Silent Hill: Downpour, HD Collection Patches Incoming

Like any series fan, I’d heard there were substantial issues with Silent Hill HD Collection, and they were profoundly apparent when I sat down to play the “upgraded” versions Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 for today’s Quick Look.

In a rather fortunate coincidence, just hours after the Quick Look went live, Konami issued a press release promising a patch for both the Silent Hill HD Collection and the latest, not particularly great sequel, Silent Hill: Downpour.

Konami claims it “understands the issues some users are experiencing." It's reportedly developing a patch to address frame rate issues (that’s an understatement, especially at the end of today's Quick Look) and audio syncing within the HD Collection, and auto save glitches (which came up in our Quick Look not too long ago) in Downpour.

The patches don’t have a date yet, but Konami said they were planned for the “coming weeks.”

Of all games, Silent Hill 2 deserved better. Hopefully, this patch is a step towards making that happen.

I already had the cheevo, dwi.

Better wait a bit to buy it then.

I think it would be better to track down the originals .... Good thing I have them :)

They certainly need patching.

Damn. Now I'm not sure if I should postpone my playthrough of downpour (which is actually pretty good so far Patrick…) or just trudge forward

Somehow I doubt a patch is enough to solve the legion of issues they have, and I'm certainly not touching this collection until those games are the actual best versions of those games. At least they're not completely leaving that ship without a sail.

Well if they do fix everything then I will probably consider buying it. Got the PS2 version a few days ago after loving the first and hearing the HD collection was fucked. As much as I liked 1, it was really hard to get used to the PS1 graphics for a while and it did kind of take away from the atmosphere. While I can deal with PS2 resolutions on a HD TV, I'd much rather have a true HD upgrade so it looks better. It's odd how last gen games look great on regular, non-HD TVs, yet look pretty bad on modern TVs.

Are they going to patch in food on tables?

Patches aren't going to save what's wrong with HD Collection. Period. Absolutely terrible shit they did to those games. Tomm Hulett was actually posting in the NeoGAF thread for HD Collection to defend his script changes to SH3 (lol) but bailed once everyone starting noticing so many problems.

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.

@Sackmanjones: Where are you at?

@Sackmanjones said:

Damn. Now I'm not sure if I should postpone my playthrough of downpour (which is actually pretty good so far Patrick…) or just trudge forward

Was there a tipping point for you on when it started to click? I might boot it up again tonight, since another night of Fez will probably break me.

@patrickklepek: For me, about the time that you start sorting through the city library was where I said to myself "Okay, you know... this feels like some pretty good Japanese survival horror gameplay."

@patrickklepek said:

@Sackmanjones said:

Damn. Now I'm not sure if I should postpone my playthrough of downpour (which is actually pretty good so far Patrick…) or just trudge forward

Was there a tipping point for you on when it started to click? I might boot it up again tonight, since another night of Fez will probably break me.

Try and locate a house you can enter via a basement window, located near a small park I think; once inside you'll hear a woman crying and... well, just carry on from there.

Downpour is a really interesting game. Unpolished but very compelling.

It's also the first Silent Hill game I've ever played; I don't have any nostalgia for the franchise or romantic ideas about what it's 'supposed to be'. I think it's a good if flawed game. I might even give it a second go post-patch.

Makes me wonder why they didn't just wait a few more weeks and release the collection in a non-busted state. However, it is heartening to learn that Konami cares enough to release a patch.

@patrickklepek: Once you meet DJ Ricks in person, things just get really weird.

Damn. Now I'm not sure if I should postpone my playthrough of downpour (which is actually pretty good so far Patrick…) or just trudge forward

@Sackmanjones: You're about half way through the game. The auto save bug isn't much of a problem as there are ways to tell whether game actually saved. So I say just go and finish it.

@FancySoapsMan said:

@Sackmanjones said:

Damn. Now I'm not sure if I should postpone my playthrough of downpour (which is actually pretty good so far Patrick…) or just trudge forward

Downpour has some technical problems but I didn't encounter anything game-breaking. You should just keep playing it.

Yeah, besides the annoying hitch ups when I was exploring Silent Hill (which did get really aggravating on occasion), I never encountered anything severe. As long as you can tolerate the poor combat, there's no reason to stop.

The scariest part of that game is a house with a dead man who is caught in a vice and missing something.

Basements are scary, SUB-BASEMENTS BELOW BASEMENTS are fucking horrifying.


One thing that I don't know if you can do again is the ethereal quality of Silent Hill 2. The acting is bad that the characters don't feel quite ... human? They don't react with the right emotions, James especially. Murphy reacts appropriately to strange landscapes and impossible physics (stairwells to nowhere). James just says nothing, like he's not even seeing the same things you are. When he does react, its muted and off. It's something you really can't do nowadays, you can't have your characters acting wooden and odd in order to get that almost Expressionist sense of ethereal strangeness.

Konami needs to fucking patch who ever approved this product for shipping. Aside from the technical problem, that HD collection just butchered the spirit of those games. I guess they didn't get the memo of what and HD collection is.

Downpour is actually pretty great.

@Sackmanjones said:

@Abyssfull I don't think I've hit this yet but I'm scared to now. If you don't mind could ya give me a bit more detail on where it is. Id love to find it. I just left the apartments where the neighborhood watch mission was (that was pretty creepy itself)

Oh, I loved that side-mission, with all of the eerie sound effects that play when you enter someone's apartment. Nerve racking stuff. The basement I'm on about is very early on, based within the starting section of the town before you move through the apartment building. The window sticks out because you can tell the light's on. I don't want to elaborate any further, but... that was the moment where I knew that I wanted to carry on. I've already talked plenty about particular moments, but I'll hold my tongue here for spoilers sake. Suffice to say, you should make a note to try and complete as many of the side missions as possible - there are a lot of winners in there.

It all only gets better as it goes on too; the more often you re-enter the Otherworld, the more mind-bending it all gets, with plenty of really neat illusionary effects. The only downside I have with it all is the overall story, but I gave it a pass considering how so much more Vatra got right, despite the obvious budget constraints. One of my favourite games of the year by far, and I'm just so glad that there's still someone who's willing to make this sort of game in 2012.

OK, OK, I'll pour a beer and play some Downpour tonight.

OK, OK, I'll pour a beer and play some Downpour tonight.

@patrickklepek said:

OK, OK, I'll pour a beer and play some Downpour tonight.

It's understandable why the beginning segment during the mines would ward someone off, but you'll thank us all later when you reach parts like the Hansel and Gretel play. <3

That's good to hear about Downpour. The auto-saving not really saving was one of my biggest issues with that game. Besides that and the frustrating combat, Downpour is actually brilliant until the last area, where it all just falls apart due to having to fight way too many fucking enemies.

As for the HD Collection, at least on the Xbox version, I haven't had many problems with it. I've played through all of SH2 and the beginning of 3 so far. I think my main issue with SH2 is that it hasn't aged nearly as well as I'd have hoped. Going right from Downpour into SH2, I found the combat to be even more infuriating, even more so than I had remembered. It's still a wonderful game otherwise.

@Sackmanjones said:

@Abyssfull ok I will backtrack and fin this basement door. Right now the side missions I have but not finished are finding the little girl who is autistic and releasing all the birds which really has my interest because of the"extra" clips you get when releasing them

The little girl's pretty good; it goes on for a while, though. Don't expect to finish that one till you're a little further in the story and you start exploring the upper side of the town. The Birds is an easy one, pretty hard to miss any of them.

Two of my favourites would be the gramophone one (which you'll find in a house that you enter through a fire escape, though you need one of those hook weapon to pull it down first. Fortunately they'll always respawn near the first ladder you needed one for) and the theatre. Again, I won't delve any further, but they're the two I highly recommend you put in the effort to solve.

EDIT: And always make sure to explore throughout every street, every building and so forth. There's a lot of surprises to find around town, and some of the side missions can be easy to miss.

Also Downpour even occasionally utilises camera angles for some added effect. Camera angles, brah!! I tell you, it's essentially a love letter to anyone who had a fondness for the RE's and SH's of the 90s and early oughts.

@Sackmanjones said:

@Abyssfull ok I will backtrack and fin this basement door. Right now the side missions I have but not finished are finding the little girl who is autistic and releasing all the birds which really has my interest because of the"extra" clips you get when releasing them

The little girl's pretty good; it goes on for a while, though. Don't expect to finish that one till you're a little further in the story and you start exploring the upper side of the town. The Birds is an easy one, pretty hard to miss any of them.

Two of my favourites would be the gramophone one (which you'll find in a house that you enter through a fire escape, though you need one of those hook weapon to pull it down first. Fortunately they'll always respawn near the first ladder you needed one for) and the theatre. Again, I won't delve any further, but they're the two I highly recommend you put in the effort to solve.

EDIT: And always make sure to explore throughout every street, every building and so forth. There's a lot of surprises to find around town, and some of the side missions can be easy to miss.

Also Downpour even occasionally utilises camera angles for some added effect. Camera angles, brah!! I tell you, it's essentially a love letter to anyone who had a fondness for the RE's and SH's of the 90s.

@Brodehouse said:

The scariest part of that game is a house with a dead man who is caught in a vice and missing something.

Agreed.

I really loved the sense of exploration in the game, and finding these vignettes. It made the town feel old, like it had trapped many a guilt-ridden soul and seen them to their ends in grisly or sad ways. I really dug that, and the sense that Murphy was just the latest fly. Inessential but a cool way to build out the world.

Nice to see Downpour getting some love. It really is a good game, despite its flaws.

I haven't even cracked open my copy of HD collection yet, so I guess I might as well wait a little longer.

@Sackmanjones: Oh yeah, a lot of nods to prior SHs all around. There's even some not-so-subtle references to Homecoming of all things... I remember you can examine what is literally called ''painting of Shepherd's Glen'' or something to that nature.

I'll have to see what the patched versions look like. Hopefully, good, because I would like to get the HD versions of these games, if they are done right.

@Sackmanjones One of the biggest scares in Silent Hill 3 (for me) is with a mannequin torso in one of those apartment/business buildings later on in the game.

The scariest part of that game is a house with a dead man who is caught in a vice and missing something.

Basements are scary, SUB-BASEMENTS BELOW BASEMENTS are fucking horrifying.


One thing that I don't know if you can do again is the ethereal quality of Silent Hill 2. The acting is bad that the characters don't feel quite ... human? They don't react with the right emotions, James especially. Murphy reacts appropriately to strange landscapes and impossible physics (stairwells to nowhere). James just says nothing, like he's not even seeing the same things you are. When he does react, its muted and off. It's something you really can't do nowadays, you can't have your characters acting wooden and odd in order to get that almost Expressionist sense of ethereal strangeness.

Oh, you boys and your Silent Hills.

But am I alone in seriously appreciating the riddle difficulty setting in Silent Hill 3? For my first playthrough I chose Action hard and Riddles easy, to focus on the mood and story, but on second I switched it and was really impressed with the fact that the hard riddles are solved through the same processes, but with different solutions and more layers of thinking added on. For example, the first puzzle, if I can remember right, was a row of a dozen books or so in a shelf. On easy, you ordered them by number. On normal, you ordered them by by the picture on their spine, different from the numbers. But on hard, it involved you actually knowing your Shakespeare plays. Any game that has me thinking outside its confines, especially if its common knowledge I might have or can poor over with a friend, has my vote.

The /in-memoriam/62-1818/ games spring to mind. Masterfully cerebral, intense and creepy, even though they were really only a series of flash-games, internet hunts and e-mail correspondence.

I was really looking forward to these, but after hearing of the issues, decided to hold off on purchasing them. I hope this patch fixes the issues. I will be waiting patiently.

It's awesome that Downpour is getting some attention. The implication of the Ribbons side story is disturbing. The character model in the Dead man's hand side story resembles another Silent Hill character.

Can it be an erase-forget-it-ever-happened patch?

I feel like Patrick really missed the ball on Downpour. Yeah the combat kinda sucks but it's not supposed to be Bayonetta-smooth, that would take all the tension out of the game. I think when he finally finishes it we'll hear a different story on the next bombcast.

Can we just get the PC version of Silent Hill 2 on Steam or GOG with Windows 7 support and call it a day?

I'll have to see what the patched versions look like. Hopefully, good, because I would like to get the HD versions of these games, if they are done right.

@Sackmanjones One of the biggest scares in Silent Hill 3 (for me) is with a mannequin torso in one of those apartment/business buildings later on in the game.

I bought the HD Collection at launch, but haven't played it yet. Guess it wouldn't hurt to wait a few more weeks.

I like Silent Hill Downpour.