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Silent Hill is one of the most prolific and heart-pounding horror franchises in gaming history, and with the Silent Hill Collection and Silent Hill: Downpour releasing, MyGaming has a look back at the memories created from the creepy little town.
"How can a video game be scary? Unlike horror movies where you're stuck watching some hapless victim succumb to scary stuff, video games empower players to fight back. Or at least run away. It's October. Time to identify horror-gaming's essentials.
Some of the scariest experiences I've had in my life come from video games. I can remember running from the family computer room in tears after a wax skeleton in an Are You Afraid of the Dark game chased me through a basement.
My chest still g..."
Silent Hill fans may have noticed that Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, the "re-imagining" of Silent Hill 1, looks very different than previous games in the series. Each Silent Hill game has used a similar concept for the creepy "Otherworld" dimension that players are thrust into in each game: A dark, warped, rust and blood covered hellhole...
ohhh....icky!
But Silent Hill: Shattered Memories has a new style for the "Otherworld". Instead of blood and rust, there is snow and i...
WITA, guest writer for Spawn Kill, takes a closer look at the only next-gen title in the Silent Hill saga. Check out the full article to find out her thoughts on a game not warmly welcomed by many series fans.
"Arguably, the most memorable part of the Silent Hill series isn’t its fog and fire sirens, its gritty Otherworld or vicious monsters, but rather something on a level entirely its own: Pyramid Head. Known in some installments as the Bogeyman or the Red Pyramid Thing, the unforgettable villain says nothing; drags a giant, heavy knife; and walks around with a massive, blood-stained metal cone on his head. It almost sounds silly by rough description, but the true figure makes a very different imp..."
Konami thought that they could spice up the Silent Hill series by handing the fifth installment over to a new team of developers. What we ended up with was Silent Hill: Homecoming, arguably one of the worst games in the series.
And yet it had all the elements of a Silent Hill game. It had all the elements of a good horror game. So what went wrong?
"The gaming community has a morbid fascination with death, and something is always dying. Apparently E3 is dead, PC gaming is dead, and some say the survival horror genre is dying. Most gamers readily admit that Resident Evil 4 is a great game, but no one is trying to defend it as a survival horror title. Indeed, the Resident Evil franchise has changed over the years, and we're a long way from where Capcom started."
"We get it. Its hard enough for a company - dev or publisher - to turn a profit with each game release. Given the choice, would you risk losing tens of millions to completely reinvent your money-maker, or play it safe with a slight upgrade you designate a sequel? Hell, it took Capcom five tries to reinvent Resident Evil 4 and Ubisoft has no clue what to do with Splinter Cell: Conviction.
Weve got some tips for these companies. Weve come up with some ideas to reinvent franchises before th..."
Jim Sterling of destructoid.com types about how the evolution of survival horror games has run them into the ground. This isn't the only speculation of recent times about the genre, with What happened to survival horror? and Survival Horror - Does it even exist anymore?. This blog is just one more look into how the genre is dying off.
Read on to see how the generations have been adding to the dragging down of the survival horror genre.
"So which one takes your vote for being more fear-inducing? Which one puts the money where the scares are? Which game, do you think, is more likely to send your next pair of pants to the hamper, and not because theyre dirty?"
Survival-Horror, you either love it or hate it. Whether Nemesis is chasing you down Resident Evil 3's cramped hallways, or Pyramid Head is cornering you in Silent Hill 2's dark rooms, or Sae is stalking you relentlessly in Fatal Frame 2, it's a genre that is bound to get your adrenaline rushing and your heart pumping, so much so that you might find yourself feeling dread and wanting to turn the console off. But that's why we play them, after all. We want to be scared.
Joystiq takes a look ...
This topic has already been covered fairly well (see: The Problems with Game Criticism, and The Problem with Game Reviews Part 1 & 2), but until we're in a better state, it's always a positive thing, yeah?
Anyhow, Variety's Ben Fritz offers his take on the situation (as a response to Variety critic Leigh Alexander's recent blog), saying we nitpick too much and actively look for things to criticize in games instead of really valuing what needs to be valued and not letting the little stuff (...
No doubt many survival-horror fans have already downloaded SIREN: Blood Curse from PSN and are planning on picking up Silent Hill: Homecoming, but if you only have money for one then which will be the best option in terms of scares? Which will satisfy you most as a survival-horror fan?
Multiplayerblog takes a look at both games, and which best delivers the scares.
"I'll summarize them in chronological order, starting with Origins and going from there. Please note that I'm only going to state the canonical endings, if you want to see the other ones, you should buy or rent the games. I highly recommend these games to any survival-horror fan, but be warned: the Silent Hill series is incredibly graphic and disturbing. You should not play them unless you're mature enough to handle the content. And remember, this article contains major spoilers although I've ..."
Professional game designer, Scott Slomiany is a fan of survival-horror games and he believes that, while Resident Evil and Silent Hill are both fantastic series, they don't deliver much in terms of "horror". He finds it hard to feel scared for Resident Evil's characters when they are at such an obvious advantage against most of their enemies, and Silent Hill delivers a mostly "weird" or "bizarre" atmosphere rather than a scary one.
So what does Slomiany believe the best example of survival-h...
The Silent Hill series has always been known for it's disturbing themes and unique "otherworld" setting, where its main characters are dragged into a world that is either a manifestation of their worst fears, guilts or a reality that they cannot control.
Chris, from Chris's Survival Horror Quest, takes a look at the different Silent Hill "otherworlds", their themes and what they represent.
Go to source for full article.
Japanese horror movies have been gaining notoriety in the West over the last few years, while Japanese horror games have been popular for well over a decade. Games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Fatal Frame, and Siren have all gained a following of fans who have stuck by the series since they were first released.
But what makes them so appealing? Why do Western audiences seem to have more of an interest in Japanese horror games and movies, instead of American ones? And why do so many Jap...
Lack of success is something that Fatal Frame fans have been fearing ever since Fatal Frame IV was announced for the Wii.
But despite the series not continuing on Sony and Microsoft's consoles, most fans hoped that with Nintendo publishing FFIV, the series would at least recieve some much-needed publicity.
But with the game's release set for Summer, fans are starting to worry that it's a little too late for Nintendo to generate any real hype for FFIV, especially for a console that is most...
![Box shot of Silent Hill: Homecoming [North America]](http://i.neoseeker.com/boxshots/R2FtZXMvUGxheXN0YXRpb25fMy9BZHZlbnR1cmUvTXlzdGVyeQ==/silent_hill_homecoming_frontcover_small_J7ITKMAiX4UKrni.jpg)