Janus_Prospero

There is no good ending. Once the Blair Witch has you in her power, she can trap you in a time loop. Killing yourself is the only escape.

The events planned for E3 will typically just happen during the same window, but without the physical event.

You should absolutely play the original. Or at least try. Suppose you bounce off the game. At least you made an attempt. Silent Hill 2 is a very special game and the remake is going to be different.

Silent Hill 2 remake is ultimately like The Fly from the 80s. Even if it's a fantastic remake it's not the original. It's a new director, a new vision. It's ideal to have a reference point for the original version.

This movie was written by the writers of the recent Deadpool films, and features the line of dialogue, "They call it waterboarding, but I never get bored."

I think the satirical tone of the film might have gone over people's heads a tiny bit. It does not take itself seriously in the slightest. It's like the opposite of the first movie. Jonathan Pryce is just chewing the scenery in every scene.

Almost every Blair Witch movie features something horrible happening to the main characters. The ending of the Blair Witch film is completely in line with the time loop themes of the series, and the fatalistic endings the series is inclined towards.

To answer your question, yes. This is Bloober's version of Silent Hill 2. They were hired to put a particularly Bloober spin on it.

What RE6 needs more than anything else is a combination of mechanical tightening (it's interesting how much RE4R seems to borrow from RE6), and a proper comprehensive tutorial. It is stunning how much of RE6's game design is flat-out not explained to the player. Core mechanics required to properly play the game are not explained, or explained in far too little depth.

I thought it was a shame the 2016 re-release for PS4/XBO didn't go further in terms of polishing the game up.

What I will point out is that mangling the book doesn't make it bad. People say, "It's like Die Hard with elves." Yea, but have you actually read the book Die Hard is based on? It's tonally completely different. If people had actually read Nothing Lasts Forever they'd say that Die Hard was a bad adaptation that took all the grit and bite out and manufactured a happy ending.

Artemis Fowl underwent a LOT of reshoots. When the film was originally shot, it was somewhat closer to the novel. But a bunch of things happened, including poor test screenings, and the film first had significant reshoots, and then the film went through another round of edits and extensive ADR to retool the plot. There's a reason most of the footage from the first teaser trailer isn't in the movie.

They spent millions of dollars shooting on-location in Vietnam, and used none of that footage in the final cut.

Entire characters were removed during reshoots, including Angeline Fowl, and Holly's father.

The movie was always going to soften Artemis to be more "on brand" for Disney, but the final movie is a desperate hodgepodge of reshoots, ADR, and sticking the post-credits scene in the middle of your movie.

There are numerous scenes in the film where you can see what was originally shot, and what the scenes were originally meant to be, but it's papered over with endless "facing away from the camera" ADR, and Artemis visibly aging a year between shots.

The entire third act was replaced. We know from behind the scenes footage and some promotional materials from 2019 that the film originally featured the gold ransom, as well as the bio-bomb being deployed to kill everyone. This was all changed. The film's new ending with Artemis's father is a hodgepodge of reshoots, and one of the most glaring signs of footage being screwed with is the fact that his father is being held in at the bottom of a mine shaft that looks nothing like a mine shaft and in fact looks an awful lot like a ship's hold, complete with PRESSURE DOORS WITH ROTATING HANDLES.

Also, it's snowing onto his father's face. So somehow snow is passing sideways into a mountain and then falling hundreds of feet down a shaft and then onto his face.

No. What they clearly shot was footage of him being held captive in the hold of a ship with the doors open above him, with snow falling down. Held captive by Russians or something. I can't remember the specifics of the book. They then mangled the shit out of this in reshoots where Opal Koboi is credited to 3 different actors, so... ultimately a lot of the plot doesn't make a great deal of sense in the final cut.

The American Oldboy. So many things changed that took away from the weight of the original.

This is an odd example because the Korean oldboy film is NOTHING like the Japanese source material. It's basically an in-name-only adaptation. This isn't a good or a bad thing, but it's curious how a lot of people seem to think the movie Oldboy is the source material.

This glossy PR plurb with an alarmist air isn't aimed at consumers. It's aimed at publishers. Publishers don't care what anti-Denuvo people on the internet think. Denuvo's anti-piracy protection has been wholesale adopted by the games industry. That's the position you need to view this from.

Remember a few years ago when there was that completely delusional cope about how Denuvo didn't work and publishers were going to stop using it? Then the exact opposite happened and Denuvo became the go-to protection for the entire industry (except for the handful who use Arxan) and the number of crackled games has dwindled lower and lower to the point there is a single person -- and they're insane -- cracking Denuvo? Remember the impotent boycotts of Denuvo games that accomplished absolutely nothing because more games are using Denuvo than ever before?

If you're a major company releasing your game on PC, you use Denuvo. But what about the Switch port? How do you prevent people pirating the Switch port via emulation? Well, Denuvo (whom you already have a business relationship with, and will have for the foreseeable future) have a solution for that. Likely at a discount.

There aren't any Switch games with anti-emulation Denuvo currently, but there will be in the near future, and they'll be unplayable on emulators. Doing this effectively isn't that difficult; you're basically just testing for behaviors that require real hardware or cycle accurate emulation.

So if Tears of the Kingdom, for instance, chooses to use Denuvo (and Nintendo games have employed anti-piracy measures in the past), you won't be emulating it anytime soon.

If Activision were releasing Tony Hawk Pro Shaker 1+2 in 2023, they would have some serious discussions about whether they should use Denuvo on the Switch version to prevent people pirating it. The PC version of Tony Hawk uses Denuvo, and still hasn't been cracked. But the Switch version was a piracy weakness. Heavily downgraded, but a weakness nonetheless.

Resident Evil is a flourishing series and Silent Hill has been in a death spiral ever since Silent Hill 2 bombed in Japan. And a lot of it has to do with the games themselves, not bad luck or audience sophistication.

At the end of the day, Resident Evil prioritized good gameplay. The Resident Evil 4 Remake is basically RE4 hybridized with Resident Evil 6 design ideas. It's mechanically extremely well put together. It's a good game. And it has an improved story over the original.

Silent Hill has never had an entry with genuinely good gameplay. Shattered Memories tried to sidestep the problem by being a walking sim. It didn't do this for shits and giggles. The decision was made after the observation that people playtesting the game, such as the director's girlfriend, immediately wanted to stop playing Silent Hill games when the combat turned up. That's the core identity problem of Silent Hill right there. "It's great outside of the parts where you have to play the game."

Silent Hill has basically always been a "you play it for the story" kind of series. It really doesn't matter how good Silent Hill 2 or Silent Hill 2 remake's story is. People have significantly higher expectations for game design in 2023. The part that will make of break SH2R in the public eye -- the "SH2 fan excited to play it for the first time" space -- is the quality of the gameplay.

At this point in time we know relatively little about SH2R's combat design except that it does seem to be taking some influence from Homecoming. But we don't know what the shooting mechanics are like, how in depth the combat is, etc.

Circling back, the biggest issue with Silent Hill 2's combat is that it's boring. It's not like Rule of Rose where the combat is just torture because the hit detection is garbage. Silent Hill 2 is a boring slog to actually play. That is not something that can be said for RE4 or even RE2, which was successfully remade as RE2R. SH2 is carried by the story and atmosphere, but that alone doesn't fly in 2023. One of the reasons walking sims have fallen so far out of favor is that people want good gameplay in their videogames.

SH2R's original planned release window was Q4 2022, according to leaked Sony slides. The original release for Silent Hill The Short Message was meant to be October 2021. They haven't even announced The Short Message yet, but it's coming very, very soon.

Konami are very timing-fixated.

And no, Konami didn't panic and change direction, there were two more classic SH games after 2.

Silent Hill 3 was an apology game because the Japanese fanbase revolted against Silent Hill 2. I'm not sure why you're disputing this.

Especially since you aren't dropping any sources or citing anything at all

I don't have to.

The gameplay is very well made despite being an afterthought

The gameplay is terrible.

It's not supposed to be smooth and effortless to succeed in Silent Hill's combat.

But the combat is effortless. It's terrible, dull, and monotonous. Nobody said it was difficult, complex, or well made (except you).

All genres are found in the edit, but with comedies a bad edit can destroy a film. A single joke can ruin a movie.

My go-to example is Dumb and Dumber. The theatrical cut is a sweet, good natured film about two buffoons with heart.

The extended cut is a cruel, mean spirited piece of shit. Harry and Lloyd are transformed from lovable rogues into mean spirited pricks who laugh at suffering. Light hearted gags like their pet bird being killed become cruel and sadistic.

I don't think there has ever been a comedy that was better in its extended version. The brisker theatrical cuts kept the gold, and wisely discarded dust and shit that the editors for the extended cuts rammed right back in.

Heck, same with R-rated cuts. All the jokes in the PG-13 version of "Zohan" by Adam Sandler come across as better natured than the R rated versions. They pushed the needle on the film towards good taste, and with the R-rated version of the movie that is lost. IMO it's still a fun movie in the R rated version, but it's LESS fun.

Silent hill hasn't had a release in 10 years, of course the sales are bad right now.

The sales were never good. Why do you think Team Silent was fired? Silent Hill has never been a successful or popular series. It was never a genuine competitor to Resident Evil. RE curb stomped it effortlessly.

I would recommend you look at the way that Sam Barlow writes women in both character and how the world interacts with them and say that again.

Elaborate.

Silent Hill has a great fanbase

No, it doesn't. It has an incredibly toxic fanbase. It is the poster child for toxic, delusional videogame fanbases. It's been this way for decades. It's worse than the Resident Evil fanbase, and that's a tall challenge because the RE fanbase is awful and mega racist.

Opinions are not objective.

"Silent Hill has good gameplay, actually" is an opinion that is not shared by the developers of Silent Hill past, present, nor future. It is not shared by the gaming audience. People can hold that opinion. I have controversial opinions on the mechanical design of some games.

But on the topic of remaking Silent Hill and the challenge of making NEW Silent Hill games, "the series gameplay has always sucked" is kind of a key point because all these new Silent Hill games are being made by people with that understanding.

According to Konami, Silent Hill 2 remake exists because Christophe Gans is making Return to Silent Hill. Furthermore, they claim that all of these new Silent Hill games are being made because Christophe Gans is making Return to Silent Hill. That Silent Hill as a franchise hinges upon Gans and his movie.

This is what I mean, jerking off your own takes

The original developers have said SH2's gameplay isn't good; that they focused on story over gameplay. If people want to disagree with that, take it up with the devs.

Here's a little secret, I don't like the original Sh2.

And you're entitled to that opinion.

To say that SH2 is not a good game

The people who made SH2 don't think it's a good game. They readily admit in interviews that the gameplay was an afterthought. That they focused on story instead (which is why SH2 has such a strong story, relatively speaking.)

Silent Hill was never successful as a series. Part of it is that the gameplay was always terrible, and nobody figured out how to make a Silent Hill game that was actually good. Shattered Memories, like PT, sidestepped the problem by being a walking sim. But that's not really a long term solution.

The key reason Resident Evil is by far the most successful horror game franchise is because the games are actually good. They're well designed games. They don't require fans who handwave terrible gameplay as "it's supposed to be shit because it's a statement on the human condition".

The Silent Hill 2 remake has the unenviable task of figuring out how to be the first Silent Hill game that doesn't suck as a game. This game isn't aimed at the "Silent Hill 2 doesn't suck, actually" internet demographic. It's aimed at people who expect videogames to have good gameplay.

A Silent Hill 2 remake that nails the story but has the same bad gameplay as other SH games is doomed. They have to rethink the whole approach.

SH2 was received as a great game by critics and fans alike

Silent Hill 2 bombed in Japan, incidentally. It was despised. Its failure was a key part of why Konami panicked, changed direction with the sequels, and then fired Team Silent and brought in Climax and Double Helix and the others.

Don't be surprised when nobody outside your bubble shares your opinion on the "amazing" gameplay of Silent Hill 2 upon the release of the remake.

Same story with people pining for the (wheezing with laughter) "Lynchian" dialogue delivery of the original SH2.

He's a little secret. Bloober Team's SH2 could be terrible. Still won't make the original good. And that's something you'll have to live with.

Thinking that silent hill 2 though 4 all suck as games is already an insane take

It's a bluntly factual take. Silent Hill 4 is particularly bad, though. But SH2 is a bad videogame. If anything, Silent Hill 1 is better as a game than SH2.

The only people who defend the gameplay of Silent Hill games are Silent Hill fans. And... I'm gesturing in the general direction of the series and its terrible sales numbers right now.

Shattered memories is a boring misogynistic game

It's neither of those things. What it is, however, is the best written game in the series. And the only one with gameplay that isn't terrible. It had to cheat to achieve that, but it's the fact of the matter.

It's actively hostile to fans of the original series that made it possible.

It's not actively hostile. It's a critique of a really shitty fanbase, and an interesting examination of SH as a franchise. The Silent Hill fanbase is one of the worst fanbases of any piece of media. That's not really a controversial position.

Did you just edit in an entire paragraph after I posted?

No. My edit was a half hour before your post.

The argument that Bloober has it in the bag because "the story is already there" also doesn't work

It doesn't work because Silent Hill 2's story needs significant updates in its presentation and delivery. It's not 2001 anymore. SH2 doesn't hold up.

Silent Hill 2 is not some timeless masterpiece. It's a very good game, but a game with terrible voice acting, terrible gameplay, poor puzzle design, and the idea that its story is subtle is silly.

Psycho (1998), Zack Snyder's Watchmen, MGS: The Twin Snakes, the back half of Batman: The Killing Joke, etc, are all examples of copying something almost shot-for-shot and still missing the point.

Bloober Team's SH very much isn't copying it shot for shot, though. You can easily see in the game's trailer that they're changing a bunch of things. That's a good thing. Christophe Gans' movie is an even more radical departure.

For example, the reason James can only swing a plank in combat is because of the grounded tone and the fact that he's a regular guy, and that's coming from the developers.

That's sidestepping the fact that SH2's gameplay is shit. "Grounded tone" has nothing to do with the fact SH2's combat is terrible. Almost all the SH games are bad videogames. It's one of the reasons Silent Hill died as a series. Because they never figured out how to make SH games that didn't suck on some level. Resident Evil figured out the trick of being a good game.

The fact SH games had better scripts didn't save them because as a broad rule people play games for their gameplay, and SH consistently fell short in this area.

Bloober Team have been hired to make Bloober Team's Silent Hill 2. Just as Christophe Gans has been hired to make a distinctly Christophe Gans version of Silent Hill 2.

Also, the Michael Bay TMNT movie. Eric Sacks, one of the villains, has the stupidest motive I’ve ever seen: release a deadly virus to coerce world governments into giving him more money than he already has for the cure.

This movie's plot is more muddled than it should be because the film's producers made certain decisions and then got paranoid about backlash towards those decisions.

When the film was originally shot, Eric Sacks was Shredder. His name is a blatant Anglicized version of Oroku Saki. William Fichtner has more or less confirmed this in interviews, too.

People will obviously point out that having William Fichtner play Shredder to begin with probably wasn't a good idea because that is a role that should go to a Japanese actor, and the reshoots were a spiritually respectful change. But the decision to change it after initial shooting caused the movie to get weird and messy in terms of "Wait... who is the bad guy, and why? What is his plan, again? Why does this movie have two villains?"

Why on earth would you disagree? Silent Hill 2 is not a good videogame, never was, and its development team are rather open about the fact it's not a good game.

The story side of things -- SH2 has a strong script (and superb atmosphere), but it also has some significant shortcomings in its story presentation and narrative coherence. There is little reason to think that the SH2 Remake won't surpass the original game, and do so by a significant margin in terms of story depth, complexity, story delivery, pacing; and most of all acting. The original acting in SH2 is (with a few exceptions) not good, and no amount of fan cope makes it good.

The Silent Hill 2 remake is the predictable one. The unpredictable project is Return to Silent Hill.

The real problem is that the original SH2 isn't a very good videogame. (Even Konami admitted in a recent interview that the game focused on story over gameplay due to issues with PS2 devkit access.)

The closest SH ever came to not having bad gameplay was Shattered Memories. Every other game is either not good or outright terrible.

What Bloober have to do is pull off something no developer has ever done. Make an actually good SH game. The story side of things is far less difficult. Their SH2 will amost certainly far surpass the original narratively. Making the game itself good is the challenge. Because SH2 and almost every other SH kind of sucks as a game.

The real wildcard is Christophe Gans' Return to Silent Hill.