Despite the fact that the horror genre is raking in record sales, one of the granddaddies of the genre is having trouble keeping up. That franchise would be Konami’s Silent Hill, which has had a slew of poorly received titles beginning with The Room. Everything after that took a nosedive in quality and despite handing the last installment in the main series, Homecoming, to an American developer, repetitive gameplay and a convoluted story kept the game from becoming the next-gen survival horror experience we all hoped it would be.
I’d like to throw out some possible ways Konami can use to fix the series, and I feel I need to do this for more than just to help an ailing franchise. In my opinion the term ‘Survival Horror’ can no longer be used to describe most of the titles in the horror genre. In an attempt to become more mainstream developers have created new subgenres like Action Horror and Cooperative Horror. The former category houses titles like Dead Space, F.E.A.R., Doom and Condemned. The latter contains consists of Resident Evil 4 & 5, Left 4 Dead and Killing Floor. This leaves only a handful of series that I can seriously consider survival horror, games like Fatal Frame and Silent Hill. Obviously, old school mechanics like “find the red key, open the door, run from the monster, find the blue key, open the other door and fight the boss” are a thing of the past and should stay there. So here are some ideas I’ve scrounged together that I think could quite possibly save one of gaming’s last true survival horror series.
Even though I love Dead Space and have an unhealthy obsession Left 4 Dead, my problem with those types of games is that they overpower you. When you’re armed to the teeth you feel like a badass and when you feel like a badass nothing will scare you. Silent Hill: Homecoming didn’t arm you with a ton of weapons, though it did give you more than the past games in the series. Instead the game armed you with skills like dodging, counter moves, quick jabs, strong attacks, and even execution moves. I’m all for giving players basic defensive abilities, and some of these options like strafing are features the Resident Evil series should consider implementing. But when I can kill almost any enemy in your game without taking a single hit I’m no longer intimidated by the things that are hunting me, no matter how grotesque and disturbing they are.
To fix this issue Silent Hill should take a page out of Dead Space’s book. This game gave us very basic defensive and offensive capabilities but made them slow and weak so spamming the move wouldn’t save you when you find yourself surrounded by enemies. The melee move consisted of Isaac desperately swinging his weapon and the move did almost no damage but did manage to knock the creature back granting some much need breathing room. The curb stomp was another simplistic yet effective move that saved me from unnecessarily wasting ammo (though ammunition was never scarce in the game, I tend to play things safe) more than a few times. The point is Dead Space gave you realistic maneuvers that were helpful in a pinch but always remained as a last option I would use when I either needed to conserve ammo or wanted some baddies to back the fuck off.
The enemies of Silent Hill almost always require a different approach to defeat them so if there were a few moves specifically designed to help take out specific creatures it would give us an alternative to defeat them should we run out of ammo or simply become overwhelmed (both tend to happen often in this series). The best part of all this, other than the fact that the idea came from me instantly making it clever (please don’t take that line too seriously), is having a collection of melee attacks specifically designed to counter certain enemies would be helpful without making gamers feel too strong. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of physical capabilities, please add a sprint button to the next Silent Hill game. Leisurely jogging through a fog-ridden ghost town trying to find out where to go while being pursued by a pack of hungry dog creatures doesn’t make sense and got more than a little annoying.
On to the next major problem with the game, a problem that’s managed to plague almost every game in the series to some extent: the story. In the first few games it was all new and fresh but with each new installment usually comes an overly convoluted story that when at its best simply doesn’t make sense, but at its worst it becomes annoyingly bizarre. Of course, a foggy town filled with nightmarish monsters that would like nothing more than to rip you to shreds is far from normal, sometimes the characters are either too mysterious or outlandish. Silent Hill 2 was the only title to get the story and characters done correctly but after that it all began to degrade faster than the shifting town we keep returning to.
Having a strong connection between the player and the character they control is important in every game but in horror titles it is even more essential. In these types of games you usually interact with only a small number of actual people, the rest of the time you’re usually trying to survive against things that aren’t human. So when the characters in your game are hard to empathize with, motivation to play through the entire game drops significantly. In our first visit to the wicked ghost town of Silent Hill the story didn’t matter but that didn’t keep the developers from giving us a reason to continue playing. In the first title we assumed the role of a father who lost his daughter after a car accident and in the second we played as a man whose wife died a few years ago before receiving a letter from his dead wife beckoning him to Silent Hill. These stories were unique, interesting, always creepy and at times moving, so why can’t we have another story of similar quality? I want an emotional experience because that’s the type of story that works perfectly with the strange and lonely world the games are known for.
Silent Hill has plenty of things that have always been done right, and one of those things that should stay the same are the creatures. Whether we’re encountering new enemies for the first time or fighting familiar foes from past games in the series the creature designs have always been beautifully monstrous. The map is another feature that has been in the series since the first game should also remain. It shows you just enough to keep you from getting too deeply lost or frustrated but has an old school feel to it the series needs more of. The instant updates that show up every time you find a save point, locked door or other location of interest makes it even better.
This is the type of series that won’t ever require a multiplayer component so long as the single-player campaign is meaty enough, but should it be decided to include an online feature of some sort it needs to be unobtrusive. A good example of this would be Arkham Asylum, which had a perfectly satisfying story with the added Challenge Modes that made the game replayable long after completion. Unfortunately, developers tend to tack on a multiplayer component so they can add it to the list of features on the back of the box, Condemned committed this sin, so I’m going to hope Konami doesn’t do the same. The campaign should always be the main focus of a game such as this while the multiplayer is simply a reason to bring the player back into the game’s world.
This doesn’t mean the online mode(s) can suck, just that if you have to choose between an average single-player experience and an equally average multiplayer, it’s best if you just drop the online support and focus on making the former the best it can be. I realize that a lot of the time the game’s publisher will pressure a developer into creating as many features that they can fit on the disc whether or not it hurts the game’s overall quality. Should Konami decide to include some sort of multiplayer I think they should jump on the Horde/Survival/Firefight/Extraction bandwagon and include a mode where you and a handful of friends try to survive against waves of progressively stronger enemies. Picture you and a few others teaming up against some grotesque boss creature armed with bent pipes and almost empty handguns. Not terribly original but it could be fun.
You may have noticed the increased focus on cooperative play that has become much more popular over the last few years, so that might end up being the route Konami takes with their next game. Resident Evil 5 did it and succeeded to some extent but Silent Hill and Resident Evil are two very different beasts. The former seems to have dropped the scare factor entirely where Silent Hill is still trying, admirably, to unnerve its audiences. I think, if done correctly, co-op could be integrated into the series without ruining the game’s scares. Sure playing with another makes everything a little less scary so to try and stifle that effect I think most of the game should take the Gears of War route and split up the two players. However, unlike Gears, which only split you up occasionally, I think you should have to go your separate ways often. Silent Hill is a pretty expansive town so there’s a lot of ground to cover, and in almost every scary movie the cast tends to split up to make themselves easier to be killed by the monster/vampire/werewolf/masked lunatic. Of course, there’s the problem of one player dying while they’re alone, and in Gears this forced you to start over at the last checkpoint. Silent Hill would have to change that so I suggest separating the campaign into two parts. Bear with me on this:
When you choose your character you’re essentially choosing between two campaigns that weave in and out of each other, this also adds to the game’s replayability as you’ll want to play as the other character once you’re finished with the first. If you play alone you have your own campaign with areas to explore that are unique to your character and you’ll occasionally meet up with the other playable character for some short cooperative sections. This idea was inspired by Demon’s Souls in that the game lets you play in your own world with the intermittent help of other players who assist you until the level’s boss is slain and then return to their own world. So take this idea and carefully apply it to Silent Hill and you have two players bound by a single objective, exploring their own areas, collecting their own items, and meeting up at the more difficult areas of the game (enemy arenas and boss fights for example) to work together. Is this idea perfect? Certainly not, but it could work and I believe this would give the Silent Hill series a fresh start that its been desperately searching for over the last four games.
So those are my ideas, varying in worth. I’m a fan of the franchise because as I said before, it’s one of the last true survival horror series out there. Horror is what got me into gaming so I’m going to fight to make sure it remains as a successful genre in gaming. There’s nothing quite like being scared of what’s behind the next corner or locked door, always being on the edge of your seat; it’s a great feeling that only this genre can gift us with. I like being scared but lately I’ve only been scared towards the future of the games within this genre. Survival Horror is a dying breed and I hope there are at least a few good ideas for Konami to use to make their amazing franchise even better. Oh, and if you’re listening, Mr. Konami Bigwig, if my ideas tickled your fancy I’m definitely up for hire.
Sadly, Konami has long since hated America. Well, when it comes to Silent Hill, anyways. When it came to getting cool shwag pertaining to the SH series, all other countries got some EXCEPT for America. The Silent Hill movie was entirely a French production, and featured ZERO American actors in the lead and supporting roles. The original game production team (Team Silent) split after SH3, and it doesn't look like they are returning anytime soon. And now with Akira Yamaoka leaving Konami, the future of Silent Hill is, for intents and purposes, dead. Too bad, really. Parts 1-3 were amazing. The rest, eh...
The only one in the series I don't like is Homecoming. I thought the focus on combat was too much, and the story was just awful. Shattered Memories has given me new hope, I really enjoyed it, but it's too short and feels like a companion peice. I want more, and want it to be the old formula. dammit.
I couldn't beat Homecoming. Bosses were simple, but the later enemies were unrelenting! I think Konami's problem is that they keep trying to "reinvent" Silent Hill. I could just imagine how AWESOME it would be if a new Silent Hill installment was created in the style of the first 3 installments, with next-gen graphics!!
Blood-Sicles, /agree!! I first checked out silent hill 1 cause I thought it was gonna be an RE clone. I was pleasantly surprised when, instead, it was scary as shit. The puzzles, the atmosphere, the design, that fuckin awesome music, it all came together into a perfect little package. Well, almost perfect, the camera was wonky as hell in the beginning, but not something you can't overcome. So to see something very much like the first 3, but with prettier makeup would be beyond bad ass. I have to disagree with one thing you said, Blood-Sicles. I like Homecoming. No, it wasn't nearly as good as any of the first 3, but it was about a billion times better than The Room, which was the last SH game I had played. Great idea, The Room, but bad execution, and not really a silent hill game per se.
Silent Hill: Shattered Dreams for the Wii is a fresh of breath air if you ask me. the puzzles are fun and the flash light IR/Wii Remote controls are awesome. The downside would be the enemies...they're just no bizzare or as creative as the ones seen in 1-4...
Silent Hill: Shattered Dreams for the Wii is a fresh of breath air if you ask me. the puzzles are fun and the flash light IR/Wii Remote controls are awesome. The downside would be the enemies...they're just no bizzare or as creative as the ones seen in 1-4...
I think Shattered Memories was definately a step in the right direction, but without the beautiful audio work that Akira invented I'm not sure if any of them will be as powerful...
The music is always what did it for me. I thought part 5 was perfect for what it was trying to do.
Also, it's important to remember that Silent Hill 4 was NOT a Silent Hill game until after the halfway point in production... I think it was nice having a totally different kind of scary
@Broomann43: Agreed, Shattered Memories, though flawed, was definitely a step in the right direction. As for The Room, if the story and combat weren't so supremely messed up the game would've been enjoyable, and everything felt tacked on (especially the Silent Hill name, which was) so while the scares and new location were good, everything else fell short. I also agree with you on the music; by far the biggest blow to the series is the loss of Akira Yamaoka. Since I'm a complete nerd I have all the Silent Hill OSTs and listen to them often, without him (he was also a producer for the series) the franchise is definitely going to struggle.
I want a complete return to the old ways. I love finding the keys and aligning patterns, etc. I even loved the sounds that were made in SH1 when you found something. Of course, there were those fucking shadow baby things with tails that made me nearly shart myself. I like the wonky controls and cameras of SH 1 and 2. A large problem with Homecoming for me was that they tried way too hard to force a story that paralleled SH2's structure way too much. Plus, they made the creatures harder to beat for no reason really. There was a certain unpredicatability to the foggy netherworld back in SH1&2. Our characters were emotional and were really sturggling to find answers to their depression and grew increasing frantic. SH3 was a drag. SH4 was fresh, but flawed. SH5 was cool, but was really just a lot of nothingness that was aesthetically appealing. There weren't even a lot of enemies in SH5.
Konami needs to recapture the SH environments. Elementary schoolhouse is brilliant - bring it back (make it catholic and connected to a church where kids were tortured and priests were pedos or something). Hospital is getting old (how about a Nursing home with faceless old people wheeling into you, but not hurting you). Brothel (Clive Barker-esque). Funeral Parlor. Factory. House of mirrors. Creatures that come out of the water when you are looking out a window from a lonely cabin at the lake. Creatures fighting creatures. More elevators. Bring back "Nowhere" because that was the best thing in SH.
SH needs to be more foreboding. We need more of those moments when we see Pyramid Head walk across the opening of the hall we were about to run down.
Konami needs to talk to Clive Barker or to look at the Tortured Souls line.
I think the next Silent Hill should be free roaming. GTA esque. PS3 games can be big enough to be fully interactive. I would love if I could choose where to go even if it's not related to the progressing the plot. I could progress the plot if I wanted or I could smash up some derelict doors and break into closed down buildings and perhaps discover new things or save people.
How about the new Silent Hill be about twenty something who were raised in the orphanage of Silent Hill in the past and they're all planning to go to Silent Hill to find out their heritage and dark secrets come out.
I want to go back to the Alessa'a womb storyline, I still think there's room for exploration there. And a lot more of the town itself, in better graphics. Yummy. Also, anyone else notice how clean Shattered Memories is? There's hardly a drop of blood, and while it's dark and mysterious, everything looks new. Unrusted. Still usuable. I miss the town looking like it had been empty and rotting for a long time. And the ice world is too pretty. I miss the red, hot, grated, barb wired, chain link, stinking, filthy mess that the otherworld was. And if Pyramid Head comes back, make it make sense. I will miss Akira, but I have high hopes for the future, because this franchise should not stop. Lotsa room for the future.
Whatever they do, I hope that it will bring back the things that made Silent Hill so great in the first place. Although, without Akira's amazing music Silent Hill will not be the same. I own most of the soundtracks and the guy is amazing.
What I miss most from the Team Silent days would be the complete and utter insanity in every room, around every corner. These were things that did not impact game play. They were part of the environment (Eileen's enormous head filling up the room in Silent Hill 4 is a perfect example of this) but collectively, they made the games truly bizarre on top of the stories and monsters. Everything from Origins onwards operates like a rusty, dirty room with strings of barb wire strung about is ALL there is to bringing a Silent Hill environment to life. I'm still sore that the opportunities were squandered on such a cool location like the theater in Origins. I'm kinda shocked too that whenever I read peoples complaints about the current direction of the series, that the little brush strokes of strangeness every 5 minutes isn't something they feel is missing from the recent games. Remember when say, David Lynch's aesthetic was the biggest influence on the franchise? These little moments, adding up to their whole, is what I feel truly set Silent Hill apart from the rest of the gaming universe in the beginning. They were subtle, but infinitely effective touches. ANYONE can throw a bunch of monsters at you in a fog enshrouded town. Making the experience completely gonzo, completely disturbing on a psychological level, takes a bit more brilliance, which is what I have not seen demonstrated by Climax or Double Helix. I thought the choice of locations were cool in Origins, just not their execution. I thought moments in Homecoming worked, but rarely as a Silent Hill title. I agree one hundred percent on making your character more vulnerable again, and a return to more personal, melancholy character based stories. And they need to stop cribbing from the damn film once and for all. I'm done.
I completely agree with you 100%, I didn't touch on the aesthetic change as much as I should have but you're right. One of the major problems with the recent SH games and more specifically, Homecoming, is that the games have become tame. Silent Hill is not, nor should it ever be, a tame series. It should be outlandish, eerie, and completely unpredictable, and in no way was Homecoming anything but completely predictable. You were never wowed at what came out from behind the door, nor did you ever feel helpless, and both of those feelings were always prevalent in the Team Silent days. You make a fantastic point.
I found the first 3 Silent Hill games the best. The atmosphere, the story, the suspense, the monsters, the "Twilight Zone from hell" feel to it... it made those games memorable. Characters such as Harry, JAmes, and Heather were so intriguing and likable yet there were something to them that made you question them if they were really the good guy or not. this was a pro in which Sh: Homecoming succeeded in doing. It seems as though every Silent Hill game after the third took a step forward but then took one back so it made no difference. SH: Homecoming had the defense system. Sh:Shattered Memories had the helplessness, but horrible creatures and no care for the main character. SH: Origins had a great atmosphere and likable character and gave a back story to help explain what happened before Harry yet they had the whole "given" problem. Anyway I think they should try not to play along with what the now average gamer wants, which is no puzzles, no strategy, no thought; just run through and kill(I am so looking at you Resident Evil). How about substance and a story. How about a Silent Hill Game that sort of gives us a clue to what Silent Hill actually is but not really. But the original masterminds behind this once great series and the true creators of this dying genre are all dying away from their good game-making instincts, and joining the bandwagon of unintelligent games. I am glad I still have my PS2 so I can play the original Silent Hill games. But I see some new horror games coming this year that look promising. And I do enjoy Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead. But Resident Evil and Silent Hill are in a coma I don't think they will wake from, so someone might as well just pull the trigger.
Homecoming was kinda what you expected from an American developer... Over-emphasis on combat, incredibly beautiful but rather cartoony visuals, and too much influence by past games and, for no readily good reason, the movie.
What's fantastic is that the new British game "Shattered Memories" seems to understand that Silent Hill has become too derivative of itself so is doing something brand new (albeit still complying with the "remake" brief they were given by Konami) and that the games tend to feature ordinary people who don't have fighting skills...hence why in "Shattered Memories" there is no combat element at all, unlike Homecoming's misjudged American war hero who returns home with fifteen killer combat moves to tear apart those unpatriotic beasts! Heh.
I haven't had a change to play "Shattered Memories" yet...despite it being a British game it's not yet out in the UK. Really looking forward to it, though.
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