• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Silent Hill Downpour new pic's (WTF!)

I assume that white dot in the first screen is the flashlight?


I honestly don't know what to think anymore when these come out. Ever since Konami decided to release very unfinished SH3 images, I just hope that they're doing it again. I'll reserve judgement for the actual release, but I'm not expecting too much beyond what we've already been shown in demos and such.
 
We all know the top down hack n' slash game on the Vita will be the thing to save the Silent Hill series.
And here I thought it was just going to be a means of cashing-in on customers wanting software on a new platform, while allowing them to do something different.
I didn't realize it was going to be the most important entry in SH since SH2 SH3 SH4. : o

They could do it in-house.
That ship has sailed, long ago.




Really, the foliage seems to be the absolute worst, textures vary from okay to bleh, and Murphy's hair... It always looked dumb, but it hasn't really improved any.
Also, that monster reminds me of the early designs in Origins + SH:SM enemies.
 
Really don't think the graphics are all that bad. It doesn't look fantastic though. The lighting in the biggest problem that i'm spotting.

While i don't want to condemn the game before playing it. I will admit i'm really losing faith every time i see it in motion. Despite starting out optimistic. But unless it picks up duke nukem forever levels of hate on release, i think i'll still try it and try to keep an open mind. I've had fun with two non team silent hill entries, Origins and Shattered Memories. But unfortunately i'm getting more of a homecoming vibe from this one...
 
It varies from looking alright to complete shit from every batch of screenshots. Brian Gomez even bitched about Konami releasing screenshots taken very old builds instead of just asking Vatra to take some new ones to a fan. It's just amazing how shitty this team is run.

Here's silent hill 2, a 10 year old game, running on pc.

iiYThwaZzV9up.jpg


ibnNYzRgOhazrm.png


http://minus.com/m4uKKLH6R

Here is downpour (that is supposed to be water on the ground btw) :

iUdst0LFe9cZp.jpg

I reaaaaally want to continue playing 2, but it's an absolute bitch to get running on PCs. Any help? I get sound errors like crazy.
 
It varies from looking alright to complete shit from every batch of screenshots. Brian Gomez even bitched about Konami releasing screenshots taken very old builds instead of just asking Vatra to take some new ones to a fan. It's just amazing how shitty this team is run.

Here's silent hill 2, a 10 year old game, running on pc.

iiYThwaZzV9up.jpg


http://minus.com/m4uKKLH6R

Here is downpour (that is supposed to be water on the ground btw) :

iUdst0LFe9cZp.jpg
I know what you're getting at and it's true that the PS2 games were impressive looking, but these games are handling very different loads. In Silent Hill 2, each and every room was a unique entity that was loaded separately as you would enter. Each location was broken up into many smaller rooms and hallways with their own assets. The system did not have the burden of handling the entire area at once. Even when you DO move outside, there are still plenty of loading points along the way.

Downpour isn't look all that impressive, but they are streaming the entire game world as you play. The environment is much larger and more open with much more geometry in use at any one time.

That said, for all the tech they have at their disposal, they are not making good use of it. SH2 and 3 were limited by the PS2 yet the developers managed to leverage its strengths and overcome its weaknesses to produce something incredible. Vatra has already proven to be less than skilled with Unreal Engine as evidenced by Rush'n Attack EP (which ran inconsistently and at a sub-HD resolution).

I'm actually kind of curious about the Vita Silent Hill game, though. It doesn't appear to be going for a traditional SH experience, but it could be interesting and the black levels of the OLED screen will work well for it.
 
I reaaaaally want to continue playing 2, but it's an absolute bitch to get running on PCs. Any help? I get sound errors like crazy.

Yeah. You just gotta limit it to one processor (ctrl +alt + del out of it), right click on the silent hill exe and click on set affinity. Then just de select all but one processor. Runs completely fine after that in my experience.
 
*sigh*

I thought with more time they would have given this more polish but I guess not.

But it's ridiculous that even the textures are not as good/striking as SH2 and SH3 ones.
 
Nobody really ever expected this to be good but man the extra time in development could have been used for something. Not even trying anymore.
 
I reaaaaally want to continue playing 2, but it's an absolute bitch to get running on PCs. Any help? I get sound errors like crazy.

Patch 1.01 fixes the sound errors IIRC. I just installed the game sometime ago and no sound errors for me. You are playing on W7/Vista?
 
Still boggles my mind why Konami didn't choose Climax UK to continue Silent Hill.(Team silent is dead shut up)
Probably cheaper to keep hopping from dev-to-dev than risk Climax asking for more money because they've handled the property longer. : (



Are the lighting effects even active? I mean, the flashlight in the first image doesn't even appear to be doing anything. I assume it's "on," judging by how white it is, but who knows.


DennisK4
Member
(Today, 08:21 AM)
 
Patch 1.01 fixes the sound errors IIRC. I just installed the game sometime ago and no sound errors for me. You are playing on W7/Vista?

At first I was playing it on an XP machine because I thought hey, the game probably runs bad on new hardware, I'll try old hardware (old as in 2006 but still capable of L4D2 and the likes, so Silent Hill 2 should work too) and I got the errors on there. I'll try it on my W7 machine.
 
I never played the series but I always thought it was more about the story and atmosphere than the graphics.
 
So wait, is this game like really scary and deeply psychoanalytical or something?

I never played the series but I always thought it was more about the story and atmosphere than the graphics.

No, the graphics are extremely important in Silent Hill 1-3. In many ways too. Some Silent Hill expert can explain it much better than I can though.
 
I never played the series but I always thought it was more about the story and atmosphere than the graphics.

Yes but graphics are a pretty big part of creating the atmosphere here, it's one thing not looking amazing but this just looks bad. The creature design also so far has been everything but good, looks like a mix of designs ripped right out of Clive barkers ass and dead space, just boring generic designs. They just seem to be way too over ambitious with this and their open world.
 
I never played the series but I always thought it was more about the story and atmosphere than the graphics.

It was because of the graphics, the atmosphere in the game was as good as it was, back in the PS1/2 days. Back when Team Silent was handling the franchise, a Silent Hill game was a graphical & technological milestone. Then Team Silent was shutdown or something.

At this point, I simply try to forget this fact, and try to enjoy the newer SH game for what they are: A competently / an average looking game, with, hopefully, engaging story and world.
 
At this point, I simply try to forget this fact, and try to enjoy the newer SH game for what they are: A competently / an average looking game, with, hopefully, engaging story and world.

I could be wrong, but... I think that a parallel can be made between Silent Hill and Star Wars. Perhaps fans feel that the newer ones suck and cause crippling pain while simultaneously being a disgrace to memory of the original games and their creators.
 
More-so than the graphics, is the poor gameplay impressions that have me concerned about this one.

It sounded so good when first hyped, and very little good news has came out since.
 
Yes but graphics are a pretty big part of creating the atmosphere here, it's one thing not looking amazing but this just looks bad. The creature design also so far has been everything but good, looks like a mix of designs ripped right out of Clive barkers ass and dead space, just boring generic designs. They just seem to be way too over ambitious with this and their open world.

Wow. Leave Dead Space out of this mess. This game will be lucky to even have 1/3 of Dead Space's ambient and visual style.

b17Xj.jpg


At least on Dead Space I can tell what some textures are meant to be. The straight jacket has a coarse, almost paper-sand like quality to it, the wall is made of tiles, etc. I wish I can say the same thing about the mess in Downpoor. but I can't even tell what the wall is made of or the texture of the character's cloth.
 
At first I was playing it on an XP machine because I thought hey, the game probably runs bad on new hardware, I'll try old hardware (old as in 2006 but still capable of L4D2 and the likes, so Silent Hill 2 should work too) and I got the errors on there. I'll try it on my W7 machine.

At least on Vista you need to run as administrator or the game will crash every time you save (at least it did for me)

You can also try this which sounds like a good advice:
Yeah. You just gotta limit it to one processor (ctrl +alt + del out of it), right click on the silent hill exe and click on set affinity. Then just de select all but one processor. Runs completely fine after that in my experience.
 
It's sad that this is probably the first SH game that I won't buy... Or will wait till it's on sale.
 
Wow. Leave Dead Space out of this mess. This game will be lucky to even have 1/3 of Dead Space's ambient and visual style.

I agree, but here's the thing about Silent Hill - the monsters are supposedly manifestations of the characters' psychology and personal experiences. Now Dead Space has great monster design that fits its world, but this new Silent Hill looks pretty generic and I don't get a feeling of connection between monster and character like in Silent Hill 2. I think that Silent Hill fans will notice this right away.

I was talking about the monster design in dead space not actual visual quality (which is more than fine in Dead Space).

Monster design in Dead Space is well done considering its context.
 
I was talking about the monster design in dead space not actual visual quality (which is more than fine in Dead Space).

Except that Necromorph are pretty disturbing up close (on some Necro you can see a guy's head twisted on its stomach -ugh) and it's visually appropriate. The white thing on Downpoor just looks like Stick Figure gone wrong.

I agree, but here's the thing about Silent Hill - the monsters are supposedly manifestations of the characters' psychology and personal experiences. Now Dead Space has great monster design that fits its world, but this new Silent Hill looks pretty generic and I don't get a feeling of connection between monster and character like in Silent Hill 2. I think that Silent Hill fans will notice this right away.

Pretty much. On that note, what is that thing lurking behind Murphy in the 1st pic? It looks like a woman with wolverine claw.
 
Except that Necromorph are pretty disturbing up close (on some you can see a guy's head on its stomach). The white thing on Downpoor just looks like Stick Figure gone wrong.

Well there is the weepings bats things that looks very dead spacey. But even if the creatures are scary and works for dead space they have no place in Silent Hill. It's not just supposed to be some random scary enemies.

Pretty much. On that note, what is that thing lurking behind Murphy in the 1st pic? It looks like a woman with wolverine claw.

They call it a "screamer", it screams and it looks like a dead woman who has been floating around in water for a few weeks. Speculations that Murphy is a rapist. :p
 
The biggest problem with the screens is what their showing, grey streets with an enemy wobbling around, and the main guy in a run down stairwell. Terrible.
 
Pretty much. On that note, what is that thing lurking behind Murphy in the 1st pic? It looks like a woman with wolverine claw.

Yeah, the monsters should evoke a sense of mystery in a Silent Hill game - SH2 set this bar. They should at least aim for this bar.

Who is the woman with a wolverine claw? Why is Murphy being pursued by her? What is her connection to him? What does she represent and how is that amplified by Silent Hill?

Also, Pyramid Head should not be in this game since he is a manifestation of another character from a different game. When I see Pyramid Head in the newer stuff, it bothers me because it makes me feel that these people do not understand Silent Hill.

They call it a "screamer", it screams and it looks like a dead woman who has been floating around in water for a few weeks. Speculations that Murphy is a rapist. :p

That's a pretty big leap in logic, haha! Here's my take on it - she's a lunch lady that molested him with a Wolverine action figure.
 
Well there is the weepings bats things that looks very dead spacey. But even if the creatures are scary and works for dead space they have no place in Silent Hill. It's not just supposed to be some random scary enemies.

Oh, I agree with you on that one. It's like Vatra forget what game they are designing and just throw random monster into the design. Actually that white thing reminds me of that abomination from Alien Resurrection. Now, why would anyone rip off that awful idea in the first place?

They call it a "screamer", it screams and it looks like a dead woman who has been floating around in water for a few weeks. Speculations that Murphy is a rapist. :p

Who was the last nice guy on SH? Oh right, Henry. Can't we get another nice guy for a change? Must everyone who end up in Silent Hill are either murderer or rapist or batshit insane?
 
Also, Pyramid Head should not be in this game since he is a manifestation of another character from a different game. When I see Pyramid Head in the newer stuff, it bothers me because it makes me feel that these people do not understand Silent Hill.

They luckily already (several times) confirmed that Pyramid Head isn't in this one. Brian Gomez especially seems to knew his shit when it came to Silent Hill and also just horror in general.


Who was the last nice guy on SH? Oh right, Henry. Can't we get another nice guy for a change? Must everyone who end up in Silent Hill are either murderer or rapist or batshit insane?

Don't mind the bad guy as much as the "there has to be a twist at the end" shit they have been doing so much recently when trying to copy silent hill 2. It worked when we were not expecting a twist, now we are sitting and waiting looking for the twist that will come.
 
maybe if the SH Collection (SH2 and 3) outsells Downpour Konami will take a hint?


Owaka doing girl-games for cell phones is a disgrace. Did he sleep with a CEO's wife or something?
 
I hope they understand that the positioning of the camera need not constantly emulate Resident Evil 5's stuck-to-over-the-shoulder POV.

What caused fear in me (the player) was the sense of helplessness from being far from my channel (the character) when moving around the area. As far as character design, the main character looks pretty similar, making him more bland to me. Only explanation is if the story explains that James Sunderland has been cloned. What are they thinking? I thought this was a new addition. Come On!!!

Graphics not so great? We can handle it, if the gameplay and story is... Maybe give us an eye-friendly OPTIONAL grain filter. L4D style.

I love Silent Hill, but these guys are boring me so far... but I still have hope. Show us a trailer with gameplay and a dialogue which intrigues. As fans of Silent Hill, we demand a Mind-Trip!!!
 
Top Bottom