Ok, I get why the hate for Bloober existed. The only game I played of theirs was Observer. The one good game they made before they went to become the joke of the industry. And the only Silent Hill I played is Homecoming. Yes, I'm going to judge the merits of a beloved established series.
I can badly contextualize, but in the time I've spent on the internet, I had a good grasp of what Silent Hill is. I've seen the movie, Jacob's Ladder. But now I see, after playing this, Bloober actually nailed it. They did a fantastic job. It is by atmosphere, story, and music the same as the older game. But brought out differently by high production value, including the voice acting.
Honestly, I'm even confused as to why the older fans are pissed, both games exist, and they're good on their. I digress to say that, even the gameplay is vastly superior here, despite being a little stretched like Uncharted 4, and then there are personal issues.
So it starts like the usual, the tunnel that takes him to Silent Hill is closed, so he parks his car and walks from the Observation Deck. From there, it creeps up, the clear distance becomes foggier, eerie noise starts to build up, heavy sense of unease, and ok, the visuals.
This is going to be a big change for older fans, as the areas are bigger, more alive with realistic detailing. It feels jaded, empty, like no one's been here for a long time. Hell, I was moving forward ostensibly since the sense of dread became thicker. But it was also sublime, like soon as I entered the gate of Silent Hill, the fog had this mysticism about it.
The audio design is immaculate, and coming from my KT371, that is quite the testament. Although not as varied and in-depth as Dead Space remake, it does a great job of immersing nonetheless. Then again, if you're like bored with this, you'll just walk by like nothing's happening.
And it can't change that prerogative, maybe an issue with remakes sometimes is being busy being true, that you forget to try something a little different to subvert expectations. For the whole 1hr, I even went through multiple challenges of running this game with my 7700 XT. Then I realized, my SSD is thermal throttling since it has no heatsink. So I faced a lot of traversal stuttering.
Yeah, in this day and age, get the best hardware you can. Because your system will struggle. I've decided to get an Nvidia GPU instead, hopefully soon. Outside that, it runs beautifully fine. Especially for what's going to come next. This is where the patient enemies show up, they spew acid, meaning maneuvering to hit them, sometimes hitting too much, they'll retaliate, so I have to dodge right. But it's not easy to take them out due to their high health bars, and acid spewing.
The town of Silent Hill is big, I've already explored the east side, no thanks to James jogging speed taking a while to get around. Without the map, I can easily get lost, and there's no pausing it while looking around. But the game designers left clues to easily tell me where to go, it's never too frustrating, but creates a well balancing act in being challenging enough.
Look, I'm aware there's a mod that removes the fog, but that blatantly takes out the atmosphere and dread, which really is what sells exploration. God forbid, things get worse, like I don't know, the entire town brewing a storm and these things become more prevalent.
But I do have some gripes, that is having to have little to no incentive for exploration, outside entering certain buildings, obvious story progression reasons, and item hunting. Not going to lie, seamless entering and exiting, a refreshing touch.
Ok, ignoring the overkill I did, I was made aware from notes that they might not be dead. God forbid those crawling get up, easier to kill from the back. But when they come in packs, and then there's the storm. This is where exploration, finding hidden things, and problem-solving comes to hand. I've looked around, tense as hell, before finding notes leading to an apartment building for safety.
Goodbye, Stephen King's Fog. I've stayed there for way too long, and came back to the complex. Which is more of a maze to explore, this is a silly thing, but you remember I said about stretching the game like they did with Uncharted 4? The entire apartment was a lot to do.
This is where I meet Eddie, but not before going to the first floor, then around the second floor, then the third floor. I don't have to spell out the enemies that lurk about. There are no extra side activity stuff to do, it just was a lot to carefully go around, look for these medals to solve a simple yet tricky puzzle. But, I learned a heck of a lot about the melee combat, and got a gun.
Man, these puzzles, FYI, there is a difficulty scaling for both gameplay and puzzles, I chose standard for both. Yet they are very tricky, and requires a lot of looking around, doing math, heck finding quest items meaning backtracking a bit. The apartment has closed off areas, so that involves going through places. The good part, is the environmental design, and stories they tell.
I'll pick up a newspaper, obviously one about Walter Sullivan. But there are more things to find around. These are important, as well as the puzzles for the recurring motif of the overarching themes of Silent Hill. But picking the pieces, moving to the next place, does take it's time.
I did mention, how they've designed levels, so that players can navigate areas better? This game is linear in its nature, and often times, even with the crumbs laid out, works most of the time. Then there are things I had to do, like putting my hand through some disgusting hole, and a toilet to get keys and such. Yes, pretty much. This is what Silent Hills, I assume, is supposed to be.
Constant sense of unease, even with the noise in the building, changing further I move on, before I went to the Bluecreek apartments. The otherworld section. Everything looking grotesque, dilapidated. The strap patients now explode and spit acid like a bullet, combat is at times, about maintaining distance, as well as defense, but also knowing when to eliminate them quick as possible. Otherwise, screw up crowd control, this happens. He can't even aim well.
Go as far to say, even tho it's like Last of Us in terms of the fundamentals, it seems more nuanced and even plays better in certain ways. As well as imbuing the feeling of frustration. If that's the case, then it is doing its job right. Throughout all the way, six exhausting hours in, Bloober so far did a fantastic job of making palpable tension, but also giving breathing room.
That applies the same with combat. The sense of dread builds up too. I also finally fought the legendary Pyramid Head. He whooped my ass a few good times. But I got him. Not everything is great, tho. The camera has problems at times and Jason can't seem to respond to pick up inputs. Also, no photo mode. But I think that makes sense for a survival horror game.
Then again, the modders are going to change a few things. This isn't a full 1:1, it's Bloober's retelling, respecting the main story, characters, atmosphere, and themes. I think Konami is off to a good start here. More like an A- for me. All is forgiven if MGS Delta becomes the same. You're probably asking, but where's Maria? Laura? Give me a break, I have IBS to worry about. Enough horror for a day.
