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[Reon]

Anybody here play Silent Hill 3 recently? It's positively infuriating me. I'm enjoying the characters, the story and the atmosphere but this combat is driving me up the wall. I'm not new to the Silent Hill franchise, I've beaten 1, 2, 0 and Downpour and haven't had problems with the controls in the older ones before this.

Maybe this is a stupid thread but I love Silent Hill and I'm at wit's end with this, I really hope I'm just missing something. For some reason I just can't get Heather to aim downwards at half-sized enemies, like dogs or slurpers. When I hold R2 she aims directly at them, but then proceeds to shoot or knife over their head instead. For some reason I've been able to get it working maybe 20% of the time with the shotgun or the handgun if I re-aim over and over, but never with the SMG. I don't remember having to manually aim up or down in Silent Hill 1 and 2, but checking the controls guide for 3 it doesn't say anything about that. I really want to finish this game but I can't keep running past these enemies and wasting healing items trying to shrug off the damage. I guess as a benefit I've gotten good at juking everything except the slurpers.

Here's a video I took demonstrating what I mean. You can see Heather aim at and track the enemies but still blasts right over their heads.



Halp?

EDIT: I don't know if it helps at all but I'm playing emulated on PCXS2. I do have the original game and the ROM I'm playing is one I've dumped myself off of the disc.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

I thought you could aim down in that game?

 

[AlteredForms]

Tank controls baby!

 

[hunthunt]

Awful controls are part of what Silent Hill is.

 

[Armorian]

I played it for the first time in january. Game is still good but controls are indeed shit (bit better than in SH2....).

 

[Reon]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one! I'll finish the game either way, I'm just not going to try to fight any half-sized enemies anymore. I'll just run past them. I was hoping maybe there was some key button or function I was missing out on.

 

[Arachnid]

I love it to death, but Silent Hill has always had ass controls. I don't remember 3 being any worse than the others though.

 

[lastmessiah]

I love it to death, but Silent Hill has always had ass controls. I don't remember 3 being any worse than the others though.

I love tank controls. They serve a purpose in games like Silent Hill. They are different and challenging.

 

[Dr. Claus]

I never had much of an issue with tank controls and I remember not having much issue in Silent Hill 2 or 3. Had a surplus of ammo by the end and could easily avoid most fights - but I am not sure if that was because the game was genuinely easy or just nostalgia goggles as it has been a long while since I last played.

 

[aerts1js]

Silent Hill has never controlled great but I don't remember it being any different than the second one..

 

[Arachnid]

I love tank controls. They serve a purpose in games like Silent Hill. They are different and challenging.

I agree that it works well for what it does. I also think it's a dated control method though. Games have found other ways to keep up tension/horror than relying on less fluid control.

Fixed camera angles are an old school survival horror aspect I always swear by though.

I never had much of an issue with tank controls and I remember not having much issue in Silent Hill 2 or 3. Had a surplus of ammo by the end and could easily avoid most fights - but I am not sure if that was because the game was genuinely easy or just nostalgia goggles as it has been a long while since I last played.

It's just easy. I always ended with a surplus of items too (even on harder difficulties), and old school RE and SH are some of the earliest games I played as a kid. I replay them to this day. Difficulty was never the point in those games.

 

[lastmessiah]

Games have found other ways to keep up tension/horror than relying on less fluid control.

Not really. Horror games today just take away the ability to defend yourself with weapons. Because if they didn’t it wouldn’t be a horror game, it would be just another shooter like so many others.

 

[Matsuchezz]

For me it is like Silent Hill characters are everyday Joe/Jane, they defend or attack as God taught them, they are not natural born killers, they just want to survive. This is not RE, If the reboot is coming I wonder if they are going to update the combat system.

 

[Arachnid]

Not really. Horror games today just take away the ability to defend yourself with weapons. Because if they didn’t it wouldn’t be a horror game, it would be just another shooter like so many others.

I raise you Alien Isolation, which let you defend yourself against all the enemies in the game (other than the Xeno until halfway through when you can finally fight it off; there were also plenty of other methods to deter it, though they weren't necessarily combat). It's also IMO the best survival horror game we've had since OG Silent Hill.

I also raise you RE7, which is considered by many to be the scariest game in the series (it scared me more than REmake ever did and I played that as a kid). It's definitely at least top 3.

Recently, Last of Us 2 had some of the best horror sections I've experienced this gen (the Decent through the skyscraper and the ground zero basement were standouts).

Dead Space was terrifying (though it employed the same kind of horror Resident Evil games do, and IMO isn't as scary as Silent Hill; it beats out RE though).

Horror games do not need to rely on unintuitive controls to be scary. That's all in the presentation. I do agree that they should actively discourage combat though (which I think was the point in OG survival horror games). It's not necessary (Dead Space doesn't), but it is more effective (shooting attracting the Xeno in AI for example).

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Awful controls and horrible combat animation are part of what Silent Hill is.

I just add it xD

 

[Reon]

I agree that it works well for what it does. I also think it's a dated control method though. Games have found other ways to keep up tension/horror than relying on less fluid control.

Fixed camera angles are an old school survival horror aspect I always swear by though.

It's just easy. I always ended with a surplus of items too (even on harder difficulties), and old school RE and SH are some of the earliest games I played as a kid. I replay them to this day. Difficulty was never the point in those games.

I definitely agree that I like the fixed camera angles but some of the combat is beginning to feel quite dated. Normally I don't mind the clunkiness but this time around it was just seriously frustrating to me as the slurpers were swarming Heather and I couldn't do much about it. Funny enough, I recently beat SH2 and had a massive surplus of items at the end, but playing SH3 today on Hard/Hard I completely ran out of ammo on the final boss and was out of healing supplies for the entire last part of the game. I had to rely on juking more effectively and reloading saves until I got sections perfect. SH3 feels much, much harder than the others I've played. Still enjoyed the game though.

Onto 4 now!