• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Silent Hill HD Collection |OT| Programmed in Smoke Signals

Truant

Member
So I guess it's safe to say that after this, Book of Memories and the bad reviews for Downpour, Silent Hill is dead. Too bad, I wanted a HD port of Shattered Memories.

Seems like it. The worst part is, Konami will go "Well, people just aren't interested in SH games. Look at the sales!"

It's a circle of shit.
 

Endo Punk

Member
Is it possble that Konami will release SH2 and SH3 as PS2 emulation in the store? I really can't support a downport even if it's 720p.
 
I feel bad for buying this. I tried to be optimistic, but this is just sad.


The funny thing is, I was really looking forward to this. It may be fine for newcomers, but all I see are negative changes and flaws on what was once a splendid game.

Is it possble that Konami will release SH2 and SH3 as PS2 emulation in the store? I really can't support a downport even if it's 720p.

I'd say definitely not thanks to this collection.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
I cannot understand why they had to release this version in this state, there is no pride in Konami's work anymore (SH related) it seems.
 
I cannot understand why they had to release this version in this state, there is no pride in Konami's work anymore (SH related) it seems.

It's a shame that HD re-releases in general seem to be rubbish. Splinter Cell is basically sub-HD and is imperfect. Resident Evil 4 had low-res, VHS quality cutscenes, but it at least wasn't broken. Then there's Shadow of the Colossus and Ico which not only are remastered beautifully, but there are free dynamic themes and bonus features. Metal Gear Solid HD is three great games that look fantastic and despite some small technical issues, runs beautifully. What are these other teams doing wrong? Is it really that difficult to remaster these old games? Why is Bluepoint the only seemingly competent developer for this?
 

Ahasverus

Member
So I guess it's safe to say that after this, Book of Memories and the bad reviews for Downpour, Silent Hill is dead. Too bad, I wanted a HD port of Shattered Memories.
If anything, Downpour is the last reay of hope. Horror community reactions range from Ok to zOMG best shit since 2.

And while Book of Memories sounds ridiculous, hey, it's Wayforward, they can't do wrong.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Oh, I like the HD version one without the crushed blacks moreso than the PS2 one where the light and darkness washes out any detail you can see in the picture.
Well, keep in mind that SH2 and 3 were made for use on a CRT display. The black areas actually appeared very dark resulting a very scary, claustrophobic experience. By filling in all of this darkness with shadow detail you actually remove some of the tension from the experience as you have a clear visual indicator of what you're seeing. The extreme darkness used in SH3 (at times) was part of its appeal.

I maintain that there is no better way to play Silent Hill than on a high quality CRT of some sort. These games were designed for those displays and many of the visual tricks they use are destroyed by the beaming backlights of modern LCDs. At this point, the Vita would probably have been the best place for this port to land, oddly enough, as its OLED display could actually handle the blacks required. Some displays (such as the Pioneer Kuro) can deliver this as well, but the vast majority of TVs being used by gamers today simply don't play nicely with Silent Hill.


If you want to play these games in HD you should ignore this crap and get the PC ports. As far as I know they're faithful to the PS2 originals.
Silent Hill 3 is very faithful (though still missing the odd effect here or there), but the PC version of SH2 is NOT at all. Compared to the HD Collection it's a masterwork, but ignoring that it's actually a pretty bad port. It's missing a number of effects present in the PS2 version that damages atmosphere (hard shadows, missing fog, low quality FMV, etc.).

I still believe that nothing beats the very original release of Silent Hill 2. There's a purity to it that's tough to beat. It starts right up with barely a company logo and absolutely no "graphic content" warning. It just feels right.
 
I cannot understand why they had to release this version in this state, there is no pride in Konami's work anymore (SH related) it seems.

I'm really disappointed; I never played the originals and was looking forward to it as the games have a really high level of praise.

I can not, and will not, spend £30 on a port that sounds broken. Maybe if it gets fixed via patch, but then that still sends the wrong message.
 
It's funny, because these lighting issues and lack of fog effects really wouldn't affect Silent Hill 4 as the game is pretty bright and there hardly any areas with fog (just the forest and maybe cylinder prison).


I'm really disappointed; I never played the originals and was looking forward to it as the games have a really high level of praise.

I can not, and will not, spend £30 on a port that sounds broken. Maybe if it gets fixed via patch, but then that still sends the wrong message.

A 4GB install (PS3 version) and an almost 300mb patch and the game still has problems. Try to find the PS2 versions if you can, because those are worth it.
 

jimi_dini

Member
I'm really disappointed and conflicted. On one hand I can finally play two of my most cherished games on current hardware, and they look really good. On the other, out-of-synch voices and sound effects, missing textures, music glitches, terrible walking/running glitch, lack of fog, no noise filter (it seems) make me notice those glaring flaws which takes away from my enjoyment.

???
you seem to be confused
 
???
you seem to be confused

The games from a graphical standpoint look good. It hardly looks like a 2003 game. At the same time, it hardly looks like a Silent Hill 3 game.

I assume he's referring to how the image quality is clearer and crisper than in the original PS2 versions, and thus it looks better.

Yes.

Yeah, but all the other issues negate that effect. So actually it looks much worse.

The character models are still great looking as well as some of the environments. About the only good thing to come from this collection is that it looks pretty close to high-definition. However, everything else suffers.
 
It's a shame that HD re-releases in general seem to be rubbish. Splinter Cell is basically sub-HD and is imperfect. Resident Evil 4 had low-res, VHS quality cutscenes, but it at least wasn't broken. Then there's Shadow of the Colossus and Ico which not only are remastered beautifully, but there are free dynamic themes and bonus features. Metal Gear Solid HD is three great games that look fantastic and despite some small technical issues, runs beautifully. What are these other teams doing wrong? Is it really that difficult to remaster these old games? Why is Bluepoint the only seemingly competent developer for this?

Bluepoint isn't the only one. Ready at Dawn, Sanzaru Games and Mass Media all did really good jobs (Jak Trilogy wasn't perfect but then those would've been some of the hardest games on the PS2 to port). I'd say it depends more on the publisher. Sony and Kojima Productions actually cared about their ports, so they probably gave their port teams plenty of resources and support. Ubisoft and the Konami (which at this point, I view as entirely separate from KojiPro) were just after a quick buck and didn't really care about how well the games held up and it shows.

At this point, that's exactly what I expect out of Ubisoft ports though, as the complete lack of giving a shit about ports has been a long established trait of theirs going back to the PS1. Konami though? I'm pretty disappointed in. But then look at the state of that company (again, sans KojiPro) and it's not exactly a pretty sight.

Speaking of which, anyone know what's happened to Tsuboyama? How he went from directing SH2 to not being heard of for years, I have no idea. I guess he's left the industry?
 

ss_lemonade

Member
Shit ports like this makes everyone wary of future ones. Fucking Konami.

anyways, official launch screens

images...
So is resolution the only improvement, with everything else being a downgrade? I like how they just upsized the resolution of the original to emphasize the difference lol. I don't care if the original was running at SD res, at least it runs better and has the effects and atmosphere to back it up
 
So is resolution the only improvement, with everything else being a downgrade? I like how they just upsized the resolution of the original to emphasize the difference lol. I don't care if the original was running at SD res, at least it runs better and has the effects and atmosphere to back it up

Yes. The game "looks better" than the PS2 versions, but at the same time is much worse than them.


Can someone please explain the why they would need to alter Pyramid Head's assault of the lying figure? It's not particularly graphic and lasts only a few seconds before the fight starts. This is also a mature game, so none of that censorship makes sense.
 
Yes. The game "looks better" than the PS2 versions, but at the same time is much worse than them.

i think the most damning thing is how much worse than the PC versions this 'HD' collection looks, even when running the PC version at the same resolution. that the HD collections look better than the PS2 originals in one or two ways, doesn't excuse for me all the missing effects, the inappropriate new textures, the terrible performance, and so on.
 
Wouldn't it be funny if Book of Memories turned out to not only run well, but actually be good? Of the three Silent Hill releases this year the multiplayer one being the best would just be nutrageous.

At this point, the only Silent Hill title I would look forward to is a console port of Silent Hill: The Arcade (yes, I know). However, such a release is highly, highly unlikely. I will play Downpour at some point, though.
 

Teknoman

Member
Well mine is still sealed today...guess i'll just return it and repurchase the PS2 versions. I can take some missing effects here and there, but apparent framerate troubles, voice sync issues, and said missing effects actually making certain parts of the game look much worse than they should (SH2 fog + boat rope) or changing the entire point of a scene as a side effect...ugh. I want to think there was some reason aside from cutting corners.
 
So I guess it's safe to say that after this, Book of Memories and the bad reviews for Downpour, Silent Hill is dead. Too bad, I wanted a HD port of Shattered Memories.

I was going to say that, if we're lucky, the originals might pop up on PSN someday. But given the legal and technical fist-fucks that both games have gone through, I doubt it.
 

Bedlam

Member
Yes. The game "looks better" than the PS2 versions, but at the same time is much worse than them.
No, a higher resolution is only part of the "look". If there are effects missing, textures got replaced with really bland and unfitting ones and everything looks washed out, then I'd say it looks worse overall. Atmosphere is extremely important in SH games and it seems the HD ports lost quite a bit of it.
 

Teknoman

Member
Go buy a cannon and fire it into the sun.

Would probably cause some chemical reaction at this point. Its kind of funny since I bought the MGS, ICO/SH, and RE4 HD ports without any second thoughts...then something like this happens. How game reviewers hit NG3 and RE:ORC so hard, and then let this slide is beyond me. Complaints about the controls were going to be an obvious mark on the collection from a general viewpoint, but i'm surprised no one, except the rely on horror site, pointed out sync issues.
 
The only good thing to come out of this collection is the boxart. It's really appropriate and unique compared to most of the HD collection art.


I think this is the most I've ever bitched about something since I've been on gaf, or perhaps ever. If not, it's certainly up there.
 
So I guess it's safe to say that after this, Book of Memories and the bad reviews for Downpour, Silent Hill is dead. Too bad, I wanted a HD port of Shattered Memories.

If you're going to completely trust these reviewers, I suggest you rent Downpour to try it out for yourself, at least.
 

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Like Shattered Memories? Oh yeah. It was the blandiest piece of bland that ever bland.

It was still better than the actual game though.

Anyway, I managed to snag a used copy of the Director's Cut PS2 version off Amazon UK (in very good condition to boot!), so I'm set. I won't cancel my preorder for the PS2 Downport Collection tho, as I'll keep it if only for the convenience of playing SH 1, 2 and 3 on my PS3.
 
It was still better than the actual game though.

Anyway, I managed to snag a used copy of the Director's Cut PS2 version off Amazon UK (in very good condition to boot!), so I'm set. I won't cancel my preorder for the PS2 Downport Collection tho, as I'll keep it if only for the convenience of playing SH 1, 2 and 3 on my PS3.

That's what I keep telling myself, but all those glaring flaws are making it difficult to enjoy.
 

Teknoman

Member
It was still better than the actual game though.

Anyway, I managed to snag a used copy of the Director's Cut PS2 version off Amazon UK (in very good condition to boot!), so I'm set. I won't cancel my preorder for the PS2 Downport Collection tho, as I'll keep it if only for the convenience of playing SH 1, 2 and 3 on my PS3.

That is my problem lol. I've got SH1 on PSN already since I missed out on the disc version while it was nicely priced, and there is still a part of me (after seeing what FFXIV went through and is current being improved) that still thinks Konami could pull through with a couple patches. But then there is still the issue of what will happen to the game and performance wise after the patches are no longer available...and after seeing a current patch being 250 something MB, yet not fixing anything...I feel dumb for my rug comment the other day lol.


Has the game released in japan yet?
 

scitek

Member
Is there footage of the censored scene in its censored form anywhere yet? I've only seen the original version and am curious what they cut.
 

Schlomo

Member
I will try to forget this collection even exists.
Incidentally, do we know yet if the DMC HD Collection will be a disaster like this?
 
Top Bottom