Quick Look: Silent Hill HD Collection

Silly Tricky! Sadly all of the HD remakes I've played make you exit out to the system OS and reboot to get to the next game. I get the feeling it's loading separate executables on the disc, hence, it has to do this bullshit. But it's not something wholly specific to Konami, that's all. 

@Creamypies said:

The port of SH3 in this collection is actually really good. The game still looks fucking incredible.

A lot of effects are missing in the SH3 port...

http://h9.abload.de/img/a87x4i.gif

@Creamypies said:

The port of SH3 in this collection is actually really good. The game still looks fucking incredible.

A lot of effects are missing in the SH3 port...

Well it's Konami which hasn't had a ton of technically sound/good looking titles for a while so I'm not surprised that these remakes are quite poorly done. Too bad as I'd get the SH2 remake if it was done on a decent enough quality to make it worth going back to. Seems the best way to revisit them is as Patrick pointed out is to look for the pc versions or just get a cheap ps2 & play them that way.

@RoyCampbell: Did the animated gif work for you? I made it into a normal link since it didn't for me...

edit: never mind, clicking on the pic works

@Smokey_Earhole said:

Wonderful, the never-ending Patrick QLs continue. Good, bad? You decide.

...I want Ryan back, in full troll-mode.

Stop going to this site.

I understand that exploiting back-catalog is a great way to create revenue for little cost but when you turn out really shitty "HD" ports you're killing the value of that catalog. Konami are making themselves seem even more irrelevant by presenting their good games in such a careless fashion.

@metalsnakezero: MGS was excellent, so I'm not worried about ZOE.

Wow, the framerate in three is just unacceptable, what a shitty job they've done. Silent Hill deserves better than this.

I like that Konami has made an effort to keep Silent Hill relevant with the release of Downpour, but I think the HD collection has really jumped the shark. Gamespot even did a comparison video between the originals and these versions and there are staunch differences. Everything in the new versions look so clean and brighter. The original artist for the Silent Hill series Masahiro Itō even complained about the changes on Twitter. He's no longer with Konami since the original Silent Hill team was disbanded after Silent Hill 4: The Room.

@RazielCuts said:

In before I watch it, predicting Patrick says 'Play Siren: Blood Curse.'

Prediction: sound.

Impressive though, he held back more than 20 minutes. Must have been stressful for him.

New feature, slow mo.

While I appreciate Patrick and Brad talking about Shattered Memories, the fact that they both talked over and thus missed the audio going out of sync in that cutscene is kinda painful.

What games DOES Patrick like? : )

@FoxMulder said:

Brad, no one bought Shattered Memories because no serious gamer owns a Wii!

I thought the same thing. Kinda obvious answer to that one Brad. I played Shattered Memories on PSP. It and Origins did have PS2 ports as well.

Who really cares about the menus though?

FYI, Konami put out a press release this morning promising a patch for both versions of the game. Hopefully this fixes it? Also, you're welcome. Clearly, we pushed them over the edge. That's what I'll tell myself, anyway.

Urgh, the SH2 port is disgraceful. It's almost like they tried to make it bad. SH3 is only a modestly better port than SH2, but it's still clearly missing details. But when you're bringing out a directors cut, they're kinda supposed to be better versions of the games.

Edit: I spoke too soon. That frame rate on SH3 really makes me question how this got released at all.

Is it just me, or is the sound effect that plays when you bring up the map THE EXACT SAME as in Deadly Premonition?

Does Patrick even know what a HD Collection is hasn't he seen any of them. they don't change what the game is or how the menus are the whole point of them is to make them HD so they don't in theory look like crap when playing on a HD tv sure they may add trophy / achievements some even 3D such as the sly cooper collection and fix frame rates if needed but everything is as it was originally so picking out the way the silent hill menu looks was really stupid, this is not Patrick Hate but sometimes he really does say things with out thinking.

@buzz_killington: It's a little different

@Smokey_Earhole said:

@RazielCuts said:

In before I watch it, predicting Patrick says 'Play Siren: Blood Curse.'

Prediction: sound.

Impressive though, he held back more than 20 minutes. Must have been stressful for him.

If even just a handful of people end up playing that game, it'll be worth it.

SH3 is the game where the ridiculous cult started overtaking the psychological horror, Patrick. It was still good, but it set the trend.

Sick of them touting Dead space and Shattered Memories as good survival horror games. Like they talked about on the 4/24 bombcast with fez and how you take the frustration with the denouement. Good survival horror should never be about competently dispatching enemies.

Frictional Games, Cryostasis, team psykskallar, SCP, Stalker (Chernobyl and Call) are all good modern survival game examples. The horror is always incidental.

I've played these and have written a review. Yes these ports are messed up, no hiding that but they can still be enjoyable to someone who has never played them like me. First off that walk/run issue is something I never came across in 2 and overall I'd say 2 is a better version than 3. While 3 looks better it has that nasty frame rate all too often. Also it's a shame they didn't get to the apartments in 2, all the indoor stuff looks great and is as scary as you could ask for. I'm glad this came out or else I could have never played them, but there is no denying that these port jobs could have been done way better

Silent Hill should have Konami arrested for child abuse.

Aww, they're both negative going in. Frankly I think it's amazing, making two (of potentially the best) Silent Hill games easily available and with a few practical additions to boot.

I've finished SH2 and am a few hours into SH3, I haven't seen anything too distracting and I can't imagine the PS2 versions would be much better. Harder to find, more expensive, requires outdated hardware and would generally be more annoying to get and play.

Perhaps their negativity comes from having played the games already years ago, or decided then not to bother? Never having played them this collection was a godsend. Are the porting problems significant enough to justify buying a PS2 and those two games? I got the collection for £20 and I'm loving it.

I just have to say it.

Silent Hill 4 is the best of the series.

As I posted on the Silent Hill patch article, if anyone wants to see for themselves, I made two extensive videos that show what's wrong with the HD versions of SH2 and SH3. What they did to these games was absolutely shameless.

Part 1 (SH2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58n-Gg1GrE4

Part 2 (SH3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_1vlqb9Zrk

@AnEternalEnigma said:

As I posted on the Silent Hill patch article, if anyone wants to see for themselves, I made two extensive videos that show what's wrong with the HD versions of SH2 and SH3. What they did to these games was absolutely shameless.

Part 1 (SH2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58n-Gg1GrE4

Part 2 (SH3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_1vlqb9Zrk

Get a haircut, hippie.

EDIT: I couldn't quite place it before, but you look EXACTLY like Rorie.

I think this is the most depressing quick look of all time.

I wish they would port Deadly Premonition to the PS3 :(

I'm not prone to these types of statements, but if you think that the new voice actors sound better than the old then you are out of your fucking mind.

I beat SH2 two days ago on the 360 version, I didn't notice any problems other than the fog showing too much. I also started SH3 and I didn't have any framerate issues at all, it was playing pretty smoothly. I just love these games, and I hadn't played them in a while so it brought a nice feeling of nostalgia which was what I was looking for anyways, so I'm satisfied.

@WMoyer83: Uh http://www.destructoid.com/deadly-premonition-director-s-cut-coming-to-ps3-223467.phtml

Also, better late than never I guess for a QL of this.

Fuck... this is so disappointing..

The first Clock Tower game (The First Fear) is one of the scariest games I've ever played. I still can't finish it.

So far I've had the good fortune of playing all but the first Silent Hill on the PC. They're definitely the best versions of these games. It's unfortunate that the first one never got a PC release.

I've only ever played Shattered Memories, which I enjoyed. This looks less than enjoyable.

Never played any Silent Hill games...though I have read some good things about the earlier games, I have heard WAY more bad things about the rest of the series...

@Marcness: i agree, i thought silent hill 2 kinda sucked. SH1 is the highpoint in the series for me. i didnt like any of the characters at all in SH2, they seemed too dumb lol. SH1 was more believable imo. SH3 is okay, i havent actually finished it yet though, but so far i think i like it more than SH2.

I kind of hate how apologetic the giant bombcrew gets for some of these games. You don't have to make excuses for them. A lot of the times you guys aren't very accurate with the excuses either.

Silent Hill 3 takes place 15 years after the events (Good+ Ending) of the original Silent Hill. Silent Hill 2 happened between (or after) those events. Also, the "mythology junk" in all 3 are amazing. Silent Hill 4, not so much. I'm just now getting around to Shattered Memories because I got a Wii for Christmas this year. I've owned a 360 for about 5 years. :) Also, the "HD" jobs were sloppy, I'm not going to buy them when I can get a better gaming experience on my PS2, with the originals.

Is it just the video compression that is causing this game to look like it's in 16 bit color? The fog especially only seems to have 3 shades of grey.

That frame-rate is atrocious. Complete and utter laziness. This should be allowed to be sold.

I wish they would port Deadly Premonition to the PS3 :(

Holy shit, what's with these awful Brad and Patrick Quick Looks? They both seem to go into a game with the intention of completely shitting on it. They should stop doing these Quick Looks together before they both lose all their integrity that they have built up.

So much nitpicking...

Out of sync audio I found frustrating in the HD collection. Brad and Patrick were talking over the cut scenes but it is more noticeable in Silent Hill 2. Dialogue is heard but does not correspond to movement of the characters mouths. The same thing when guns are fired. The muzzle flash shows but the bang comes a second later. It's odd that none of the new voice actors are credited other than Mary Elizabeth McGlyynn.

A patch-PS3 version- was released a week after the collection came out but it did not do anything. A way to get back to the main menu is the hold down L1, L2, select, start, R1, R2 simultaneously to soft reset. The work done for Silent Hill HD collection is disappointing. It is interesting that the announcement for the patches came after the quick look. It's not coincidence since both games-including Downpour-have out for almost a month. Giant Bomb has sway in the industry and getting the job done.

@C_Cage said:

I kind of hate how apologetic the giant bombcrew gets for some of these games. You don't have to make excuses for them. A lot of the times you guys aren't very accurate with the excuses either.

@Gizmo said:

Holy shit, what's with these awful Brad and Patrick Quick Looks? They both seem to go into a game with the intention of completely shitting on it. They should stop doing these Quick Looks together before they both lose all their integrity that they have built up.

So much nitpicking...

Wow, seems like both of you were watching two completely different QL.

I didn't have any issues with the HD Collection. I guess I really am a magus.

I don't know if there is a HD collection yet that allows you to jump between games without going to the XMB. Not that its a big issue because you probably are gonna just be playing one game at a time anyhow.