FF:Enhanced_Reality
Member
You know, I love Silent Hill. As a child, I grew up playing on my game consoles with my autistic brother and partially disabled mother while my dad was at work over the holidays as I was growing up through school. Horror seemed to be a favourite of ours as only my mum was able to play it with my and my brother quite scared but urging her to go further. Some great times. A huge part of that, was Silent Hill. We played the original in 2000 and it was the perfect mix of everything we had played so far. Skip forward a few years, when my parents were able to buy a PlayStation 2 for Christmas, the first game was got was Silent Hill 2. And I have to say, without hyperbole, this is one of the greatest games ever made. A solid, extremely polished and technical marvel for the time that very carefully interwove story telling, game play and visual design to create a master piece. So much so, that it's been heavily used as a reference of one of the best game designs of all time, even with a book, Silent Hill The Terror engine.
Modern day however, through many hits and misses and Silent Hill is pretty much dead. It's still a favourite to play with the family for nostalgia, but it has arguably aged incredibly well. The CGI cut scenes are still impressive for the time, even if the lip syncing is a little off.
But Sony did something incredible at GamesCom 2014. These trade shows are like Christmas for me, I love the announcements, the festivities. Watching the show, something quite odd happened, they showed a video of people's reactions, then announced the demo for PT. Jesus christ, that demo was intense. But never in my deepest imagination would I believe it was a teaser for Silent Hills. In the wake of the experiment, I saw one the biggest upturns for a video games series like I never had before. We embrace IP returning, we love to see the greatest and latest that is coming soon but given the series decline, the hype was fucking real. Norman Reedus, Guillermo del Toro and Hideo Kojima. Smelt like a recipe for success. Throw into the mix that a lot of key people involved in the franchise were looking at returning and it kept getting better and better.
Until the Konami implosion. Silent Hills cancelled and that, as they say, is that. To quote Maechen.
You know I've seen a lot of things that really disappointed me in my time as a gamer. Companies lost to bankruptcy and time. Franchises dead and gone. Consoles dead and forgotten. But this... it still hurts me now. As a game, Silent Hill had a special place for me, as previously mentioned for family reasons but during my later high school years I started to suffer really badly from depression. I lost a lot friends, lost a lot of weight. I stopped talking to people and spent all my time inside playing games or sleeping. Bullying was a huge part of that, but in a weird kind of way, Silent Hill was just like a place to escape and get away from reality. If you've ever been bullied yourself, you'll probably have had day dreams of getting back at the people who are hurting you. Like the music video for Thoughtless by Korn, you have moments where you're consumed with anger as you wander off into your fantasies and dream about getting even. But you hit the earth pretty quickly with a bang when you realise it's all just pipe dreams and you have no chance what-so-ever of making it stop. You just have to wait for them to get bored and move on. Playing through the story of Silent Hill 2 always re-assured me that what goes around comes around. People will get judged by their actions in some way shape or form and it's ironic that the people who used to bully me have done far worse in life than I have, even if I haven't achieved a great much, I take pride is knowing that I never gave in and karma is a bitch.
It's been nearly three years since Konami cancelled Silent Hills and it is pretty apparent that the series is quite dead. From arguably the pinnacle of interest in the series to being shelved, I'm still pretty devastated. It's nice to be able to go back and play the previous games but I can't help but wonder what the future held for the franchise.
Who else on GAF still has a Silent Hill shaped void in their heart?
Modern day however, through many hits and misses and Silent Hill is pretty much dead. It's still a favourite to play with the family for nostalgia, but it has arguably aged incredibly well. The CGI cut scenes are still impressive for the time, even if the lip syncing is a little off.
But Sony did something incredible at GamesCom 2014. These trade shows are like Christmas for me, I love the announcements, the festivities. Watching the show, something quite odd happened, they showed a video of people's reactions, then announced the demo for PT. Jesus christ, that demo was intense. But never in my deepest imagination would I believe it was a teaser for Silent Hills. In the wake of the experiment, I saw one the biggest upturns for a video games series like I never had before. We embrace IP returning, we love to see the greatest and latest that is coming soon but given the series decline, the hype was fucking real. Norman Reedus, Guillermo del Toro and Hideo Kojima. Smelt like a recipe for success. Throw into the mix that a lot of key people involved in the franchise were looking at returning and it kept getting better and better.
Until the Konami implosion. Silent Hills cancelled and that, as they say, is that. To quote Maechen.
You know I've seen a lot of things that really disappointed me in my time as a gamer. Companies lost to bankruptcy and time. Franchises dead and gone. Consoles dead and forgotten. But this... it still hurts me now. As a game, Silent Hill had a special place for me, as previously mentioned for family reasons but during my later high school years I started to suffer really badly from depression. I lost a lot friends, lost a lot of weight. I stopped talking to people and spent all my time inside playing games or sleeping. Bullying was a huge part of that, but in a weird kind of way, Silent Hill was just like a place to escape and get away from reality. If you've ever been bullied yourself, you'll probably have had day dreams of getting back at the people who are hurting you. Like the music video for Thoughtless by Korn, you have moments where you're consumed with anger as you wander off into your fantasies and dream about getting even. But you hit the earth pretty quickly with a bang when you realise it's all just pipe dreams and you have no chance what-so-ever of making it stop. You just have to wait for them to get bored and move on. Playing through the story of Silent Hill 2 always re-assured me that what goes around comes around. People will get judged by their actions in some way shape or form and it's ironic that the people who used to bully me have done far worse in life than I have, even if I haven't achieved a great much, I take pride is knowing that I never gave in and karma is a bitch.
It's been nearly three years since Konami cancelled Silent Hills and it is pretty apparent that the series is quite dead. From arguably the pinnacle of interest in the series to being shelved, I'm still pretty devastated. It's nice to be able to go back and play the previous games but I can't help but wonder what the future held for the franchise.
Who else on GAF still has a Silent Hill shaped void in their heart?
