Review:
Silent Hill Turbo HD II

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Dec 23, 2008

Filed under: Video Games 52 comments

Last weekend I was time traveling around the future, sorting out some temporal paradoxes caused by my cyberhacker grandkids who had run afoul of a malevolent AI run by the US government. (Which had become a subsidiary of Wal-Mart.) I shouldn’t talk about it too much, and I know I usually avoid politics here, but just I have to say that I am strongly opposed to the 37th amendment, which will allow androids to run for public office. You bleeding-heart robot-lovers are going to be the death of us all.

Anyway, while I was there I found this videogame review. I’m pretty sure it’s safe to post this here without causing a rift. If you find yourself vanishing or notice that loved ones no longer recognize you, please stop reading immediately.

Thanks,

Shamus

Review of Silent Hill Turbo HD II, from the future:

Silent Hill Turbo HD II is another hard-hitting entry in this venerable high-speed fighting game franchise. As usual, you play as one of a number of selectable characters who has been imprisoned in Silent Hill and must fight in the “Otherworld Tournament” and eventually defeat the infamous Pyramid Head in order to win your freedom.

silent_hill_turbo.jpg

Some fans complain that aside from the disco, the locations are all a bit drab and shabby. But most young people don’t realize that Silent Hill actually started out as a spooky adventure game of some sort, and the dank, dreary environments are homage to those bygone titles.

Fans will be glad to know that the counter-counter-counter attack system has been reinstated, after they removed it in Silent Hill Ultra 3. Ultra 3 was a disappointing title, scoring an abysmal 99.6% on Megacritic. Removing the counter-counter-counter attacks allowed a dedicated player to spam the game with simple counter-counter attacks and dominate their hapless opponent. They brought it back again in Silent Hill Mega Ultra Showdown. (Which was for portables only, but was later ported back to consoles as Silent Hill Showdown Finale!) But in that game the controls were simplified so that counter-counter-counter attacks could be pulled off with just eight button presses, making the game too one-dimensional for longtime fans. Showdown garnered a less-embarrassing 99.65% on Megacritic, but fans were left wondering if this series was ever going to recapture its former glory.

Well, you’ve probably already heard that that not only have they brought back counter-counter-counter attacks, but they are introducing an innovative new counter-counter-counter-counter attack system. Also, the combo button sequences are back, so attaining victory means more than just having hyper reflexes and an immunity to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. You’re going to need to memorize and flawlessly execute endlessly long chains of actions if you want to edge out your opponent.

There are some surprises in here for old-school fans as well. James Sunderland is an unlockable hidden character, still using his trademark “pillow smother” fatality that’s made him such a fan favorite.

Final Score:

99.9853%

 


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52 thoughts on “Review:
Silent Hill Turbo HD II

  1. Skeeve the Impossible says:

    Absolute Gold buddy. I was laughing a lot, and as i laughed I laid on the floor and tottered back and forth. My laughter was audible.

  2. NickR says:

    Hahahahahaha!

    Brilliant. I can’t wait for it.

    Is anyone else reminded of a back to the future scene?

  3. Jordi says:

    :-D

    What are the system requirements and release date? I can’t wait!

  4. Brandon says:

    “What are the system requirements and release date? I can't wait!”

    Well, since Konami was bought by EA in the Great Game Monopolization of 2069, Silent Hill Turbo HD II utilizes EA’s new Rectal Stick 3000 DRM device, which requires you to firmly clench the spiky peripheral within your sphincter. The decision to make use of this device has garnered mixed reactions from androids, half of whom don’t have rectums, and the other half who actually have a port back there, making it easy to circumvent the DRM.
    It’s being greeted with indifference by the human population, who have already become accustomed to EA’s Worship-Us-Like-Gods-And-Give-Us-A-Newborn-Child-Every-Time-You-Want-To-Start-The-Game DRM scheme.

  5. illiterate says:

    Suckers. They don’t realize that

    a) they didn’t require it be my own Child
    b) I live right next to a hospital.

  6. Lebkin says:

    Actually, there is no DRM, since games are only released on consoles. And everything has been dumbed down for consoles such that there is only one button on the control: the Win button.

  7. ZzzzSleep says:

    How long until somebody releases a M.U.G.E.N mod with these characters?

  8. Strangeite says:

    Allow me to be the first to say, I, for one, welcome our new android overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted bleeding-heart robot-lover, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground caves.

  9. Osvaldo Mandias says:

    World Can’t Wait!

  10. Christian Groff says:

    *takes all this comedy with a grain of salt and goes back to playing Pokemon Azurite-Electrum – I’ve almost completed the Pokédex, just that annoying Eclipson to catch, it’s taking forever to catch even with the Supramedecy Balls, which are supposed to be as close to buyable Master Balls as you can get! Dang, this guy is a *****, even worse than all the Legenderies put together! Too bad I imported it from the future, so there won’t be cheat codes out for it in, oh, 9999 years. <_<*

    *Oh wait… dang I’m still 910 Pokémon short! I should have imported all the other games too to get all those other exclusives, but they require some Nintendo console that’s far too expensive for me to afford.*

  11. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Im disappointed.I expected some overexaturated satire,and you just copy/pasted MKVDC review.Shame on you Shamus!

  12. Chris says:

    Gonna be honest, I looked at this more on a satire of the fighting game community than anything else. I know a TON of guys that are heavy into fighting games, and they take this shit so seriously that it has almost killed the genre for me.

    This was awesome.

  13. Alleyoop says:

    I’m sorry, the rectal port requirement is just going too far (honestly – how many are they expecting one to insert comfortably at one time?), and what about those of us who’ve yet to evolve our extra gaming fingers and/or thumbs?! 85% of the population is still waiting on this biotech, now delayed by nVidia for yet ANOTHER month, and I ran out of offered child activations in a mere three hours just troubleshooting my ass (I have to hit up my sister to borrow some of hers) – what is EA thinking?!

    It’s getting justifiably Spored on Amazon, btw.

  14. Kevin says:

    Hysterical. Thanks. I’m glad you managed to pull a little funny out of the Homecoming experience.

  15. Robyrt says:

    Tee hee! I like the “Megacritic” review scores, and the fighting game tendency to invent a new system or feature to address shortcomings in previous titles, instead of actually thinking about the design.

    Can the nurses tag out?

  16. Joe says:

    First off, let me note that I’m fine with the 37th, so long as they have a provision in there that it’s only American made androids. I don’t want me no lunar-built knock-off sitting in the oval office.

    As mentioned, you forgot to let people know about the hardware requirements. It is console only, but now that the war against PC games has finally been won, you’ll note that EA is now focusing their efforts on destroying console gaming, generally using the same mechanisms. To that end, they released the game in a version that only works on consoles that won’t be available for several years, using a processor based on laws of physics that have yet to be discovered. That, of course, is why they supplied reviewers such as yourself with pre-release time machines so that you could travel to the future and see what the game will look like once people can actually play it.

    Of course, there are rumors of a port to the WiiIII. The game’s pretty much the same, but the real differentiator there is the controller, which is an android who literally kicks your ass until you beg him to stop.

  17. Lady Kat says:

    This would be funnier if it didn’t make me want to cry. Cause I could totally see this happening with the way the franchise is going.

  18. Al Shiney says:

    I give this review a score of 99.98976934286. Sorry, it just didn’t do it for me.

  19. froogger says:

    “Of course, there are rumors of a port to the WiiIII. The game's pretty much the same, but the real differentiator there is the controller, which is an android who literally kicks your ass until you beg him to stop”

    Hence the name: WiiIII?

  20. Hotsauce says:

    “I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground caves”
    There are above-ground caves in the future? I can’t wait!

  21. illiterate says:

    Dammit, I would love to play, but the WiiIII is currently responsible for all childcare in my home and I’m afraid of what will happen if I take the disc out.

  22. Factoid says:

    Shamus: this has been all over the tubes, but I thought I might pass this along in case you hadn’t seen it.

    EA is planning to drop SecuROM from all of their games when they hit Steam. I’m sure the physical copies still have it, but hey that’s something right?

    They are releasing a bunch of good games via Steam, which hopefully will make them acceptable to you.

    http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/EA-Games-to-release-DRM-free-titles-on-Steam

  23. Strangeite says:

    “There are above-ground caves in the future? I can't wait!”

    According to Kent Brockman.

  24. Alex says:

    I’d be chuckling right now, if game reviews weren’t painfully close to the way Shamus has portrayed them here. It’s actually quite depressing the more I think about it. The future is now, and it is freakin’ BLEAK.

    The “screenshot” reminds me of the first real problem I had with Homecoming: Why do the freaky-ass nurses with the distorted faces trying to kill me have revealing cleavage? I could be mistaken, but I don’t remember the horrible monsters being sex’d up in previous games(and that’s considering at least one of them was nothing but a horrible hodge-podge of lady parts!)

    What, do they expect me to get a boner from this?!

    Silent Hill is one of those games, like Peggle or Super Mario Galaxy, where sex appeal does NOT fit, any more than Anti-Semitism belongs in Tetris.

  25. Osvaldo Mandias says:

    Darn Jewish Rectangles!

  26. Joe says:

    @froogger: Yeah, roman numeral numbering for the Wii is a great idea until WiiIV. Maybe they’ll combine the roman numeral number scheme from MacOS X with the year-based system from Windows 2008 to give us the WiiMMXXXVIII.

  27. illiterate says:

    Osvaldo, if you want to say a piece is evil (not that I’m calling Israelites evil), use one like this

    **
    ..**

  28. Gbyron says:

    @ Alex: Well, I seem to have a joke concerning Jews, Tetris and NAZIs, but I will refrain myself from writing it down. I’m saying this just to show you that there is always a reason to relate 2 things. Except of course sex and SH

  29. Jimmie says:

    The game really does seem a rip-off of “The Shining II: Shine Harder”. The fight sequences where you have to face off against Jack with a manual typewriter, an axe, or a roque mallet looks a lot like the fight sequences in this game.

    Though TSII:SH went one-step further with powerups for the playable characters like Danny Torrance and his mental “Shining” attack and Wendy’s “Screeching Wail”.

  30. illiterate says:

    As an aside, do any games like this skip from 4HIT COMBO! to 6HIT COMBO! to avoid unfortunate screenshots being taken?

  31. Roxysteve says:

    You forgot to mention that it requires several tera of memory more than is fitted when the game install is activated, almost certain to be enough that you can’t upgrade without a new mothermatrix, and that the shading engine won’t run on anything likely to be developed in the next twenty months, or that the memory web, video electronic array *and* the tesseractal processor stack require liquid helium cooling when the cut-scenes are playing.

    Other than that, you nailed it.

  32. JMcNeely says:

    In addition there is a special ‘Button-Masher Mode’ which will cause randomly mashing a single button to always execute perfect combos to allow for a more ‘even’ playing field. Perfect for those parents, grand-parents, and video-handicapped friends! However this feature does cost extra in the form of an ‘expansion’ pack that adds this feature plus extra particle effects in the event that your system will ever be able to handle the game at anything over 2FPS.

  33. Lorgath says:

    Always knew you were a meatbag through and through, Shamus. Well, that’s one reader you’ve lost. You meatbags are worse than the techno magi and the octo-sapiens, still using controllers? Dear holy wikipedia, I jacked in the fingers for fins years ago. I tell you, here on Mars with the rest of the cyberhaddock is the place to be!

  34. Bret says:

    So, my time machine’s in the shop again, how was that Valve thing going?

    I mean, I went a couple years before then, and the Citidel was looking nice, but it was still getting tweaked. Any news?

  35. trousercuit says:

    I’m ROFG – rolling on the floor, grieving.

  36. AndrewNZachsDad says:

    @froogger: not sure I understand the android/WiiIII connection. Are you suggesting the android would be Wii3-P0? Human/Console Relations!

    (omg. I really can’t believe I went there.)

    Richard

  37. Jabor says:

    I am honestly ashamed at you, Shamus.

    Androids are people too, you know.

  38. Zasabi says:

    I think the real question on everyone’s mind is quite obvious-

    Did Duke Nukem Forever finally come out? Or am I gonna have to buy a more advanced Time Machine, one that can reach the end of time itself?

  39. Shamus says:

    Zasabi: The release of DNF is what opened the rift in the first place. Only by delaying it further was I able to stave off the end of the world.

    P.S. You’re welcome.

    1. Ardis Meade says:

      The future looks back on this comment and laughs. Then it cries in a corner.

  40. Al Shiney says:

    I’ll be laughing at many of these comments for awhile. :-) If I may be serious just for a moment, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to the Twenty Sided community and, of course, to our very own Santa Shamus.

  41. illiterate says:

    Shamus @ your twitter — one does not have to shovel rain, generally.

  42. Nathanael Phillip Cole says:

    Sigh. Sometimes I wonder which activity you enjoy more: playing video games or bitching about them.

  43. Talrogsmash says:

    Strangite, did you say overlords?
    You meant protectors right!?!?

    With love, you remaining family on Chiron Beta Prime

  44. Jabor says:

    Oh, I definitely enjoy it more when Shamus bitches about video games than when he plays them.

  45. Felblood says:

    You guys should all join the TTAA37, The Time Travelers Against Amendment Thirty-Seven.

    The only trouble is they can be hard to get ahold of when the bogon particles are particularly dense on your level of reality.

    (In no time I’ve visited has science advanced enough to actually do something about bogons, but at least we can detect them, which is even better than a quantum horoscope for wedding planners.)

  46. Andrew B says:

    You trackbacked to your own item? Isn’t that dangerously recursive?

    You trackbacked to your own item? Isn’t that dangerously recursive?

    You trackbacked to your own item? Isn’t that dangerously recursive?

    You trackbacked to your own item? Isn’t that dangerously recursive?

    You get the joke.

  47. Locke says:

    It would have been a kinder fate.

  48. Chalkbrood says:

    I can’t even tell what game this is supposed to be making fun of

  49. Joshua says:

    A Silent Hill fighting game isn’t that far-fetched: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_%26_Blood:_Warriors_of_Ravenloft

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