Zero Punctuation: Silent Hill Origins

[mrbunny]

im too afraid to play silent hill. lol watched the movie - was ok, since i had a general concept of what the game was about, but for others who didnt said it didnt make anysense.

 

[Sylocat]

Sometimes I wonder what the Silent Hill series would be like if they took away all the monsters and bad guys altogether and made it just an exploration game of discovery. Do away with the crappy gameplay altogether and just have puzzles and story. Like a few here, I loved SH4's story (bland main character notwithstanding, but he wasn't meant to be the driving force behind it anyway), and think it could have been one of the greatest games ever made if they had made the whole game like the first section, just a Myst-style point-and click exploration game with no tedious action. Or maybe one final boss fight that gave it some action, but that wouldn't be essential.

But regardless, I agree 100% that the story is what makes it great, despite the fact that the gameplay leaves something to be desired.

(Oh, and at the risk of sounding even cruder than Yahtzee, I learned from one of the more hostile people on the Sillysoft forums that you don't have to remove any vertebrae to eat your own ass, you can just use a spoon and it works just as well. But to each their own, I suppose. )

 

[stacia123]

I don't think anyone who has ever played live RPGs can enjoy weapons degradation on any level, even if it's well done. Now, I'm not accusing Yahtzee of being one of those scary, aged nerdlinger types who used to get his jollies from a bag of dice, but if the DM hat fits, well...

Of course, I may just be angry because Yahtzee apparently hasn't been saving my lengthy emailed declarations of adoration. How long do I have to freakin' stalk someone before they love me?

 

[GloatingSwine]

The oblivion one was meaningless and so might as well not have been there. It wasn't like things could ever run out whilst you were using them since you had to go to a city every couple of seconds so it just you meant that you would have to get all your stuff repaired every time you were there rather than actually changing your decisions. It was like a tax for playing the game, except you were already hoarding all your money on offshore bank accounts so the small amount they could sting you for just highlighted how you could afford houses in every city and get that guy to pay for curing him over and over and over.

It's mostly a justification for keeping the Armourer skill in the game. Which, as noted, eventually nets you a concrete benefit (as well as, of course, being a way to boost your Endurance, one of the more important stats early on).

 

[LarsWestergren]

Another good review....

I didn't mind the "slow talking" ZP episode, a change of pace is nice sometimes and it felt like you had really thought carefully about both your opinions and the jokes.

Could we get some PC gaming love next time, pretty please? Witcher maybe?

 

[Kerspeles]

diablo 2 was the first game that popped into my mind when the weapon degradation was mentioned

also, i've never played any silent hill so i wouldn't know about that, but for me second sight is the game that has the best story telling i've ever seen in a game

 

[Khakidoo]

Haven't played Silent Hill in ages, I loved the original, I can still hear that creepy gate squeeking...
And here's some useless trivia: A Pennsylvania town named Centralia was used as the basis for the town in Silent Hill. For the past 45 years a mine fire has been burning underground there, releasing toxic steam and warping the streets. There is a seriously creepy old church and graveyard where steam rises up right amongst the headstones. (I used to live about 45 minutes away from Centralia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

 

[sathie]

Think he was getting at over the top weapon degredation being a bad item, hence the Chocolate Katana reference.

Funny review once again.

The only Silent Hill I've played is the original on the Playstation. I got bored of running around in the fog being eaten by random creatures and listening to static. And I don't much like horror games (pee pants time), so any excuse to stop playing, really.

 

[the_pearson_person]

Yay! Amusingness!



On Facebook? Join the Zero Punctuation Appreciation Society here:

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[GloatingSwine]

Haven't played Silent Hill in ages, I loved the original, I can still hear that creepy gate squeeking...
And here's some useless trivia: A Pennsylvania town named Centralia was used as the basis for the town in Silent Hill. For the past 45 years a mine fire has been burning underground there, releasing toxic steam and warping the streets. There is a seriously creepy old church and graveyard where steam rises up right amongst the headstones. (I used to live about 45 minutes away from Centralia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

That only applies to the movie. The town in the game isn't based on a single place, it's an amalgam of all the small towns in which horrific things happen in all the books of American horror authors.

 

[Blatchford]

Weapons degredation in Baldur's Gate was a good idea, as it was actually built into the story line and only applied to non-magical weapons (which were so common that you never had to worry about it).
Oh and more to the point, a great review as ever.

 

[Ugainius]

To all those going on about games with weapon degeneration: Just because it's tolerable doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.

Excellent review Yahtzee, as always though I did feel you were coming more from the Silent Hill fanboy "I'm looking down on this" crowd rather than an unbiased "Yet another bad game" crowd. To each is own I suppose.

 

[thebrink]

Since the thread is really off topic already, and weapon degradation is on the table. How about the worst game with it? Seriously I'd like to know, I haven't played many and I thought Condemned was pretty awful with it, so I'd like to see how far it can go. No "Fire Emblem" or "Dead Rising" or "Diablo" - for any thing you can dream up, these games most did a satisfactory job of it and really can't be put into a "worst" category (but the trolls will come anyhow...). In games like Diablo and Oblivion it's for the grind factor so I'm not a huge fan, but in Condemned it was pretty lame having to pick up a new crowbar every couple of feet, and a shotgun with only 2 shots in it? ugh...

 

[darshannon]

Oh, but you DO go to Silent Hill in Silent Hill 4. There is Silent Hill Smile Support Society and Toluca Lake in there.

 

[Frederf]

My only exposure to the Silent Hill series is "The Room" as well as walking by a Silent Hill movie poster... oh and C. S. Yahtzee's comments on #5. Personally I liked it for the approach to horror in which horror is the main thematic element. Good horror too, not the popoutboo type but the creeping "Did I file my taxes correctly?" horror. I didn't get very far into it because it wasn't very rewarding but I can see the charm.

"...name any game in which weapon degradation has been a good idea." I'm going to be Little Johnny Literalist and say pretty much all games weapon degradation has been a good idea. Never mind that most of those games wherein weapon degradation was a good idea didn't actually have weapon degradation and that most of those that actually did implement weapon degradation did so in an annoying way. How's that for numbingly literal interpretation?

The point was to get some needed breathing space between concept and implementation. What C.S. Yahtzee wanted to ask was "...name any game in which weapon degradation was implemented well" but he's not from America so I can forgive his passing familiarity with the English language. The answer to this better, more American, question is that... "well not many." Dead Rising is right on the edge between "well" and "passable" in terms of implementation.

Unfortunately, game developers are like only child 8 year olds with a crate and a half of toys. They are so proud of HDR this, weapon degradation that, bloom hoohah that they fail to temper their showing off with subtlety. Can you name any game that had ragdoll physics that didn't randomly blow a body across a room during the single player campaign? Any game featuring HDR that didn't do the now-cliche dark tunnel to super bright room?

Where was I? Oh right, if a game has weapon degradation they seem to think that weapons can't last more than a dozen hits/shots and self destruct. Not because it's pleasing, realistic, or immersive, but because they got it for Christmas and they'll be darned if you aren't up to your eyeballs in it.

 

[Firia]

I agree with you that Silent Hill 4 had the best story, but personally I think Silent Hill 3 was the best in the series. Don't get me wrong, 2 was brilliant, but personally I liked Heathers character more than I did James.

I agree, just about 100 percent.

Just about.

While SH2 is by no means Bad, for me it didn't match up to the terror that was SH1, and was later completely out done by SH3. If you had two catagories for SH games, those being Story and Horror, SH2 would score high for story, but moderate for horror. I felt SH 1 and 3 had big points for each. SH3 gets bonus points for being the closest thing to a sequal in all all of the Silent Hill series. SH4 was gripping, and I felt was capable of estableshing a pattern; High scoring for story (I loved learning what it was that barred the man from leaving his house), but moderate points for terror.

I havn't played SH O, but I trust what Yahzee is saying... well, not all of it. I'm hopeful for SH5. But if Origins didn't work up a good reason for this trucker to be in town, and didn't murder and eat his own children (for example) to give some form of tragity, then yes, failure of story. Posably even low points. I'll never know, because I don't own a psp.

Fingers crossed for SH5.

 

[SpiderEternal]

"Name one game where weapon degradation was a good idea."

System Shock 2. ^^

 

[hex1]

I don't know how you can diss Zim forums looking at your recent standards of writing. I mean come on, your humour's gone to hell, every other word is fag, shit, arse or cock. You spent too much time in America. Have a look at some of the old stuff on your site, or even the first two or so videos here. By comparison the recent stuff is pathetic. You can do better and I'd love to see it.

 

[Ciarog]

Haven't played Silent Hill in ages, I loved the original, I can still hear that creepy gate squeeking...
And here's some useless trivia: A Pennsylvania town named Centralia was used as the basis for the town in Silent Hill. For the past 45 years a mine fire has been burning underground there, releasing toxic steam and warping the streets. There is a seriously creepy old church and graveyard where steam rises up right amongst the headstones. (I used to live about 45 minutes away from Centralia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

Lot of small towns in that area are being destroyed, some in less dramatic fashion.

Mine fires are pretty common anywhere you find abandoned coal, there's one been burning in Northwest Colorado since 1899.

 

[RPJesus]

I kinda hated the protagonist in SH3. Granted I never played that far, but I figured she wanted to die, so who am I to stand in her way?
"This van is blocking my way out. God forbid I climb over it."
"Those boxes look heavy. And obviously getting raped killed and eaten (not necesarily in that order) by sins against nature is a much better alternative to shoving some boxes off a crate."
Not to mention she unloads an entire fucking clip into the easiest monster type of all those I encountered. It's like the only one you can use the knife on without getting hit for christs sake. Which I suppose is less of an issue in easy mode where they're like
"-have some more ammo
-Uh, my inventory's full
-Well then have some more inventory"
But I was playing on hard I believe, so it was more like
"-Can I have, like, a stick at least?
-Fuck off"
Finally I'll close with an actual line of text from the game which is probably a large part of why I can't take it seriously
"This is a fire door. It doesn't lead anywhere."