Silent Hill film

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

Yeah, IIRC RE came out late in 96 and RE2 was in late 98 (I think I'm going off PAL releases here). I think SH came out early 99 and RE3 came out during 99 as well. So already by around the time of the first SH release there were 3 RE games (that's why there are so many more different RE games than SH ones).

In fact in some parts of the world SH was banned originally because it was deemed so shocking. Obviously it's quite tame if you look back now. Would be funny if it had been possible for SH4 to have been released around that time, the uproar may have been crazy.

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

The US version of SH1 came out in April (or possibly just before) of 1999. The japanese version of SH1 had babies as baddies in the school section but were edited for the US and PAL release to look more like 'aliens'. The only other apparent change I know of is that in the US version you can apparently increase the bullet adjust to X9 by constantly playing the same save file over and over. The PAL verion maxed at 6 apparently, once for each ending and I think once for getting 10 stars (not confirmed though).

I remember PAL RE1 'cut to ribbons version'came out in the Summer of 1996, the US version came out in March time. The title screen was edited with the bullshit 'bloodsplash' was Chris was 'attacked', the opening titles were in colour instead of Black and White(could someone confirm this? I heard they couldn't be arsed converting it to Colour cos of the NTSC/PAL translation, could just be a rumour?) and the hand scene was uncut. Also the infamous eating scene after the dining room was uncut and you could see the head roll after it was bit off.

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

LOL you've got to love European/PAL releases, we get shafted at every turn: Games delayed by months, some games never coming out, games edited, the 50hz/60hz PAL/NTSC debacle, random differences between versions etc...

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

Yeah yeah, so down to the real question...

How many of you would stick your hand in a murky toilet? /versus/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

[ QUOTE ]
LM_Akira said:

LOL you've got to love European/PAL releases, we get shafted at every turn: Games delayed by months, some games never coming out, games edited, the 50hz/60hz PAL/NTSC debacle, random differences between versions etc...

[/ QUOTE ]

Silent Hill 3 came out in Europe first though. It's not always bad.

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

SH2.
The plot and the interesting and varied NPC's I really liked. The endings are brilliant. However has a survival horror game its terrible. Has a Silient hill branded survival horror its the weakest gameplay out of SH 1-3.
Why? Its far too easy. Its embarassingly easy. 90% of the games enemies seem to be formed by 3 monsters, they are 3 of the most useless enemies in any survival game ever.

The monsters in question: The zombie a slow moving creature with a god awful weak 'spray' attack. I was terrified at first when a grounded zombie started to quickly scurry across the ground, then it dawned on me that they can't attck while doing this, they have to get up and resume their slow ambling useless selves first. 3 bullets 1 stamp NEVER a problem.
The mannequin: UGH! so dam slow. To be fair their attack is fairly powerful but you always meet them in 'statue' mode doing fuck all, with a sign saying "please shoot to wake up". 2(!)-3 shoots 1 stamp. The other 30% better be a fucking titan right?
The Nurse: FACT SH2 has by far the easiest nurses in any of the silient hill games I've played. LM Akira can you confirm or deny that the nurses in SH2 never run (or use the fast walk) like they do in 1 and 3. Anyhow once again slow, I've lost count on the number of times a nurse starts to amble towards james, loses interest and ambles away from him WTF! They constantly swing from outside their attack range. 3 bullets 1 stamp.

Why have I not mention the closer type monsters on the underside of the metal grates? well whichever clever cunt decided to put them on the wrong side of grate should have known that all survival horror players are going to ignore something which so obviously was no threat. Cockroches? there is about 5 in game isn't there? If ever a monster was begging to be ignored this is one of them. Learnt that from the first game.

So there you have 90% of the 'in your way so shoot me' enemies. 3 bullets 1 stamp.
It gets worse though. The only survival horror game that i've played that's has generous with ammo has SH2 is RE2.

Early in the game you get a safe combination (for a survival horror fan completely checking a room/are is standard) I was surprised that the safe provided ammo. The same guy that decided to put ammo in the safe and an enemy under the grates also thought it would be cool to put yet more ammo and health items in box that can be opened by answering 3 childishly simple questions (in a game with brilliant puzzles) what do you get? 5 boxes of shotgun shells and 2 ampoules! The street areas stuffed full of ammo. After a light to dark transition (to call it a nightmare version of an area is a joke) an ammo fairy comes round and helpfully restocks the streets etc! but with much better ammo! Because, well you know how tough, fast and remorseless the previously mentioned useless 3 are right? To be honest the 1stgame also had lots to collect in the street areas, not has much, but hand gun ammo was worth more per box in the 1st game. But the first game had a lot of very fast, very tough enemies. You'd have to run the length of a street to shake some of them and even then often that didn't work. SH2 is a walk in the park in comparison a fucking disgrace. However the optimist in me collected the ammo I was sure that the game would throw up a tough fast enemy, that would have me wildly using my ammo reserves. And it never happend until it was far too late. By then ,largely due to the useless 3, I had around 200 hand gun bullets 120 shotgun shells and 60 rifle bullets. This on my first play through. There was only six of the tough enemy (the doorman).

The only time I recall being that disappointed in the difficulty level of a survival horror game was the RE2 A scenarios.
I never got to use my first aid kits or ampoules, didn't need to. Health drinks were enough because of how easy the games was. The final huge disappointment? The complete lack of true nightmare areas. Man I hated that. It drained the game of the already tiny fear factor. 1 and 3 had superb nightmare areas (the 1st game had the memorable cutscene where the town changes to the nightmare town before your eyes) 2 had none. This one thing above all others gives the silient hill games thier uniqueness and they didn't bother. The plot and NPC's and pyramid head really saved this train wreck of a survival horror.

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

LONG LIVE CONEHEAD!!!

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

pyramid/cone head's fatality in that film is da lick! /versus/images/graemlins/lol.gif

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

Pyramid Head dies in the film? (still not seen it).

Jeez I hate this bs, it shouldn't even be in the film at all, it's got nothing to do with SH or SH3, it's a figment of James' imagination, like Maria and the letter from Mary.

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

Yeah, but Conehead is the best enemy Silent Hill has ever created, of course it is going to be in the film...

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

My favourite boss is the pointless Huge Maggot in SH1 (JOKE LOL).

Pyramid Head is a cool boss, this is true, but wrong for the Storyline of SH1, a SH2 film would be so cool IMHO though.

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

Yeah but don't forget there were TWO Pyramid Heads at the end of SH2. One each for the murders James commited: Mary and Eddie. And James didn't (couldn't) kill them, they killed themselves.

You can't just slap together a "best of" collection of monsters into a game-to-film conversion and hope no one will notice the flaws. Just like the bs in RE:Apocalypse. Why not throw in the serial killer victims from SH4 like the Double Heads or Ghosts or even Little Walter for the hell of it?

I should be seeing it tomorrow night with a mate so I'll be able to make some more constructive comments then.

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

Sorry for the double post but this way seemed the best to reply to Madin.

Yes, some of the monster in SH2 may not really compare to those in the other games but are you aware that they may not strictly be monsters? Like in SH3 Vincent seems suprised that Heather sees the creatures as monsters. "They look like monsters to you?" And in SH2, Angela keeps mistaking James for her father...i.e. when she sees James, she sees her father sometimes (note her actual father appears as a "Bed monster", how could her father be a monster?). So the question is, are these really monsters or are these just the things that the character sees as monsters (i.e. the place of SH messing with their heads)?

I think this whole idea was played out more in SH2 than the others (in SH4 they clearly are monsters because the realms you enter are constructs of a serial killers mind...so these are monsters and ghosts etc of his past, hence why they reside there in this Other World).

Like you say, the monsters stand around and populate the streets and buildings just hanging around...but isn't this what normal people would be doing? What if these monsters are in fact normal every day people wandering around and James is seeing them as monsters and killing them all?

In the very first scene of the game where you get the plank with a nail in it and the static comes on, does the monster do anything really threating to James or does it just amble forward towards him? (besides a little spray of acid maybe)

If you have a problem with the difficulty then I'd suggest playing on Hard or Extreme modes. I have personally found there to be too much ammo in nearly all survival horror games on easy settings. In fact I've done Real Survivor with Chris and Jill on RE remake and still had a decent amount of ammo left over at the end.

If you want fast and unrelenting monsters in a SH game, play SH4 on hard and watch the dogs out chase you and never give up.

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

saw the film last weekend. i thought it was pretty good up until the point where she meets the church members. pointless cliched grey haired cult worshipers who mumble random bollocks. they should have kept things surreal and developed the private journey of the main character instead of introducing the coven crap.

also thought the burning of the cop was distasteful and unecessary.

 

Yeah, I had heard there was inclusion of the SH cult in the film...which again goes against what happens in the game story as the cult is supposed to have died out by the time of Harry Mason, with only a few hardcore cultists continuing in their worship of Samael etc (e.g. Dahlia, Vincent, Jasper).

You've hit the nail on the head there, the SH games are all about personal journies made by the lead character, that's what the emphasis is always on in the plotline.

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

I found silent hill 3 quite difficult. At the last boss I kept running out of health and ammo! I think the only reason I clocked the game is because it went into easy mode. I found normal difficulty in SH3 more difficult than hard in SH2. My ideal silent hill game would be a mix of SH2 plot and SH3 difficulty.
Losing the rifle for the submahine gun was bad. Only getting 2 clips,dam SH3 is mean. Nurses with revolvers? Theres alot of very memorable monsters in SH3.
I've not had a chance to play SH4,what is your view on it?

 

Re: Res Evil/Silent Hill

About the Silent Hill 3 last boss - there is actually a really good strategy for attacking her with the maul or katana. You just have to get the timing down for avoiding the fire and you're good.

 

Silent Hill 4

For me, SH4 has the best and deepest SH storyline around, the onleything it is left down by is some frustrtaing parts in later sections of the game.

Story wise it is more like SH2 than SH or SH3 but that doesn't really say much abiut the story. The overall enemy of the piece is a serial killer named Walter Sullivan (mentioned in the elavator quiz in SH2) and if you've ever seen The Cell (with J Lo) you'll have some idea what to expect from the game.

The locales you visit are all classic SH type places and all are intrinsically linked with the history of Walter Sullivan, as are pretty much all the monster you will fight. There are some vicious monsters at that and some can never be killed, only stopped in their tracks with a specific weapon.

Oh and the crux of the piece is that through nearly all the game you're not actually in SH, rather an alternate amalgamation of SH based places.

If I said anymore I'd probably ruin the story for you.

 

Re: Silent Hill 4

I was never too keen on the sequels, for me the first Silent Hill remains the best of the bunch. The simplicity of the story involving a father trying to find his daughter in a deserted fog enshrined town was brilliant. If you’re doing surreal horror the less plot detail the better…..that’s what made it so captivating, it was like some sort of Dali’esque dream and never tried to rationalize itself with overblown plots like the sequels did. Harry Mason was also the strongest character, because he had a sort of natural dorky weakness about him. I think they tried to make the subsequent heroines more action hero like, which spoiled the atmosphere a bit.

There was also a good balance between exploring the town streets and underground sections in the first game. Running from the creatures who chased you in the foggy streets would lead you to perceived sanctuary in some building or other….but things would only get worse as you discovered the horrors therein.

Who can forget that section of the game set in the school? Jesus, I very nearly shat my breeks playing through that. All those shambling blind creatures that reacted to your flashlight….leaving you with the unsavory choice of seeing where you’re going and getting attacked or stumbling around blind in a freaky building.

 

Re: Silent Hill 4

I have to agree, the school section was genius, I bet the unedited Japanese version 'school kid' baddies would have made it even scarier though. The section that got me in the gut was the hospital section. At the time I was a hospital porter and was on night shifts, where the hospital was empty 99% of the time and it spooked the living crap out of me.

What really topped off SH1 was the UFO ending. This has to be THE best ending to a game for me personally in a LONG time. OK, it wasn't related to the story, but the fact it juxatposed everything in the game and the single fact it was a pain the arse to get working added to the mystery of it.

Looking back, the graphics of the game are REALLY dated, and I would personally love a remake maybe in a few years (for 10th anniversary maybe) with updated graphics etc.

As a whole, I have (and always will love) the SH series, it always try's something Capcom wouldn't and I guess some people LOVE the series or HATE it. I have never heard someone say, 'Silent Hill, yeah, it's alright I suppose'. LOL.