Silent Hill 2 Remake

[OCH]

 

[Nag]

Have Bloober made any games featuring combat before? I've only played a couple of their games and one of those I gave up with because, in my opinion, it was shit... so their track record (for me at least) doesn't fill me with confidence.

 

I want this to be great though, I remember the original version scaring the shit out of me on the PS2.

[DANGERMAN]

I don't think so. I've not played Blair Witch of Layers 2, but the first Layers of Fear didn't have any. Observer had stealth sections but no combat that I remember

[Nag]

Blair Witch is the game I gave up on... the only other game of theirs I've played is The Medium which was fine (but no combat)

 

Think I have Layers of Fear on Xbox or PlayStation from when it was given away but I've never gotten round to it.

[DANGERMAN]

I liked Layers of Fear. I can see why people wouldn't but it's well made and quite clever, there's a lot of games that have copied it though

[one-armed dwarf]

This is all I know about layers of fear

 

 

The trailer for this remake looks fine though. I've no worries about combat cause it's kinda supposed to suck in a SH game anyway, hope they don't do pyramid head stealth stuff tho

 

[HandsomeDead]

I think SH2 was one of the last PS2 games I played through because it doesn't feel that long ago I last played it, it must have been 8 years which I guess is a pretty long time.  I really liked it, and this was the first time I got all the way through it.

 

It's always going to be a hard one to remake because there is a some of it that was a happy accident and just being a product of its time that fans are attached to and not something you can replicate and these are the things that really give it it's identity.

 

To be honest I feel this way about the RE4 remake as well but whether fair or not I don't think SH2 remake will be given as much benefit of the doubt, it could be because Konami haven't built up the good will like Capcom did with their recent RE output.  I hope it turns out well, from what they've shown I can't say it doesn't look the part.  Fingers crossed I guess.

[DisturbedSwan]

Super fucking hyped!

[one-armed dwarf]

The other thing is that SH2 is largely a game that is carried by its style and level of execution in its story telling, rather than gameplay like Resident Evil. Which puts bloober in an interesting spot here. Whatever your thoughts about The Medium the game looked great, except for the facial animations being wooden (which clearly isn't a problem here). The other thing though is that structurally and level design wise the game was sort of rubbish, but Konami apparently have this team on a tight leash to more or less keep the original approach intact.

 

So it might actually work out really well, even if some of the scenes might be laying James' internal conflict on a little thick (will people work out what is going on before the end of the game?). But that last thing is something we need to give them a bit of benefit of the doubt over also as it's kinda just the way you cut up a modern trailer

 

People have really strong opinions on SH2 tho, I think next to FFVII Remake it will end up being maybe the most hyper scrutinised remake ever made. Not for completely unjustifiable reasons either as the original was this slightly off lofi looking Twin Peaks kind of story, with weird characters having strange reactions that somehow worked within the context of everything that was going on. The level of detail possible on PS2 was good enough to get across what is was going for while at the same time being of a low enough fidelity to leave things suggested rather than explained. This game will not be that, it's going for a hyper level of detail and expression but probably at the sacrifice of some of the hugely intriguing ambiguity the original had. Particularly wrt the character performances and motion capture. But I don't know you could do the exact same thing successfully anyway, and to be honest it might be interesting to see a slightly different style cause the original is still the original

[OCH]

21 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

This game will not be that, it's going for a hyper level of detail and expression but probably at the sacrifice of some of the hugely intriguing ambiguity the original had. Particularly wrt the character performances and motion capture.

That is a concern. For example, it was left open to interpretation in-game if anyone besides James is even real IE Laura.

Meanwhile, everything from the character interplay, to the uncanny valley VO was an intentional design choice, in the original. Which is one of the reasons the "new" VO from the HD Collection failed so badly. 

[AndyKurosaki]

I’d be hyped if it was a team that I actually trusted to do this justice. Blair Witch was shite. Medium was shite. So my expectations for this are spectacularly low. As in “wait for the reviews”. 

[OCH]

Ultimately it's not Team Silent. So to me, it doesn't really matter who any of these devs are. As opposed to who they aren't. I am hesitant to buy into any of them for that reason. The last handful of released Silent Hill games give credence to my caution.

[AndyKurosaki]

Silent Hill went completely off the rails after The Room. So as much as I love SH2, it’s one of the best games ever made, I’ve zero hype for this. 
I’d love for the Remaster to get it right, and bring a classic game to a whole new audience. But the Blooper team games I’ve played have been frigging awful. So I’ve no confidence they can pull this off.

 

I really, genuinely hope they prove me wrong. Guess we will find out.

[Snaggletooth]

Never played a bloober game, but hoping given the source material already exists that shouldnt be too bad. 

 

Always going to keep an open mind and a modest amount of excitement for it. 

 

And worst case the original will always exist. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Personally, I think the game shouldn't be dismissed outright because of the developer. I get the negativity associated to Bloober Team, I was also down on the prospect of a Bloober SH when @one-armed dwarf was saying about those rumours this year (or the year before?) but yeah, it's one of the greatest games of all time in my view and I never finished the OG way back in the day so this Remake will hopefully give the series a new chance to shine. I'm just so pleased SH is back that a mobile developer or something could be at the helm and I'd still be excited at the prospect of returning to that world.

 

I also didn't like Blair Witch but I thought The Medium was pretty good, which has given me more confidence at Bloober handling this. I've not played either of the Layers of Fear games though. 

 

But yeah, it's fucking SILENT HILL back from the dead after 10 years, what's not to get hyped about really. I get it didn't look as polished as something like REmake 4 and Bloober aren't really a AAA developer but until we see gameplay I don't really see what's not get hyped about at this stage. 

[Snaggletooth]

I think id be more concerned if konami were developing them selves

[OCH]

4 minutes ago, Snaggletooth said:

I think id be more concerned if konami were developing themselves

Do they have anyone in-house anymore?

[Snaggletooth]

Yeah making pachininko and nursing supplies 🤣

[AndyKurosaki]

16 hours ago, DisturbedSwan said:

Personally, I think the game shouldn't be dismissed outright because of the developer. I get the negativity associated to Bloober Team, I was also down on the prospect of a Bloober SH when @one-armed dwarf was saying about those rumours this year (or the year before?) but yeah, it's one of the greatest games of all time in my view and I never finished the OG way back in the day so this Remake will hopefully give the series a new chance to shine. I'm just so pleased SH is back that a mobile developer or something could be at the helm and I'd still be excited at the prospect of returning to that world.

 

I also didn't like Blair Witch but I thought The Medium was pretty good, which has given me more confidence at Bloober handling this. I've not played either of the Layers of Fear games though. 

 

But yeah, it's fucking SILENT HILL back from the dead after 10 years, what's not to get hyped about really. I get it didn't look as polished as something like REmake 4 and Bloober aren't really a AAA developer but until we see gameplay I don't really see what's not get hyped about at this stage. 

That’s a fair point. I am disappointed that it’s Bloober team, based on their previous track record. But having said that, it’s not fair to write this off completely. I’ve seen people say things like “It’s going to absolutely suck”. We dont know that, nobody does.

 

And it’s not as if a team known for making bad games can’t redeem itself. I forget what team it was, but they made the absolutely bloody awful Rambo game on PS3. So when I heard they were making a Terminator game, I had little faith in it. Yet that actually turned out to be pretty damn good. 
 

Silent Hill is long overdue some love. And as much as Konami can be a pack of wankers, they know how beloved SH2 is. So you’d think they’d want it to do the previous game justice. 
 

I genuinely hope that they manage to pull this off. And I’m not against them making changes to put their own spin on it. Ultimately, even a “good” SH game at this stage, will be a breath of fresh air.

[DisturbedSwan]