We were poring over the new Silent Hill 5 "details" today (more like vague statements from Akira Yamaoka about how awesome it's going to be) and all we really know about it is that it's going to be more like Silent Hill 2 (yay) and it's coming to some consoles that aren't the DS (boo). Our first reaction is to be outraged. We love our system and we love Silent Hill and its atmospheric, psychological horror storytelling.
But would we actually love them together? The larger question here extends beyond the boundaries of one foggy town: is the DS an appropriate format for survival horror? We had one outing already in Resident Evil: Deadly Silence, which a very trustworthy source tells us wasn't an entirely successful experiment.
Alternately, if the major discussion topic doesn't interest you, we can just talk about Silent Hill and how great it is.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-21-2007 @ 9:53PM
Mario Panighetti said...
I can't say I'm overly enthusiastic when it comes to survival horror on handhelds. As great as the DS is, its tinny speakers and tiny screens aren't exactly conducive to immersive gaming experiences. Then again, Nintendo did a pretty good job with Metroid Fusion (if you wore headphones anyway), and the Silent Hill team is certainly a talented bunch, so I"m sure they could pull it off. But I just think physchological horror works better on a big screen in a dark room in the middle of the night.
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4-22-2007 @ 12:31AM
Kefka said...
Agreed - handhelds arent the best bet for survival horror. Screens and speakers are one thing, but the power is another.
These kind of games use a lot of graphical tricks to be creepy - realistic visuals, particle effects, fogging, transparencies, etc...
A survival horror game where you're continually reminded of the limitations of the hardware is not going to be creepy or scary.
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4-22-2007 @ 12:57PM
pixelator said...
I'm looking forward to Silent Hill on PSP (which early peeks at indicate a pretty intense experience according to Game Informer: "The kicker was that even though the game was on a much smaller screen, our hands sweated and heart pounded as if we were playing a full-on entry in the series. If you're sensitive to scary content you'll probably not be playing this with the lights out and headphones on like the game recommends."
I think they *could* do a decent Silent Hill on DS, but they'd have to work around the limitations of the hardware (3D model and environment capabilities, resolution and screen size, mainly). I was no fan of Resident Evil DS - it suffered greatly from control and graphics problems.
Something retooled along the lines of Touch the Dead might be a better approach, or even a Killzone/Zombies Ate My Neighbor type isometric or topdown view. Not quite as first-person as the console/PC versions, but that's not always a bad thing.
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4-23-2007 @ 9:53AM
darkside02 said...
speakers are a problem i get pissed when i try to play resident evil on the ds and cant hear of the simple sounds around me. dont get me wrong i liked deadly silence i'd never played the original re so it was good to me the knife fights in rebirth mode where fun it gave you time to pull out the stylus and what not. im not sure the ds is the best place to put a game like silent hill though. that game was made to be graphic in both meanings of the word. it's better suited to the psp. now re is fine the orginals 1-3 because well lets face it they didn't have epic graphics to begin with.now im no graphic whore i like the re games just how they are. but like i said. silent hill needs graphics to really push the fear and psycological aspects along. re is more boo i popped out because the camera allowed me to hide. sound is a very important aspect. i stay dead silent when i enter a room to hear ANYTHING moving. it helps
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