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    Silent Hills

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    What was to be a new entry in the Silent Hill franchise for the PS4 involving Hideo Kojima, Guillermo Del Toro, and Norman Reedus, was officially cancelled on April 27, 2015. The 'PT' demo of the game has also been taken off PSN.

    P.T. and Silent Hills

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    dusker

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    Edited By dusker

    I have a confession: I haven't played P.T. I did watch Patrick's Quick Look (and I did have a real-life cockroach crawl up my leg during it) though, and I think that I've seen all I need to see to make the argument I'm going to make. But, there's always the chance that, having not played the game myself, I'm missing something. I really do hope I'm missing something, because P.T. has made me pissed off about its fan's inability to see it for what it is (remember: Patrick called it "brilliant"): a really confusing, shit puzzle game.

    Some of you may have played the infrequently excellent Silent Hill: Shattered Memories by Climax Studios (a game I did actually play through myself), a Wii almost-exclusive that had to be ported over to the PS2 to break even. That game, despite its flaws, was legitimately innovative. It tracked what the player did throughout the game, and the ending you received was based on your interactions with the game world. Spend too much time in the bar? Well, turns out you were an alcoholic and fucked up your kid. The endings weren't always the happiest, but they yearned to show the player that the game is watching you; it knows what you're doing. This kind of message worked beautifully in the Silent Hill universe, because Silent Hill is supposed to be the player character's own nightmare. What better way to fuck with this narrative trope than by making elements of it your nightmare too?

    At the end of the day, the implementation of reactive gaming in Shattered Memories was pretty weak. Though there were elements in the actual game world that changed based on what you did, and the ending was dependent on your actions, it felt like a skin and bones effort. I honestly don't know if I would have realized what the game was doing if it hadn't been mentioned at preview events. The best way to put it is, though the world was, in some trivial way, reacting to what I was doing, I never felt like the game was watching me; it was never a presence in my gaming experience.

    So, what the hell do I even want then? Well, maybe I'm asking for too much. Maybe all I'm going to get from a new horror game is what Shattered Memories already did: fill out a database of the shit I picked up or looked at and slightly alter my gaming experience accordingly. If that's the case, I'll be sad, but I won't be angry. So, what is so terrible about P.T. that is making me angry?

    I was lying in bed, thinking of P.T. and how Patrick constantly didn't know what to do, and wondered "why is the game designed like that"? You could tell that Patrick was pulled out of the experience every time he had to think about triggering the world in a particular way so that he could progress to another sequence of the game. My problem is that, the game is built like a fucking game, like a game that could've been made 10 years ago. I could see, and I think Patrick could see, how fake it all really was.

    In P.T. you spend inordinate amounts of time trying to figure out what the developers want you to do, as if you're solving some obtuse puzzle that barely follows any rules, and gives you scraps for clues, all the while glaringly pointing out the simple, simple gears that is making itself tick. Honestly, think back to the fast walking sequence, where Patrick accidentally doesn't look through the gross bathroom peep hole for long enough. First of all, how is he supposed to know how long that scene is? Second, why the fuck does he have to watch exactly the entire scene before the game realizes it's time to move on?! Oh, I know why, because, video games. Because for as long as I can remember, designers have taken the easy way out and just created triggers in the world and made the player find where these are: make the player respond to them. Unfortunately, this can work for a game like Little Big Planet, and it worked for the original Resident Evil, and even Resident Evil 4, but this kind of game design has worn out its welcome (despite the cries from some corners pf the internet about "curated" or "hand-crafted" experiences. For the record, I think a game world can be both reactive and hand-crafted). This kind of game design hubris, where designers think that players should be reactive to what they've created instead of the other way around, is what's got me so mad.

    What we should all be asking for is a game that feels seamless. A game where you don't have to trigger some cutscene by running in a circle five times and then clicking on a phone after the 3rd ring (or after some bells chime), but where, no matter what you do, something is going to happen. I want the game to watch how I'm playing, and if I take an interest in the radio in the first 5 minutes, I want that to be important and I want that to trigger some event. If I try to go into the bathroom, I don't want the cutscene to only play out when it's convenient for Kojima, I want it to play out regardless of how long I've been playing or what else I've accomplished. And there's precedent. Left 4 Dead has an AI Director that changes the experience every time you play, and it's mostly seamless. At no point are you worried about triggering the next horde, or making sure you've completely a bunch of steps before you can move on to the next area. All you care about is survival, and the game is trying to make that extremely difficult for you.

    The reason I'm angry is because P.T. suggests that Silent Hills is going to be more of this same "if...then" drudgery. And it also suggests that Hideo Kojima, who people put on a pedestal for his ability to combine games and story, is a dinosaur who is helping to hold the game industry back. In a time where No Man's Sky exists, a procedurally generated monolith of a universe, and Day Z exists, hell, where Minecraft exists, how is it that our most beloved franchises are being helmed by guys with such antiquated sensibilities?

    Edit: A lot of awesome, and sometimes exasperated(?), conversation has been happening on this post. A bunch of people pointed out, rightfully, that P.T. is not, as it said at the end, directly related to Silent Hills. I've changed my view after a lot of back and forth about this. My latest post on page 3 has a decent summary. Basically, please don't just read this and respond. There's a lot more that's happened since it went up.

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    jArmAhead

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    I agree. While I really dug the atmosphere, the execution is really worrying. The game is going to have a real uphill battle to prove itself until I see a review.

    I see a lot of people fawning over it and super excited, but they seem to be forgetting how fuckin' dumb the puzzles clearly were.

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    Shortbreadtom

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    P.T has no bearing on what Silent Hills is. It even says that at the end. It's an interactive teaser, nothing more and isn't indicative of what Silent Hills will be upon release

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    glots

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    #3  Edited By glots

    I thought there was a statement from Kojima himself saying that Silent Hills will likely be very different from what P.T. is. Edit; What the guy above me said.

    I personally didn't have to pull my hair off due to any of the puzzles. Might be because I accidentally managed to read some comments about it beforehand and was mentally prepared for the ending to possibly glitch out or such, so when I got stuck for a long enough time, I just watched the ending from Youtube.

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    Ungodly

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    I see where you're coming from, but you just described almost every adventure game ever made. As far as the Kojima comment goes, I agree he sucks, but he isn't part of the same wheel house as those open-world toy box games you mentioned. What Kojima does or doesn't do has no effect on No Man's Sky, Minecraft, or Day Z the man makes linear narrative focused games.

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    dusker

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    #5  Edited By dusker

    @glottery: Maybe. But, if they had the kind of technology that I'm asking for, why wouldn't it be present in P.T.? Besides, what I'm talking about is some deeper, fundamental issue with the way the game is designed. Kojima has *never even tried* to make the game I'm suggesting.

    Also, I think the comment from Kojima is meant to assure people that you won't be walking down two hallways for the entirety of Silent Hills.

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    ll_Exile_ll

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    I'm pretty sure they made a point to call it an interactive teaser and not a demo. The sole purpose of its existence is to announce the game, not demonstrate what the game will be. They've even said that PT is not meant to give any indication of the gameplay, setting, or story of the Silent Hills and is nothing more than a clever way to announce the game and those involved.

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    AdequatelyPrepared

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    I can understand where you are coming from, but you have to remember that P.T. was made to be obtuse by design. If he was trying to make an actual game, no way would a seasoned guy like Kojima make some of the solutions so incredibly out of the way to find (I'm looking at you, scraps of paper). Kojima and co. wanted at least SOME time to elapse between P.T. being released and people discovering its surprise reveal of Silent Hills at the end. He made a cool little mystery out of it, even if it was short-lived. And real mysteries like that in game reveals are rare these days.

    As to your anger with game design in general, most of the games that have been lauded for their stories/themes have benefited greatly from some degree of control and deliberate design, including the original Silent Hill games 1 through to 4. I have my doubts that Silent Hill 2 would have been that awesome to play if every time I booted it up it randomized that whole town. Not saying that procedural generation has a place in video games (Binding of Isaac has to be one of my favourite indie games to have come out, and I'm pretty excited for Rebirth). Anyway, games of both types exist, and there are standout games in both categories, so I don't really see the need for anger. As you said, No Man's Sky seems to be pretty great, and people are getting excited about it as much as they are with whatever Kojima is releasing, so I don't quite get what you are pissed about.

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    dusker

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    @ungodly: I don't think I said that he has an affect on other games or what they're doing. I was trying to suggest that we have a lot of innovative, cool games, but some of the industry's rockstars, like Kojima, are getting a lot of press for using antiquated design techniques that aren't in the same league as those other games.

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    dusker

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    @adequatelyprepared: Maybe I wasn't altogether clear in my post. I never said that I want Silent Hills to be procedurally generated. What I want is the world to react to what I want to do with it. It can be scripted within the confines of whatever that means. I just don't want to have to think about what Kojima wants me to think about. I think that's hubris. And I think it makes for a boring game.

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    spraynardtatum

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    The puzzles were pretty convoluted but...damn that was an awesome way to announce a game.

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    dusker

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    #11  Edited By dusker

    @spraynardtatum: It was a cool way to announce a game. I'll give you that :-)

    @ll_exile_ll: Of course they'd say that. But that can't be true, can it? So we shouldn't be excited by how good P.T. looks, because Silent Hills might look worse? Of course not. They're very likely using a bunch of the Silent Hills technology in this, whether they will admit it or not. They're statement means zero. It's just a way for them to create mystery and drum up excitement. It's PR.

    @adequatelyprepared: I don't think I ever said I wanted procedural generation in Silent Hills. What I was suggesting is that we have a lot of cool, new technologies and ideas and games coming out, and the fact that a new Silent Hill, which is one of my childhood favourites, is, ostensibly, being made with the same kind of design philosophy as the older games, and is getting this much press, is outrageous by contrast. I want the same level of innovation in my survival horror as I'm seeing in other genres of games.

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    Ungodly

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    @dusker: Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding, and I agree with you. I always thought he was too focused on make videogames more like movies... long, monotonous, boring non-interactive videogame movies.

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    ll_Exile_ll

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    #13  Edited By ll_Exile_ll

    @dusker said:

    @spraynardtatum: It was a cool way to announce a game. I'll give you that :-)

    @ll_exile_ll: Of course they'd say that. But that can't be true, can it? So we shouldn't be excited by how good P.T. looks, because Silent Hills might look worse? Of course not. They're very likely using a bunch of the Silent Hills technology in this, whether they will admit it or not. They're statement means zero. It's just a way for them to create mystery and drum up excitement. It's PR.

    Game design and game technology are two completely different things. You're right that it's very likely PT is in fact the Silent Hills engine (Fox engine) and represents to some extent what the game will look like, but complaining about the puzzles is irrelevant. PT was designed to announce the game, and as someone else said the puzzles were merely an obstacle to revealing the secret, designed to waste time and delay the reveal as long possible. This wasn't a demonstration of game design or narrative, it was a glorified trailer with nothing to be drawn from it other than the fact that a game called Silent Hills is in development and this is what it might look like.

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    syz

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    #14  Edited By syz

    It's designed like that because it's nothing but a marketing tool designed to get people talking about it, to get people to play detective.

    And here we are.

    Hell, it seems like the mechanic required to get through the part Patrick was stuck on caters directly to people who stream on their PS4s. It's not hard to see what they were going for here.

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    AndrewB

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    #15  Edited By AndrewB

    @shortbreadtom said:

    P.T has no bearing on what Silent Hills is. It even says that at the end. It's an interactive teaser, nothing more and isn't indicative of what Silent Hills will be upon release

    Pretty much this. There has been long conversations about this in multiple P.T. threads here on Giant Bomb. I will (and have) agreed that if the same design is applied to a final game, it would be a massive failure. I've seen four streams of this game that all devolved into the person going on a pixel hunt which sucked all the atmosphere out of the game and made it just a pain to watch (and obviously play - the Gamespot stream ended in them giving up, as did Patrick's, though he at least streamed what would have happened). It starts out strong then leaves you wishing you were actually in Silent Hill instead of playing it.

    That said, two things:

    1) That doesn't mean I don't want aspects of this teaser to appear in the final game. The atmosphere of the earlier parts is amazing and genuinely shriek-worthy.

    2) They went out of their way to distance the teaser from the final product, and that sign leaves me feeling confident enough they know what they're doing with the main game. I'd like to think the level of puzzle obscurity with the teaser was a potentially misguided effort to extend the duration before the secret was out.

    And even with that said, the difficulty of the puzzles could be the same if they designed it in a way that wasn't so repetitive and allowed the repetition of events to suck out all tension and lift the curtain on the fact that it's a dumb video game where the scares are so scripted. Maybe just a smidge of nudging?

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    dusker

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    @ll_exile_ll: Maybe. I find that extremely hard to believe. As I said before, Kojima has never even hinted at having the ability to make the kind of game I'm talking about. Maybe Silent Hills will be what I want. But, currently, there's no indication it will be. And, to be fair, I wasn't complaining about the sort of puzzles that were in the game. Not really. I was complaining that there were puzzles at all (the fact that they're shitty is irrelevant, and distracts from my main point). Even if P.T. is, as you say, "a glorified trailer with nothing to be drawn from it other than the fact that a game called Silent Hills", why would they put out a crap trailer? Any PR person worth their salt is going to know that people are going to project the gameplay of P.T. onto Silent Hills. I'm doing what's expected. And if the expectation is that people are going to play P.T. and be like "Huh. This might be a shit Silent Hill game if it's like this", and they could've prevented that by making this demo better, wouldn't they have done that? It could just be a mistake, but it seems like an eminently foreseeable one if it is.

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    Akyho

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    @dusker: Dude....P.T was designed to have people wonder around it and try for weeks to finish it. Kojima made it that way, the only people completed it straight away was by being a streamer talking all the time since the puzzle is solved by using the built in mic and talking on the phone.. My friend was one of early streamers except he does not talk at all in his videos It is purely video and so he never completed the puzzle. Some English wifey did cos she was streaming and talking away to her viewers and messing around.

    Obviously the Silent hill is not going to be that game, Kojima likes to fuck around but I think he has learned from the Meryl codec MGS incident that he cannot make it too obscure.

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    Oldirtybearon

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    #18  Edited By Oldirtybearon

    @andrewb said:

    2) They went out of their way to distance the teaser from the final product, and that sign leaves me feeling confident enough they know what they're doing with the main game. I'd like to think the level of puzzle obscurity with the teaser was a potentially misguided effort to extend the duration before the secret was out.

    That's exactly what Kojima said. It wasn't meant to be solved in an afternoon; KojiPro wanted people to bang on it for awhile. Only took a day or two, but considering everyone figured out the MGS5 reveal within 12 hours I'd say they're getting better at this.

    That's a key thing some people (like the OP) are forgetting; PT wasn't a game. Or a demo. It was a clever marketing tactic that reintroduced Silent Hill to the general gaming discussion. That's something Konami hasn't been able to do for the past few Silent Hill games now.

    I mean, think about it fella, if they had just put out a press release or shown a short trailer, would anyone have given a shit? Most likely it would've devolved into endless tweets and forum threads full of wankery over how the last dozen games have been shite and this one will be too. Instead, they put out an interactive teaser that gave people a broad idea of what the devs can do with the horror genre. It was ballsy, but ultimately the smartest decision they could have made. There is virtually no stigma attached to Silent Hills at this point, all because KojiPro and Konami decided to do this instead of announce the game traditionally.

    If anything, I hope more developers learn from this "show, don't tell" approach. With no prejudice, with no preconceived notions, people welcomed PT with open arms and were scared shitless by it. Now that it's revealed to have Kojima, Del Toro, the weight of Kojima Productions, and Norman Reedus behind it people are now more excited for a horror game (let alone a Silent Hill game) than they have been in years.

    I say, good on them.

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    Make_Me_Mad

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    You know... does it actually matter that much? Silent Hill is a ruined husk of a series. The high point was 2 (though I maintain 3 is better) and it's been nonstop disappointment and pale imitations since then. Shattered Memories tried to be interesting and failed spectacularly. Downpour was better than the abomination that was Homecoming, and only barely. If this new Silent Hill game comes out and is literally the worst game ever made, it'll be about in line with the direction the franchise is already going.

    And I'm a big fan of both Del Toro and Kojima! They make a bunch of stuff I really like. That said, they've both also made some terrible shit in the past: The Strain is an absolute mess of a show, even when I keep trying to turn my brain off for it, and MGS4 was laughably bad. Still, MGS3 was great, even if the codec calls sometimes lasted longer than I liked, and Del Toro's proven time and time again that he can nail unsettling, weird monster designs and creepy atmosphere.

    Silent Hill is in the best hands it has been in years. I have a good feeling they won't fuck it up, and if they do, I'll be really bummed! That said, it's not like anyone else was going to do anything more interesting with the franchise at this point.

    (But if they don't get Akira Yamaoka back they're all doomed regardless)

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    syz

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    #20  Edited By syz
    @akyho said:

    @dusker: Dude....P.T was designed to have people wonder around it and try for weeks to finish it. Kojima made it that way, the only people completed it straight away was by being a streamer talking all the time since the puzzle is solved by using the built in mic and talking on the phone.. My friend was one of early streamers except he does not talk at all in his videos It is purely video and so he never completed the puzzle. Some English wifey did cos she was streaming and talking away to her viewers and messing around.

    Obviously the Silent hill is not going to be that game, Kojima likes to fuck around but I think he has learned from the Meryl codec MGS incident that he cannot make it too obscure.

    Exactly.

    Hey guys, how do we beat it? What's the trick? Better make a 120+ page thread on GAF. Wait, PS4 streamers are getting through the teaser? Tune in to find out.

    100% unfiltered marketing. Not a video game. Stop reviewing it.

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    fattony12000

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    #21  Edited By fattony12000

    @dusker: You can't swear in thread titles.

    http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/giant-bomb-forum-rules-557966/

    I would strongly suggest that you play the thing you mean to critique in such a manner, especially since this is a free thing that is available to millions of people around the world.

    Also, Silent Hill is a very different style of game when compared to No Man's Sky, Day Z and Minecraft. It's about different things and means for you to play it in a different manner when compared to those things.

    #things

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    dusker

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    @syz: I mean, it's marketing, but it's also a game. I take the point that it wasn't supposed to be solved immediately. That at least makes me more hopeful. However, there are a lot of people talking about how P.T. is an excellent game, independent of it being a teaser. Maybe I should be directing my ire more towards them (for not realizing that P.T. isn't a very good game) then towards Kojima and co.

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    dusker

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    #23  Edited By dusker

    @fattony12000: Thanks bro. I'm aware of the forum rules, and I think that watching the entire game is grounds for critiquing it in the way that I am. Just because it's available to a bunch of people for free (millions you say?), doesn't mean that I can play it. And, as I said a bunch of times, I wasn't comparing it to NMS et al in the way you're suggesting.

    EDIT: As expected, I can't find it on PSN on my Canadian PS3 and I don't have a PS4.

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    deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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    "Why is this Silent Hill puzzle so confusing and arbitrary?"

    BECAUSE HILL GONNA HILL, PLAYA

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    dusker

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    Hailinel

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    It's not even a full demo. As others have said, it's a teaser, and a very effective one at that. P.T. is goddamn terrifying.

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    Baillie

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    #27  Edited By Baillie

    Pretty sure this won't have much of a resemblance to the mechanics of SHs. It's a teaser, it's to get people talking about the game, exactly like you are right now. Kojima played you like a puppet.

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    development

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    #28  Edited By development

    Hah. It wasn't a full game or even a demo; it was a teaser. Most people weren't meant to finish it. It was supposed to be incredibly difficult to unlock that cinematic at the end. I doubt this will look anything like the final product. You can bet there will be a run button; you can bet the environments won't look as good, as there will be tons more, assumingly; you can bet the moment you hear What's-His-Face speak it'll make you wish they got a real voice-actor.

    This teaser shouldn't be looked at as anything more than a glorified cinematic, in terms of how indicative its contents are of the final product's. What's weirder is you saying you enjoyed some element of Shattered Memories, while we still have no idea what this game will or won't have; how is that even relevant? And, if you really did watch Patrick's whole video, you would have heard Patrick also I think literally call this game "bullshit." He hated the ending parts. You should hate those parts, because you weren't meant to finish the teaser.

    Kojima does this stuff. It's called viral marketing.

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    MooseyMcMan

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    No swearing in thread or blog titles, please. :)

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    syz

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    #30  Edited By syz

    @dusker: Immediacy of the solution isn't really what's worth focusing on here, although it is still largely beneficial to them in terms of marketing and generating discussion.

    If popular theories are to be believed, it seems as though they've designed their experience in such a way that favours PS4 streamers over other people. That alone should tell you all you need to know about their motives, even before Kojima's tweets recommending Twitch streaming. If you want to direct your ire at somebody, aim it at the people who face cam their horror games over the internet and the large group of people who watch them, because I guarantee you that was their inspiration.

    This isn't a game, it's a pin-pointed marketing experience that they are quick to wash their hands of as soon as it's over. Viral marketing, the new defamiliarization.

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    Counterclockwork87

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    It's obtuse on purpose, Kojima was trying to make it crazy hard to figure out so people wouldn't find the secret trailer easily..he put clues in different languages and made the Playstation microphone necessary so people would have to work together all over the world to figure it out. Don't worry about the weird puzzles man those only exist to obscure the ending.

    Have you played a lot of Kojima's stuff? His games have never once had difficult, weird to understand puzzle mechanincs...they're usually pretty straight forward games to understand what to do. Do not worry, it's just a marketing tool...I can pretty much guarantee the final game will be absolutely nothing like this except maybe in tone.

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    deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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    Have you played a lot of Kojima's stuff? His games have never once had difficult, weird to understand puzzle mechanincs...

    THE KEYCARD ISN'T COLD ENOUGH, GOTTA BACKTRACK TO THE WAREHOUSE TO COOL IT.

    ...

    THE KEYCARD NEEDS TO BE WARM, GOTTA BACKTRACK TO THE BLAST FURNACE TO HEAT IT.

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    Sackmanjones

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    Sigh, the obtuse and overly difficult puzzles were absolutely intentional, Kojima said himself during gamescom. He mentioned that this has little connection to the actual game, hell I would be surprised if it's even first person. He said he didn't want anyone to find out about this for weeks. WEEKS!! So apparently the insanely difficult puzzle at the end wasn't even hard enough for they to happen.

    You gotta remember that this is the guy who completely pulled a fast on in metal gear solid 2. Who pulled as fast one announcing metal gear solid 5 and now who pulled a fast on on disgusting a silent hill announcement. If you remove the crazy puzzles and look at the simple atmosphere and sound design, this new silent hill game just may have a chance to stand up with Silent Hill 2 and 3.

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    GERALTITUDE

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    #34  Edited By GERALTITUDE

    This isn't Silent Hills...

    It's a marketing interactive trailer that was made to be ultra obtuse so it would take"a long time" (by internet standards) for anyone to crack that it was actually Silent Hills and not some game called PT.

    For you to be saying *anything* *at all* about what Silent Hills might be like seems like a waste of your energy duder, at least if you're basing it on this demo.

    This ain't the game.

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    dusker

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    #35  Edited By dusker

    This is a general point because two people said it and it doesn't make any sense to me. Just because someone does something intentionally doesn't make it any less bad if it's in fact bad. Sometimes doing something intentionally might make it better. If I cook you some burgers and they're delicious, but I can't cook and didn't intend anything, then I'm not a good cook, I was just good at cooking this once. But it's not really the same when it's a bad thing (especially when it's something that it feels bad to experience, like P.T. for me), unless maybe if it's moral (like if I intentionally kill your dog or I accidentally hit it with my car).

    Additionally, maybe I'm just a shit writer, that could be it, but I think I said this: I don't care so much that the puzzles are obtuse. That's all kind of a distraction. My concern was with how basic the overall gameplay was. How, all we're doing in P.T. is triggering various events in a really simple way.

    I think I've come around to the notion that Kojima wanted this to be really difficult to solve, which might be why it's designed in the way that it is. That doesn't make me feel all that much better, since there are ways to make something difficult without it also being lazy game design. But, After reading the comments here, I'm tentatively more hopeful for Silent Hills.

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    dusker

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    @geraltitude: Yeah, about a million people said that, haha. I'm thoroughly unconvinced that this is completely disconnected from the game, but hopefully it is.

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    GERALTITUDE

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    #37  Edited By GERALTITUDE

    Hah. It wasn't a full game or even a demo; it was a teaser. Most people weren't meant to finish it. It was supposed to be incredibly difficult to unlock that cinematic at the end. I doubt this will look anything like the final product. You can bet there will be a run button; you can bet the environments won't look as good, as there will be tons more, assumingly; you can bet the moment you hear What's-His-Face speak it'll make you wish they got a real voice-actor.

    Maybe it's BS but in the Geoff Keighley interview Kojima says they purposeful reduced the graphical quality to make it hard to guess that PT was actually a big budget game.

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    GaspoweR

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    #38  Edited By GaspoweR

    @ll_exile_ll said:

    @dusker said:

    @spraynardtatum: It was a cool way to announce a game. I'll give you that :-)

    @ll_exile_ll: Of course they'd say that. But that can't be true, can it? So we shouldn't be excited by how good P.T. looks, because Silent Hills might look worse? Of course not. They're very likely using a bunch of the Silent Hills technology in this, whether they will admit it or not. They're statement means zero. It's just a way for them to create mystery and drum up excitement. It's PR.

    Game design and game technology are two completely different things. You're right that it's very likely PT is in fact the Silent Hills engine (Fox engine) and represents to some extent what the game will look like, but complaining about the puzzles is irrelevant. PT was designed to announce the game, and as someone else said the puzzles were merely an obstacle to revealing the secret, designed to waste time and delay the reveal as long possible. This wasn't a demonstration of game design or narrative, it was a glorified trailer with nothing to be drawn from it other than the fact that a game called Silent Hills is in development and this is what it might look like.

    I second what @ll_exile_ll said. I remember Kojima saying that the puzzles (or "not" puzzles) were meant to be obstructive since he was expecting that people wouldn't be able to figure it out within the day of it's release. That's why they never called it a demo and they were very particular in saying it was an interactive teaser. We won't know what the game is until closer to its release anyway and besides he might not even have as big of an input just because his name is attached to it, similar to what happened with Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Maybe he'll have a bit more input with Silent Hills but he might be acting more as a consultant and not necessarily the director. That's just my hunch.

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    GaspoweR

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    #39  Edited By GaspoweR

    @dusker said:

    Additionally, maybe I'm just a shit writer, that could be it, but I think I said this: I don't care so much that the puzzles are obtuse. That's all kind of a distraction. My concern was with how basic the overall gameplay was. How, all we're doing in P.T. is triggering various events in a really simple way.

    I think the fact that you're hang up with this being a game is the root of your frustration. That's the thing, I don't necessarily see this as a pure game (as weird as that sounds) so that's why I don't seem to get too frustrated with it. It exists to serve a singular purpose and again it shouldn't be an indicator of the actually game other than the fact that its definitely going to be a horror game.

    Also just a reminder even though @mooseymcman already changed it (taken from the GB Forum Rules Thread)

    Swearing on forum and/or blog titles: While swearing is permitted on the site in general, try to keep it classy by avoiding swear words on your forum or blog topic titles. Any blogs and/or forum topics found to be in violation of this will be edited or deleted. Alternatively, profanity in thread titles may be changed to the word "puppy."

    So yeah PUPPIES in thread titles is always good. :D :D

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    cloudymusic

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    #40  Edited By cloudymusic

    The main thing I got out of P.T. was that Konami still has people that know how to do a good horror "atmosphere" without it feeling too cheesy or heavy-handed. And I'm somewhat optimistic about Silent Hills in that regard, given what I've seen.

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    SethPhotopoulos

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    As someone who loves Kojima and was actually scared during P.T. when horror rarely affects me I'm looking forward to this.

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    SarcasticMudcrab

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    Personally this has made me interested in The Silent Hill franchise again, which hasnt happened for around a decade.

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    Sergio

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    P.T has no bearing on what Silent Hills is. It even says that at the end. It's an interactive teaser, nothing more and isn't indicative of what Silent Hills will be upon release

    This. It's like a mini-game with no relation to Silent Hill which was purposely made to not tell the player what to do. He didn't expect it to be solved as fast as it was. About the only thing that you can take away about Silent Hills as it relates to the P.T. is who are making the game and whose likeness will be in the game.

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    dusker

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    I mean, I'm totally interested as well, I just don't buy that it's going to be good. Look, Kojima has made some games people love. I don't personally love more than one of them, MGS2, and I haven't played it since it was released. At one point in time, he was an innovative, forward-thinking designer. Lately, he has not been. del Toro does not, as I said in another thread, consistently produce quality products. And, we have P.T. And despite the fact that it's a teaser, and may have zero bearing on the actual game (despite being made with the Fox engine and me not being convinced that it won't), I don't particularly like it, haha. And, we haven't had a really good Silent Hill game since SH2. So, all that said (and I know this wasn't really the point of the OP), if I were a betting man, I'd bet against Silent Hills.

    The central point, though, of my OP was to point out how lazy the game design is in P.T. and lament the fact that we still have to put up with having to try really, really hard to suspend our sense of disbelief while we play some high-profile, current-gen games. The way I wrote it was supposed to be provocative, and I guess it was, haha.

    And, yeah, @mooseymcman, sorry about the title. Won't happen again.

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    SSully

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    I haven't play P.T. yet or watched any videos on it, but what your complaints about the triggering certain things being difficult sounds like a case of this just being a rushed job. This teaser most likely was whipped up in 2 months for this announcement specifically. I would hold your judgement for when the full game comes out.

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    TheHT

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    #47  Edited By TheHT

    I'm gonna make a game and call it a "hugh jackman photo" at the end, so people won't call it a game, they'll call it a hugh jackman photo.

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    Corevi

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    @ssully said:

    I haven't play P.T. yet or watched any videos on it, but what your complaints about the triggering certain things being difficult sounds like a case of this just being a rushed job. This teaser most likely was whipped up in 2 months for this announcement specifically. I would hold your judgement for when the full game comes out.

    It was specifically designed to be difficult and a waste of your time to delay the announcement happening. Remember this is a dude who made a fake interview JUST TO FUCK WITH PEOPLE.

    Loading Video...

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    dusker

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    @theht: haha, nice.

    Agreed. Whatever else P.T. is, it's a fucking game. Unless Amnesia and all sorts of other indie horror games are no longer games too.

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    Dussck

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    It's not a demo or a game. It's a teaser that you can 'play'. It sole purpose was to announce a game without actually announcing it (let the fans and internet do it for you) and scare the crap out of the players.

    Mission accomplished, alot of people are talking about it and it gets alot of media attention (way more then a normal announcement would trigger). Whoever thought this up is a marketing genius. And in my opinion, it was way more fun then watching a trailer on streaming video.

    No one knows what this game will be like right now (except for the devs), the only thing I know is that I love the Silent Hill atmosphere, Kojima makes some pretty good games and that FOX engine renders shit quite real. This can't go wrong.

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