The Warring States of NPF - Silent Hill Downpour Playthrough

The Warring States of NPF (http://www.nuklearforums.com/index.php)

- Playing Games (http://www.nuklearforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5)

- - Silent Hill Downpour Playthrough (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=41573)

Silent Hill Downpour Playthrough

I bought it today. Why? I know it's gonna be crap. I've ranted and raved about that fact since it was announced. Since Akira Yamaoka left. Since they realeased a trailer with a Korn track.

But my Chemistry course wrapped up at the end of March, so I've got a whole lot of free time. Free time that will be spent drinking, and I was thinking that as long as I'm drinking, I could rip off the Snake thread and write long, rambling sentences about video games.

Also, because I want a place to vent, make terrible Seil-jokes and talk about the latest Silent Hill title. So if anyone wants to play along with me, open your nearest bottle of whiskey and lets get cracking.

Pros so far: Looks amazing. Killed a fat man in the shower.

Cons so far: Sub-par music, no Yamaoka. No blood or scares.

Verdict: Still terrible.

I hate this game because the trailer for it plays at work and it plays the WHOLE KORN SONG. OVER AND OVER.

Played for an hour or so - I had my... ugh... first visit to "the otherworld."

While SH4 The Room had trips to various "worlds," I liked it because it played like a classic SH game. An addition I'm certain has been brought on by the movie is the transformation from the "Normal World" to "The Otherworld." It was done to interesting effect in the movie, and in Shattered Memories it was a significant shift becausde of the lack of combat. Even Origins got it mostly right giving the player control over the changes. Downpour is terrible in that while it looks cool, the Otherworld is an excuse to throw in crazy puzzles that interrupt the flow.

So here's the deal: you're a prisoner named Murphy Pendleton. As the game starts, a guard helps you murder a dude in the showers. Given Murphy's familiarity with him, I'm calling it now that the dude was a pedophile and Murphy just got revenge. Okay. Anyway, Murphy later gets transferred to another prison, and during the cutscene, we're introduced to an important looking female officer.

The bus crashes, Murphy wakes up and wanders around for a bit (very reminiscent of the later bits of SH1) and you get an update that when the Native peoples were on the SH land, they worshipped something something crows. Crows are everywhere in this game. As you wander, the important looking female officer finds you and tried to capture you again. She ends up slipping off a ledge and you've got the choice to leave her or to help her. She falls either way. Anyway, Murphy meets a ninja Mailman who disappears and reappears like Batman.

Murphy then ends up in a motel of some sort where he has his first Otherworld experience (which is terrible) and gets attacked by several... women who look like the Numb Bodies from SH2, the armless ones. He finds Mustached Prisoner fighting one and pulls a Romeo where Mustached is hurt above his arm.

/\----\/

Like I said, it looks really good. However, that's all it really does well. The combat is terrible - it's similar to Origins in that you've got melee weapons all over the place that don't last more than one fight, and after it degrades you switch immediately to your fists. It's similar to Homecoming in that the enemies are fast and able, and the block doesn't really do anything at all - in fact, it's worse because the attacks still hurt if you don't block with a weapon and it looks like blocking with the weapon aids its degradation. It does add terrible camera angles to the mix, along with no autotarget... It's awful.

They do go to great lengths to build atmosphere - your flashlight is detachable, so you can have it clipped on like other SH games, but you chan SM it and look around. There's areas where you have to duck under a low hanging beam, slide through a crack, whatever, and the game automatically does this as you progress; it's nice, but it also autimatically jumps down any ledges or anything if you get close enough. It keeps the same door mechanic as SM, so that you have to push the door open.

It all meshes together to make an interesting effect, but there's no proper scares, and the music is barely passable with the absence of Yamaoka. Along with the dramatic shifts to the Otherworld, the sub-par combat against the sub-par monsters, and the Prince Of Persia inspired... I don't even know what to call it... escapes? Running? There's a... black hole that follows you around and you have to run from it as you would a Dahaka. They have a habit of having random doorways and gates open and close on you in these scenes.

There's no scares, no atmosphere, no... nothing in the story so far. I can't relate to anyone yet. If the game wasn't a Silent Hill title, it would be sub-par by itself, but measured to the collective standard of the series, it's awful.

So far.

EDIT

This shows some of what I'm talking about.

Okay, HD Collection break.

..Looks really good, really smooth animations, music still kicks ass and... different voice acting?

Fuck this shit.

Yeah, I'm not even gonna bother with this game. I'm rather enjoying watching Matt derp his way through it while he and Pat go into surprising detail about the subtleties and tropes of Silent Hill.

never knew Bathrooms were such an important deal in Silent Hill!

Uhmm this one feels.... to slow to me. I understand what they are trying to do, making you feel unconfortable in each room and each place... but it just doesn't seem to be working (at least not in the video). The game seems to be pretty much navigating you room to room , glowing thingy to glowing thingy instead of forcing you to explore and Rewarding/Punishing you for it.

Quote:

Uhmm this one feels.... to slow to me. I understand what they are trying to do, making you feel unconfortable in each room and each place... but it just doesn't seem to be working (at least not in the video). The game seems to be pretty much navigating you room to room , glowing thingy to glowing thingy instead of forcing you to explore and Rewarding/Punishing you for it.

No, man. No. There is no slow and uncomfortable. There's no uncomfortable at all. There's just slow.

Quote:

Pat go into surprising detail about the subtleties and tropes of Silent Hill.

That's what I love about Silent Hill. I love Two best Friends, but I love it when they do SH games - Shattered Memories and Downpour - because people pay attention to them, and all I've a sudden I'm not a whinging binge, I'm making actual, valid comments about a great series of games that have slowly degraded and Americanized over a long period.

Also Yahtzee.

Okay, this game is pretty. Like, looking at reflections of the sky in a wet street pretty. It looks good, is what I'm trying to convey here.

So After you make it out of the basement of the Motel, Murphy finds some cabins and changes out of his prisoner gear. (He also finds a police badge in the clothes and decides to keep it for some reason.) He heads out on a sky tram to this tourist trap just outside of Silent Hill called "The Devil's Pit." Also, there was a mine level what where some guy comitted suicide and you had another choice as to whether or not yo... yeah the choice made no difference again.

Oh, speaking of which, Important Looking Lady Office (TM) showed up in the mine looking like hell. No word on Ninja Mailman as of yet. There was an interesting new monster who you had to run from, and it was all tense and you ran to... an educational train trip. It's a train for the Pit rigged up with an automated recording that clues you into more on the early Native days of Silent Hill. Also, it's as interactive as a cutscene - even though there are brief flashes of the Otherworld manipulating mannequins in strobe lights and bat creatures are everywhere, noting much happens.

Just like a real educational train ride.

/\---------\/

Not scary at all, very pretty, too many characters, not enough characterization of the other prisoners save for Mustache.

Are there multiple endings? Cause if there are... i'm pretty sure who you save (or not) affects that.