Can Kojima save Silent Hill?

[Sean Hollyman]

So I think we can all agree that the most recent few Silent Hill games have been pretty bad. Nowhere near the first 3 (maybe 4) games. They changed the rules and just messed with shit.


So PT. Sure it was scary, it just didn't feel like Silent Hill. It was mostly jump scares with more traditional horror. I don#t know about you, it just didn't feel creepy in the way the originals were. I know they've said the actual game will be different from the teaser, but still. I have a bad feeling about it.


What do you think? Can he save it? Or will it be like the last few, only actually scary?

 

[Casual Shinji]

So PT. Sure it was scary, it just didn't feel like Silent Hill. It was mostly jump scares with more traditional horror. I don#t know about you, it just didn't feel creepy in the way the originals were. I know they've said the actual game will be different from the teaser, but still. I have a bad feeling about it.

Wait, what jump scares? The only one I can think of is the ghost lady thing that on one occassion grabs you and you transport back to the first room.

Anyway, Kojima has the original creators of Silent Hill over at Kojima Productions, so he'd have to be crazy not to use them for guidance. If P.T. is any indication, this new Silent Hill going to be just fine.

The only thing that makes me weary is the guy who'll portray the main character. I don't want recognizable actors running around in my games, and especially if it's an actor who I don't think has the best of faces, it's just going to distract me. Kojima really needs to lay off this Hollywood wanking with putting big name actors in his games. Having Kiefer Sutherland do a voice is one thing, but actually scanning in an actor completely is just getting a bit too obnoxious.

 

[Evonisia]

Given that I think the last two (main) Silent Hill games were good I think Kojima just needs to let somebody else write it and focus on... whatever else he wants to focus on. Keep the momentum going, make the series stand strong. Norman Reedus being involved is more likely for me to go "oh yeah it's him" rather than get engaged with his actual character (assuming he's playing somebody other than the typical bad ass for a non specific reason character he always plays).

I've yet to play the demo (or the "PT" as it's called), but I don't think I should use such things to be an indicator for the final product's quality anyway.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Given that I think the last two (main) Silent Hill games were good I think Kojima just needs to let somebody else write it and focus on... whatever else he wants to focus on. Keep the momentum going, make the series stand strong. Norman Reedus being involved is more likely for me to go "oh yeah it's him" rather than get engaged with his actual character (assuming he's playing somebody other than the typical bad ass for a non specific reason character he always plays).

I've yet to play the demo (or the "PT" as it's called), but I don't think I should use such things to be an indicator for the final product's quality anyway.

When you say 'main', do you mean Downpour and Homecoming?

If so... meh

 

[Evonisia]

Given that I think the last two (main) Silent Hill games were good I think Kojima just needs to let somebody else write it and focus on... whatever else he wants to focus on. Keep the momentum going, make the series stand strong. Norman Reedus being involved is more likely for me to go "oh yeah it's him" rather than get engaged with his actual character (assuming he's playing somebody other than the typical bad ass for a non specific reason character he always plays).

I've yet to play the demo (or the "PT" as it's called), but I don't think I should use such things to be an indicator for the final product's quality anyway.

When you say 'main', do you mean Downpour and Homecoming?

If so... meh

Downpour and Shattered Memories, fuck Homecoming. Though I do find the Silent Hills being considered main or not confusing (if Origins is a PSP exclusive, why is it retrospect the fifth while Book of Memories is a not main one).

But then again since Team Silent were disbanded the series has been really messy.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Given that I think the last two (main) Silent Hill games were good I think Kojima just needs to let somebody else write it and focus on... whatever else he wants to focus on. Keep the momentum going, make the series stand strong. Norman Reedus being involved is more likely for me to go "oh yeah it's him" rather than get engaged with his actual character (assuming he's playing somebody other than the typical bad ass for a non specific reason character he always plays).

I've yet to play the demo (or the "PT" as it's called), but I don't think I should use such things to be an indicator for the final product's quality anyway.

When you say 'main', do you mean Downpour and Homecoming?

If so... meh

Downpour and Shattered Memories, fuck Homecoming. Though I do find the Silent Hills being considered main or not confusing (if Origins is a PSP exclusive, why is it retrospect the fifth while Book of Memories is a not main one).

But then again since Team Silent were disbanded the series has been really messy.

Downpour's atmosphere seemed really off. The fog just seemed like a thin mist that you could actually see through and I felt the monster designs were pretty lazy.

 

[Evonisia]

Given that I think the last two (main) Silent Hill games were good I think Kojima just needs to let somebody else write it and focus on... whatever else he wants to focus on. Keep the momentum going, make the series stand strong. Norman Reedus being involved is more likely for me to go "oh yeah it's him" rather than get engaged with his actual character (assuming he's playing somebody other than the typical bad ass for a non specific reason character he always plays).

I've yet to play the demo (or the "PT" as it's called), but I don't think I should use such things to be an indicator for the final product's quality anyway.

When you say 'main', do you mean Downpour and Homecoming?

If so... meh

Downpour and Shattered Memories, fuck Homecoming. Though I do find the Silent Hills being considered main or not confusing (if Origins is a PSP exclusive, why is it retrospect the fifth while Book of Memories is a not main one).

But then again since Team Silent were disbanded the series has been really messy.

Downpour's atmosphere seemed really off. The fog just seemed like a thin mist that you could actually see through and I felt the monster designs were pretty lazy.

I quite liked the atmosphere, though I think the mist look was intentional because of the whole water theme. Everything is transparent, I guess.

I didn't like those monster designs though. Homecoming at least got away with it by ripping off the older games and putting shiny graphics on them.

 

[Frission]

Kojima has made some pretty interesting games and he might be a good director. However I've never seen a good horror game from him, so who knows?

The psychological horror that made silent hill good required a lot of subtlety.

 

[go-10]

save Silent Hill?
Kojima... no, not really
Guillermo del Toro... you bet he can. Damn guy everything he makes is gold so if he's directing/writing it I'm watching/playing it

 

[JagermanXcell]

We also have to consider that most of Team Silent (from the directors of 1-4, to even it's original designers) work at Kojima Productions and will be working with Kojima and Del Toro on the game. Having their input to back up the other two big star's visions (whom I trust after playing P.T.) will make for something really interesting and deserving.

P.T. definitely won't be indicative of the final product, but I can see the direction the demo and interviews are taking. In that there is a passion for this franchise to return to it's former glory, without sully, and with intention to propose new interesting ideas into a Silent Hill game actually worth a damn.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Kojima? He can either make it completely fresh and utterly terrifying, or he's going to get so wrapped up in his convoluted story that the game gets choked to death. It's going to be one or the other I think. Hopefully Guillermo will be able to keep him in check and remind him that a twenty minutes of characters just talking about the meaning of the town's demons does not make a good Silent Hill game.

The guy is crazy, and that can help with Silent Hill, but he's going to need to balance the crazy correctly.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I'll say it before, I'll say it again. Kojima will need to be reigned in with this because he has almost an obsessive need to explain everything. In great detail. Multiple times.

Silent Hill 1 was a revelation for me back then when I played it because I really didn't know if I even succeeded. I got the Good Plus ending, but then that in turn made me wonder... Holy shit, am I stuck to repeat this (until Silent Hill 3... thanks for that guys)? Have I even left Silent Hill? Is this Purgatory. That lead to so many great discussions I had in college over that.

Now? Kojima might go; "No, this isn't purgatory. This is a fixed time dilation caused by Alien Nanomachines. The construct of the player character is actually a confused android sent in by the united efforts of the secret organization that secretly controls the Illuminati. Their goal is to harvest the Lovecraftian Energies to firmly grasp the world in it's palm.

You would have known this if you stopped for five minutes and stare at the Demon Nurses' chest and realize every horitizonal bob of her breasts was a 'Dot', and every vertial movement was a 'Dash'. Then convert that all into Morse Code and then check the back of the box. Really, I feel ashamed by making it so obvious, but Team Silent said I should be a little more transparent..."

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what it means for Kojima and Del Toro to be making the new silent hill game. They aren't going to "bring silent hill back to form" and just copy what made the first few games good, and I know this because people of their caliber wouldn't be signing up for a project like this unless they were given license to do whatever they want with the franchise and get as many of their own ideas in there as they can. This probably means that their new silent hill game is going to be entirely different from previous ones.

I think that more than anything Kojima and Del Toro are going to try and nail the atmosphere of the silent hill games, and I think that Kojima's job is basically going to be the gameplay and Del Toro is going to be doing the story and figuring out the subtle more psychological horror the makes the silent hill games interesting.

Kojima is actually probably a great guy to get for the gameplay of a game like this. He makes stealth games, and he knows how to make stealth be engaging and tense, which is something that you want for a horror game because you don't really want the protagonist to fight very often. If the protagonist is constantly fighting monsters than the monsters lose effect and stop being scary. If you're mostly having to sneak around the monsters then they are more scary.

Kojima isn't a very subtle director or writer though, which is where Del Toro comes in. I'm pretty certain that he'll be able to nail the silent hill atmosphere, and really make the game world feel very alien and uncomfortable while strangely familiar. Still, I think that's about all of the old silent hill games that we're going to see, the atmosphere. If anything I think fans should prepare for something that's more of a "spiritual successor" to silent hill than an actual silent hill game, because like I said, these kinds of big names don't attach themselves to projects unless they're given free rein to do what they want and put their own mark on the franchise.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think hiring Kojima to direct a Silent Hill game is about as right on target as casting Steven Seagal as the lead opposite Helen Mirren in Nancy Meyers' next senior romcom, but hey, maybe Del Toro will keep him in check. The trailer looks pretty good to begin with.

 

[Riotguards]

well the silent hill PT was scary but can the make it at least 7+ horror fest?

its possible, very possible indeed

 

[DEAD34345]

I doubt it. With Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro on the project there's no way they're not going to take their own wildly different spin on the series. Kojima is one of the extremely few "auteur" developers in gaming, and Guillermo Del Tero is the same with movies, so whatever they make is probably not just going to be another Silent Hill game. Anyone expecting a standard sequel, or any kind of return to form for the series is pretty certain to be disappointed.

That said, it could be great game in its own right. Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro making a horror video game is kind of insane, so I have no idea if it's going to turn out well or not. The demo type thing was really well received, so who knows?

 

[Souplex]

Can Kojima? God no. The man is not fit to make games that aren't Boktai.
Can Del Toro? Possibly. He's been given an albatross around his neck in the form of a terrible Japanese game director, but he might pull through.

 

[Nurb]

Kojima isn't a very good or subtle writer, a film director and a TV personality won't fix the series if they don't understand what made Silent Hill 2 the great game it was.

 

[Therumancer]

So I think we can all agree that the most recent few Silent Hill games have been pretty bad. Nowhere near the first 3 (maybe 4) games. They changed the rules and just messed with shit.


So PT. Sure it was scary, it just didn't feel like Silent Hill. It was mostly jump scares with more traditional horror. I don#t know about you, it just didn't feel creepy in the way the originals were. I know they've said the actual game will be different from the teaser, but still. I have a bad feeling about it.


What do you think? Can he save it? Or will it be like the last few, only actually scary?

It has potential, but the same has been said about the previous games. That said people like different things about the series, so I don't think it's possible to come up with a game that ALL Silent Hill fans are going to love. For example if they just re-do the basics of "Silent Hill 2" it won't impress that many people because we've seen all that before.

Speaking for myself I thought Homecoming, Downpour, and Origins were all pretty decent, they just needed a bit more work. I had no problem with main characters who could fight/defend themselves since combat was always in the game, that said they needed to work on expanding the monsters not just the guys fighting them. For example in "Homecoming" your pretty much just fighting most of the rogues gallery from previous games.

I don't think the series needs to be "saved" in a traditional sense, it mostly needs to be done better. At the end of the day the biggest question I have is if Del Toro will be able to turn out some properly freaky monsters we haven't seen before in place of just recycling the usual suspects. He has the talent to do so, but it remains to be seen if he will be able to pull it off in video game form.

I'll also say that despite the whole "psychological" gimmick present in SH2 and SH3 I don't think that's the do all and end all of the series, I think it's more accurate to say that you need to hit the right note with the creepy surrealism, and to be honest Kojima is weird enough where I think he might be able to do that, I mean if you follow his Metal Gear stuff you'd know he gets pretty crazy. The big question is whether he can do that kind of insane depth with a surrealist horror experience as opposed to science fiction.

Oh and for the record, one thing I would find deeply amusing is if there is a New Game+ option where you can play as Hellboy and make a joke out of the game (through massive combat prowess), sort of like some of the alternate characters you could unlock in old Resident Evil games. They couldn't go into depth with it, but it would be amusing if they did make a really freaky game, but then instead of say playing as Hunk or whatever, you could unlock "Hellboy" and have the world's greatest paranormal investigator sent to check out Silent Hill... with predictable results (basically Hellboy is what towns like Silent Hill are afraid of...).

 

[Spartan448]

Well if Kojima is any indication, there isn't actually a new Silent Hill game coming out, and it's really a new horror-themed Metal Gear.