HIGH Helping Lea free the dolls.
LOW Dying repeatedly in a late-game “escape” segment because I couldn’t see where I was going.
WTF I haven’t done this much climbing in a horror game since Cursed Mountain.
In this piece, Darren sat down to talk with renowned videogame sound director Akira Yamaoka, who is incredibly well known for work on many titles ranging from the classic Silent Hill series to more recent titles like Shadows of the Damned and Killer is Dead. Darren took this chance to find out from the man himself how he views his role as a sound director, how he feels about being tied so strongly to his work on Konami’s seminal horror series, and a number of other topics besides.
HIGH Finding my first flamethrower. Burn, motha*#@&$!
LOW The first two hours of play before GameFAQs.
WTF Why is so much vital info unexplained?
Survival horror games aren't what they used to be. Once upon a time, they were about survival and horror. It makes sense. It's what the genre is called, after all. These titles would encompass qualities of mystery and exploration as the player fought to stay alive with every step. Over the years, they've increasingly become about action, gunfights, and an overload of cheap jump scares. I prefer the former, despite a plethora of the latter.
I'm still between review games at the moment, so I started playing Silent Hill: Book of Memories on Vita. I liked the demo and I'm a big fan of dungeon crawlers and Roguelikes when they're done well, so despite all of the negative talk I heard, I decided to go for it. I'm about ten levels into the campaign so far, and I think it's actually pretty good—but that statement needs some qualification.
HIGH The Hansel and Gretel play sequence—it's a cool setpiece that pays off in an even cooler way.
LOW Too close to call—clunky combat or the occasional crashes.
WTF Why are there so few enemy types in this game?
Dynasty Warriors wouldn't generally be considered broken, but it has been negatively seen by a large portion of critics out there. This series saw its best ratings early on, but as time passed, the ratings continued to drop. Warriors (as a whole) isn't safe from the ire of the gaming masses, but it's still a game that I love to call my guilty pleasure.
HIGH A great game-ending twist.
LOW Almost every nightmare sequence is perfectly awful.
WTF It seems this therapist is a session drinker.
I wrote the headline to this story not really thinking—and only now does it dawn on me that "gets a street date" make it sound like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories went out and picked up a hooker…
That's not what happened, though. Instead, Konami has announced the release date for the title (or, the date the game will "hit the streets"). Wii owners can experience an updated version of one of Survival Horror's most revered titles on December 8th. PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable owners will have to wait longer as no date has been set for either of those platforms.
Early demos for the game have been impressive and I'm excited to check out the Wii version of the game—if for no other reason than because it will actually give me an excuse to turn on my Wii…
Jump past the break for a character breakdown from Konami's press release.
It's been a few years since the first Silent Hill movie came out—and while it wasn't as good as many of us hoped, there's so much potential in the franchise that most of us hoped Hollywood would take a second crack at it.
There have been rumors of a sequel for quite awhile, but invariably they've turned out to be false—until last night. THR brings us news that a new Silent Hill film is indeed in the works and will begin filming next year.
According to the site, screenwriters Roger Avary and producer Samuel Hadida will be returning to the project. No word yet on a director (Christophe Gans helmed the original), or any plot details, but you'll read about it here when those details start to emerge.
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