I want Downpour to retain some things about the older games while bringing a fresh visual palette to the series that isn't trying so damn hard to be something that it cannot be and based on some of the videos I've seen, they seem to be doing exactly that.
 
i'll roll the dice on this, but that's really what it feels like i'm doing. i've never felt like i wasted money on a silent hill game, even the well below par Homecoming... so hopefully it has enough redeeming features to overcome any bad ones.

but yeah, brandon, slasher, i think we all tend to feel similarly about horror titles, and seeing all three of us nervous... well... it makes me more nervous.

also, now i want to watch Suspiria again :)
 
i'll roll the dice on this, but that's really what it feels like i'm doing. i've never felt like i wasted money on a silent hill game, even the well below par Homecoming... so hopefully it has enough redeeming features to overcome any bad ones.

but yeah, brandon, slasher, i think we all tend to feel similarly about horror titles, and seeing all three of us nervous... well... it makes me more nervous.
also, now i want to watch Suspiria again :)

Well I mean were all fans of horror games. Not to mention the fact that the horror genre has releases that are far and few between. I've liked every Silent Hill for different reasons and have questioned decisions on alot of the later entries. Would I think they are terrible games though? Not at all. Even my least favorite Silent Hill game is a good game, just not the best the series has. I look at each new entry on their own. I enjoyed moments of Shattered memories, but the end was what blew me away. I enjoyed Silent Hill Homecoming and the idea behind it and some of the visuals, but other parts I really disliked like the enemy human fighting at the end and most the end sequence stuff. The Room, well don't get me started on that one, while I loved the theme and story of it, it had such questionable design, and some of the worst choices in sound effects ever... but I still liked it.

With Downpour, I really like that they are taking a theme of water and from what I understand making the enemies bases on things pertaining to Murphy and his own personaly demons. This is great! And correct me if I'm wrong but I think I recall them saying the nurses wouldn't be in this and thats because they have nothing to do with his story and nightmares, and I think that makes perfect sense. The fact that this has another new developer involved, it has a new music composer, side quest stuff, and Korn... it makes one question it. On the other hand there is the idea of the town being more explorable, them sticking to the idea that each persons visit to Silent Hill and what it is, is a differen nightmare, and not making the game as combat heavy, these things make me excited.

I will say, every Silent Hill game since the first one that has come out, I've purchased day one. I'm just a fan of the series and I'm always craving more horror titles. Since I'm working in Afghanistan, my shipments take about 2 weeks to get here, and I've been dealing with having to wait for games like that the entire year I've been gone. So with that said I'll be expecting awesome impressions from you and brandon on this game as I wait for my copy. It will be interesting to see what you guys feel and think of the game and then when I get it see how it feels for me.
 
The fact that this has another new developer involved, it has a new music composer, side quest stuff, and Korn... it makes one question it.

I honestly feel like people are way too dramatic about the Korn song. It's not even that bad, and even if it did completely suck or was a stupid idea, the song won't affect the story or atmosphere or anything actually important.

Then I've seen the argument that, well since they decided to hire Korn for the theme song, it says that they don't understand Silent Hill! Are the developers, or Brian Gomez or someone directly involved with the quality of the game responsible for the Korn song? Because if not, there is not one solitary reason to assume that Korn's involvement will have any impact on the quality of the game.

The music that will be at the forefront of the game will be from the composer, not Korn.
 
I honestly feel like people are way too dramatic about the Korn song.

Yeah that was put in there more as a joke when I posted it. I could care less that they added a song to the game. For all we know they love Silent Hill, asked to make a song for it and there ya go. Even if it was in the actually main game it wouldn't stop me from playing the game. Its in the intro start up video right?
 
Yeah that was put in there more as a joke when I posted it. I could care less that they added a song to the game. For all we know they love Silent Hill, asked to make a song for it and there ya go. Even if it was in the actually main game it wouldn't stop me from playing the game. Its in the intro start up video right?

I believe so, yes. I was honestly shocked that I didn't hate it. I don't normally like music like that. Still waiting to hear McGlynn's stuff, think she has two songs for Downpour.
 
fun fact, I almost named the thread Silent Hill Downpour |OT| Set Fire to the Rain, but I figured there'd be enough bickering in the thread without it.
 

Dascu

Member
I hope it's a fun, quality horror game. I hope it has some creative moments that does the Silent Hill name justice. And I hope Konami doesn't can the franchise if (when?) this game bombs.
 
I hope it's a fun, quality horror game. I hope it has some creative moments that does the Silent Hill name justice. And I hope Konami doesn't can the franchise if (when?) this game bombs.

Some days I literally feel that they want it to bomb so that they don't have to deal with it anymore. Their marketing has been fucking awful; they've did nothing but release terrible screenshots and very few gameplay videos which does the game far more justice. The ads are crap too as proven in this very thread.

If the game turns out to be really good, or even just good, I would be fine with that and would hope that Vatra takes another shot at it. If the game turns out to be crap, I already have the feeling that Konami doesn't care about the franchise anymore and I think it would be great if they just sold the rights to someone else. Make some last, good cash off the IP and be done with it and let people who love it do something with it.

Not that the guys who worked slavishly on this title over the past 2-3 years don't love Silent Hill, but it makes things a bit harder when their publisher is making shit decisions left and right and failing to provide any good marketing for their product.
 

Perkel

Banned
They both lost it after the second game( especially Silent Hill).

What i know SH3 isn't better than Sh1 or Sh2 but still is awasome. Sh4 on other hand is worse than 3 but still good game. Anything after 4 was abomination until Shatered Memories.

Re until now got one mediacore game (from main series) re5.
 
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