Gaming

Silent hill is one of my favorite series, and I'd argue the last time we even got a decent game was back in 2007 with origins. The drought has been unreal. I can't believe we are finally eating good again

how tf there only 2 comments in this thread? Y'all this is SILENT HILL TWO and it's scoring WELL I guess my reason is horror games aren't really my cup of tea. but this is a BIG DEAL!

Edit: here's a key passage from the Eurogamer review that is hype:

The original game was both combat-light and a little short, and Bloober has addressed both these issues head-on. For the latter, the remake has opened up a slew of new landmarks for us to explore, so I devoted a lot of time picking through the streets of Silent Hill, revelling in the new-found freedom of being able to visit shops and buildings that had hitherto been out of bounds for us. This, coupled with longer levels and more places to visit, more than doubles the original eight-ish hour run-time.

As for combat? Well, be careful what you wish for, I guess. Silent Hill 2 was outrageously easy, even on its hardest difficulty, and Bloober's edition is not. The good news is Remake doesn't exactly make combat central to the experience (at least, not on standard difficulty). But it sure does make it harder to adopt the typical survival horror strat of run-away-run-away-run-away. Because of its claustrophobic tight spaces and nooks and crannies, it's incredibly difficult to retreat from a fight, and there is essentially no meaningful way to stealth around the place, either. On top of that, most boss battles - they are all here, as well as a surprise or two - will deplete your ammo reserves with ruthless efficiency. It's also often tough to finish off foes without taking damage yourself as a result, burning through your ever-dwindling medical supplies. (Yes, Lying Figures spewing toxic vomit in your death throes - I'm looking at you.)

They took a legendary game and made it better. Props to Bloober team, guess they still got it.

Its good. Not perfect, but better than I expected.

Headphones definitely recommended, a halfway decent Atmos home theater system sounds great but I still picked up subtle sounds better with even just bluetooth headphones.

Ambience is very much on point. Dialogue is a good mix of well-acted, and a tad "off" like the original. Angela and Eddie seem faithfully redone, so far. James too honestly.

Apartments were a nice change-up from the original, not too different thematically but still essentially a whole new layout, not at all a copy and paste job. Showdown with big knife guy was a big departure, though. Not sure if better or worse, but different from the original

Some graphical glitches (something like ghosting of the fog around objects moving on the screen, also flashes of light in the distance) sometimes that are frankly unacceptable for a $70 game, especially a game of this sort of mood, but hopefully they get those patched soon.

Combat is not exactly great. Nor was it in the original, to be fair. The dodging mechanic is a bit much, and at least on the hardest combat difficulty, it feels like you gotta already be familiar with enemy attack patterns, since it doesn't give you much chance to learn and survive. But it does all feel learnable, so we'll see if I just need to get gooder.

Steam achievement notifications at least one broke immersion for me, I might try to mute those next time I play.

But overall I'm very eager to resume playing after work, I left off after the apartments (and stayed up far too late doing so!)

Looking forward to this one. The original trailer kind of had me worried at first but it's a nice surprise to see it reviewing so well. Youtubers who got it early are loving it too, which is promising. If the game does well I hope Konami doesn't squander it, imagine entering a new age of silent hill and it's actually good again.

Sort of off topic, it would be a great end of the year treat if both this game and Dragon Age manage to surprise everyone.

I'm just downloading it to my Steam Deck as I bought advanced access to the game. I'll let folks know how it goes.

And before anyone jumps on my neck about buying advanced access:

• I waited until review scores came out
• Even then I was originally planning to wait a few weeks until launch but with Steam refunds, I figured I can play for half an hour to get a good feel of the game
• Not only is this Konami's first good game in ages, I dare say this is also the industry's first good game in ages. RE4 was excellent, but the OG was great and Capcom at that point knew how to do well. I cannot say the same for Konami/Bloober.
• I'm someone who is lucky enough to have enough disposable income where a purchase like this doesn't really negatively affect me financially.