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P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 16th August 2014
By now I'm sure everyone knows what this is all about, but just in case...
This is a very interesting "demo" for the PS4. Don't have one? Maybe get one, because this thing is pretty good. It's survival horror in the style of something like Amnesia. You walk down a hall, enter a basement door, and end up at the start of the same hall, only things have changed... and again and again and again this happens.
Well, again this isn't too much of a spoiler at this point: It's Silent Hill. It seems that Konami has become rather frustrated with the tepid responses to their most recent offerings, all provided by outside studios, and have gone ahead and taken the series back. Sort of...
See, Team Silent has dissolved, but some of those original team members are in Kojima Productions now, and that's who's making it. That's right, Kojima's in charge of this. It's hard to say what to think about that, considering his history. What I can say is the Pan's Labyrinth guy is ALSO on this project (that guy's also doing an American version of some Japanese show called "Monster" about a serial killer who manipulates people's emotions, so there's that). THAT gives me some hope, because that guy can be downright terrifying.
Also, for some reason they're making a big deal about an actor from The Walking Dead being in the game. Okay then...
Anyway, this demo is very claustrophobic, taking place in ONE section of hallway the whole time, and it ramps up the tension slowly but unhaultingly. I'd say they know what they are doing. The music is well done, with the unnatural breaks one expects in the series. The puzzles are also very creative (the last one is far too obtuse, but on purpose as it was meant as a "the whole internet works together" sort of social thing). There appears to be zero actual combat in the game. Frankly, this might be a welcome change. Combat in Silent Hill has always been pretty terrible, and taking out combat entirely (leaving monsters and danger in, but taking out physical means of self defense) is probably the shot in the arm the series needed. Yes though, this demo has a jump scare or two (avoidable in all cases), but I'd say they earned it because they ramp up the tension and there's plenty of clues to make you fully aware of just how bad things are going to get pretty soon. Plus, there's no real consequences to dying, as you just reenter where you left off. Still, you don't want to by virtue of not wanting to die of a heart attack. It's tense, and my friends and I tried everything we could (playing together, joking constantly) and it was STILL freaky deaky.
Some of the symbolism is a bit "on the nose" perhaps, but there's a LOT to read into this character's MAJOR issues from this thing, so it's a return to symbolism as character development instead of the more recent game's "symbolism of the stuff we learned in psych 101" nonsense.
Frankly, this demo gives me hope by way of despair. I recommend giving it a play. Heck, it's so good on it's own that, as it has no relation to the final product except in terms of teasing the SORT of game it'll be, I think I'll keep this game around.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 14th September 2014
Got a number of my friends to play this thing. Their general reaction:
P.T. - Weltall - 17th September 2014
I don't have access to a PS4, but this could be the game which eventually convinces me to own one. I was convinced, for a long time, that Silent Hill was a done deal.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 18th September 2014
I want to make one thing clear. The preview is scary and it's done well, far better than most games that pretend to be subtle but aren't at all like "Outlast", but it has yet to be shown just how well they'll accomplish telling a deeply personal story to truly capture the nature of Silent Hill 2. There's hints of it, and it was a preview, but it bears saying.
Also, yes, the PS4 as of right now is still not a system I can recommend. I still spend most of my time playing the Wii U and 3DS. Metal Gear Solid V looks like it'll be amazing (Ground Zeroes, as poor a choice as it was to sell such a "prologue" as it's own game, is still very impressive for what it is), so that might sell you on it too (it's also a XBox One game, but frankly I can't recommend THAT system either right now).
With disappointment after disappointment early this gen (Destiny, Assassin's Creed 4 (should have been a pure pirate game without any of the Assassin stuff forced in, I want to use my CREW!), Titanfall, and numerous other "killer" games have all been disappointing in the online reviews) I must say Konami is practically CARRYING the new gen on hype alone. Let's hope these two games live up to expectations and we don't get another Lords of Shadow 2 on our hands.
That said, I still recommend the Wii U. As I've said, that system's seen more play than either of the other new gen consoles in my house, and even the big review sites are admitting that there's PLENTY of good games on the system now.
P.T. - Weltall - 18th September 2014
I think one of the problems with Silent Hill games in the past has been the writers' desire to replicate the impact of Silent Hill 2, mostly without ever understanding what made Silent Hill 2 stand out, both among video games in general and other entries in the series, in particular. It needs more than just a heartfelt, personal story. It needs a narrative in which even the most disparate elements all play into one another, a narrative in which you can see, if you care to look closely enough, a web connecting not just the people with the place with the scenario, but entire themes and philosophies. I do believe that much of this in Silent Hill 2 was probably accidental, as well. It's something that happens rarely, and when it does, it's usually an organic process.
I probably know and understand Silent Hill 2 as well as any person who's ever played it, and to me, none of the other games in the series really matches it in that regard. Even Shattered Memories, which I feel to be one of the best games in the series, didn't quite bring it all together in the same way.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 18th September 2014
I'm pretty sure that massive tome you wrote qualifies you as more of an expert on SH2 than the creators were. I myself still consider it the best in the series, at first because it was the first I played, and then later because I started seeing those connecting threads.
Those sequels... I liked SH3. While I won't say it measures up to the sheer volume of threads SH2 had (oftentimes the symbolism had less to do with Heather's character and more to do with "all women deal with these fears" stuff. That's got it's place, but it did detract from the notion that the game was entirely about Heather herself. SH4 I think gets more flak than it deserves. I actually enjoyed it. The trick with that one is that the main character is supposed to be bland, both to allow one to project themselves on him, and I think it matches the theme of the game, that room. For me, the whole overarching message there was one of "hey, don't be a shut-in" to put it in the most patronizing way possible. Henry felt like he'd more or less ALREADY locked himself in that room and sealed himself away from human contact of his own choosing, only ever seeing anything through a single hole (the shutter of his camera). From the same "observer" note, he doesn't actually take part or influence the world outside his room so much as he is forced to watch Joseph's own "other world", studying his personality. SH4, to me at least, was pretty good and I actually liked it a bit better than 3, though again 2 puts those elements together better.
Origins is where the missteps started. I'd rank Origins roughly with the first game, in that both were "pretty good" but not even CLOSE to approaching what the others in the series accomplished, especially 2. Frankly, Silent Hill 1 is a bit overrated in my opinion. Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying it's bad, but well, what the hell is the symbolism behind a skinless pterodactyl? Her kid liked dinosaurs? There's not exactly much to it, and most "picking apart" of the first game tends to only accomplish "filling in" story elements from later games. Origins makes the mistake of starting the series obsession with The Order, as though that's the most important part of the game. SH2 had almost no references to that Order and was the best in the series! Let the whole "order" business die! Having played 2 first, I can safely say the town as a concept worked better when there was basically ZERO explanation for why any of that was even happening.
Shattered Memories got my hopes up. I enjoyed it for the unique takes on things. I'd say it's a pretty solid reimagining, and frankly a vast improvement on the story of the first game. SH5... sucked... at this point the complaints about that game are cliches themselves, but it's true. Shoving Pyramid Head in there served basically NO purpose, and the "shocking secrets" thing was about as forced as a later-era Shyamalan movie, raising far more plot holes than it ever filled in. Downpour... wasn't that bad though. I certainly felt very unsettled by that opening. In fact, I think the "big reveal" of that story kinda RUINED that. I think the notion of playing as a cold blooded killer, rather than someone I could feel a whole lot of empathy for, had a lot of promise. They did kinda ruin it by making his murder "understandable" though. What sort of reveal is that? There were a few corny elements, like roving cop cars filled with nurses. There had to be a better way to do something like that. All in all though, a better attempt than Homecoming. Then you've got the comics, with one particularly notorious series going so far as pretending a little ghost girl cursing up a storm counts as "disturbing". Oh, and let's not forget those movies... The best Silent Hill movie is still Jacob's Ladder, which until now has been the only story that rivaled SH2 (as it should be, really).
So, I'd say the SH series had pretty much hit a low point. It could certainly have gotten WORSE, mind you (like say if they went the Resident Evil 5/Dead Space 3 route and favored the new "co-op" element over any semblance or definition of "horror", but it had certainly lost respect in the gaming community (though... maybe that isn't saying much since there's a huge portion of the gaming community, right now, trying to get some woman to kill herself for some reason, so what the hell do I care what they think). P.T. is certainly putting things back on track, and it's as scared as I've ever been in a Silent Hill game. As to those other elements, there are strong hints of a really terrible back story behind the P.T. preview. Some don't quite put it together, but most videos show that slow dawning of players realizing that the main character may just have snapped terribly and isn't just some innocent person in a ghost house (the biggest clue? This is Silent Hill we're talking about).
The subtle clues are well done, and the way this single hallway is laid out actually reminds me of one of my favorite elements of the Myst series. That is, you can put together stories just looking at random garbage on counter tops and the floor, by seeing photos and such. This sort of thing happened in all the "ages" of Myst, so that you could put together so very much just from room clutter (namely, picking up the fights between the brothers and slowly realizing neither one is trustworthy). As the hallway repeats, it also goes for very subtle changes, so you'll notice photos just a bit further apart from each other, or a slightly thicker collection of wine bottles in the corner. That said, this has Kojima behind it, with his own special brand of "in your face subtlety", because the man is insane. These are the "I watch a lot of American movies" moments made just a little more subtle, like a creaking noise being revealed to be a swinging lamp, or a coat rack set up in JUST the right spot so that you just KEEP confusing it for a person IN a coat until you focus on it. That sort of thing. Mood building, basically, and effectively done I'll admit. Then it just gets crazy and over the top. It builds up to it, so I think it earns it, but be prepared to see a few David Lynch moments.
As to the things you've said, this "teaser" really does make sure ALL of these things tie together. It remains to be seen just how well it ties together, but it's clear that the attempt was made. Just about every part of it ties right back to the basic "theme" of it, which seems to be "the quiet desperation of the drudgery of a normal life" (while simultaneously subtly mocking that same notion). Heck, they put all sorts of bizarre hidden elements. What I thought was just Satan talking to me turned out to be a Norwegian news report on alien invasions. Sound silly? A bit, but put together with comments like "don't trust the tap water" and "Our society is rotten to the core" you get the impression it's referencing the quiet dad who's been taken in by radio talk shows about horrible conspiracies and such, anything at all to make HIM into life's main character and give him an enemy to blame/fight.
So yeah, I'd say this teaser is VERY promising and the most excited I've been for a Silent Hill game in a good long time. I kinda really hope there's no combat in the final version too. It worked so well here (and in both Amnesia games), and frankly it's not really needed to make a good horror game or tell a good story.
If you have any friends with PS4s, get them to download this thing. Play it. Play it with them, in broad daylight, while making jokes. It won't help.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 26th April 2015
Aaaand it's gone!
http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/25/8498359/silent-hills-teaser-p-t-playstation-store-konami
If you don't have a PS4 yet, and you want to try this demo, go to the online store and "purchase" the free demo there using your PSN account (they're free to set up). That way, it's in your account even when they take it down and you can download it when you do get a PS4.
Unfortunately, the best thing to happen to the Silent Hill series in years looks like it's going to be cancelled due to some insane internal politics at Konami. Konami seems to hate Kojima for some reason right now. While he's finishing out Phanton Pain, with no official announcement on Silent Hills, it's very likely they're cancelling that game. Such a shame, considering all the promise it seemed to have. P.T., fortunately, is a pretty complete "short story" all by itself, and still worth playing. It's crazy they intend on taking it down in a few days. Well, consider this your warning. Get it while the getting's still good.
P.T. - A Black Falcon - 26th April 2015
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1036069
It looks like Silent Hills is probably dead. With this following Hideo Kojima's leaving the company in what seems to be a somewhat messy breakup (they removed his name from ads for the game, etc.), does Konami even plan on making games anymore? Any of them? Or are they the next Atari, a company which doesn't make games worth mentioning anymore? That'd be sad...
As for P.T., I added that to my account, sure. I don't know that I'll get a PS4 anytime in the foreseeable future, but if it's there, at least I can try it if I ever do.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 26th April 2015
Del Toro's greasy heart finally let us know... It seems pretty official at this point, the dream of a good Silent Hill game after all this time has died.
What the heck happened?! Did Kojima smuggle money? Did he insult someone? Did he kill some executive's dog? Were the executives just insecure about Kojima Productions being basically the only thing keeping their company going?
Frankly, all things considering, maybe Silent Hills isn't dead, just the title. There's no particular reason the game has to take place in Silent Hill to tell the story they seem to want to tell. Change the name of the town (and the game), ditch any references to the mythos behind the town (which isn't necessary in the best stories anyway), and that team can STILL make the game. We'd all still buy it, and Konami would just end up looking like big fools I think.
The only problem is, I think Konami are the owners of the Fox engine...
Anyway, my reaction to all this:
P.T. - Great Rumbler - 27th April 2015
I think Konami is probably ready to pull out of the games business entirely, and Kojima was really the only person left at the company with any standing who was willing to push back against that move. So, he had to go. They might give some lip service to keeping a few of their franchises going a little longer, but this is most likely the beginning of the end of Konami as a company that makes videogames.
Konami makes a ton of money from its line of fitness clubs, by the way.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 27th April 2015
Well, if that's their ultimate plan, I hope they don't intend to hold onto those IPs. That'd be a fundamentally selfish thing to do if they don't intend on doing anything with them but sitting on them, like a dragon on a pile of treasure.
If Kojima Productions still exists after all this, here's hoping they buy up all those IPs, rehire the various important figures who've left over the years, and get things back on track as a company that actually cares about making games. One way or another, I want to see Silent Hills get made, even if they have to rename it "Quiet Valley" or something.
P.T. - A Black Falcon - 28th April 2015
If there is even some truth to this, and it wouldn't surprise me if there is, Konami isn't exactly giving up on games, they're just changing to only making cellphone games. So yeah, pretty much the same thing. Seeing the collapse of yet another one of the great publishers is pretty sad... and this dooms Konami (& the companies they own the libraries to, like Hudson)'s amazing back catalogs of classic IPs to oblivion, frustratingly.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 29th April 2015
So they took Bomberman out with them? Lovely... In other news, there's a running conspiracy theory that says this is all a prank on Kojima's part, because "he's a known troll". Yeah, this seems a bit extreme for a prank.
![[Image: i-XScJ4H3-1050x10000.jpg]](http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-XScJ4H3/0/1050x10000/i-XScJ4H3-1050x10000.jpg)
P.T. - Weltall - 29th April 2015
brb suicide
Also, I feel the need to state the fact that I really strongly dislike Penny Arcade's art style now.
P.T. - Sacred Jellybean - 29th April 2015
Now now. Silent Hill will have a bright future as a slot machine.
That black haired kid looks weird with freckles.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 30th April 2015
Just to be clear, this is how they used to look.
![[Image: 214584757_tSa5c-1050x10000.jpg]](http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/214584757_tSa5c/0/1050x10000/214584757_tSa5c-1050x10000.jpg)
P.T. - A Black Falcon - 30th April 2015
Sacred Jellybean Wrote:Now now. Silent Hill will have a bright future as a slot machine.
That black haired kid looks weird with freckles.
Don't worry, it won't only be slots and pachinko, there are also sure to be "free-to-play" mobile games as well.
P.T. - Sacred Jellybean - 2nd May 2015
DJ: Yeah, it was pretty rough in the beginning. I like the style circa 2005:
![[Image: e15.jpg]](http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/567/379/e15.jpg)
What's Mr. Thompson doing these days? Keeping busy, I hope! Getting disbarred from Florida put a wrench in the gears, I hope. ...imagine that, Florida did something right for once.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 2nd May 2015
I'm actually very fond of this latest style. It really seems a lot more fluid, more expressive. The older style seems a bit more rigid.
However, that guy is always experimenting. Expect the style to change again in a few years.
P.T. - Weltall - 2nd May 2015
It's more fluid and expressive. I'll admit that the mechanical quality of it is better than ever. At the same time, I find the style ugly and unpleasant to look at. It's especially annoying how the characters' faces are almost always absurdly exaggerated even when nothing's actually happening.
It's like, maybe if it was always like this, I wouldn't dislike it so much, but Penny Arcade has convinced me that you can never successfully transition a long-running cartoon into the John Kricfalusi style.
P.T. - Great Rumbler - 4th May 2015
P-A's reached long-running daily newspaper comic status, in that the creators have very little creative drive remaining and are simply keeping the comic going out of a feeling of obligation.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 4th May 2015
Eh, I'm not sure they've "sold out" just yet. The above comic seems pretty legitimate to me.
At any rate, it's a shame that we'll never see just what Silent Hills could do. However, we can still look to the future. Konami lost sales, but in it's place, I'll be picking up the new Fatal Frame for Wii U. Heck, they might even bundle in the Wii Fatal Frame game they never translated. I just hope they've modernized the controls since the second one (the last one I played). Your loss, Konami.
Edit: It seems there's a fan petition to un-cancel the game. https://www.change.org/p/kojima-productions-continue-working-on-silent-hills Well, of course there is. It is interesting that they are specifically petitioning Kojima Productions and Del Toro (not even going to try to spell that first name). If Kojima Productions did continue the task, assuming they got to keep any of the money their games have made, it's still up to Konami to lend them the license and the engine itself (the Fox engine, sadly, now belongs to a studio not even willing to use it any more). Konami MIGHT be willing to lend out the license if they are taking NONE of the financial risk, but the "might" is that they seem to actually hate Kojima now, and might deny them the license out of spite. So, they could continue the game without the license (it really doesn't need to be set in Silent Hill). However, first they'd need a brand new engine, since Konami owns Fox (that alone will set them back YEARS, they can't reuse any of the code base, so they might end up just going with Unreal 4, potentially ruining the "look" of the game like recent Unreal Silent Hill games have). It would also depend on just how much of the Silent Hills concept is technically already "owned" by Konami. Then again, they could still get pretty dang close without breaking any copyrights, just look at Yukee Laylee. The final obstacle is that Kojima Productions games cost tens of millions of dollars to make. It's why Konami wants to get out of the AAA game business entirely. Too much investment risk (which I understand, I do). A kickstarter campaign would basically need to rival Star Citizen to get the sort of cash they'd need, and there's no telling if they could actually pull that off. They would certainly need to expand to multi-platform (including PC) to get enough donations. The alternative is to find out just how much Del Toro is willing to commit. If he's involved, MAYBE there's big Hollywood coffers available for this thing.
Frankly, no matter what angle I look at it from, it seems like a long shot.
P.T. - Great Rumbler - 5th May 2015
Kojima Productions is owned by Konami. The best you can hope for is for most of the talent to leave and start up their own studio, but they won't be making Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 5th May 2015
I was under the impression they were cutting the whole studio loose. If that's not the case, they're certainly going to rename that branch if they don't just close it down entirely.
P.T. - Great Rumbler - 5th May 2015
The studio was formed by merging together several of their internal development teams and giving Kojima control over them, it was never a separate company or anything like that. For the time being, they're just going to peel Kojima's name off the all the signs and revert everything back to how it was before. Either way, there's nothing that Kojima can do at the point to bring back Silent Hills and it's pretty clear that Konami no longer has an interest in funding further development.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 5th May 2015
Indeed, which is why so many are saying they shouldn't bother bringing back "Silent Hills", just the exact same game without Silent Hill in it.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 6th May 2015
http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/5/8557807/pt-silent-hills-demo-pulled
Konami is apparently going full scorched earth on this one. Now you can't even redownload the game if you already downloaded it. That's not unheard of, but the examples I can think of can be counted on one hand, and they were legally extreme cases. Basically, I can never ever delete this thing. I better back it up onto some USB device soon, just in case.
P.T. - Great Rumbler - 6th May 2015
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Indeed, which is why so many are saying they shouldn't bother bringing back "Silent Hills", just the exact same game without Silent Hill in it.
That would be a good way to get sued into the ground, I'd imagine.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 6th May 2015
But, they took out the Silent Hill part. Isn't that the legally actionable part? I mean, if they change all the character names and places, but keep the story, you can't sue for that, right? I mean, people do that like all the time, especially in video games.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playtonic/yooka-laylee-a-3d-platformer-rare-vival
I mean, this one is still around.
P.T. - Great Rumbler - 6th May 2015
It's likely a murky situation, legally, but the legal issue probably isn't even the biggest hurdle. They would have to start development of the game from scratch, first of all, and a game of this nature would not be cheap, so they'd have to find another big-time publisher somewhere willing to drop some serious cash on a horror game that would be carried solely on the name recognition of Kojima [since using the Silent Hill brand is out]. You could probably count on one hand the number of publishers who would even pretend to be interested in that.
P.T. - Sacred Jellybean - 7th May 2015
What's in a name anyway? Kojima is tremendously talented. I have a hard time believing he wouldn't be able to find work elsewhere. We'll get to see his creativity with teh spooky gamez eventually. Personally I don't mind if he's starting from scratch instead of taking an existing mythos. It's all in the delivery anyway.
Hearing that Norman Reedus might be involved was worse news than this.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 7th May 2015
I think what GR was alluding to, and what I mentioned above, is the issue of the Fox engine still belonging to Konami. They seem to have no intentions at all of actually developing games with it at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised if they kept it to themselves just to spite Kojima. That's a much bigger hurdle.
I wonder if some Konami executive will look at engines like Unreal and think "gee, I bet we could sell our engine to other game companies for a tidy profit!", then promptly fail to attract any attention because of the near certainty other publishers would have that Konami would be completely unwilling to either support or upgrade the engine for the long term.
P.T. - Sacred Jellybean - 7th May 2015
True. I'm not well versed in the logistics in game engines or what's available. But couldn't another big publisher scoop up Kojima (hoping for the next MGS cash cow), and couldn't he use the unreal engine? What are the drawbacks of that? I guess deep down I'm optimistic. Life always finds a way! So does art. :P
P.T. - Great Rumbler - 7th May 2015
Kojima will land somewhere, but it's a question of where and how much freedom he has when he does. Mikami got a bit lucky, though, I think, in that Bethesda let him return to the genre where he felt most at home and didn't seem to screw around with him too much.
P.T. - A Black Falcon - 7th May 2015
Yeah, I'm sure there will be a lot of interest in Kojima. But what kind of budgets will he have, what limitations, etc?
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 7th May 2015
The only issue is that the Fox Engine could be easily modified to work for the sort of grit and general "feel" of a Silent Hill game. I can't speak for the latest Unreal engine, but the last one had this "sheen" look to it that you saw in every single game that used it. Players could tell it was an unreal game pretty much instantly, and it started wearing a bit thin. Silent Hill Homecoming and Downpour both used Unreal, and neither one managed to look as good as the PS2 games (at least in terms of environments). This is the danger in being forced to adapt to an outside engine.
I gotta say that I really wish Bethesda weren't the ones to hire the RE guy. Their games are notoriously buggy, and I wonder just how that new horror game turned out actually. I haven't played it yet.
P.T. - Dark Jaguar - 4th November 2015
I just thought of a perfect name for the not-Silent Hills project. Not "Quiet Mountain" or whatever, just use an actual city name. I'd call it Sleepy Hollows. Sure, it'd have nothing to do with the headless horseman legend, but that's fine.