16th August 2014, 4:16 PM
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.
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.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)