Working as Intended

Well, time to visit the trainwreck portion of the series, my darlings. Team Silent (or most of it. Akira Yamaoka, who provides the excellent soundtrack, was hired by the other teams for a while) has left the building and now we get to see how the series fares without them.

In short? Not very well.

The next Silent Hill projects aren't terrible, but they're certainly a giant slide in quality and will often forget or drop many of the most important aspects of the series for absolutely no reason, other than the people behind them missing the bloody point. This (at least to me) isn't a case of, "They Changed It Now It Sucks", I more than welcome change in a franchise, it's just that the changes have to be for the better.

Well, let's start off this trip into the source of all this mediocrity.







It's probably worth noting before we start that, in the movie's defense, one of the major problems with it wasn't planned when they sent it into the studio. Annoyingly, the studio took one look at it and went, "Nope. We'll only green-light it if you add this in!" Morons.

Of course that wouldn't save the movie, as it's still a festering pile of Ugh, even if you took that out.

The Silent Hill movie is meant to be based on the first game, which is kind of amusing when you think about it, as it featured almost none of the characters (Alessa being the only one) the backstory is entirely different and the central plot makes no sense and is only very loosely tied to the first game. I don't mind a reshuffling of the story from the game, especially since I found it to be especially doofy and awkward, it's just that they kept the horrible bits about it and changed the good bits to match it.

Not match it from a storytelling perspective, mind, just change it to be equally as stupid.

The movie starts with a woman named Rose Da Silva worrying about her daughter Sharon, who's been frequently spazzing out lately and standing over cliffs at night, which is generally not a normal thing for children to do. She's also been mentioning Silent Hill when in this weird trance-like state. And by mentioning I mean she just screams out, "SILENT HILL! SILENT HILL!" As we'll see, subtley is not to be seen in the same room as this movie. Or even on the same damn continent.

Anyway, Rose and Sharon go to Silent Hill, they crash their car just outside of it, Rose looks for Sharon in much the same way that Harry did Cheryl, and she sooner or later finds herself getting tangled up in the ol' Silent Hill experience.

This is probably the only real highlight of the movie, which is annoying since it only lasts a handful of minutes. Seeing Rose walk down the convincingly empty streets of Silent Hill as fog and ash cloud her view really does give you that sense of being totally alone. Remember this, as pretty much the rest of the movie dedicates itself to ruining that idea.

Also of note in the video are the little grey, burning children near the end. They're our one monster that gets any real symbolism in this movie. Yaaaay! They represent Alessa being burnt as part of the ritual The Order forced her to partake in. Other monsters show up throughout the movie, but they're all either directly taken or heavily based on ones from previous games, so that kinda fucks up the symbolism a bit. Or entirely.

If you watch just that bit of the movie, it actually looks pretty good. Atmospheric and downright unsettling when it needs to be. Like any good Silent Hill. However, all this will be ruined by two things.

1) The story making absolutely no fucking sense.
2) Sean Bean's character.

I'll explain the second point first, because I'm weird like that. Sean Bean's character was the addition mentioned above that the studio demanded be put in. As Rose and Sharon are trapped in Silent Hill with The Order and all the abominations, almost every 10 goddamn minutes we're ripped away from that to scenes showing Rose's husband Chris running around doing things which can only be described as 'totally fucking irrelevant'. His scenes are full of exposition about Silent Hill's past and horrors and whatnot, which not only ruins the mystery and dread behind the town, it also ruins any sense of issolation and fear the viewer could possibly get from the Rose/Silent Hill scenes because THE MOVIE KEEPS TAKING US AWAY FROM IT.

Imagine if in Silent Hill 2 the game randomly went off to show you a scene of, I don't know, a paper bag stuck in James' car every single time something spooky could possibly show up. And these scenes went on for arguably just as long as the actual Silent Hill sections of the Silent Hill title.

The paper bag is probably more interesting and charismatic then Sean Bean's character as well.

Anyway, moving swiftly on (something those scenes certainly don't), Rose finds herself heading to Midwich Elementary School and through her exploring of it (for a whole two minutes) she finds herself getting sucked into the Otherworld, where she encounters Pyramid Head.

Wait, what?




What the fuck is Pyramid Head doing here!? He's the embodiment of both the horrors of the town's past as well as a punisher and sign for James Sunderland's sins. This movie has already stated that Silent Hill's past was more about a coal fire then it was about any dark rituals or Civil War attrocities, and Rose hasn't done anything terrible in her life. So.. uh.. what the fuck are you doing, Mr. P-Head?

Oh, fanservive. Of course..

Mark this moment down, dearies, as this is point where every single Silent Hill project from now on feels it must cater to massive amounts of fanslurping in one way or another.

Ah, crap..

Anyway, long story thankfully less long, Pyramid Head does pretty much nothing of worth except ripping some woman's skin straight off her body, because subtlty is for dickheads apparently, and Rose uncovers the whole ritual bullshit behind The Order and blah, blah, blah we've been here before and it didn't work then either.

The gore and themes are completely over-the-top in sections, the symbolism doesn't make a lick of sense outside of one monster and the story is almost non-existant. The only way you can make sense of the movie is if you've played the game, mostly because the movie kind of doesn't explain almost.. well.. anything.

The only noteworthy parts of the movie are the few minutes I linked to above. Other than that the whole damn thing is just a mess. It's like if the writers and director looked at the game for about four seconds, saw it was really foggy and occasionally hell-ish and went, "BRILLIANT!" and kind of forgot about the whole story, symbolism and subtlty things.

And then they asked the Internet for monster advice, because I'm pretty sure that's the only fucking way Pyramid Head and other Silent Hill 2 monsters made their way into this thing.

Also Pyramid Head needed another yacht, and he's not above whoring himself out to get it.

The Silent Hill movie was not recieved well by critics, people who saw it or anyone who didn't but had a functioning brain anyway. This is worth noting because the next two games will blatantly copy aspects of the movie for some goddamn reason. Apparently someone at Climax Studios and Double Helix liked the movie.

The poor, damned souls.








Silent Hill: Origins, in case the name somehow didn't give it away for you, is a prequel to the series. Not entirely sure why, as Climax Studios doesn't explain anything we didn't already know and essentially has to make up and resolve its own damn story mysteries instead, but whatever, Origins takes place before any of the games. Good-o.

I mentioned a while back that I never finished Origins for one reason or another (mostly I found it boring as all get-out) but I'm pleased to announce that I have now, so I get to blab on pretentiously about it like I have every other title. Y.. Yay?

Origins deals with Travis Grady, a truck driver who gets thrown into the events of Silent Hill because... er... um. He.. just does? He does have his own issues, but if Silent Hill just sucked in everyone who had mild frustrations and troubles in their past then the place would be more packed than a Pyramid Head cosplay convention.

The game goes on about discovering Alessa's past and all that stuff, which is entirely pointless because we already know the important details. Hell the first game in the series did that. I think you're a decade late to the party, Origins.

Oh, wait, we find out in Origins that Alessa once visited a theatre. THIS IS CRUCIAL INFORMATION.

Travis gets a bit of character exploration, but it's extremely half-arsed as well. He discovers that his father commited suicide and his mother went completely insane at some point in his childhood. He fights bosses that embody his parents, as well as Pyramid H-Er.. I, uh, mean The Butcher, kills it and gets over his past. That's about it, really.

Silent Hill: Origins doesn't win any points for story. Or symbolism, as its the same stuff the first two games pulled. Some stuff embodies Alessa's fears while others embody Travis' sexual repression from being a truck driver, as well as other stuff. I have no idea how or why two different people have their monsters invade the same world (especially one Alessa is responsible for), but.. um.. whatever, I suppose. At least it's better than what the movie tried.

Not that that's saying much.

The only moster design I can say I really liked was the Carrion, which had a really unsettling walking animation (pushing itself with its back legs and dragging its head around) and represented the guilt Travis felt for running over animals throughout his career.




The Remnant's weren't too bad either. They were strange female-figured shadows that stalked the Sanitarium and were symbolic of Travis' fears of visiting his mother in the female dorm of the asylum when he was a child.




The story was rather weak, but at least functional, which sadly can't be said for the gameplay. The combat system was entirely ruined by there being breakable weapons. In theory it sounds good, as it might create a scenario where you're being attacked by multiple monsters and you have to rush for a weapon, but you encounter a replacement every couple of minutes, so it's entirely pointless. Its only purpose is to annoy you now, not scare you.

But easily the worst thing about the gameplay is the ability to shift to and from the Otherworld yourself. This.. is just plain retarded. Throughout the series the Otherworld has been something of mystery and panic. You had no real idea what caused it, when it would happen or where you'd be when it did. Hearing the sirens start blaring in the distance and getting the feeling that the town itself was somehow after your blood as well was a fantastic and absolutely dreadful experience. Giving the player control of this, just so they can solve puzzles?

No.

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No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No.












NO!

You.. just don't do that, Origins. You don't! Giving the player control of the one huge mysterious force in a SH game removes pretty much all semblence of tension and fear. What's there to fear if you can just mosey on between worlds whenever you damn well feel like it? It created some mildly interesting puzzles, sure, but you've just completely sacrificed all horror in your horror game to achieve it.

Was it worth it?

Was it really?




Silent Hill: Origins is a rather poor introduction to the Team Silent-less series as we now sadly know it. I commend the developers for wanting to try their own thing with the franchise, but I think they may have skipped over the whole 'making it scary' thing. Which is.. kind of a problem. It also doesn't help that it didn't explain the origins of anything important the first game in the franchise didn't already tell us about.

I'm not entirely sure why Konami didn't move Climax Studios onto the next game in the series, except possibly for the reasons above (but that doesn't seem likely, as they let them take a crack at Silent Hill: Shattered Memories a few years later, so..). But whatever the case it was time for the series to leap to the next generation of consoles, and it was up to Double Helix to try and renew faith in this now shaky franchise. Could they do it?

Well...








Yes, and no.

Silent Hill: Homecoming returns (mostly) to the functional, but intentionally poor, gameplay and good storytelling the series is very well known for. However, sadly it trips and fails to an almost magnificently stupid degree over the whole 'actually being scary' part.

Let's just get this out of the way right now, Homecoming absolutely fails at setting you up for caring about the characters and making you dread the unknown. Within about four minutes of playing the game you'll be sucked into the Otherworld and stabbing Nurses in the face with a knife. Proper pacing and subtlty are not welcome in this game. At least as far as gameplay is concerned.

Who are you playing as? Why are you in an abandoned hospital? Why the fuck are there monsters about? The game answers none of these during the starting bits of the game and it drags the whole experience down because you know the only reason they designed it this way was because they wanted to appease the rabid fanbase by going, "LOOK! MONSTERS AND CRAZY STUFF. SEE?! THIS IS SILENT HILL! SEE?!?!"

Also equally possible is that they figured most survival horror fans must be fucking retarded and want crazy shit immediately. Nevermind that the actually successful Silent Hill games all took their time setting you up for the mind-fucks. Nope, we're having none of that in this game!

You really get the feeling that Homecoming is trying way too hard to be like the Team Silent titles. It throws all the old staples of the series at you within the first dozen minutes and figures it can get around to the whole characters and story aspect later on when it feels like it.

Sorry, Homecoming, but that's not how shit works around these parts. The player can't be scared if you don't properly put them in the right mood for it. Throwing spooooooky things at them just doesn't work.



Just watching that, did you feel scared? Most likely not. Well that's just how the player feels, because they have had barely any control over the game yet and they don't know what the frig is going on. You have to create atmosphere first, game!

On the plus side, Silent Hill: Homecoming does have a mostly pretty darn good story full of foreshadowing and symbolism. There is a bit of problem with some of the symbolism, but I'll get around to that in a bit.

In Homecoming you play as Alex Shepherd, who is returning to his hometown following a supposed discharge from the military and after spending some time in hosptial. If you've played a Silent Hill game before you can probably guess what the plot-twist is just from the first sentence alone, but the game does a decent enough job of hiding it until the end.

As you make your way through the game you uncover the history of Alex's hometown and why it is connected to Silent Hill. Specifically the founding fathers of the town split from Silent Hill 150 years ago, yet kept the same traditions and beliefs of The Order (yes, them again..) To appease their God and delay the spread of 'the darkness' each founding family would have to sacrifice their first-born child in some way. However on the 150th year someone failed in sacrificing their child and the effects of the Otherworld have started to seep outwards.

I have no idea if this was the intention, but since the prescene of the Otherworld only really came into prominence since Alessa triggered it, it may have been that the founding families who believed in The Order were simply batshit insane, and the timing of the Otherworld creeping over Alex's hometown and the sacrifice of his generation going wrong was simply just a coincidence.

Anyway, the second plot for the game focuses around Alex himself, and trying to find his brother Joshua. This is where the rather obvious, but still not glaringly so, plot-twist mentioned above comes in. It turns out that Alex has never been in the military at all, and has been in an mental institution for the past five years following the death of Joshua, which Alex was somewhat responcible for. It's a pretty standard twist, but still a good one.

Especially so when you watch the second last cutscene of the game (the one that reveals that Josh died and how) and look at the watch that Alex's father is wearing. It says its 2:06am. Throughout the game the number 206 appears quite a number of times, including every single clock in the game to be stuck at that time. Which makes sense, considering that it was at that time Alex became so struck with grief over accidently killing Joshua.

I have to say finding out that Alex was meant to be the sacrifice for his family this generation, but it 'failed' because Joshua died instead, and the reason Alex's parents were always so cold to him was because they couldn't bear to love him, knowing that they'd have to sacrifice him one day is actually a really good story piece. Hints to the sacrifice and Alex's subconcious knowledge of it are all throughout the game.

Like how each of the first three bosses represents the other children this generation who had to be sacrificed, and how their families went about unfortunately doing it.


: Sepulcher :


The representation of Joey Bartlett, who was buried alive in a bag. Sepulcher rises out of the ground where Joey was killed and is surrounded by, and originally enclosed in, a giant flesh-like sack. On top of that, Sepulcher kills Mayor Bartlett when he first appears, making the allusion of it to Joey quite clear.



: Scarlet :


The most obvious of the allusions, if only because Dr. Fitch's daughter was also called Scarlet, so.. yeah. Fitch sacrificed Scarlet by dismembering her, which also comes through when fighting her, as each melee strike you cause creates those disturbingly large gashes on the porcelain-like body, which also is meant to symbolize Scarlet's love of her collection of dolls.



: Asphyxia :


The name and appearance of the monster symbolize how Nora Holloway died. She was, obviously, stranged to death. The multitude of grappling arms and tortured animation of Asphyxia show how Nora was restrained and mudered.

To no surprise, one of Asphyxia's attacks involves strangling Alex.


A reference to the deaths that many probably didn't catch, or did but it was too early on for them to remember/put the pieces together was that in the very first cutscene of the game you see Alex being carried past multiple rooms. The events of each room represent how the three other children were killed. One room has someone being pushed into a hole, another has a child lying on a table and someone coming at them with a sharp instrument, and the final room has someone being chocked to death.

It's not Silent Hill 2 levels of foreshadowing and subtlty, but its still a pretty impressive piece of planning. Even if nothing else about that section makes much sense and is poorly paced.

However, the story does lose points by symbolism being a bit scattered when it comes to regular monsters. The original monsters for the story all fit the bill rather nicely, but then, like the movie, there's the problem of the monsters taken from other games (including Pyramid Head AGAIN). How do they fit in? Where's the symbology behind that?

Sadly there isn't much. If any. They're just there for fanservice.




He needed another yacht, you see.

Well the story holds up pretty well, but how does the gameplay?

Oh, it doesn't.

As mentioned before the pacing is all over the place, at least for the first half of the game. It throws all its card onto the table immediately and goes, "SEE?! SEE?! I'M A REAL SILENT HILL TOO, YOU KNOW!" Yes, yes, that's nice, dear. But could you please have proper pacing? It also doesn't help that each new monster is introduced by a very over-the-top cutscene, as if the game's actually screaming, "LOOK AT THAT THING OH MY GOD IT'S SO SCARY PLEASE BE SCARED NOW PLEASE AHHHHHHH"

No, it doesn't work that way.

The scariest thing about new enemies in previous games was that you'd just run straight into them 90% of the time. There were no cutscenes, no really obviously freaked-out soundtrack. You'd just be walking down a hallway or into a room and see one of these new abominations twitching and stalking its way over to you. Usually at an alarmingly quick rate.

Throwing around cutscenes of introducing the monsters isn't as effective. We can't control a cutscene, so we feel no real tension. At least not in comparison to stumbling across them ourselves.

Neither, for that matter, is forcing the player to fight every single monster. Now, to be fair, the combat system is pretty decent for this title, unlike Origins. However, running from a monster is almost never an option in Homecoming. Or at least not a terribly smart one. The game pits you into combat with so many monsters over the 12 or so hours that they.. well, they just stop being scary after the first or second skirmish.

They're freaky-looking, sure, but once you've seen them up close over a dozen times, know their attack patterns and that they'll almost always crawl out of a hole in the ground when you walk near, as opposed to always being in the room/hallway just waiting for you, you don't feel scared. They become nothing more than an obstacle to you. Which completely undoes their entire friggin' purpose in the series.

Marks for effort, Homecoming, but please work on the execution.

Actually the only enemy I really found scary were The Order Soldiers after the half-way point in the game. This is when Homecoming finally finds its groove. Everything slows down and the game lets you get absorbed in the atmosphere and progressively darker settings it sends you towards. Then, with absolutely no warning, strange helmeted people start showing up with weapons, waiting to bash your head in. There's no warning and no massive cutscene to alert you to their presence.

They don't even register on the radio, so you're always listening out for them. You'll never know where they really are for certain until you can see them or they attack you from behind.

Fantastic!

The moments when you first encounter them kind of throw your brain into a loop, which is how monsters and areas should be reacted to when you first find them in a Silent Hill title. Sadly, however, the game starts throwing too many of them at you near the very end and they stop being scary.

Oh well.

All in all I'd rank Silent Hill: Homecoming at.. just a bit under Silent Hill 4. Both have, for different reasons, rather terrible gameplay, but their stories and overall atmosphere (once Homecoming figures out what the frig it wants to do finally) are just as good as the rest of the series. If Double Helix could calm themselves down and stop trying too hard I'd happily let them take another crack at the series.



While there are other Silent Hill games in the series (Shattered Memories for the Wii/PS2/PSP, The Escape for the iPhone, ect) I either don't have access to the systems they're playable on, or they're not available down here. Hell, the only way you could find an in-store copy of Shattered Memories was to pre-order it, as they never produced any more copies after that.

That's just friggin' weak.

In any case, I hope reading my rather pretentious opinions on the Silent Hill series was at least somewhat interesting. There's a new title being announced at E3 in a few days, so let's hope its a return to form for this once-brilliant (and still potentially so) franchise!