The Racoon City Times

-On that topic

2008-07-22T05:46:00.000-07:00

Time for a recap on alan wake.

So there's the two trailers again. Im imagining that if you've not heard of alan wake, but being a horror games fan visiting my humble little site that your excited now?

yeah, i thought as much.

In some ways the graphics are showing there age a little, compared to alone in the dark, but the thing is this is early build footage from YEARS ago.

its really been that long. for those who dont remember or are new to wake. The game is about a struggling writer who is grieving for a lost loved one and heads to the town of bright falls to clear his head and find the peace he needs to right his new novel.

its all very stephen king and i dig that.

The enemies are wakes nightmares made flesh, there only weakness being the light, so they only attack wake at night.

so when alan sleeps he has to set traps, like a trip wire that sets off a lamp flooding a hallway with lamp to ward off the raincoat phantoms.

though they can break the lamp and stuff so youve really gotta think carefully.

the weather ranges from sunny, windswept or rainy to thunder storms or full blown, terrain destroying tornadoes.

i could go on and on but this really is a must own game for any 360 owner, horror fan or not.

Wake up!

2008-07-22T05:34:00.000-07:00

So there's been a rumor doing the rounds that Alan Wake, my most anticipated horror game yet to be released, from the creators of the pieces of art that is the max payne series were going to finally show some new information about wake at the 2008 Tokyo game show (http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/english/) and for those not in the know, there hasn't been any major wake news since the bloody jaw dropping weather engine tech demo which was staggering in its grandeur.

... Unfortunately these rumors have been quashed by the site bright falls.net a very reliable fan site for news on alan wake. Apparently this is VERY old news from last years tgs event.

Well im disappointed now, but to be honest the longer remedy works on improving it the happier i will be. so take your time remedy, i know it'll be bloody brilliant regardless.

and include an address unknown easter egg!

I'm wondering how many people will "lol" at this.

2008-07-22T05:10:00.001-07:00

So there it is. The Cover for left 4 dead, according to kotaku, and there rarely if ever proven wrong.

Now i think tis safe to say that the fan base for this is already waiting, i know i am. fans of dead rising and the like are most likely more excited about this than anything else coming out.

That said, even though good sales are guaranteed, how many of said purchasers will get the "all fingers no thumbs" double pun cover?

Personally this .....i dunno, maybe the 12th case ive seen for a zombie movie or games which is just a hand reaching up, its a cheap effect and i for one am frankly finding it to wear a bit thin of late.

Hopefully they wil come up with something a little better, maybe just a simple design like the orange box, but this?, meh. its riding on a pun, not character, like stubbs or dead rising. both have covers that draw you in to read the back of the case.

will this do it for people who dont know about it?

frankly i dont think so.

He's covered wars you know.

2008-07-16T04:35:00.001-07:00

Huh.

Well, colour me surprised about this. not the whole "capcom reporting a best selling game with no extras" they been an old hand at that game for almost ten years now. But dead rising on the wii?

I dont think this is a good idea. for one ,and if im wrong then good, but the wii cant have as many zombies on screen as the 360 can it?

if this was a ps3 port i could understand, but the wii?, im sensing a gimmicky control system and nothing more. That and it wont have achievements. now im no gamerwhore, but dead rising had tons of achievements which more than doubled the gameplay life of the game. it warranted a dozen replays, fighting zombies in new ways. ect.

Take that away and your just smashing zombies nonstop for 3 to 7 hours.

-or if im correct, just swinging a wiimote around.

Not sure about this one, but not particularly excited either.

Monter Madness: The Battle for Suburbia - The Review

2008-07-11T05:20:00.000-07:00

Developer: Artificial Studios/ Immersion Games

Platforms: Xbox 360, PC, (Soon to see a PS3 release as monster madness: grave danger)

Released: June 28th 2007

Genre: Arcade horror shoot-em-up

.....I know, i know. you screaming "Danny, what'chu been smokin', this aint no horror game!!1!oneone!".

Well if you look back at my early posts i said i was blogging on my passion for horror themed games. They don't have to be inherently scary. This falls into the category. Its not scary, but horror fans will most definitely dig it.

Basically i bought this dirt cheap for £5 in gamestation, my usual bargain haunt. It looked interesting enough to hold my attention, a gauntlet style romp through a suburban setting in the middle of a zombie outbreak. How could i not like that?

So basically its gauntlet meets zombies ate my neighbors, a lucas arts classic on them thar early consoles. you run around, with 3 or 4 dozen zombies around you and you have dual nail guns.

Danny like.

Its mindless carnage, and the live multiplayer is just as good. The soundtrack and overall art direction is nice, but nothing memorable. The characters are cliche' the nerd, the slacker, the prissy cheerleader and the goth girl. but there meant to be so its all fine and dandy with me.

From start to finish its a homage to all the good old horror flicks of yesteryear and i really enjoyed it, the controls are simple, if a little buggy in the vehicles (including giant mechs i shit you not).

Overall its a simple, but lengthy game, and i can only criticize its lack of co-op gameplay on xbox live, whilst this is being done in the upcoming playstation 3 release, a patch for the 360 version would be most welcome.

SCORE [6/10]

SCARE FACTOR [0/10]

Alone In The Dark: The Review

2008-07-09T03:27:00.000-07:00

Developer: Eden Games/ Hydravision

Publisher: Atari

Platforms: PS2, PS3, XBOX 360, PC, Wii

Release date: June 20th 2008

Genre: survival/ action horror

So i've put this off for a while.

I'm still slightly unsure about posting this review. Mostly because i still haven't completely finished it yet. Don't get me wrong, i've only got about an hour of gameplay left, and i think that is more than enough to give my view on the game. It's just bugging me that i've not finished it, for every other review i've finished the game before i post a review, hence the sometimes great distance between posts.

Though there is also some trepidation on my part because i don't think this is the sort of game that CAN be given a numerical value for its achievements as a game.

Though i only really use numbers as a rough guide on my final feelings upon completion of a game, like a low score is one to avoid, an in between one is somewhere between "meh" and a shrugging recommendation. if its high, then i really enjoyed it. aside from that I'm a major hypocrite and dislike grading reviews numerically, they should just be a thumb up or down at the end, and reasons listed within to justify said thumb...ness.

So, onto the game. Right from the start its VERY cinematic. it feels like an action movie, or disaster movie from start to finish. You reprise the role of Edward Carnby, paranormal investigator. Well, except for the new nightmare, which apparently is not canon. That or there just ignoring it for some reason. Anyway, i'm digressing here.

The game opens in a first person perspective, with Edward's vision blurring. To clear his vision you blink by clicking in the right thumbstick to shake of his disorientation.

"Neat" i thought, and it was, but its by far the least impressive thing to occur in the first hour of gameplay set in a collapsing tower block just outside central park. Its your job to get out before it comes down on you can escape the destruction and get into central park to investigate the cause of all this.

Apparently new york is being torn apart by quakes caused by "fissures" living streaks of lava that move with a malevolent intelligence. These fissures can even spread inside a human host, turning them into a "humanz". Creatures which can ONLY be harmed if you can set fire to the fissure running through there bodies. Ill get to the fire in a minute. There aren't many different creature designs in the game, id say 7 or 8 at the most, so its more resident evil 4 than fatal frame 2 if you catch my drift. Though all serve a great purpose and are placed in just the right places, like walking down a foggy road in central park, an upturned hotdog cart on the right, a burnout out car smashed into a tree on the left, and barely discernible shapes running at you through the fog....

Its got Mise-en-scene up the yin-yang. Like i said, its a action movie in the form of a survival horror game. So with any action theme there, of course, is driving sequences. Said driving sequences, and i had to pause and contemplate this shocking development, was actually fun, and i dont like driving games. It has a level of detail that i just adore. You can smash a window to open a locked door, check the glove compartment and shade for keys or items, hotwire it if theres no key. Hell, if worst comes to worst you can shoot the gas tank for a makeshift bomb.

Theres a few innovations in this, for one it is set in episodes and even has a "menu" like a dvd so you can skip "scenes" if your having trouble, or go back to redo others in different ways if you choose. I personally haven't used tis, but its good to have the option if its needed rather than not have it and get people stuck forever at one puzzle y'know?

Now the biggest design point of note is the fire. This game is all about arson really, and by that i mean beautiful high definition arson. Fires spread realistically, which takes some getting used to, i set fire to a door to get through it as it was locked and as i was checking my jacket inventory a spark jumped onto me and set me aflame. its little touches like those that i love and get infuriated by at the same time. the enemies main weakness is fire, so you can mix and match items found strewn about the park, bottles of petrol, fly spray and a lighter or something and makeshift your own fiery arsenal.

I'm only touching on one small factor, but the biggest selling point for this game, for me at least, is the freedom. Im not talking about the sandbox gameplay though. In GTA you can go anywhere, but every mission has very little ,if any, freedom of expression. Which im pleased to say 'Dark has in spades.

Example time - You have to ,at one point, cross a room full of enemies and kill them all very fast. How is up to you. My long time friend and reader ,who isn't much of a survival horror nut, Shot his way through by soaking his bullets in paraffin to make them more flammable, and therefore more harmful to the enemies.

How did you plucky young reviewer handle it?, well after years of yelling "your doing it wrong!" at the dumb gits in horror movies i went to bloody town on it.

STEP 1: break open a vending machine for a water bottle and drain it.

STEP 2: go into the kitchen and fill it with cooking oil.

STEP 3: add some bullets to the mix, wrap it in double sided tape and stab a whole in the bottom.

STEP 4: Trough it onto the back of the little creepy crawler creatures and let it wander about the room, leaving a deliciously flammable trail.

STEP 5: drop lighter.

STEP 6: PROFIT!!!

the trail is set aflame and takes all the creatures in the room with it.

Just one small example but the point is you can be john maclain or bloody maguyver, it all depends on you. For that reason alone i can give a recommendation to alone in the dark. Combine that with Good graphics, the sheer fact that they recreated the landmarks of central park, brick for brick is reason enough to applaud there efforts. Add to this some good choices on the design part, like having an older, mid 40's, guy be the protagonist and the like and another stellar soundtrack by oliver Deriviere (http://www.olivierderiviere.com/) the composer for obscure, no free download this time folks, Once again cementing the fact that this guy could give Akira Yamaoka a run for his money for the title of greatest composer in horror games.

I could go on and on about the bits i love, like having your coat be your inventory and have healing and switching items occur in real time, even during fights. Its so ambitious you can really see why it was in development for so long.

That said, now goods out of the way....

I think a list is appropriate.

Dying randomly for no reason.

Falling through the world for no reason.

Solving a puzzle without doing an obscure but mandatory action and getting stuck in a cutscene cycle.

invincible enemies.

cars exploding when you hotwire them

dodgy movement controls.

getting stuck on corners when your a foot away from them.

general bad collision detection.

randomly losing all your items when you die.

cars destroying themselves on the slightest collision

frame rate lag in large set pieces.

I could go on but needless for me to say, as you've no doubt heard it already before. This game is hampered by an unbelievable amount of unfixed bugs in the programming.

This doesn't ruin the game, its so ambitious that it more than makes up for the problems by giving you such freedoms, its just annoying. It stops you form being drawn into the game, you are never unaware that you are safe on your couch playing what seems like an interactive movie.

Whilst i do like that it also means there is no scare factor involved. The imagery is there, to be sure, but it never grips you, and just when it starts, a bug occurs to throw you for a loop.

Like i said, it doesn't ruin the game, just hampers the experience, but not enough to warrant an avoidance rating.

I could go on and on about this game, the good and the bad in equal measure. So i quickly surmise before this piece becomes the entire front page. I love alone in the dark, not as much as silent hill 2 or obscure but ive had fun with such a mind boggling freedom of choice in the game and i can overlook the bugs for that and i can safely say it is worth the money to pay for it instead of rent it. The games good and keeps you playing for long stints at a time, has good , albeit, buggy design and on the 360 it has achievements that stretch it out and amp up the fun factor a lot.

For once i would recommend the 360 version, if only for the achievements adding another dimension to the gameplay when used in conjunction with the dvd menu mode.

Overall i enjoyed it and im getting a good 8 out of ten vibe for this, though im also implementing a new score based on scare factor from now on, which this, due to bugs, fails at unfortunately, which is a shame as other than that its a pretty decent game. ambitious, but decent.

SCORE [8/10]

SCARE FACTOR [2/10] - Slight jumps and gore.

So they DO exist!

2008-06-19T13:15:00.000-07:00

Browsing the silent hill forum today i came across this.

Look familiar Survival horror fans?, it should. This is one of 250 Replicas of James Sutherland's (silent hill 2's protagonist) jacket. Its rare as hell and this is only the first time ive seen one since konamistyle stopped selling it, to be honest i was wondering if id just thought it up in a daydream but apparently no, my sound mind and reason did not imagine it, they really did sell them.

Apparently this particular one is being sold on the silent hill forum right now http://www.silenthillforum.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=10154 some people are getting a bit sniffy about the dude selling it but id never have the cash for one of these even when they weren't objects of legend.

Its just cool to show a little something like this i guess for the fans who've never heard of it.

Though to be honest i always thought James' coat was an army surplus jacket myself.

Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly DIRECTORS CUT - The Review

2008-06-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

Developer: Temco

Publisher: Temco

Realeased: April 29th, 2004

Platforms: Ps2, Xbox (backwards compatible on xbox 360)

Genre: Survival Horror

So right off the bat regulars will know im a big fatal frame fan, and today i finally finished the second game in the series "Crimson Butterfly", so my thoughts?

I bloody love it, heres why.

The game opens and introduces you to twin sisters Mio and Mayu. They are visiting a woodland they used to explore when they were children, and were mayu suffered a permanent leg injury, before the land gets flooded by the construction of an artificial dam. As they sit reminiscing about the past Mio snaps back to reality to find Mayu has wandered off. In the distance Mio can just make out Mayu following something into the deeper woods.

A crimson butterfly.

As Mayu follows her sister the sky darkens, buildings can be made out in the distance and people can be heard chanting.

And more butterfly's.

When Mio finally catches up to Mayu they are on a hill, by a shrine, overlooking a long since abandoned village, hidden for decades in the mountains of the regions.

Getting bad vibes they turn to leave, only to find the path has gone, so with no alternative route, given Mayu's bad leg, the sisters head into town.

At first the town seems dead, and it is, but it is by no means restful as they soon find out. "All gods village" has been in the same perpetual night for decades and the mad ghosts of the people who have died there roam the streets and homes, all with ill intent to use the sisters as part of there "ritual".....

So as you can imagine the plot kept me enthralled, its a story of loss, love, the nature of siblings and there responsibilities and it just never lets up, its like a cool mountain stream. It looks quite, simple, pretty, but try as you might you cant stop its progress, its a simple but powerful narrative ill spoil no further, but the endings a good one.

Gameplay wise its very much the same kettle of fish as the first fatal frame game, albeit with everything improved. the controls are responsive, well balanced and thought out, my only gripe being that, given the fixed nature of the static cameras in the game you can run up one corridor ,then ,given a reversed angle, start running back down it again without changing the analogue stick around.

Not a big problem, but worth a grumbling mention.

The sound is of the "less is more" variety, and its masterfully done, like bells, crunching gravel or creaking boards, rotten with age and neglect, all add to the mise-en-scene of each chapter and aside form the games theme played in the credits there's little music to speak of. But that only makes what there is have that much more powerful an impact.

Graphically its been given an upgrade for the xbox and it really shows, the characters are all memorable, there's like 50 different types of enemy in the game, which compared to resident evil or silent hill is a feat in and of itself, and overall its a great looking game, but that alone is not a note worthy thing.

I really must express to you the art direction of this game. its aesthetic, a grainy series of browns and blacks and general dark color palettes, are juxtaposed by the rich reds in the game every now and then. This contrast is a fantastic choice of design in terms of setting a mood, and giving the game a character which makes the predecessor pale in comparison to.

The pale girls, dressed in blacks and browns, in a shadowy forest, swarmed with the titular ,phosperecent, Crimson Butterflies is a powerful and memorable image.

Overall this is not your generic survival horror, this is something very special that only comes around every so often. Its an art house styled horror game, its psychological, thought provoking and terrifying all at the same time.

This Is , in my opinion, tied with Silent Hill 2 for the title of greatest Survival horror game in the genre. This game is an achievement in a world of mindless shooters and sex appeal over story.

If you are a survival horror fan you owe it to yourself to play this game.

[10/10]

DOOM 3: The Review

2008-06-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

Developer: Id software

Publisher: Activision

Platforms: Xbox port

Released April 8th, 2005

Genre: Horror FPS

So another freebie here, gifted by a friend for a review, he knew id been going on about this for ages said it wouldn't come close to my expectations.

Given the hype he was right, it was far worse.

I know, i know. Im negative form the outset, how is that for a fair review?, well, its not. Though i will validate my feelings for a game i hold in almost as low regard as army of two, e.a's pinnacle in the calibre of shit games.

The story, what little there is has you playing a generic, in every sense of the word, space marine on a base on mars. Just as hes settling in to his new digs hell literally breaks loose, and you the only one man army on hand to stop it.

Not original, but hey, i let it slide, master chiefs not exactly the most charismatic protagonist yet still comes off as a heroic figure, so why not this guy?

-ill get to it.

Gameplay wise its okay, it definitely has kinks that need ironing out, for example the set controls at the start are horrendous, back switches weapons, the triggers open menus. its just a mess, and requires serious tweaking to get playable. The game also does not save.

you heard me.

i got halfway through, died for the first time and promptly swore my ass off when i saw i was back at the beginning were i quick-saved because of the terrible controls. i mean honestly, no auto save?, is this 1991? there's just no reason not to have it, if it can quick save it should have checkpoints and auto save features, even the most lackluster budget games are capable of this.

These are small gripes but right off the bat they break you off from engaging with the subject matter, and its very hard to be scared in a game when you are seething cruses at the controller.

I think the biggest gameplay problem is it was ported straight form pc to xbox and given a very rough control system, back then it was still like the xbox was just a pc for casual gamers rather than the franchise in its own right it has become and i think they felt they had little incentive to do more than just burn it onto a dvd, slap and xbox sticker on it and wave off the delivery man.

Sound wise its quite good, luckily i was expecting "ARD CORE METTULZ!" when i played this but luckily it does use the good old adage of silence being more deafening in horror than any soundtrack, it gets you, when you can get into the game, paranoid all the time, did i just hear a moan in the shadows?, was that something around the corner walking? its nothing at all memorable, but it gives the game character and i like that.

Graphics... now heres the thing. It was praised for implementing shadows right? well it doesn't implement them into the game, they drown the game in them. Again, thats all well and good when it comes to intent to scare. But it takes away form the enjoyment of the game, and with frustration comes disassociation and the illusion of the piece is ruined and it loses the ability to scare, this gets steadily worse as it progresses, by halfway you know that the darker a corner is, the more likely a monster will be in there. There not bad, kinda the way games of the time made players look like they were made of cottage cheese but thats just aging badly.

This port does have some cool extras, the first 2 doom games on the disc, trailers the like, overall its a nice package considering it was free. But in the long-run id say this is either a poor port, or has aged incredibly badly. I feel i must finish each one to give a fair judgment, but i cannot play all the way through this because its too much like work, its not scary, its not fun, its not a game. its an interactive screensaver, its not that its a bad game, its just there's so many better outings i can recommend instead, so this has dragged its score down.

unreasonable?, maybe. but i cant in good conscience give this such a score when i know there's a better game out there, hell i had more fun playing condemned 2 and you can just read my review on an older post about my thoughts on that.

Its really hard to give this game a numerical value out of ten, it feels like a 4 out of ten, so ill say that, but really i can just say "thumbs down" and shake my head in disappointment.

If you see this in a shop, put it down, go pick up prey or condemned instead, you'll thank me for saving, not your money, but your time.

[4/10]

"Experience the fear"

2008-06-18T15:59:00.000-07:00

So I thought it was time for a break down of fatal frame 4 from what we know.

from Beyond the Camera len's translations: http://www.cameraslens.com/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1213096669&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&

We can get a few things 1: That the protagonist has ties to a hospital, does this mean the girls pictured on the official site are her and other patients?, or did they all live on this island the hospital has connections to? They were "rescued", but are now dying off. is this a ring style curse?, or perhaps the purpose they were born for, are they more rope shrine maidens or something more sinister. 5 for the 5 elements in japanese folklore?.

Who knows, but the reading makes interesting food for though doesn't it?

What about the name of the game? "The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse"?

what significance does that bear?

The only reference i could find to an eclipse was the Shinto sun goddess "Amarterasu ", Who caused an eclipse by sealing a cave, from what ive read ,hurriedly, on the subject the world was saved by a sumo. which, whilst saying something for the bravery of the sumo, doesn't seem in keeping with the theme of the series.

What about masks?

The first thing that comes to mind are Japanese Noh Theatre masks. The noh performances are based on 6 groupings, possibly it could be used for 5 girls and an eclipse as the 6th grouping?

Although, the Noh theatre has routes in Buddhism, not shinto like i think the rest of the series is, so again. not in keeping with the vibe of its predecessors.

Honestly i dont think ill ever guess the story before i play it, but its fun to think about it and take wild guesses, and learn some folklore in the process.

Vampire The Masquerade - Bloodlines: The Review

2008-06-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

Developers: Troika Games

Publishers: Activision

Released: November 19th, 2004

Platforms: PC

Right off the bat i was... unsure about bloodlines.

I got it free with S.T.A.L.K.E.R: shadow of chernobyl one day and knew nothing about it, save that it was a video-game rpg made in the half life engine based on a pen and paper/LARP (like action role play) game akin to dungeons and dragons, albeit set in a vampire controlled L.A.

Nether-the-less i gave in and tried it. since the idea of owning a horror game and not playing it, at least for a review, left me huddled in a corner, rocking back and forewords in a fetal position.

okay, not really, but still i felt like i had to give it a try.

So the game is a somewhat free roaming game, with 5 "hubs" that are a lot like a level from tony hawks underground 2 meets the early street levels of max payne. You play as a male or female character of your choosing form one of several subclans of vampires. each with different abilities ,some magic based, others brutish savages and everything in between.

Gameplay wise its a 3rd person horror themed action adventure with rpg elements. you have your typical wasd movement, aim with the mouse as a crosshair and either shoot in fps mode of swing a weapon in 3rd person. everything is simple to control, even though the jumping is akin to a crab performing gymnastics. the controls are slightly self piloting. you dont pick a lock, you right click on a lock and either do or dont, its not like thief or oblivion were you actually pick it yourself. Its a little gripe, but i like my games, not just horror, but across the board, to have a little room for self expression in it. Here the gameplay, whilst enjoyable, feels like its an unfinished tech demo for a playstation game. I know the whole "self expression" thing sounds uppity and pretentious, but this IS a ROLE PLAYING game, yet it never draws you into the character, you never make it your own, you cant choose appearance, very few dialogue trees come to different final conclusions.

.....i know im going off on a tangent here but it is a fallacy rpg that appears to give to the player the freedom it promises, and in gameplay alone you can see that it would have easily worked on the consoles as a straight up 3rd person action horror game.

-Anyway.

Storywise you can slightly affect your choices but overall its quite a linear experience in comparison to most rpgs, its rpg-lite. you are given the "embrace", become a childe of the night and are part of a clan, you are then cast out to do menial tasks for the night un-life of los angeles. during the beinnings of you getting into all these political shenanigans things start to go very awry. a ship, full of dead seamen and a sarcophagus driftsto shore, a powerful vampire suddenly becomes reclusive, and a serial killer is on the loose. Say what you want about its shallow designs, it does have a good number of sub-plots ,seperate from the core narrative, and i like that. whilst there isn't much choice, there is a choice WHEN to do most things and these little stories actual take up more game than the core story missions, and not unlike gta you will find yourself doing these way before heading onto the next area to fight another boss.

Graphically speaking its of the time. its made in the half life engine, which means details, but also a kind of ...i dont know, feeling you in a box with buildings painted around the edges. its not sandbox gameplay, its lunchbox gameplay, a close emulation, though it lacks the true freedom of its larger, sandier counterpart.

the characters are well designed, although a lot more time is spent on the women's cleavage than buildings which is A: questionable and B: unsurprising given this is a game about vampires, natures enemy of the corset.

All in all the graphics have character, they do have a tendency to jar, with the likes of warcraft and stalker contained in the same level, but the overall design thematically works soundly.

Overall i, not a pc gamer, but part of the console playing sub race whos primary evolutionary traits are playing first person shooters and being loud, Found bloodlines to be that rare thing. -A pc game i can actually play, its witty, exciting, though never scary. The music and graphics suit the dark, comic-noir feel and most importantly i had fun. if you own a pc that can play it, as a horror fan you should play it.

[8/10]

Getting affiliated or "How to Whore yourself out like it's going out of style"

2008-06-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

So here's a few websites that have listed me, so its only fair i give a little recommendation for each herein.

1: Black sanctuary - http://mental-fiction.net/survivalhorror/ I only discovered this one recently and it doesnt appear to be as well advertised as it should be. Basically its an easy to explore directory of sites about survival horror gameing. Rnaging from general review and article sites like this one you fine readers are visting right now. To "shrines" to various characters form games, though its lamentabel the town itself from silent hill games has no such place as it was allways the most malevolent of characters in my opinion. it also includes fan fiction site and forums and is generally a good source of information when you take all of these sites, adn therefore the sizeable amount fo survival horror fans connected to it.
Very much worth adding to favourites.

2: Chris' survival horror quest - http://www.dreamdawn.com/sh/ Possibly my favourite site form the ones on this list. Ive been visting for, damn, must be 5 years now maybe? I dont so much go there for articles or reviews, more for the community on the excellent forum, and to hear Chris (a videogames deisgner himself) give an intriguing insight from the other sid eof the looking glass on the current situation in the survival horror genre.
A must visit for horror fans.

3: Beyond the camera's Lens - http://www.cameraslens.com/ By now you know that ,aside from my first horror passion silent hill, fatal frame is horror series i hold in the highest of regards. Not only because its still consistently terrifying to me, but it just has a style ot it thats like the game equivalent of an art house film. Evidently the Sites owners must have the same passion for these games given its Fatal frame theme.
To sum it up its bloody well designed, has genuine character to the site and its gonna be my location for fatal frame 4 news.
Not really affiliated ,but still very much worth a mention.

4: The Bitter End - http://survivalhorroronline.com/ Another general horror site, frequently updated with regualr news, that is a good source of information on more obscure games. The owners clearly go that extra mile by seeking out inromation, so yeah, another thumbs up.

5: The silent hill forum - http://www.silenthillforum.co.uk/ been a member for going on 4 years now, great commuity with allways a new philosophical discussion going on or something. really great stuff overall.

Theres a few sites im affiliated with, or just link to because you should visit them, so scat!, go have a ganders and get off mah damn lawn!!!

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds - The Review

2008-06-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

Developers: Eurocom
Publishers: Vivendi
Platforms: Gamecube, Xbox, PS2
Released: August 27th, 2003
Genre: Horror themed beat-em-up/ Action adventure

Now i must admit, the time of Buffy has passed somewhat. I don't get into the reruns as much as i used to, but its always going to have some appeal for me, as Buffy the vampire slayer was one of THE key shows the springs to mind when i reminisce about my childhood viewing habits.
So i wasn't that jazzed to get into this one, but it was £2 so what the hell?, i gave it a spin.

The game opens literally dropping you into the middle of a fight. Giles' shop ," The Magic Box" is under assault from a gang of vampires. The task falls to the player to rid the store of these undead gatecrashers. Only a change has been made since the first one. Your not alone anymore.
Not only can you play as the titular Buffy summers, but now you are joined by the rest of the scooby's. You can fight using magic with Willow Rosenberg. Use vampiric strength with Spike. The Monster hunting skills of Sid the dummy. Faiths slayer strength.

and Xander harris, with the power of comic timing!

So each has different skills for you to use. Unfortunately you have no choice in which to play as, which would have added a nice multiple route ,puzzle solving aspect. Though this is because each characters location and motivations is intrinsic to the games plot.

To sum it up without spoilers, Buffys enemies are returning from the dead, alternate realities are "bleeding" into one another. Then wouldja believe its up to her to save the world?

So, game play. For the most part this is a fun, albeit flawed, beat-em-up engine. You use block, punch and kick (or in willows case energy or fire) to create combos with varying degrees of eviserating capabilities. Its fun, but its far to easy to get stuck in a combo by accident and punch yourself a path right past the enemy. then get knocked down by then and have ten bells of shit beat out of you for the transgression. Honestly, i know this was 5 years ago now, but i would have still kept this back a few more weeks to iron out some of the combat problems.
Story wise its basically a typical joss whedon creation. unique dialogue compared to most 3rd person games in the same vein. Though i must admit whedons "witty one liners" for characters, most noteably buffy and xander, have grown incredibly tired and stale since the first season of buffy.
I should point out that this is set between 2 episodes of season 5, just a while after joyce summers has died. overall the story has good dialogue, but the main plot itself seems like a straight up budget title, point being you could skip every cutscene and still play happily.
Music wise its the exact same stuff from the first game, granted i havent played it in a good few years now, but im quite sure that its the exact soundtrack that played through the first one. it still works, dont get me wrong, each scene is well set by it. it just sems cheap is all.
now i feel i should mention ,before i get to graphics, that this is a "monther" game.

What do i mean by "monther?" you ask?

a Monther is a game were you will breeze through 2 hours of gameplay and get to a point were you will be inexplicably stuck with no way of knowing how to progress, and without gamefaq's you will leave the game for months without knowing what to do.
For example, Xander had to get passed an electric fence. i saw an obviously pointed out fuse box, since its texture was a brighter hue than anything else in the room. I wasnt told this however, i was told nothing. save for the fact 20 minutes earlier a woman, ONLY IF YOU HIT HER BY MISTAKE. tells you that she hid a crossbow in the building.
I look everywere but find nothing. so the month begins, least, it would have had i had no internet connection.
Turns out you must beat open a locker, not use the same action to open doors, but beat a locker that looks eactly the same as 7 other lockers in the same room who are all indestructable boxes of scenery.
Then i shot the fuse box and climbed the fence.

This also occured in ghosthunter with the librarys poulterghiest, it doesnt ruin the gameplay really, but it just doesnt explain in any way what you need to do, and it should to some extent. not a major gripe to put me off the game, but worth ranting about.

Finally graphics, this is an odd one, character model wise theres 3 for each type of bad guy. though each model is skinned 3 different ways to streatch out the amount. thoughyou still run into the same ones in groups for some unkown reason, save the developers got a bit lazy.
xander, willow and giles look startlingly like there on screen counterparts in this videogame outing, buffy and spike however look like a generic npc from an mmo, no charcter to there appearance. just generic blocks.
the enviroments are varied enough, from a midnight churchyard to the streets of sunnyvale and beyond. there pretty cool and quite large for an origional xbox title, i was quite pleased by it. i was expecting small fable sized areas but the developers whent to town on this portion.

Overall its a game with character. Its flawed, but i dont think theres been a 3rd person action game yet that hasnt had a few glaring scratches in an otherwise stellar paintjob. Sure you can get stuck for months and the soundtack is recycled, but as a whole package it works. i had fun playing it and i think i will play it again some day instead of trading it in disspointed like i did with my last review.
If your a buffy fan its a definate purchase, though likely you have allready. For general fans of horror themed games id say give it a try, given its extreme budget pricetag its worth the miniscule dent in your wallet, but if it was brand new?, maybe not.

ill give chaos bleeds [6/10]

Project Origin (Fear 2) footage

2008-06-15T14:38:00.001-07:00

Just trawling the net and found this on youtube, its footage of project origin. The sequel to fps jump-em'-up F.E.A.R. The original had fantastic A.I, even if the story and scares were lackluster, but the atmosphere made it... when you were exploring yet another generic office or warehouse, NOT when you were being attacked by the guard robots from robocop.

still im looking forward to this myself, what about you?

Wow, this sites really been doing the round's lately

2008-06-08T19:29:00.000-07:00

-no, really it has.

i was googling silent hill 5 for any new info and this fine, grammatical error filled, site is showing up quite a bit. I even found a site giving an rss feed of it: http://www.blogged.com/blogs/the-racoon-city-times.html

In fact comments have been picking up, even if articles haven't, and there is a reason for that.

A while back the student loan i took out for my filmmaking degree came in and i purchased a top of the range I-mac, so i could actually have the suites to create professional level pieces of work, however my new mac doesn't seem to like blogger and very often I'm having posts deleted instead of being posted.

It also doesn't like youtube. Right now there are reviews for the darkness, vampire the masquerade : bloodlines, bullet witch, fatal frame 2: crimson butterfly and s.t.a.l.k.e.r: shadow of chernobyl which still haven't been uploaded, so stay tune and hopefully ill work this out soon.

'Least its got a spell check.

Fatal Frame: a true story?

2008-06-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

Not likely ,though apparently this is how the game was advertised outside of Japan.

See ,right now I'm playing Fatal frame 2: Crimson butterfly DIRECTORS CUT on in the Xbox 360, (expect a review, as always, when I'm done with the game) so anyway I'm online looking for a good crimson butterfly wallpaper thats suitably creepy and i look on the wikipedia were i learn that the original was indeed toted as a true story.

I remember hearing something about this a long time ago. Naturally i dismissed it but it turns out it has been doing the rounds on the net since 2002. Feeding off the fanfare from import of remakes of the time like ring there was tons of websites, not only claiming to be the true mythology of the Himuro Mansion, but also some saying, and heres an example of the worst, that someone was AT the mansion surrounded by ghosts , being forced to try and shoot themselves.

Problems with that story was the spelling and grammar was worse than my own, and i'm pretty sure guns are illegal in tokyo.

Point is that people really thought this was real, this: http://www.geocities.com/kazamaceo/researchpaper2.html was toted as pictures of the real deal, even when it says at the top, and i quote, it is "absolute crap".

But people continue to believe for the very reason survival horror is popular, because people want to believe its true, and people want to be scared. Since the release of the first game the creator has stated that Fatal Frame was actually based on two stories, an urban legend about a murdered family, and a ghost story about a hanged woman.

This isn't a stand alone case, there have been a few games in the survival horror genre being sold as a true story. Another example being these two examples for the video game forbidden siren, http://www.occultland.com/e/top.html and http://www.shibito.com/e/top_hp.html

Thee are listed on wikipedia AS hoax sites but i've still found examples in forums and on sites like yahoo answers about people who are genuinely asking if its a true story about red rain turning people into monsters. Granted there are some who TRY to give it a more feasible narrative, like a chemical accident that caused psychosis in a secluded community or something, not unlike the plot of George A Romero's "The Crazies". The story was totally false but again people WANTED to believe them, these horrifying situations were willed to be by these people fascinated with the possibility of such events being possible.

Why?

I think its because people love to be scared, its why the genre is so popular, and why people like me have sites like this. This comes to a head in these japanese games were there isolated culture cultivated such a rich and unique folklore thats so foreign and intriguing to western folks, its in japan so its far away, it cant reach you, your safe even if it is real.

Thats what people want, just an inkling of terror to be scared, but not real "this coudl kill you at any time terror".

Because if that was true war games would be the greatest survival horror.

The House

2008-05-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

to reiterate, fatal frame scares the shit out of me, this is in the same vein and whilst it seems the creator got lazy after room 2 youll get a good jump if you play it alone in the dark.

.....that wasn't a pun.

http://www.gamezhero.com/online-games/adventure-games/thehouse-horror.html

Is this sad, or am i?

2008-05-14T18:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.justin.tv/fourplayerpodcast/78043/Scariest_room_ever

Now i'm well known for saying that, out of all survival horror games, i'm man enough to admit that the original fatal frame SCARES.THE.SHIT.OUTTA.ME. By this i mean that i will walk through the whole game at a snails pace, occasionally going "oh fuck. oh fuck..." ,but just in determination to get through, never in genuine terror, more because i feel for the character.

however this video as linked above, raises a good point.

I have never been that bad in a video-game, although when it comes to games i'm normally the silent contemplative gamer who's there for the story as much or more so than gameplay. Point being that ive never gotten that scared, and ive played just about every horror game i can get my mitts on in england, bar only michigan, fatal frame 3 and resident evil outbreak 2, purely because there was something else on the shelf in the store at the time.

but ive played a lot of horror yknow, and ive never got that severe a reaction.

is that good or bad though?

am i harder? to scare or have i just been desensitized by an abnormally large level of exposure to the genre compared to the average?

OR- does this mean i am not getting my moneys worth?, these games are intended to scare, and if they dont scare me anymore am i missing out on part of survival horror experience?, by that i mean is the lack of genuine terror disassociating me enough to even tangentially experience the fear of the in game character and therefore not experience the game to the fullest of its potential?

So OBscure 3 is go apparently.

2008-05-14T11:10:00.000-07:00

I logged in today to notice a comment on my article about the possibility of Obscure 3 being made, here it is

Hey Danny...thanks for the link and for checking out my site. Yes, I can confirm that Stan lives on through ObsCure II and into ObsCure III which is in development as we speak. Hopefully those in charge continue to think I'm worthy enough to play Stan and we'll all be blogging about ObsCure III and how it's the best ObsCure yet.

Blessings...Joshua Swanson

So apparently i inkled in the right direction with that one, and i for one look forward to the next installment in the series.

Condemned 2: Bloodshot: The Review

2008-04-26T06:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, right off the bat, if you look on my gamespot profile you can see i gave the origional condemned a less than stellar review. citing it as one long rinse and repeat of reaching a door, then going to find something that opens said door. I also for lack of a more eloquent word springing to mind, bitched about the way it degenerates from intriguing CSI style hunting of a serial killer to magic and cults ala Fahrenheit (or indigo prophecy if you prefer).

In short it took a good premise and then through it out the window in favor of something much less unique and therefore slightly less entertaining since it was nothing new.

so i didn't like it too much, great in practice but very flawed.

This view has changed however since i played its sequel "bloodshot". Right off the bat the reason for the homeless people going crazy is explained, now i loved the intrigue of the original, the fact that birds were drying for no reason, the blacked out xray and the like and it all gets explained in the first half. NOTHING is left to the imagination. in fact the only puzzle at the end is the introduction of an even badder bad guy which is obviously just a plot device to stretch this already tired horse into a trilogy.

So remember ethan thomas?, that chubby, out of shape fbi crime lab investigator who was voiced by matt from heroes?

Did you like him?

yeah?

Too bad then as he's been replaced, or he's a time lord and undergone a regeneration, which given the plot wouldn't surprise me.

Gone is the flawed hero on the run form the fbi. in his place is , for lack of a better term, an asshole who has undergone steroid treatment, vocal chord transplantation and had a nice emo haircut for when he goes to good charlotte concert. its not the same guy in anything but name, he's bizarro ethan thomas. a completely unlikeable and boring action hero type protagonist.

i've mentioned this before when explaining why fatal frame is scarier than resident evil 4. if you play a strong action hero type right off the bat your thinking "oh yeah, yeah he's definitely going to survive this. he's no longer a likable character, he's one of marcus fenix's drinking buddies.

The gameplay is, thankfully, a saving grace of this as the combat has been greatly refined. in the original it was basically strafe left and right hammering down the attack button till the enemy was a fine paste or mist of "matter".

In that terrible mechanics place is a new way to fight, left trigger is left fist and right trigger is right fist, both at once block.... and later on use magic powers- but thats for a bit later on.

you can use combos and ,ugh, slow motion real time button events to do real damage that looks painful rather than just the rag doll recoil of the original.

Its just a shame that a good half of the game abandons this for outright sup-bar fps gameplay instead.

Case in point Ethan now fights these inner demons using a machine gun.

i wish i was joking. the controls are better ill say that, but not for the right reasons.

The enemy a.i doesn't seem to have gotten smarter, in some respects its gotten worse. enemies will just make a beeline at you or, instead of just hiding round a corner like the original, will just stand in plain sight, practically kicking up dust and whistling a jaunty tune.

There are now boss fights a plenty but thee are easily the weakest point of the game, there just bigger versions of regular guys and just take longer to fight.... unless you use magic powers.

the graphics range from bland early 360 graphics to superb in a bizarre mix. the opening is right out of silent hill, from red rust, to gooey crap (tm konami) covering the walls. and whilst the locations are varied many are just bland cut and pastes that make the original halo level design look ambitious.

that said its not all bad, sure the story is asinine, its got tons of pot wholes (like a main character disappearing half way through and never appearing again), the tazer serves no purpose this time, and you beat the final boss by shouting at him. but there is some great stuff in there too.

a fine example is running through an abandoned ski lodge whilst being chased by a rabid grizzly bear. or when you have to.... okay i honestly cant think of anything else but point is there's some good in there.

Its just a shame that its a pale shadow compared to the sheer amount of problems.

I finished it in one sitting, then got my money back. hands down the worst horror game ive played of 2008.

[4/10]

Changing gears for a second, next stop dissapointment.

2008-03-08T04:50:00.000-08:00

Now needless to say by now you readers know I'm a silent hill fan, and when a new Eldridge tome bearing the moniker appears on the shelves of forbidden planet I'm inclined, neigh, driven to buy the latest offering of silent hill to the comic book medium.

And more often than not I'm disappointed.

The ones on the silent hill experience UMD were good reads, not really inkeeping with the vibe and aesthetic of the series that we've come to expect but i enjoyed them for what they were, thankfully the one about a painter who painted murders and a school bus of cheerleaders fighting the creatures decked out in military hard wear was left out of the package.

They've never been a high point in my comic collecting fanaticism but yet again i saw a new one "sinners reward" on the shelf for £2.80, so i tried, i really tried, to fight against the urge but again i walked away with my all ready light wallet a little lighter and the result?

Utter disappointment.

Sinners reward is about a man driving along near silent hill ,he stops at a gas station with an old man running it who seems to be in every cliche horror movie ever made. wonder were they go for these gigs, the job center?, it look good on your c.v "i spend the last ten years sitting in a rocking chair, hocking into a spittoon and warnin' them no good punk kids not to go down tha' road, but they never listen".

Or something like that.

the story is another poor narrative trying to ride on the series rather than originality, he is a mobster on the run with the bosses wife, why they felt the need to add a 2 page traumatic past about being forced to shoot a dog is beyond me, they must have just been whacking each other off and been in such a euphoric state even all this cliche' crap must have seemed like pulitzer worthy gold.

and so she gets kidnapped and wouldn't you know it she is dragged to silent hill and our not of sound mind mobster has to go and find her.

I know ,Ive heard it before somewhere too....

Id like to comment on the art but there is in fact none in it. it uses prerendered character models from what looks like the Sims, they add some grain to some screen shots and add speech bubbles. its so poor and cheap i cannot stress it enough, rather merely ponder when comics went from actual art to something you'd see on a web comic from 1995.

Theres a part 2 but needless to say i don't think i will be getting it.

avoid [2/10]

Biohazard 2 romero ad 'making of' documentary

2008-02-18T04:22:00.000-08:00

Credits to kotaku for finding this. i don't normally put stuff up on here you can easily find on other well known sites but this ones worth it i think. I'm a big fan of the works of George Romero, from the crazies to land, Ive enjoyed them all.
Ive also enjoyed the bio hazard, or resident evil series (anyone else think they should have stuck with bio hazard as the name?) and in a documentary for that on BBC2 about 3 years ago they interviewed the series' creator who stated he was heavily influenced by George Romero's living dead trilogy, and when making the ad's for the superb bio hazard 2 (one of my all time favourites and unbiasedly i can say its one of the best games in the genre) they got Romero in to direct one of the ad's.
Unfortunately they were never released over here and saw some trouble in japan as well, but now thanks to the Internet just Google em and there up there to find with ease.
This is something new however, again kudos to kotaku for this. its a documentary about the making of the commercials. interesting stuff if your a Romero or resi fan, I'm both so it was doubly as good.
enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHHGGc-kYxg

D: The Review

2008-02-10T18:00:00.000-08:00

Now this is an obscure one for you tonight folks.
released in 1997 on the Saturn, the PlayStation and the PC. D was a game i have only ever heard of on chris' survival horror quest and so when i found a pristine ,'as new', copy in a bargain bin at game station i snapped it up for 99p and gave it a go.
my thoughts then?
D is... interesting lets open with that. You play a woman named Laura who begins the game entering a hospital, only to find all the residents of said hospital dead in puddles of there own blood. She is then approached by what i can only describe as a fluid membrane floating on air like a rippling window which envelopes her and changes the hospital into some sort of medieval castle.
and it just gets weirder from there.
D is a game in the same vein as the likes of Myst, a first person point and click adventure. which might be alluring for some but for me seemed quite a tedious idea, however it has to be said WARP (the games developers) pulled it off in a rather interesting way here.
though by interesting i also mean the way an ed wood film is considered a "cult classic". Good but only for a niche value rather than as a serious project as intended.
the booklet gives barely any information other than the controls and the fact that the game is 2 hours long. I'm not kidding your given a 2 hour time limit to finish it. imagine my surprise when 10 minutes in I'm asked to please switch to disc 2 of 3 all ready.

The plot is as surreal as the locale', very little info is given as you play. you press start and are then forced to figure everything out on your own with no help nor hint given from the game except for a 'hint mirror' which can be used 3 times, once for each disc i imagine.
the basic feel of D is surreal, random dead bodies spiked into the back of doors, glowing bugs triggering visions of murder, talking water bubble's in the air and mirrors that try to grab your are only some of the bizarre spectacles on offer.
and finally a shenmue style real time event does occur with no margin for error, now that really bugged me.

The puzzles range from mind bogglingly simple to completely random, like finding a statue with 8 coloured buttons in front and absolutely no guidelines on what your supposed to do. this was really vexing given the time limit since you could breeze through all the puzzles till one final one on disc 3 stumps you for 30 minutes, and god forbid they could put a pause button in. granted that might be because they wanted you to feel the stress of it to complete the experience but in my opinion most gamers don't like being out and out forced into a corner gaming wise and this lack of freedom comes off as quite restrictive.

though its not all bad. for the time the graphics are very impressive. the opening camerawork and music throughout are enjoyable, not unlike a cheap, albeit entertaining, indie horror flick.
Basically i would give a most fitting analogy to this by comparing it to one of those interactive rides at a theme park like the haunting or something. it genuinely feels ,at 2 hours in length, like an interactive short film. it can be played in one sitting, which to some might be a gripe, to others it means getting a story without putting dozens of hours in.
personally i enjoyed it for its uniqueness but as a stand alone horror game theres many better options out there. but if your a collector this is a neat little obscurity that i can at least say is worth a look just to experience it once.

id give D reasonable [3/10]

Danny Interviews Patrick J. doody, one of the writers of silent hill 5

2008-02-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

Just on a spur of the moment impulse on learning that he co-wrote silent hill 5. i sent a message to patrick asking if it was cool to do a mini interview about sh5 for the racoon city times blog, and surprisingly he said yes.
Some questions have been unanswered, for good reason, i know i for one wouldnt like the story to be given away before i played it. Imagine being told the ending to silent hill 2 after only 20 minutes play.

yeah, that'd pretty much suck wouldnt it?.

So ,on to the Q&A.

Whats been your role in 5's creation?
- My writing partner, Chris Valenziano and I were hired as the game's writers. Now, that term "writer" has a different meaning in electronic gaming than it does in television or film. On a game, the entire design team has a large hand in doing much of the writing. Even before we knew that there was a Silent Hill 5 happening, The Collective had broken story and compiled a summary of the game's events - all of which were written by the lead designer, the lead artist and the lead level designer. So, when Chris and I came on to the game, our first task was to look at that summary — which is several pages long and very detailed — and start to poke holes where needed. Now, this process began almost two years ago. Since then, the story has changed in several places, which is due to the collaborative efforts of the whole team. As you start to produce the game, you realize that certain story elements don't really gel with game play or you might discover that we can't really make more than a dozen separate heads for characters, so you start to whittle down the NPCs in the game. It's a very delicate balancing act between your narrative and all of the elements that go into production.
Unlike writing a movie script, a process in which the writers generally work on their own to produce a 100-page screenplay, writing Silent Hill 5 was written over a series of months, working with the whole team to make sure that the house of cards wasn't going to fall down! Now, on top of all that work, we had to be very conscious of the entire Silent Hill mythology, so everything we worked on as a team, would then go to Konami to make sure that any references to previous characters or any rules regarding the Otherworld shifts fit in the overall lore of Silent Hill. And believe me when I tell you that rules do exist and you can't break them.
On top of working on the story, we had to write all the cinematics, environmental signage, hundreds of dialogue slugs, journal entries and the game manual. All in all, it was the most writing we’ve ever done for a project (and we've written a 300-page novel).

Have you played the games and if so whats your favourite?
I think one of the reasons Konami hired us was because I was such a huge fan of the series, was very knowledgeable of the game's lore and wanted the game to have continued success. I played the original Silent Hill the WEEK it came out and it was the scariest game I had ever experienced. When I started playing that game, I knew I was seeing the future of horror gaming and I couldn't get enough. It's actually an amazing experience to now be a part of the series after having been a fan for so long.
Now, regarding my favorite, I know the fans love Silent Hill 2, and Silent Hill 2 certainly elevated the game to the direction that the series has gone. However, I'm a big fan of Silent Hill 3. I love all the characters - Heather, Cartland, Vincent - they are all so colorful and have great motivations. I also like that installment for its expanding history of The Order. Overall, Silent Hill 3 really feels like a complete experience for me - from great game play to fantastic story.

Since its a survival horror game would you say Silent Hill 5 is the scariest narrative in the series so far?
I think when we talk about Silent Hill and a "scary" story we are talking about two different things. Overall, the game's scares will be the biggest we've had, and that's not just jump scares - the eerie feeling of dread will be heightened because the designers can really immerse you emotionally through amazing environments and wild-looking demons. However, story wise, Silent Hill hasn't typically been “scary,” as it's more about the depths of madness and terror it takes the player. Clearly I can't talk about the story of the game, but I can say that we have worked very hard on making it the most disturbing drama of the entire series. My hope is that players will be affected by the game's end.

without giving away any spoilers will we learn anything more about the history of silent hill?
Hmm...tough question because I would love to spill the beans on some of the story, but that would ruin the fun! Here's what I can say about Silent Hill and this installment - you will discover some new secrets about Silent Hill by way of how its history has influenced a much larger society than you may have previously thought. And that's almost saying too much!

how would you describe the protagonist of silent hill?
Alex Shepherd feels very new to the series. He's less a victim of circumstance and more a man of action. Now, I know people are worried that having a soldier as the star of the game means he is somehow Rambo, let me assure you that he is not. However, he does take a much more proactive approach to the world around him. We tried to make him more aware of the strange events that unfold in the story, so if you believe in the theory that the player is the character, then I think he's going to feel more relatable to someone who would make rational decisions based on what he sees in front of him.

Thanks for the questions! I'm sure I haven't really explained much more than what is out there, but I was happy to throw in my thoughts. Good luck with your blog! I believe in horror gaming and hope that continued success of games like Silent Hill can keep horror fans entertained and terrorized at the same time.

Patrick J. Doody

So there you have it, whilst origins wasnt exactly on par with the rest of the series im eagerly looking forward to the next instillation in the silent hill series. So come on konami we cant wait much longer!