Silently Gone

The good ole days of demo discs

Crazy things that only happen in this digital age - digital copy of demos selling at a high price.

Yes the PT debacle. 

Now I'm not going to talk about my disdain for the project but I figure the news of PS4 containing a digital copy of the demo warrants a mention. After this game was announced to be cancelled, sellers started putting their ps4 with the demo up for sale on eBay for absurd prices. 

The thing about digital files is that it multiplies each time it's copied or in this case, downloaded. That's part of the appeal for publishers to go digital, they don't have to deal with the hassle of estimating how much to print. The more they print the more cost they incur. Instead just put the digital file online and the demand will determine the distribution flow with no additional cost.

So the PT demo was available was quite a while as I remembered a certain penny-pincher talking about it more than six months ago. Its distribution easily exceeded several millions if we just estimated a percentage of the 20 million plus ps4 users downloaded it.Now it's no longer available and unless someone reserve-engineer the ps4 hardware to copy the demo, you are not likely to get it anymore. But at the end of the day, it's still just a digital file made up of nothing tangible and distributed over a million times before. Who in the right mind would pay so much for a demo of a cancelled game?

A few years ago, EA sports also cancelled their NBA Elite (a re-branding of sorts of their long running NBA Live series) game shortly before release. A demo of that game was available on PSN before the game was cancelled. The removed demo never amount to anything of value but I read that retail copies of the finished game surfaced briefly before being pulled from the stores. Now those retail copies are serious collector items which I can understand but not this digital age nonsense.

I Love My Big Daddy

While I was in Singapore a couple of months back, buying the only copy of Silent Hill Shattered Memories Wii I could find there seems like a pretty sound decision. After all apart of Silent Hill: The Room, I have every other Silent Hill console game in my collection, a fact I remained pretty proud of.

Even before owning the Wii version of Shattered Memories, I have played the game pretty thoroughly on my PSP and PS2 trying to push the limits of the psychological analysis in the game. All that got me was harry ended up being too timid to the point of being abused by his wife or too flirtatious, hardly the object of poor Cheryl's admiration. This time I decided to play the game without trying to manipulate how the game is perceiving you. Turns out I must be a pretty big playboy after all since I got the ending where Harry is fooling around with the prom queen and nurse again. Sure the in-depth analysis of your character that runs next to the credits is entirely different this time but I didn't really care anymore at that point.

I should have just settle for that creepy birthday song over the phone in Silent Hill 3.

Maximum Thrill

After finally updating my Sony PSP, I hit upon a great way of playing the new Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Yes i will attempt to play the game on both the Sony PSP and Playstation2 at the same time like i earlier envisioned how i would for Okami.

Well maybe not simultaneously since i have yet to clear enough space on my ps2 memory card in order to play the game but close enough as i'm nearly finished with fatal frame 3. That way since the game storyline and character changes depending on the player's behaviour, i will be able to live out two contrasting characters and see how the story ends for both. While ideally i should be playing this on my Wii, i still have a handful of games to finish on that platform before i really consider getting anymore.

Well at least until Fragile ships anyway.

Going Downhill

I have been playing a lot of Silent Hill recently, re-discovering my love for the series which sort of went downhill since the fourth installment. I never really talk about i came to the series mainly because it wasn't nearly half as dramatic as my introduction to Resident Evil , i was introduced to the series by a fellow close friend not having own a PSone yet so somehow it was difficult to form your own opinion with someone constantly telling you how good this is.

Anyway over the years i remained supportive of the series even more so than my friend, to the point where i was being criticised of being biased. I suppose i am to some degree but isn't that what being fanboys are all about? I went back to playing Silent Hill Origins over the long weekend after finishing the first Silent Hill, i'm amazed by how good the game looks when you switched the noise filter off though it isn't to the level i would expect from a Wii game. Speaking of which, where is the trailer for Shattered Memories? So far we have only been treated to a bunch of screen captures and developer interviews, surely they must have put together enough for a trailer by now right? Well the May issue of Nintendo Power should probably have arrived at my local newstands by now so i should start looking for it really soon, seeing that there is a coverage on Darkside Chronicles in there too.

The Freaks are Rising Up Through The Floor

After i have finished Silent Hill, i immediately went to work on how i can prevent the fungus on the game box from spreading onto the disc. It's a tricky business because obviously i don't want to have to throw anything away and i certainly won't want the fungus to spread to my other games. So basically i ended up bagging the manual, put another plastic sheet behind the front cover and even threw a dessicant inside the box for good measure. A bit too much? You can never be too careful with your games and i have always been one to treasure my games more than my consoles as my logic has been you can always replace your console but you can't always replace your games. Till this day, i still can't fathom why guys would value their consoles more than their games but i guess that's the mentality you end up with coming from a country where piracy is all around.

Face Off

Playing RE5 and the first Silent Hill back to back, i realised there are some things better left without motion-capture such as the facial expression. As you may have known Capcom applied facial motion-capture for all the cinematics in RE5, a trend they also did with the CGI production, RE: Degeneration. This gives the characters a certain degree of realism with their expression but sadly i find it distracting and not as impressive as what konami was able to achieve earlier with Silent Hill 2. Not to discredit the motion actors but expressions are something very difficult to capture as actor will have the tendency to exaggerate their expression knowing they are being captured with cameras and rubber dots on their face. The results are character expressions looking a little unnatural and over-exaggerated, even more so for the simplest gesture though i find it a little more distracting in Degeneration than i did in RE5.

Comparing with what CGI director Takayoshi Sato did in Silent Hill and 2, characters had much more subtle expression but with enough realism to make it look eerie and convincing. This was all achieved by Sato studying his own and other actors expression over the mirror and applying it to the characters as seen in the making of silent hill 2. Sadly Sato left after silent hill 2 and the series was never quite the same without key members like Sato and Toyama. RE5 had what i thought was a bit too much emphasis on cinematics, they are certainly fun to watch but i kind of expected more, considering how much time and effort were invested if you watch the making of re5.

Unwelcomed Appearance

Silent Hill made its way onto PSN for Europe a while back before mysteriously disappearing without any reason given. It's the sort of thing you have come to expect from the series, something that probably made more sense if it happened in game than in real life. Since most users who downloaded it during the short two week window reported no bugs, it probably had nothing to do with the compatibility of the game with ps3 and psp system.

It probably had more to do with the Konami announcement of the re-make of the original currently on its way to the Wii in the form of shattered memories by Climax studios. By removing the game, konami avoids saturating the market with the original since they also revealed that the original hard copy is no longer in production (duh!). It made some sense but not entirely since the game is also scheduled to be appearing on ps2 and psp system, and current ps3 do not support ps2 games anymore. I suppose the series needs all the help it can get and spreading it across three systems seems to be the way to go right now. Any factor that might deter the potential sale like the appearance of its original is certainly unwelcomed at this stage.

Music Mason

Countless times finishing Silent Hill and i still can't remember how to solve the darn piano puzzle.
Something about white key, black key, dead note, everytime i think i got it all figured out i mess up and have to resort to referring to guide for help in the end.

Despite what it seems, the piano puzzle actually have nothing to do with music but somehow the way the riddle is translated (from the original japanese i assume) you can't help but to tap into your inner musical instinct to figure it out. Guess this harry mason is just not cut out to be a music man.

Bag It Up

Having already replayed a number of my old PSOne games, i was pretty shocked when i open my copy of Silent Hill to discover fungus inside! Though the disc itself is still relatively fungus-free, the fungus on the back of the cover has already spread to parts of the cover of the manual. It's not a pretty sight, especially seeing the manual was in full-colour and contained some nice CGI of the characters but i guess that's what happen when your disc does not come in shrink-wrap.

No thanks to HMV, i ended up paying more than i did with any of my other PSOne games in my library for a platinum version with no shrink-wrap. I vividly remember HMV was having a buy two for 30 pounds promotion and i decide to pick up Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill, brand new platinum version that time probably the only time i ever paid so much for a PSOne game. It pains me to see it in such state now but i guess it can't be help because i did play Silent Hill extensively over the years and in the process, kept it exposed to all sorts of outside conditions. Funny i didn't notice the outbreak of fungus all this while until now when i dust it off for a replay in anticipation of the upcoming Shattered Memories.

Shattered Dreams

Call me unhappy upon reading Konami's official announcement of the Silent Hill: Shattered Memories title. Yep in less than 24 hours since my last entry, all that excitement and anticipation for this title has turned into ranting as i'm dismay with konami's lack of faith in the franchise and Wii console to whore this potentially great remake out to a last-gen console and more insultingly, a handheld system. I'm not much of an eagle-eyed gamer when it comes to graphics but i suspected that game was running on Origins engine when i first saw the captures for the Nintendo Power spread yesterday.

It turns out my suspicions were true as konami announced that this game was also heading to the PSP and PS2 this fall though i remained puzzled how they plan to achieve this with the psp having only one analog stick to control both the character and flashlight? It made sense to launch this title on a platform completely new to the Silent Hill series such as the Wii but Sony fans and system has played host to particularly all of the past Silent Hill, is it really wise make this multi-platform? Regretfully the Wii will have to settle for sub par graphics as the PSP and PS2 are less powerful beast compared to the Wii and considerations will likely to be made to accommodate all three systems. The only consolation i got out of this announcement was konami confirming the first silent hill to be out-of-print (duh!) thereby somehow justifying their decision to bring this to the Sony system i believe. Looks like i'll holding on firmly to the original and probably play this remake on one of the two Sony system which means neither Nintendo nor Konami will likely be getting my money this time... nor will Sony i might add.

Wet Dream Come True

I wasn't too thrilled when i first heard rumours of a Silent Hill remake heading to the Wii, if only because it was also rumoured to be appearing on the PSP and the fact that Climax Studios will be developing this only further strengthen my belief. Now the i have previewed the Nintendo Power cover story on Shattered Memories (the new subtitle for the remake) i'm much more optimistic about this remake and actually looking forward to it. Not many Wii games can prompt me to make a day one purchase but NP and Climax studio managed to do just that with still images and interviews alone! Ok maybe that's my fanboyism love for the series talking but to Climax studio credit, Origins was a worthy entry into the series so i have high expectations that this will more REmake than konami's own Twin Snakes for last generation.

What Climax is trying to do with the wiimote and storytelling is generally pretty ambitious, and has got me more excited about this than i ever was with Homecoming, the series debut on the current gen consoles. It seems everything you do and where you go will ultimately have an effect on who you meet and how the story will end. Now the first two Silent Hill games had a similar non-linear storyline where you could completely skip certain subplot should you miss going to certain area or put your character on-track to a different ending depending how long you spend with NPC and what file you pick up. The subsequent Silent Hill seem to have abandon this idea in favour of a more linear story and ending so Climax re-imagining of the original and ideas on how to implement the story seems like a welcome return to the roots for the series. I was also very impressed with how they plan to utilise the wiimote to function as the series trademark radio and flashlight, it seems like this could very well be a survival horror game that is only possible on the Wii. If only the texture and character model didn't look like PSP standards but i trust NP judgment enough when they say the game looks better in-motion than in picture. Time for me to dust off the original which i still owned on Platinum release and fire up that bad boy.

wait are those psp textures and character models i see?