The Gamer's Quarter

ApM

I mean, seriously, I'm walking around for an hour in fog and occasionally beating a zombie with a stick. The zombie thing was kind of creepy the first time I killed one, skittering around like that, but now I've killed a dozen and it's just irritating. Then I died about a half hour from when I last saved.

I mean, I am vaguely interested in why all of my exits are cut off, and what I will find if and when I finally find my way to the beach. But at this point, if I go back to the game, it's only my innate gamer masochism, rather than something the game is successfully doing to compel me. It's not like my character thinks there's anything weird about the town being devoid of human life, or thinks anything of beating monsters with a stick for no reason.

I don't think game designers realize just how long an hour actually is.

dhex · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 2:51 pm Post subject:

1) run away
2) it does get somewhat better combat wise
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

PROTIP: Go into the options and change the controls to 2D. That helps a hell of a lot unless you for some ungodlyknownreason demand RE style controls.

Also, the first hour is a mood setter mostly. And you have to be a little masochistic to get the most out of the game. Yeah, don't be afraid to just ignore stuff too.

EDIT: To convince you: how many people do you tell to just stick with Psychonauts even if something puts them off a little? Seriously, SH2 is probably my favorite game ever made.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

SuperWes · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 4:22 pm Post subject:

I suppose I should admit that I've never passed the Pyramid Head fight where you've got to avoid him while running down the hallway with the girl...

I beat the first Silent Hill though! And Shadow of Destiny!

-Wes
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wourme · . Joined: 01 Jul 2005 Posts: 362 Location: Maridia

Someone showed me the first part of Silent Hill 2 years ago (up until the first monster encounter) and I wasn't impressed enough to try playing the game. (At that point, I still thought it was just a horror game like Resident Evil.) It wasn't until I tried Silent Hill 4 years later (when DaleNixon gave me a demo disc) that I discovered what these games really are.

I played all four of them in rapid succession, all on easy mode. I never really got bored (though a few segments in SH4 are a little frustrating) and I wouldn't use the word fun to describe any part of the experience, but I sure found the games compelling.

Ultimately, I think Silent Hill 2 is my favorite of the series. Shadow of Destiny is very good, too. And it doesn't have any combat at all.

friedchicken · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 496 Location: Port Land, OR

Definitely hang in there, ApM. Silent Hill 2 gets a lot better if you sort of forgive it some of the stupid stuff like blocking off all the exits and sending you into disgusting public bathrooms.

There's a lot less camp than Resident Evil, and no pointless fan service to spoil the game like in Fatal Frame.

My wife and I tag teamed it when it first came out, and it's one of the only games we've played through multiple times.

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

Silent Hill 2 is a horrible game but I still finished it which is saying something, I guess.
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Tablesaw · . Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 303 Location: LACAUSA

Mister Toups · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:52 am Post subject:

squidlarkin · . Joined: 10 Dec 2005 Posts: 100

Just to make sure: are you playing it in the dark, with the sound turned up?

That walk through the woods at the beginning, being horribly unnerved by the sounds I was hearing, was actually one of my favorite parts of the game.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Yeah, if you want to crank up the unnerving qualities, open a window at night.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

wourme · . Joined: 01 Jul 2005 Posts: 362 Location: Maridia

This reminds me of a scary experince I had with a video game. A few years ago, I was playing Fatal Frame pretty late one night. At that time, we lived in an inexpensive apartment in a questionable neighborhood. There was a fair amount of crime and other strangeness in the area.

The game was sort of getting to me already when a man started pounding on our back door and yelling something. We never used that door, as it led right into our bedroom. My wife peeked out the window and the man yelled, "I see you! I know you're in there! Open up!" He knocked loudly on the window and the door for a minute more before giving up. In all of his yelling, he never bothered to explain who he was or what he wanted.

I had to turn off the game after that. This was the same day that our car was stolen (for the second time during the period that we lived there), and I hypothesized that the man might have been somehow associated with that.

dhex · Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 12:31 pm Post subject:

we have a bunch of stray cats behind my building that flip the fuck out all hours of the day and night, which is either oddly atmospheric or pants-shittingly ridiculous for these kinds of games.
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Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

I played through this yesterday, until 6 in the morning. The experience was almost entirely ruined by my roommates and friends asking stupid and annoying questions, most of them pertaining to the cutscenes they forced me to watch but ignored themselves. But it's a good thing to do on Friday the 13th, I suppose.

I think one reason I like this game is that it lends itself so well to play-in-isolation. It's not always horrible to have other people watch you play a Silent Hill, but they're really meant to be played alone.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
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DaleNixon · . Joined: 08 Jul 2005 Posts: 179

elvis.shrugged · . Joined: 10 Jan 2006 Posts: 108 Location: Stratford, CT

I played through SH2 about a month or two ago, for the first time.

I really didn't like the beginning. The first two puzzles are terrible, it's sort of boring (even though the first PH encounter is awesome in a Blue Velvet way), I got lost...it really took me a while to warm up to the game. It seriously improves exponentially when you meet Maria. The rest of the game is a blast--the music gets better, the puzzles are far more logical, and combat improves--and is well worth it. It's just that first hour that's a pain.

Stick with it. It gets better.

And on the rest of the topic, I have no creepy survival horror game stories to share. Sad

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Yeah, I didn't really like the begining myself until my second or third playthrough (probably my third). Because of the way the game just throws you into all this it's sort of difficult to appreciate why it's doing that and what it's actually doing to set up the atmosphere.
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"