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PT (Silent Hills) Review
11 years ago
So I got to try the PT (Silent Hills) teaser demo, and if you are unfamiliar with what that is here is a random youtuber doing the same thing:
I have very mixed feelings right now. The apprehension of my last journal aside, at first I was really digging playing this. This is the first time the PS4's graphics actually impressed me as well, so I started getting my hopes up high. That quickly subsided though as I started to realize the direction they were going in. This felt very much like Silent Hill 4: The Room, complete with ghost at the end and everything... As someone who doesn't find ghosts very scary and really likes Silent hill more when it's only grazing physiological horror, I was overall disappointed. You know what I find scary? Exhausting yourself beating an indiscernible mass of flesh to death that was previously limping at you. I'm not saying I want Silent Hill to be an action game, no that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying there is a balance between everything. The horrors being physical things, especially ambiguous physical things adds an unsettling bit of tangibility to the whole situation. Phantoms phasing in and out of walls just seems silly to me.
I did like being locked in the bathroom with the writhing fetus though, as depicted somewhere in the above video. That was very nice, and well beyond the scope of what I expected of Del Toro or Kojima. That very small part at least fills me with hope. Yes, we'll call that little dude the 'hope fetus'.
Game play wise I kind of found the whole thing boring. At first walking through that infinite hall was neat, but once I realized that's all you could do, it became more tedious then anything else. The baby sounds and all that other stuff also eventually got tedious and just kind of obnoxious, like a kid jumping up and down behind me rattling chains asking: "Are you scared yet!?" This could have easily been fixed if you weren't going through the same area over and over and over again. No matter how good your haunted house is, if someone goes through it for the 10th time they won't be scared anymore. Haunted houses are about initial startles, and this was no exception. That was pretty much what made me realize this was all very neat, but it wasn't Silent Hill. Going through the school in Silent Hill 1 (even with PS1 graphic) still unnerves me to this day, even though I've probably done that 10 times. This new game quickly looses it's teeth once you get used to something. Again, I am pretty sure it was the lack of a tangible threat that made me feel safe and even bored in this "Hell-Hall". Even the dark areas weren't scary anymore once I realized nothing physical would be assaulting me. Also the dialog/text was terrible. These people need to understand that less is sometimes more in a Silent Hill Environment. Adding "from Hell" to the inscription on the wall wasn't scary, it was cheesy. Subtly is the key to these games.
BUT, the end of the demo says this won't be indicative of the game... so, there? I am not sure what to say. It seems like they are capable of making atmosphere, that's for sure, but it doesn't seem like they knew what to do with it once they had it. The actual Silent Hill game they make could me much different from this, but if it's full of ghosts and areas that repeat forever, I'm probably not going to like it =x
I have very mixed feelings right now. The apprehension of my last journal aside, at first I was really digging playing this. This is the first time the PS4's graphics actually impressed me as well, so I started getting my hopes up high. That quickly subsided though as I started to realize the direction they were going in. This felt very much like Silent Hill 4: The Room, complete with ghost at the end and everything... As someone who doesn't find ghosts very scary and really likes Silent hill more when it's only grazing physiological horror, I was overall disappointed. You know what I find scary? Exhausting yourself beating an indiscernible mass of flesh to death that was previously limping at you. I'm not saying I want Silent Hill to be an action game, no that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying there is a balance between everything. The horrors being physical things, especially ambiguous physical things adds an unsettling bit of tangibility to the whole situation. Phantoms phasing in and out of walls just seems silly to me.
I did like being locked in the bathroom with the writhing fetus though, as depicted somewhere in the above video. That was very nice, and well beyond the scope of what I expected of Del Toro or Kojima. That very small part at least fills me with hope. Yes, we'll call that little dude the 'hope fetus'.
Game play wise I kind of found the whole thing boring. At first walking through that infinite hall was neat, but once I realized that's all you could do, it became more tedious then anything else. The baby sounds and all that other stuff also eventually got tedious and just kind of obnoxious, like a kid jumping up and down behind me rattling chains asking: "Are you scared yet!?" This could have easily been fixed if you weren't going through the same area over and over and over again. No matter how good your haunted house is, if someone goes through it for the 10th time they won't be scared anymore. Haunted houses are about initial startles, and this was no exception. That was pretty much what made me realize this was all very neat, but it wasn't Silent Hill. Going through the school in Silent Hill 1 (even with PS1 graphic) still unnerves me to this day, even though I've probably done that 10 times. This new game quickly looses it's teeth once you get used to something. Again, I am pretty sure it was the lack of a tangible threat that made me feel safe and even bored in this "Hell-Hall". Even the dark areas weren't scary anymore once I realized nothing physical would be assaulting me. Also the dialog/text was terrible. These people need to understand that less is sometimes more in a Silent Hill Environment. Adding "from Hell" to the inscription on the wall wasn't scary, it was cheesy. Subtly is the key to these games.
BUT, the end of the demo says this won't be indicative of the game... so, there? I am not sure what to say. It seems like they are capable of making atmosphere, that's for sure, but it doesn't seem like they knew what to do with it once they had it. The actual Silent Hill game they make could me much different from this, but if it's full of ghosts and areas that repeat forever, I'm probably not going to like it =x
I'll be surprised if this is the one to take the series back to its suspenseful, Japanese horror roots.
Yes, I get very territorial about things like this.
I was wondering how many people would recognize an Eraserhead reference.
LP-watching friends saying: "Not many."
I also wasn't crazy about the graphics? They're gorgeous, but because everything is so detailed and clean I'm not scared. Basically no fog=no fear. It's like what we were discussing the other night. The unknown, the things your imagination creates, are 1000 times more terrifying than the hyper-realistically rendered ghosties floating around behind you. That's why the polygon raptors in turok still scare the shit out of me, and the new ones don't (and that game sucked ass but you get me). However, I did think the graphics worked well while inside the house, despite my bitching and moaning.
So yeah, I'm still holding out. Though I sometimes wonder if they should just rename SH2 as something else so it doesn't have to be associated with such a crap series.
I think the problem is that game developers are no longer so limited. They can realize their wildest imaginings. While fantastic graphics are wonderful, I think too much effort is being put there and not enough on the creative side. Way back in the day, a lot of the horror came about BECAUSE they were so limited and they had to think of creative ways to solve problems, convey ideas, and achieve desired ends. Now, it's like they've forgotten how to be scary. They've forgotten how to be creative. It's sad.
By showing off the detail they can achieve now, they lose the mystery that it used to have.
These might be interesting to read/watch:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p.....ranchiseZombie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtgA6SaHHa0
In the end, it comes down to the fact that even people at the top can be lazy.
I'm largely convinced the movies don't exist, or that's what I like to tell myself.
Hmm, nothing on the PS3 just like they did with MGS5? Awww. At least, I have the feeling this new Silent Hill will be also available on PC just like MGS5 got announced for it this week. ^'===='^
Besides, it can't possibly be worse than Silent Hill: Revelation.
I have no hope of this being as good as the first few so I'm going to treat it like Final Fantasy, sure it's 34th game in the series, but it's still Final Fantasy.