1am, just beat it and im just gonna post some quick thoughts.
-its not scary, at all. disappointing, but not unexpected at this point.
-its story is pretty unique by silent hill standards, all in all its kind of a terrible plot, but it tries something different. You arent looking for someone, you are just trying to get out and, something i liked, demand to know what the fuck was wrong with this town.
-it hints at some greater plot and never delivers as well as dropping and forgetting characters by the end which has me thinking we are going to see a direct sequel of this version of the town from these devs if it makes enough bank to continue stuff on. like the fucking mailman on the cover who plays fucking coy when asked 'enough with the bullshit, youve seen shit, ive seen shit, what is this town?'
-gun ammo is the scarcest its been in a silent hill. theres a reason the gun kill achievement on 2/3 hd is 70 kills and this is 25. you get a lotta shotgun stuff at the end otherworld but aside from that you have maybe 6 clips for the pistol for the duration and no magnetic auto aim to missing is very easy.
-controls are kind of dogshit. b drops your weapon, RT throws it into the distance, usually over a ravine. there is literally no point where either of these are needed at all.
-graphics wise, unreal texture popping aside the town is something atmospheric, albiet it feels like a resident evil 4 level compared to the town from previous game sin the series. still its got oomph, the fog is thick and eerie and the town feels genuinely oppressive.
-all the touted water stuff comes off as an afterthought and is barely implemented.
-repeats the same puzzles many times over.
-interesting protagonist, not amazing, but will genuinely scream in complete terror at certain things instead of being a silent killing machine like previous characters, i liked that. it gave him a little more depth by intimating just how out of his he was.
-Soundtrack is 'adequate' but by the end completely and utterly forgettable like a made for sci-fi ghost story flick. it sets the town well enough but the lack of akira yamoaka makes it pale without him.
-its very different. but thats not bad. its western devs making a western silent hill. not western devs rehashing stuff from the movie like homecoming. its there spin and whilst it lacks the subtlety and nuance of the japanese games its not bad as its own thing.
-side quests were the only reason for the subway-aka a series of 5 corridors that take 15 seconds to traverse and most were repeated puzzles with the same or similar solutions.
-monster design is garbage, the worst in the series including origins. even homecoming had 2 stellar designs, this is all standard 'ogga booga we scuury!' affair that falls flat like so much week old cola.
-controls and tone wise its a blend of alan wake, silent hill shattered memories, resident evil 4 and a little bit of deadly premonition. In some cases just similar, in others definite homages, two in particular to max payne alone which makes me think the devs are clearly remedy fans and imitators.
-has quicktime events and moral choices to make it seem as though you shape the plot but really only the final choice does.
-at times obscene 4fps level framerate lag. at one point just froze and hard locked my xbox, running from instal not the disc!
I could ramble on for ages, and reading this back it seems kinda negative, but dont be put off. its awfully flawed, but they really tried hard with this one, it is NOT another trainwreck like homecoming. they took silent hill and tried to make it there own. in a way they did, but that was also part of the games failure. is it scary? no. does it have that atmosphere and soundtrack we know adn love? not at all. Did i have fun and not regret the purchase? yes i did.
Its a 6/10, middle of the road with bits of genius now and then. Not amazing, but worth playing if only because its the first survival horror in a console generation that not only diverts as far away from the A to B run and gun action horror of dead space or resident evil, but it rewards the player greatly for doing so. All in all its a commendable attempt even if the end result is something you will play only once.
its atmospheric, engrossing and a little slice of a genre thats been slowly absorbed by 3rd person shooters for a decade now and for that alone its worth checking out and with some time spent learning from this and with hopefully some better writing this teams next silent hill game has the potential to be truly worthy of standing with the earlier ones.
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Originally Posted by hellsing
- all said its not amazing but its much better than homecoming, so i ordered it and it should arrive later today.
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