Post by angelsthanatos on Mar 2, 2009 2:57:53 GMT
Reeto, since there's no other review threads here at the moment and because i just finished the game a few minutes ago, I thought I'd write this up while my opinion is still pretty fresh in my mind. Basically I'll just split it into 2 sections, good and bad, and summarise. Sooooo....
THE GOOD
1. I enjoyed the story a lot, although I did partially figure out the plot twist about 5 minutes in but it was still enjoyable. I didn't see the bit about Alex being the intended sacrifice coming though so that was pretty good. And the revelation about Alex from his father (ie. his homecoming wasn't from a war at all....) was genuinely good, and it made me sit up and go, "Oh hooooo, nice!" Overall it kept me interested until the ending, which I'll get to in a minute....
2. Some of the monsters were really well designed and they looked sufficiently creepy. The final boss monster in particular was fantastic I thought, except maybe her silly expanding face.
The only thing I would say is that I wish they'd moved more jerkily like the Silent Hill monsters of old, since that's one thing i like a lot about SH monsters. Mind you the nurses were pretty jittery still, and the way they eventually freeze like a statue when you turn the flashlight off did look quite nice.
3. The environments (with a few exceptions) are nicely designed and look great, and there's a lot of variety there as well so the game doesn't feel too repetitive. I particularly liked the Hell Descent section under Dr Fitch's office and the Shepherd house; very atmospheric. Also there's a lot of crackly distortion on the screen when you're in the Otherworld that looks really good.
4. Speaking of the Otherworld, the shifts to it in real time look great and i'd like to see more of that in any future SH games.
5. The characters are pretty believable, although to be honest we could have done without the black cop guy; he seemed a bit superfluous to me and his only real point is to affect what ending you get.
6. The music. It's still good, and I'm looking for the soundtrack as we speak.
7. Puzzles were generally high quality and very thought provoking without being maddeningly difficult (ie. like the bird riddle in the Crematorium in SH3 on Hard....) I didn't have to consult GameFAQs once which made me a teency bit smug, especially on the riddle puzzle.
8. Anyone worried about it not being dark enough (and therefore apparently not scary) can rest easy; I could hardly see anything even with the flashlight on.
9. It's not too action orientated, which was a relief. While there are some monster encounters, there are still good long stretches where you don't see any and you're just walking around exploring. The monsters are also really hard to put down so there's no worries about Alex being Tommy Testosterone-Tits or anything. Dodging takes a while to get the hang of but believe me, you'll need to if you want to fend off the monsters later in the game.....
THE BAD
1. The whole "we watched Hostel too much before we designed this bit" underground bunker section. Seriously. That was so awful it was totally laughable, and it really ruined all the suspense and atmosphere that had been building up to that point. I can buy the idea of the order being a bit evil and burning people (which by the way, was never mentioned at all, surprisingly) but kidnapping them and torturing them to death for no real reason? Come on now. >__> I actually sat back in my chair and snorted throughout most of this area; i couldn't wait to get out of there and move onto something better.
2. While we're on this subject, the Order members swearing at you and shouting snappy remarks when they fight you made me feel like I was playing some shitty action horror game. It just doesn't work, so if they're going to make another game they'd better drop it. As much as I hate to say this, it was so Resident Evil, and not in a good way.
3. And again, I found it suspicious that Alex could run and walk perfectly well after having a drill jammed into his leg, yet he was limping in the ending. Maybe could have added a limp just for the last bit of the game? I know it's asking a lot but it really bugged me. Maybe i'm just picky.
4. I found some of the parts when Alex does the ol' headache and fall down routine a bit inconsistent; once he goes to Silent Hill, next time it's not, and the Otherworld shifts seem to happen totally at random. It made me wonder why it was different every time, although maybe I just didn't pay attention enough to the finer points of the story.
5. The siren sound effect was really lame. I'm sorry, but it was. Even if they'd used the sound effect from the movie it would have been better, but the one they had just sounded a little pathetic. That's more of a nitpicky thing though.
6. The ending I got......was the UFO ending. I shit you not. There has to be something wrong with a game where you can get the gag ending as your first; just imagine how that's going to look to someone who's never played a SH game before and suddenly gets confronted with an in-joke as closure for the game. It'd be laughable, and it's probably put them off bothering to play it again. It certainly genuinely pissed me off! XD Don't get me wrong, i love the UFO endings, but when i play through a SH game, i want a satisfying bittersweet ending that makes me want to play again. I then found out that you get this ending by making certain choices in the second half of the game, so i wouldn't be surprised if other people get it too. I mean what were they thinking with that? The UFO ending should be unlocked on a subsequent playthrough by picking up a certain optional object, just like it's always been. GAH! (I know i ranted away there, but really, I want a real ending the first time!!!)
8. A relatively minor annoyance, but some of the textures and effects looked a little bit shit, like Dr Fitch bleeding to death. It looked like he'd drawn on himself with a red marker pen rather than cut himself, and the resulting blood puddle had no depth whatsoever. Could have done a bit better there, especially since they went to so much trouble putting realistic wounds on the monsters whenever you attack them with the knife or axe.
9. Pyramid Head being in there is really pretty pointless; you don't even fight him. in fact he's only in 2 scenes in the whole game (just like the movie; hmm.....) I know there is an ending called the "Bogeyman ending" so maybe that explains a bit more, but surely if he was there to act as a punisher for Alex because he accidentally killed his brother, then he was being pretty lazy about it. But then again maybe that wasn't his purpose in this case, which leads me swiftly on to....
10. .....I'm really not sure if this game is canon or not. This isn't so much a bad thing as a confusing one. It seems to be set in the same world as the movie, but there are mentions of characters from the previous games and Travis sort-of appears in it (we think it's meant to be Travis anyway; it never explicitly says) and there are things like the Halo of the Sun being in the church. Those are only minor details though, and the fact that there is barbed wire spread around the church (a reference to the final scene in the movie) and the Order members looking the same as in the movie leads me to believe it's not supposed to be a sequel to the games. I find it odd that there's no mention of Alessa at all though; you'd think that'd be something that would come up in gossip at least once.....
So to summarise for all you "tl;dr" types - some bits were done really well, some not so much, others were just shite. All in all I did enjoy the game and I don't think it's bad, and if any other SH games are made then hopefully they'll learn from the mistakes they made in this one. It's at least got replay value if you happen to get the UFO ending like i did and are so pissed off that you have to play again just to get a real ending....>
It's good but it's not great, in other words.
THE GOOD
1. I enjoyed the story a lot, although I did partially figure out the plot twist about 5 minutes in but it was still enjoyable. I didn't see the bit about Alex being the intended sacrifice coming though so that was pretty good. And the revelation about Alex from his father (ie. his homecoming wasn't from a war at all....) was genuinely good, and it made me sit up and go, "Oh hooooo, nice!" Overall it kept me interested until the ending, which I'll get to in a minute....
2. Some of the monsters were really well designed and they looked sufficiently creepy. The final boss monster in particular was fantastic I thought, except maybe her silly expanding face.
The only thing I would say is that I wish they'd moved more jerkily like the Silent Hill monsters of old, since that's one thing i like a lot about SH monsters. Mind you the nurses were pretty jittery still, and the way they eventually freeze like a statue when you turn the flashlight off did look quite nice.3. The environments (with a few exceptions) are nicely designed and look great, and there's a lot of variety there as well so the game doesn't feel too repetitive. I particularly liked the Hell Descent section under Dr Fitch's office and the Shepherd house; very atmospheric. Also there's a lot of crackly distortion on the screen when you're in the Otherworld that looks really good.
4. Speaking of the Otherworld, the shifts to it in real time look great and i'd like to see more of that in any future SH games.
5. The characters are pretty believable, although to be honest we could have done without the black cop guy; he seemed a bit superfluous to me and his only real point is to affect what ending you get.
6. The music. It's still good, and I'm looking for the soundtrack as we speak.
7. Puzzles were generally high quality and very thought provoking without being maddeningly difficult (ie. like the bird riddle in the Crematorium in SH3 on Hard....) I didn't have to consult GameFAQs once which made me a teency bit smug, especially on the riddle puzzle.
8. Anyone worried about it not being dark enough (and therefore apparently not scary) can rest easy; I could hardly see anything even with the flashlight on.
9. It's not too action orientated, which was a relief. While there are some monster encounters, there are still good long stretches where you don't see any and you're just walking around exploring. The monsters are also really hard to put down so there's no worries about Alex being Tommy Testosterone-Tits or anything.
Dodging takes a while to get the hang of but believe me, you'll need to if you want to fend off the monsters later in the game.....THE BAD
1. The whole "we watched Hostel too much before we designed this bit" underground bunker section. Seriously. That was so awful it was totally laughable, and it really ruined all the suspense and atmosphere that had been building up to that point. I can buy the idea of the order being a bit evil and burning people (which by the way, was never mentioned at all, surprisingly) but kidnapping them and torturing them to death for no real reason? Come on now. >__> I actually sat back in my chair and snorted throughout most of this area; i couldn't wait to get out of there and move onto something better.
2. While we're on this subject, the Order members swearing at you and shouting snappy remarks when they fight you made me feel like I was playing some shitty action horror game. It just doesn't work, so if they're going to make another game they'd better drop it. As much as I hate to say this, it was so Resident Evil, and not in a good way.
3. And again, I found it suspicious that Alex could run and walk perfectly well after having a drill jammed into his leg, yet he was limping in the ending. Maybe could have added a limp just for the last bit of the game? I know it's asking a lot but it really bugged me. Maybe i'm just picky.
4. I found some of the parts when Alex does the ol' headache and fall down routine a bit inconsistent; once he goes to Silent Hill, next time it's not, and the Otherworld shifts seem to happen totally at random. It made me wonder why it was different every time, although maybe I just didn't pay attention enough to the finer points of the story.
5. The siren sound effect was really lame. I'm sorry, but it was. Even if they'd used the sound effect from the movie it would have been better, but the one they had just sounded a little pathetic. That's more of a nitpicky thing though.
6. The ending I got......was the UFO ending. I shit you not. There has to be something wrong with a game where you can get the gag ending as your first; just imagine how that's going to look to someone who's never played a SH game before and suddenly gets confronted with an in-joke as closure for the game. It'd be laughable, and it's probably put them off bothering to play it again. It certainly genuinely pissed me off! XD Don't get me wrong, i love the UFO endings, but when i play through a SH game, i want a satisfying bittersweet ending that makes me want to play again. I then found out that you get this ending by making certain choices in the second half of the game, so i wouldn't be surprised if other people get it too. I mean what were they thinking with that? The UFO ending should be unlocked on a subsequent playthrough by picking up a certain optional object, just like it's always been. GAH! (I know i ranted away there, but really, I want a real ending the first time!!!)
8. A relatively minor annoyance, but some of the textures and effects looked a little bit shit, like Dr Fitch bleeding to death. It looked like he'd drawn on himself with a red marker pen rather than cut himself, and the resulting blood puddle had no depth whatsoever. Could have done a bit better there, especially since they went to so much trouble putting realistic wounds on the monsters whenever you attack them with the knife or axe.
9. Pyramid Head being in there is really pretty pointless; you don't even fight him. in fact he's only in 2 scenes in the whole game (just like the movie; hmm.....) I know there is an ending called the "Bogeyman ending" so maybe that explains a bit more, but surely if he was there to act as a punisher for Alex because he accidentally killed his brother, then he was being pretty lazy about it. But then again maybe that wasn't his purpose in this case, which leads me swiftly on to....
10. .....I'm really not sure if this game is canon or not. This isn't so much a bad thing as a confusing one. It seems to be set in the same world as the movie, but there are mentions of characters from the previous games and Travis sort-of appears in it (we think it's meant to be Travis anyway; it never explicitly says) and there are things like the Halo of the Sun being in the church. Those are only minor details though, and the fact that there is barbed wire spread around the church (a reference to the final scene in the movie) and the Order members looking the same as in the movie leads me to believe it's not supposed to be a sequel to the games. I find it odd that there's no mention of Alessa at all though; you'd think that'd be something that would come up in gossip at least once.....
So to summarise for all you "tl;dr" types - some bits were done really well, some not so much, others were just shite. All in all I did enjoy the game and I don't think it's bad, and if any other SH games are made then hopefully they'll learn from the mistakes they made in this one. It's at least got replay value if you happen to get the UFO ending like i did and are so pissed off that you have to play again just to get a real ending....>
It's good but it's not great, in other words.
SHF Comedian '10
