Run for the Hills Silent Hill 2 - 08

So wait.. Angela, a victim of sexual abuse, is just saying "I deserve what happened" and then walks off into eternal flames after she claims that she is beyond saving and no one could love a person with her problems? Thats pretty rough.

For all the duders around the world, stay safe, you are worth it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

@humanity: She also killed her father, so there's that.

I don't interpret Angela's story as a message that some survivors are beyond help. But severe trauma is deeply rooted and a few chance encounters and conversations aren't going to magically heal that. She is constantly haunted by what happened. She isn't walking into the flames; she's been surrounded by them the whole time. James is simplynot equipped to support her.

I do believe there was talk of an Undertale series during an Extra Life. A pacifist run could be a light and pleasant breather before SH3. Obviously, avoid No Mercy if you want to have a good time.

What about Miles Teller for James?

Or Mamoudou Athie who was great in Archive 81.

And for a game, how about Man of Medan

I hope Bloober Team makes the best Silent Hill game ever made.

Time for a Bidoof only Pokémon run.

Jess mentioned how speedrunners dealt with this game and something I’ve heard is that several years ago, while someone was streaming their speed run, a person came into their chat and was like “I know how the randomization works.” And proved it. The community now has a tool that can look at the position of the clock hands on the first puzzle and tell what seed they are in for the rest of the puzzles.

I completely get Jess’ lack of faith in Konami. I anxiously awaited FF7 remake for years and when it finally came out Square Enix spit in my mouth and told me to enjoy it. At least Triangle Strategy was good

I love Her Story, so I don't get the Barlow hate but that's all I've played.

@gyratyne: I interpreted it as the flames she always sees as being her continued trauma, and then her walking up the steps was finally "letting go" and allowing that trauma to completely consume her. The game sets her up as a victim that unlike James is unable to reckon with her own misplaced guilt and the only other feasible solution for her is death. The key difference is that James had agency in the act that brought him to Silent Hill while Angela didn't, she was a victim, yet the game decides James is capable of some sort of salvation by working through his trauma in Silent Hill while Angela is a person beyond saving and her mere existence will continue to hurt not only her but possibly even the people around her as evidenced by her killing her father.

Hot takes from the burning staircase!

This game is special.....and really still stands out even today. Almost at the end now.

gosh i can't believe sam barlow put his fetishes into silent hill with shattered memories. now to go back to watching silent hill 2 where horny nurses monsters that are just made up of sexy legs attack you.

You should play a paper mario next!

I liked Layers of Fear 1(have not played 2) and was actually pretty pleasantly surprised by Blair Witch. I thought the Medium was pretty eh but i've found the criticisms of it pretty disingenuous(regarding the story, gameplay I get). I feel like a lot of peoples hate for Bloober Team is starting to get pretty bandwagon-y. Anyway, I don't want any team to remake Silent Hill 2, I just want 1-4 on steam with the minimum amount of tweaks to make them more out of the box ready for modern hardware(heck let's throw Shattered Memories in there too because i've heard good things, and then the rest just for historical purposes).

the constant hating on bloober team is kind of annoying. making it hard to watch this

@paradigmdream said:

Constant? I mentioned them on two(?) episodes, when prompted to talk about it by the chat. The discussion is relevant to current events, and me having an opinion on that stuff is part of my job.

Ok ok, ya got me with this one. I'll write three whole paragraphs, ugh!

The sexualized monsters in Silent Hill 2 are relevant to the plot and themes! And they're not exactly full-on titillating, but dehumanized and weird - an uncanny 50/50 between sex and death (hey, something Barlow wrote in Shattered Memories that's almost good, but then he goes off the rails and references Bataille's "The tiger in space" quote just to seem clever.). And the nurses didn't become truly Leg Avenue salacious until the dang movie, and then, subsequently, Silent Hill Homecoming.

What I find repellent about Barlow's writing is that it's hitting you over the head with symbolism, to the point of having "Did you get all that?" moments, while trying to appear deep via unceremoniously shoehorning in references to fancier works (Bataille, for instance.) My other gripe is that he has no idea how to make female characters interesting or seemingly 3-dimensional without showcasing their past suffering and their sex lives as shorthand. Women have secret desires! Like, the sexy sort! Whoa! Let's just... peep in on that... wow... so 3-dimensional...

He shoehorns a "spying on someone undressing" scene into (and I'm not exaggerating) every game he's written, with the exception of Her Story, which DOES include prying into a woman's sexual past to the point of her telling a story about losing her virginity to a hairbrush handle. Which, by the way, is not relevant to the damn murder investigation. He thinks he's Hitchcock (to the point of having his Twitter avatar be him in the place of Hitchcock from "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"), but the only takeaway has been the voyeurism scenes. He even had "spying on people masturbating" scenes in Telling Lies. And no, the fact that the dude masturbates too doesn't absolve the writer of the Peeping Tom tendency. It's constant! Look forward to a new twist on "the player is spying on someone in a vulnerable sexual moment" in IMMORTALITY.

Let's get ready for the big OOOOFFFFF everybody!

@humanity: That's a fair assessment. Asking for her knife back is an indication of her intentions, but her fate left is somewhat ambiguous, unlike Eddie.

James has agency because he's a selfish person. He's also tormented by the things he did and feels guilt, but he's suffering the consequences of his desires. Whether he deserves salvation is a matter of opinion and which ending you prefer.

@voidburger:

Your constant hating on comments in this comment section really make it hard to read this /s

Honestly though, keep being you! While I still don't want to play horror games, thanks to you (and Jan) I started understanding the appeal. I'm eagerly awaiting whenever you get around to making video essays again, I understand your schedule is currently chock full as is

Jan: Is that a dead horse with Bloober Team written on it?

Jess: *Grabs a bat*

@voidburger what are your thoughts on Mads Mikkelsen as James?? I also think Robert Pattinson could work too though.

I had a lot of fun the first time I played through Shattered Memories, but the old Let's Play of it Voidburger did back in the day was amazing. Definitely a "play the game once and take the ending you get" kind of game, not one you 100%.

@voidburger when you said Bloober Team put most of the murders from SEVEN in Layers of Fear 2 I went and bought it because that sounds amazing and I really enjoyed Layers of Fear 1.

Martin Freeman would be my fantasy casting for James