Promised Silent Hill HD Patch Finally Rolling Out

The Silent Hill HD Collection was an embarrassing mess of technical issues, and it’s taken too long for Konami to address them. A long-promised patch (it was announced on April 25!) has been released for the PlayStation 3.

Konami producer Tomm Hulett announced the patch’s availability on the Sillent Hill Community message boards, but made no mention about when the patch would arrive on Xbox 360. I've reached out to Konami about it.

The patch is intended to remedy (or, at least, address) the following issues:

• Improved Framerate
• Voice Sync is greatly improved
• Missing sounds have been fixed
• Missing music has been addressed
• Fog density issues are resolved
• Other minor visual/audio improvement

Let’s collectively remember how rough the Silent Hill HD Collection was upon its recent release. Yuck.

yay this game might finally be good

edit: oh no patch on the 360 version :\

anyone try out the game with the patch yet and how it compares?

Going to wait and see how this actually pans out before risking a purchase. Wouldn't be surprised if they broke something else with their patch.

Pretty sure the 360 version didn't have all of the issues that the PS3 version had. That might have something to do with the patch being for PS3 only.

tell me more about the fog. what about the clean textures, and clean lighting, and clean cleancleanclean

@OneKillWonder_: Oh believe me, it was full of these errors and problems.

Patrick's back! Yay. Hope you're doing better, man. Keep up the awesome work.

Too little too late... I bought this and havent even unwrapped it yet... Which makes me sad because I was an avid fan of the series. No longer!

Hey I already fell for buying the damn thing. If these patches fix it up I might actually play it and feel a bit better towards Konami.

Downpour needs a framerate patch on PS3 too. Just sayin'.

Still enjoyed it even with the texhnical issues. Still need to get back to downpour but might as well wait for that patch also

Wouldn't have just been less of a PR mess to not release the game until now? I doubt this patch is going to fix everything because the base games are still incomplete beta versions of SH2 and SH3.

From what I've seen, the patch still doesn't address the games being way too dark compared to the original versions.

But releasing this in March when they knew it was broken and taking four months to address anything is downright shameful.

Fuck Konami.

Never trust an HD remake when you can buy the originals. NEVER

Tricky Scoopz is back with a vengeance. Welcome back, Patrick!

I just happened to give up hope of a patch ever coming out earlier today, and stuck the disk in. It patched, and I would say it's definitely foggier. Can't comment on the other fixes as I hadn't played more than 20 mins of it before.

That took a really long time but I think better late than never. So many other games are just left to rot.

I might consider getting this now.

Maybe I will buy this..

what's the point of an HD collection if the preservation aspect is ruined by the necessity of a friggin' patch you have to download!

@DeF said:

what's the point of an HD collection if the preservation aspect is ruined by the necessity of a friggin' patch you have to download!

Not trying to defend releasing a broken product, but HD collections are about playing older games in HD. I don't think they're meant to be archival volumes in case of some kind of collapse of civilized society.

Patches: What games should be from the start - The Movie: The Game.

@MariachiMacabre said:

Tricky Scoopz is back with a vengeance. Welcome back, Patrick!

@Kyle said:

@DeF said:

what's the point of an HD collection if the preservation aspect is ruined by the necessity of a friggin' patch you have to download!

Not trying to defend releasing a broken product, but HD collections are about playing older games in HD. I don't think they're meant to be archival volumes in case of some kind of collapse of civilized society.

go away, I wanna write angry comments :P

a patch to a HD collection

now that's the 1st i heard of

YEAH!!! IN YOU MOTHA-FREAKIN' FACE, MICROMANAGE!!!! Finally, PS3 players get a fix first for a change. :D

The HD collection has been out for four months. Now it is too little, too late. Are there any store that still have it in stock? Konami just makes one screw up after another. The controversy with original voice actors. The games being pushed back from October to January then March. The collection being released on the same week as Mass Effect 3. The initial patch that did not do anything. I feel bad for Xbox 360 owners. It ruins the opportunity to introduce new players to the series. Read the overwhelmingly negative responses for Book of Memories on the Silent Hill Facebook page. The Silent Hill franchise is heading into the wrong direction.

Welcome back Patrick.

Still doesn't sound totally fixed.

@Zleunamme said:

The HD collection has been out for four months. Now it is too little, too late. Are there any store that still have it in stock? Konami just makes one screw up after another. The controversy with original voice actors. The games being pushed back from October to January then March. The collection being released on the same week as Mass Effect 3. The initial patch that did not do anything. I feel bad for Xbox 360 owners. It ruins the opportunity to introduce new players to the series. Read the overwhelmingly negative responses for Book of Memories on the Silent Hill Facebook page. The Silent Hill franchise is heading into the wrong direction.

Welcome back Patrick.

Eh... then again, the HD collection is made up of games that came out a decade ago, so I'd say the window may be a bit bigger than you think.

Either way, the PC versions are still the way to go. The only thing that I don't get in this whole scenario is why Konami didn't think to throw a widescreen patch on those and release them on GOG or Steam at the same time they put the collection out in consoles. They could even have slapped the same price tag on them and get away with it.

@camp7203 said:

Never trust an HD remake when you can buy the originals. NEVER

...unless the HD version of Shadow of the Colossus is available and actually fixes the crippling frame rate issues of the original.

Then you buy the HD remake.

I own both console versions - and honestly, I do think this patch builds good will with the old Konami fanbase. Paying both Sony and MS the price of a new car is worth it to them. Hope at least one of the two versions turns out to be reliable, no reason it shouldn't be after all this time.

As far as PC versions... I really have to say no, with those the widescreen hacks must be re-executed every single time you intend to start the program, and even just doing it once is far from something a basic PC user can handle. The gameplay on PC also has bugs compared to the PS2 or Xbox versions. They are not a good long term solution.

So is it worth it? I will wait for a price drop just to play a decent version of Silent Hill 2

I want this for 360, is it stable?

YEAH!!! IN YOU MOTHA-FREAKIN' FACE, MICROMANAGE!!!! Finally, PS3 players get a fix first for a change. :D

Frame rate is still uneven (though better), there is still no surround sound, lip sync is still ... not synced. Patch sucks, stay away from this.

They still have the shitty new textures (way too clean streets etc) and the horrible water effects in there. So no, I'd still rather play the original games.

@Makoto_Mizuhara_Sakamoto said:

YEAH!!! IN YOU MOTHA-FREAKIN' FACE, MICROMANAGE!!!! Finally, PS3 players get a fix first for a change. :D

Well, it was only the PS3 version that had extreme framerate problems and apparently this patch doesn't fix those completely either.

If this patch is any good I might play it.

I have this on rental from Love film atm because didn't want to buy it because of the problems with the ports. Got this patch yesterday and it has made SH3 playable but the frame rate is still bad on occasion instead of all the time. I haven't went back to play SH2 but was mostly fine before the patch with the lip syncing and frame rate in open areas been patchy

Leave it to Konami to be the weird awkward clumsy fuckers in this industry.

Generally, when your choice is to buy an HD remake or not, it becomes a choice between getting a set of games on one disc for $30-50 or paying between $30 and $200 for the same games, depending on rarity, from eBay, Amazon, or if you're lucky and have one in the area, a used game store that carries older platforms.

I am a big proponent of HD remakes for this reason, and often the fact that they have HD textures is irrelevant - I missed a lot of games during the PS2 generation, and since a reprint won't happen, this is the best way to play these games.

The hostility towards patches always interests me, as they've been a fact of life for 15 years, as a long time PC gamer. What really boggles my mind, though, is the exorbitant fee Microsoft and Sony charges for them, as it basically encourages developers to simply leave things unfixed, as theres no return on the investment - if the internet in general says a game is bad, often there is no changing our collective minds.

How does it compare to PC versions now? Still terrible effects and textures? Still missing cutscenes from SH2 and original VAs from SH3? Still not worth it then..

Popped in SH2 last night. Played good. Framerate is smooth, the jittery walk/run thing is gone. Weird thing I don't remember, when you load into a room it's a good two seconds before James' flashlight and the ambiet lighting kicks in.

Well better late than never I suppose. I sort of wanted this when it came out but all the pad press about it turned me off, maybe when Halloween comes around, I'll check it out discounted.

@camp7203 said:

Never trust an HD remake when you can buy the originals. NEVER

There are plenty of HD remakes that are better to play than the originals. Two minutes of googling is all you need to find out if a particular HD update is good or not.

Now this might be a reason for me to actually get my hands on that :]

@Enigma777 said:

@Makoto_Mizuhara_Sakamoto

YEAH!!! IN YOU MOTHA-FREAKIN' FACE, MICROMANAGE!!!! Finally, PS3 players get a fix first for a change. :D

I hope they ban the shit out of you.

Oh zip it.

@Brodehouse said:

Popped in SH2 last night. Played good. Framerate is smooth, the jittery walk/run thing is gone. Weird thing I don't remember, when you load into a room it's a good two seconds before James' flashlight and the ambiet lighting kicks in.

You don't remember that because it never was like that in the original SH2.

@CptBedlam said:

@Brodehouse said:

Popped in SH2 last night. Played good. Framerate is smooth, the jittery walk/run thing is gone. Weird thing I don't remember, when you load into a room it's a good two seconds before James' flashlight and the ambiet lighting kicks in.

You don't remember that because it never was like that in the original SH2.

I think he's talking about remembering the pre-patch remakes.

@GreggD said:

@CptBedlam said:

@Brodehouse said:

Popped in SH2 last night. Played good. Framerate is smooth, the jittery walk/run thing is gone. Weird thing I don't remember, when you load into a room it's a good two seconds before James' flashlight and the ambiet lighting kicks in.

You don't remember that because it never was like that in the original SH2.

I think he's talking about remembering the pre-patch remakes.

Makes sense. Sorry @Brodehouse ;)

I think I'll just stick to the PlayStation 2 versions. Waiting for this crap is unnecessary and a waste of time.