Silent Hill/Resident Evil 1, 2 and 3: do they hold up?

these games are all on sale on PSN right now but I was wondering if the gameplay in these games is still decent enough for somebody who has never played a tank-controls survival horror. i want to play fatal frame 1 and 2 really, but they're not easy to find in the UK

Silent hill 2 is by far much better then then Downpour and Homecoming.

There dated, but you shouldn't have a problem playing them. The controls for the Resident Evil games are pretty easy. As for Silent Hill the combat might feel clunky at first, but in time you'll get use to it. Hope you enjoy the games and have fun.

I agree on that...

You have to enjoy the tank controls to really like them, I think. Clunky is the best word for them. Still, RE2 and SH2 are some of my favorite games ever, so I feel that they are worth playing.

Resident Evil 2 holds up for sure. I would say Resident Evil 3 does as well to an extent.

The Resident Evil Remake is still pretty great too - probably the best game in the franchise as far as the "classic" games are concerned (classic meaning before RE4)

There was a hole here....its gone now.

LOL! I still remember that store part in SH2. Me and my friend would make jokes about it.

the resident evil games, uh, well they have among the worst controls ever.

It's really awful.

Also RE1 has some of the worst voice acting ever.

I've been wondering the same thing myself. I'm also wondering if the ps3 hd version of Silent Hill ever ended up being fixed properly.

Remember the Bathroom?

Indeed I do....

From what I've heard from people it got patched up...

Did the 360 version get a patch?

Played through them recently, id say they hold up.

I played Resident Evil 3 for the first time recently and this is all very personal opinion and all that but NOPE

NOPE

I just played RE 1-3 back to back for a charity thing last weekend and I think 2 and 3 hold up great. In fact RE 2 is one of my favorite games of all time! RE 1 is pretty damn rough, but as others have said it has the SOLID GOLD voice acting to support it. RE 2-3 dialogue can't hold a candle to what RE 1 does. I'm a huge fan of the original RE games so I'm biased though :)

Regarding silent hill I'd argue that they have never been fun to play from a gameplay perspective but they are absolutely wonderful and amazing games for their music, atmosphere, sound, etc. The first 3 Silent hills are each fantastic for their own reasons, and SH 2 is still the holy grail that studios have tried finding in all subsequent games in the series. I think playing the SH games on easy mode is a perfectly viable way to experience that series, and this is coming from someone who has beaten 1-3 multiple times each for the endings.

I think its only for the ps3. From what I've heard the 360 version still has major issues..

I can still play the old Resident Evil games just fine, though I could very easily see why they wouldn't hold up for regular human beings used to such things as "characters who don't control like tanks". If you can handle the controls/graphics and the sense of logic that those games operate on then they'll probably hold up well enough.

Damn, all this Resident Evil talk is bringing back good memories. I remember when I played the RE outbreak games. I had so much fun with that series. I had hope for an Outbreak file 3 but it never happen. It made me a sad FalseRelic at the time.

For someone who's never played them, I can't really say. If you're truly interested in them and can put up with awkward controls and other caveats, then sure. I love the old SH and RE games, and for me, they still hold up because I'm used to those controls. I can go back and play them any time without much trouble.

On a side note, why are there not any indie developers out there making old-school survival horror games?

(In my opinion)

Some developers might be afraid to take risks. Considering nowadays Survival-Horror games isn't to popular on the gaming market. Unless it's a Survival-Horror game that's unique or well made, and there's not to many of them.

Sadly its a fine line between a game which limits your power and makes a game unfair. Check this set of videos

Ignore the cover images. Plague of gripes is a strange man.

I'd imagine a survival horror game in the style of Resident Evil would be more difficult to make with a small team than the average platformer, and of course there's also the part where it's sort of a dead genre and has been usurped by horror games where the player has no way of fighting back, a-la Amnesia.

On the plus side, it seems the Resident Evil 1.5 restoration project is going well, as evidenced by this video that came out last week.

: @the_laughing_man said:

He does brings up some great points about what can work and not work for the Horror genre. Having a good narrative, building up atmosphere, and having an interesting concept. All comes into play when making a horror title standout.

O wow, I didn't know about this RE mod. Its looking pretty aswome so far. I'll definitely be keeping my eye on it. Thanks for posting that vid.

Honestly I'm of the opinion that every game "holds up" depending on your amount of patience and interest in a certain game. If you want to take a look at older survival horror games, just understand they're obviously not going to play or sound like games from 2013, and you'll have a great time. I play old games all the time and I've never understood this idea that any game more than a few years old is practically unenjoyable.

RE2 and RE3 totally do imo, but the original most definitely shows its age. I mean I can still play them well enough, but stuff like Chris' ridiculously small inventory space and the crazy amount of invincibility frames the Hunters have can take a toll even on me.

The Silent Hill games are much easier, however, so the controls don't matter as much. Though Silent Hill 2 is still a notable offender in that regard, with some of the worst combat in the series. Even the original Silent Hill plays better than 2. Still, SH2 is also one of the easiest as ammo is freakin' everywhere in that game on the normal combat difficulty mode.

I went back and replayed RE1, 2, and 3 last summer, and I still had a blast.

Personally, I have no issues with the tank controls. Although, I'll be more than willing to admit that I might be looking through some nostalgia glasses here seeing as that was one of my favorite ps1 series growing up as a kid.

silent hill 2 is timeless as long as you dont mind survival horror controls :)

It may be considered 'dead', but look at the past few years of indie games bringing back other genres that were also considered dead. I feel like a lot of indie games gained a level of popularity that transcended the niche audience it was designed for. There are developers out there with modest sized teams that pull off things far more complex with pretty low budgets. I just like to think that someone, somewhere out there wants to see this done as badly as I do and can actually do something about it. There's certainly room for multiple kinds of horror games to exist.

I also totally forgot that I had downloaded the early version of RE 1.5 when they first put it out. I never bothered to figure out how to get it work though. I may as well just wait for them to finish now!

@posh said:

Silent Hill 2 and 3 hold up great. Better than a lot of games that come out now in fact. Silent Hill 3 in particulate still looks incredible and is arguable the best in the genre. Silent Hill 1 holds up as well as you let it. Personally, it's my favorite of the series, but if you are going to play it, you absolutely should play it first.

Can't comment on the REs. Only old-school style ones I've played are REmake and CV:X.

Silent Hills 2 and 3 hold up perfectly well. Play them on Easy if you're concerned about the combat. I played through them last year, both in the PS2 and HD remake versions. They're spectacular games, and my personal GOTY for 2001 and 2003.

If by hold up you mean as good as they ever were... yes

SH 2, 3, and 4 are on PC so they are still fantastic games and while dated graphically still look fine. SH1 is a bit muddy and I never thought it was that great (its lower on my favorite Silent Hill games) but the story is still there so there's that.

RE was never a good game. I did find them scary when I was a kid, but now I realize how cheesy they are. RE 1 is great for a laugh. The bad acting in it is legendary. RE2 improved the concept a little, and to me was a more enjoyable and scary game at the time but I don't think it holds up- personally, as again it's not really scary. The acting is better but I'm not sure that helps. Don't get me wrong, as a game, it's still fantastic (atmospherically if you're into that) but these are PS1 games so graphically you may have a hard time. Really there was a ton of RE games on PS1 (I think 3) so... It's an unfair comparison as fidelity wise the best SH games are all above and beyond what RE ever did (graphically and story wise). They really don't compare to each other.

Come to RE for the puzzles and maybe the story (but not really the story) and the weird atmosphere. Come to SH for the graphics, story and atmosphere.

@hunter5024 said:

The PS3 got a minor patch, but the things wrong with that version are unreparable. Just get the proper, unaltered versions.

If you don't mind the controls then they are all still excellent games. Well, maybe not RE3. It is the most "actiony" of them all and that heavier focus on action can make the game a bit more troublesome for people who struggle with tank controls. I have never felt like that game worked well with its control scheme.

If you can, avoid playing the HD versions of SH2 and 3. They are plagued with problems that really detract from the atmosphere, which is one of the main things you play the game for. Things like the fog not rendering right, or the lighting being way off. HD versions also have some frame rate issues that aren't present in the originals. On top of that, I personally feel that while the new voice performances are technically better acted, they aren't as good because they don't have this whole eerie, oddly weird feel to them.

The first 2 games are some of my favorite games, but I cannot play them today.

I've tried a few times on PC but .. no.

I loved the Resident Evil games, but I never got a chance to play any Silent Hill games. Do the Silent Hill games have the puzzle and item hunting aspects of Resident Evil?

Yeah. In fact that's primarily what's separated the two; Resident Evil tends to favour combat, whereas Silent Hill has often put in its lot in the adventuring side of things, with a lot more puzzle solving and a much greater emphasis on story.

Dope! I'll check them out.

It does more so then Resident Evil, but be warn the puzzles in Silent Hill can be confusing at times. There are puzzles in Silent Hill that will leave you lost. I recommend putting the puzzle difficulty to easy. If you don't want to be annoyed as much...

You'll get used to the controls fairly quickly. Just be careful not to poo a little bit.

@clonedzero: you mean the best voice acting? I agree.
Also the 'bad' controls are part of what makes it scary, at least to me

Once you get over the controls, the games play fine. That's the games biggest hurtle. Otherwise they hold up fine. They're still as spooky and atmospheric as they were when they were first released.

You mean in the sense that they're not well constructed, or simply difficult?

@sisyphean said:

That depends on how you classify needing to know several Shakespeare plays to solve a riddle.

@sisyphean: Ya, Silent Hill has environmental and logic puzzles. They are often obscure as to what you're supposed to do if you haven't played it before, but they all (if I recall) have a difficulty setting for the puzzles and combat separately so you can always adjust that. The more difficult you make the puzzle difficulty affects how obtuse the setup for a puzzle is.

The way puzzles are designed is fine it's just a mind fuck much like the stories themselves haha

They should be pretty manageable I'd say; they ask of a lot more brain power than what you'd find in a Resident Evil game, but they otherwise probably won't force you to resort to a guide or anything. There's some occasionally strange item combinations, though.

Also, only SH2, SH3, and Downpour actually let you set a separate difficulty for puzzles, but you should be fine if you stick to the Normal mode settings.

I assume you're referring to that puzzle with the books in SH3? I wanna say it only asks of any Shakespearean knowledge on the Hard mode setting.

That's the one. True, it only requires that outside knowledge on Hard, but all of the riddles on hard riddle difficulty are ridiculous. Everyone talks about the Shakespeare riddle because it's right at the beginning, but I'd wager the one in the hospital is way harder. On normal they are totally manageable.

The piano riddle in Silent Hill 1 held my game up for days before I caved and went to a walkthough.