Silent Hill Series
Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 7:45 am
I'm wondering if anyone here ever played the silent hill series, especially the first one for the PS 1. I'm working through the third game now. Awesome atmosphere.
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You should try playing Siren. That game is so frikin' hard! One wrong move and you get eaten by aliens. Plus it's supposed to be really creepy. My boyfriend couldn't play it late at night because it scared him too much.Elmo wrote:The SH series don't creep me out at all for some reason(not because I'm not easy to scare - I jump at films I've seen many times over). Prehaps this was because the gameplay wasn't particularly difficult, an element of fear is better when there is failiure even in your successes, or a real danger of your character dying. Like alot of games that could have been very frightening(e.g. the thing, resident evil) it tarnishes it's chances by being too easy and get's pwn'd by the likes of System Shock or thief(I prefer getting twitchy, over gory horror). The Set design was beautiful though and the sound was nearly sinister.
Sylphisonic wrote: Silent Hill has always looked too gross for me. I don't like gross-out monsters or storylines, and it sounded a bit weird or offensive.
I don't really know what other good series are out there, or what I want from a new horror series. Any suggestions for someone who is rubbish at the things (no, not like, "Don't play them")?
Ah, there's a fine line for me. There is the kind of "weird and disturbing" that is just obnoxious to me- gross-out sorts of things, like storylines about demonic pregnancies, or all the projectile snot and vomit in The Exorcist; gross-out slathering, "butt-ugly" monsters wearing sweat-encrusted vests or something like that. Then there is the okay to actually good kind of "weird and disturbing", where the monsters are innocuous zombie-types or something, a bit blood-spattered and a bit grey-skinned, but nothing too vulgar and hideous; where the horror and the atmosphere comes from reading diaries found on corpses and learning the sinister truth behind the Umbrella corporation (okay you can tell I like the Resi series), or from passing by a particularly good shot of a used-looking guillotiene and then later learning that the area you passed by was the facilty for discarding test-victims of the T-virus, or simply investigating and reading the description of a dining room table in a messed-up looking room, and seeing the phrase, "the bread is half-eaten, and there is a bowl of soup that is still warm." Great horror comes from something more psycological, and from great camera shots and very, very clever sequences and event planning. It doesn't just come from, let's make the grossest monster or the sickest plot that we can; 'cause that just offends me rather than gets me into the mood of it. No walking butt monsters or anything like that. Blood and guts? Please, they use it so callously that it takes me out of it and makes me reflect on them as a person; I could scarce be bothered to care.Well, aren't those the signs of a good horror game? It's supposed to be wierd and disturbing, after all.
Oh yeah? Well, I cheated in Resident Evil 3 by getting the rocket launcher that kills in one hit and using it all the time, and I still found it quite scary. The storyline is just that good; all the suspense that they build, the psychological horror of what Umbrella is does to people, and the dead city with all the stories that it holds that are soon to be erased; the horror of such a terrible thing happening and then the city being erased from the map by ruthless humans... The support that you are promised every time you meet another survivor, and the terror as they choose to leave you (or are taken away from you)... That's all really strong stuff. Jill's opening narrative is really strong stuff. It is.. scary. And Jill is great too, so you care about her... I think that they totally put you in that position of trying to survive in a lonely city. And all those terrifying camera angles- it doesn't matter if you know you can kill everything or not, you feel anxious anyway. And if I didn't have the rocket launcher... I wouldn't be able to get to the end of the game. And I miss out on a great, well-shot, involving story that is immersive and interactive. At the end of the day, the value of a great horror game for me is still the experience of the unfolding story and the situation of the characters. Will you ever forget the T-Virus, Umbrella, S.T.A.R.S, or Raccoon City, even though you "breezed through it" with a rocket launcher? Nope. Believe me. And just because I'm not as tough as Jill Valentine when it comes to the undead doesn't mean I shouldn't get to share her story.There is no such thing as easy horror game, as it would lose its suspense and become comical, if nothing in your way would prove any danger.
Ah, Lovecraft is sooo popular here. I'm not really into that type of stuff. Cthulhu seem a bit silly and fantasy-esque to me... maybe even geeky? I don't mean offence... Oh, what do you mean by "annoying console-elements"... what is such a thing? Personally I never could help but have a bit of disdain for "PC gamers"- it always seemed a bit sad that people only wanted to play their games on their computer. Not that there are never good games for the PC- we used to have an old Amiga and an even older Commodore 64, and I always enjoyed the odd little games and (for Amiga) frequent free demo discs we got. But I mean, consoles are like the main gaming platform, unless you are mostly into the Sims and those boring old online rpgs or real-time strategy games... Get a little spunk in your gaming diet! Hang out with Mario and Link, do battle with the 'King of Fighters', or drive a 'Ridge Racer'! Those things are cool! WheeeeeCall of Cthulhu: the Dark Corners of the Earth. Though it has some annoying console-elements which disturb the immersion, majority of the game so far has been pure gold. If you're familiar with H.P. Lovecraft's prose, I can say with certainity that that game has gotten closest to bringing his writings to life.
Sylphisonic wrote: Ah, there's a fine line for me. There is the kind of "weird and disturbing" that is just obnoxious to me- gross-out sorts of things, like storylines about demonic pregnancies, or all the projectile snot and vomit in The Exorcist; gross-out slathering, "butt-ugly" monsters wearing sweat-encrusted vests or something like that.
Then there is the okay to actually good kind of "weird and disturbing", where the monsters are innocuous zombie-types or something, a bit blood-spattered and a bit grey-skinned, but nothing too vulgar and hideous
It doesn't just come from, let's make the grossest monster or the sickest plot that we can; 'cause that just offends me rather than gets me into the mood of it. No walking butt monsters or anything like that. Blood and guts? Please, they use it so callously that it takes me out of it and makes me reflect on them as a person; I could scarce be bothered to care.
I'm not saying that Silent Hill IS like that though... because I don't know it very well. I just saw the visuals for one of the games in the series and thought the designs and locations were a bit leaning towards obnoxious gross-out world. I don't know that for sure as I haven't played them.
Oh yeah? well, I cheated in Resident Evil 3 by getting the rocket launcher that kills in one hit and using it all the time, and I still found it quite scary.
Ah, Lovecraft is sooo popular here. I'm not really into that type of stuff. Cthulhu seem a bit silly and fantasy-esque to me... maybe even geeky? I don't mean offence...
Oh, what do you mean by "annoying console-elements"... what is such a thing?
Personally I never could help but have a bit of disdain for "PC gamers"- it always seemed a bit sad that people only wanted to play their games on their computer.
But I mean, consoles are like the main gaming platform, unless you are mostly into the Sims and those boring old online rpgs or real-time strategy games... Get a little spunk in your gaming diet! Hang out with Mario and Link, do battle with the 'King of Fighters', or drive a 'Ridge Racer'! Those things are cool! Wheeeee
I never really thought Resident Evil and its zombies and other monsters were very frightening, except for your stereotypical hollywood "jump out" scares that get old fast. My main impression of them is that they are in a way action games with supernatural cannon fodder. (Yes, I know the monsters are created by a "virus", which conveniently does whatever the writers want it to). This is especially true of Resident Evil 4, which, despite the fact that it is easily one of the best if not the best game I've ever played, creates little fear for me. The monsters are just something to expend ammo on, and it never held for the atmosphere of previous RE games.Sylphsonic wrote:Ah, there's a fine line for me. There is the kind of "weird and disturbing" that is just obnoxious to me- gross-out sorts of things, like storylines about demonic pregnancies, or all the projectile snot and vomit in The Exorcist; gross-out slathering, "butt-ugly" monsters wearing sweat-encrusted vests or something like that. Then there is the okay to actually good kind of "weird and disturbing", where the monsters are innocuous zombie-types or something, a bit blood-spattered and a bit grey-skinned, but nothing too vulgar and hideous; where the horror and the atmosphere comes from reading diaries found on corpses and learning the sinister truth behind the Umbrella corporation (okay you can tell I like the Resi series), or from passing by a particularly good shot of a used-looking guillotiene and then later learning that the area you passed by was the facilty for discarding test-victims of the T-virus, or simply investigating and reading the description of a dining room table in a messed-up looking room, and seeing the phrase, "the bread is half-eaten, and there is a bowl of soup that is still warm." Great horror comes from something more psycological, and from great camera shots and very, very clever sequences and event planning. It doesn't just come from, let's make the grossest monster or the sickest plot that we can; 'cause that just offends me rather than gets me into the mood of it. No walking butt monsters or anything like that. Blood and guts? Please, they use it so callously that it takes me out of it and makes me reflect on them as a person; I could scarce be bothered to care.
I'm not saying that Silent Hill IS like that though... because I don't know it very well. I just saw the visuals for one of the games in the series and thought the designs and locations were a bit leaning towards obnoxious gross-out world. I don't know that for sure as I haven't played them.