Silent Hill HD - Collection (PS3)

It's a shame i can't put as much effort into this review as the people who worked on the HD remastering of this collection.

If i could it would be two words long...

That'll do.

Don't get me wrong, i can play games with minor issue with no problem, i have played games where people have been complaining on the internet and i've played the game and have barely even noticed them, or they were so minor they didn't effect my enjoyment of the game. The same can't be said of this HD collection.

We all know how good HD collections can be, just look at the Metal Gear Solid Collection or Ico/Shadow of the Colossus, they look stunning on the PS3. Silent Hill deserved no less. The bare minimum standard for this collection should be, 'at LEAST as good as the original'... sadly they could't even keep to this standard.

I appreciate the effort made on the new voices, from what i have heard they are better than the originals, HOWEVER they even messed this up, they spent all that money on the new voices yet somehow allowed an obvious glitch into the game to make them unusable. Every time James stops running, which is often, there is a godawful metallic scraping noice... supposed to be an out of breath sound effect. Fortunately this glitch isn't on the original voices track.

For fear of this review just turning into a long rant and list of problems with the games I will just point out major issues. I am referring to the first 10 minutes of Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3 is supposedly much worse.

Fog has been thinned out to the point where you can see the edge of the game world.
Fog effects are now literally rectangle blocks of light grey floating around. I don't remember stopping in the fog in the original to laugh at the fog effects.
James moonwalks in the fog.
Framerate slows down for no reason, this is an old PS2 game for crying out loud.
Delay on attack moves.
Stretched, standard res cutscenes.
Controller input interrupted so a lot of stop start running.
Haven't ran into it yet but people report they have removed the siren/fog horn sound from the game, yes the iconic sound that everyone who has played Silent Hill would remember... they removed it, or forgot to put it in, not only that they forgot the water textures!!! Yes, really, if you want to see the worst water effects in a game look no further... sorry this is turning into a rant, i will stop here.

For a game that relies on atmosphere these glitches are even more glaring than they would be in an action game. At least they didn't add Korn to the soundtrack.

I have contacted Konami customer support but no reply as of yet, not even an announcement that they are working on fixing these issues.

I am hoping for a patch, but with the long list of problems it has it could be a while.

UPDATE

Official word from Konami, patch IS being worked on.

There are enough reviews on here listing the problems with the HD port (represnting the fun rating) so instead I'll focus on the games themselves as opposed to the technical issues; which do unfortunately affect the gameplay experience.

Silent Hill 2 redefined what horror video games were, prior to it's release Resident Evil sat firmly atop the pile, while fun they were rarely scary, more akin with a homage to cheesy horror films complete with hammy dialouge than an actual frightening experience.

Silent Hill 2 changed all that, there's a reason more than a decade on its still looked back on with such adoration, held as the gold standard. Indeed the six sequels since have never been able to recapture what made Silent Hill 2 so great.

So what is it that makes Silent Hill 2 great? Simply it's the story. You take on the role of James Sunderland who receives a letter from his previously terminally ill, now deceased wife Mary asking him to return to their special place of Silent Hill where she's waiting for him, upon arrival James begins scouring the town but finds it overrun with monsters.

While it sounds like a fairly run of the mill horror scenario it's not, evoking cinematic ques from the likes of David Lynch's darker works or Adrian Lyne's Jacob's ladder, it's an incredibly atmospheric tale that will completely suck you into the oppressive world, loaded with dark, sexual and nihilistic imagery that will leave a lasting impression. Certain scenes in particular as you watch one of the characters walk away from you up a burning staircase as they become slowly enveloped remain haunting even now.

James meets a selected range of characters including Maria, a doppelganger for his wife albeit a more flirtatious and sexual one, Eddie a overweight seemingly twitchy young man, Angela a young woman whose emotionally unstable and Laura a small girl who seems oblivious to the horrible goings on around her. All these charters will play into the larger canvas of the story in various ways as they all confront their own demons. There is also of course the series Icon Pyramid head who appears repeatedly throughout the game to torment you, ingrained into the franchise DNA following his appearance here. All the characters human or otherwise directly relate to James in ways you can only fully appreciate upon finishing the game.

Games with great or even good plots, you can effectively count using the fingers on one hand, Silent Hill 2 will always be at the top for me, a psychological tale which deals issues of sexual abuse, bereavement, mental illness, and suicide to name a few, adult issues. How many games can you say that about? As you play you piece together the past of some of Silent Hill's main institutions, like the hospital, you can see positions were abused long before things went bad.

The tale leads to a harrowing gut punch of a conclusion, one that will not leave you accentuated by a powerful score as amidst the ruins of the Lakeview Hotel you learn Mary's final fate. Depending on how you play the final motivations and fate of your character change dramatically, giving way to multiple playthroughs, leaving you we either a poignant or oppressive ending.

Simply put Silent Hill 2's contribution too the genre cannot be overstated, by todays standards the controls are clunky the camera angels occasionally awkward and the combat hit and miss (though deliberately so), if the rebooted Resident evils are the type of 'horror' you want then Silent hill's probably not for you, but if you appreciate slow burning, psychological and engaging horror and have never played the game before, I implore you to give it a go.

Silent Hill 3 the second game in the package serves as a direct sequel to the PS one original Silent Hill game, so if you're picking it up for the first time while you can dive straight in though some of it may be somewhat lost on you.

Silent hill 3 is an enjoyable yarn but it trades out a lot of the deeper storytelling for a more conventional horror plot of cults and evil deity's akin to The Wicker Man and the monster designs are a bit more literal than the prior instalment. It still retains the oppressive atmosphere of the Silent hill 2 and memorable moments; a particular room in the hospital will no doubt bring back a few memories for older players.

Ultimately Silent Hill 2 is the main draw of this package Silent hill 3 is an added bonus together marking the glory days for the franchise which would soon be shopped between different developers and never again reach the quality here. Annoying technical issues aside if you have never played these games you owe it to yourself to give it a go, nothing else can compare.

This really should have been a fantastic buy; Silent Hill 2 is still by far the best best survival horror game I've ever played and Silent Hill 3 certainly has its charms.

The quality of the port though... I can't speak to SH3 (after an hour of SH2 I stopped playing and put in for a refund) but the SH2 port is pretty much unplayable. The frame rate lags badly if there's more than just James moving on screen, some of the cut scenes don't seem in synch with the dialogue, the controls are unresponsive (and not in the classic: It's SH2, the controls have ALWAYS been bad way.... they're worse). The game in general seems to glitch every now and then. It's not a fun experience. It may be less jarring if you haven't played the originals, or at least haven't played them recently. Play them close together though and the poor quality here glares at you, there's no way a ten year old game should outshine its HD re-release so completely.

I had a look about to see if / when this is getting patched, but apparently it already has in the US. And it didn't work... So I'm not holding my breath for a proper fix any time soon, if at all.

Some have said the 360 version is less buggy (not bug free...), so it might be a better bet if the option is there and you don't have the ps2 originals.

For shame Hijinx. It can't have been easy to do, but somehow you ruined a classic.

**Update: In case this is part of the problem... I played on a ps3 slim 250GB (1st gen of the slim I think). Also, there MAY be more than one version of the collection out there at present (just after launch) with one showing the bugs and the other not. In the former case: BAD PORT and maybe not fixable... or not easily / quickly. In the latter case, things may well get better once the defective stock is out of circulation. In other words maybe don't buy this for a few months or until there's word the issues are definitely resolved.