T w e n t y S i d e d

I think this demo / trailer / teaser thing ran out of ideas after about half an hour. At this point it’s just being obtuse. Like, if Chris wasn’t reading from the guide, how would we possibly know what we’re supposed to be doing? We have no character, no goal, no context, and no direction. That’s fine in this case, since it’s not supposed to be a game. I’m not asking for cutscenes or anything. But it does need to let you know what your goal is or when the demo is over. I can’t imagine I would have ever found that pencil-point hole on purpose. I would have stumbled around, growing more restless and annoyed, wondering if the demo was over or not. Instead of ending on the high note, I would have been pissed off at the dumb game that wasted a half hour of my time.

Also, let’s think about these controls. We have one button: Zoom in. We don’t need to select weapons, aim, shoot, reload, open inventory, toggle flashlight, interact with objects, crouch, jump, or sprint. We have over a dozen available inputs, including the convenient and familiar face buttons. But no, we’re going to bind our primary means of interaction to holding down the right stick. I’ve had to do that before in games, and I know it’s incredibly uncomfortable. That’s a pretty egregious sin from an interface standpoint, but then making the little cutscene reset when you stop pressing down on the stick is where it goes from uncomfortable to infuriating.

THIS is the Kojima influence I was worried about. I’m sure the thinking is, “Hey! It’s uncomfortable to depress the stick, just like the character would be uncomfortable looking through the hole. And it’s tense, because you’re always worried your finger might slip and you’ll have to watch it again. And you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing, which makes it mysterious like Silent Hill.” That’s pretty standard Kojima thinking: Make something incredibly obnoxious and then use a complete confusion of in-game and out-of-game logic to justify it. I know this is his shtick, and I know I’m risking the wrath of his fans by even bringing it up, but this sort of thing drives me nuts. I don’t begrudge Kojima his particular style and I’ll admit it’s made the Metal Gear series a powerhouse with an army of enthusiastic fans, but this is not what I’m looking for in a Silent Hill game

I don’t want to be thinking about the controller at all. If I have an emotional connection with my avatar then I’m perfectly capable of empathizing with them without needing to contrive a bunch of immersion-breaking gimmicks. These two feelings are mutually exclusive…

1. I am trapped in a psychotic hellscape, and the only way to escape is to go deeper in by looking through this pinhole and facing whatever nightmares this world has to show me.
2. Ow. My finger is uncomfortable and if I adjust my grip I might slip and waste a bunch of my time watching this again.

….and the first one is a thousand times more potent than the second. Moreover, Silent Hill is pretty much the only series that’s even willing to attempt that sort of thing. All the other AAA spook games have turned into shooting galleries and quicktime button-mashers.

Having said all that…

Meh. I gripe, but it’s not actually a big deal. This is a demo for an idea that might become a game someday, and the final product might not look or play anything like what we’ve seen. There’s no point in getting worked up about any of thisHe said, once it was too late.. We wouldn’t have bothered with it, except we wanted something low-stakes to test our recording setup.

We’ll finish up the demo (sort of) in the next episode. Next week we’ll go back to Marlow Briggs. After that, we’ll launch the new season.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Consider this episode a test-run of our technology for covering PS4 games. I’ll have another post on that once we’re closer to starting the next season. Let the speculation begin.

More context on the “game” being shown off: It’s supposedly a collaboration between Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear series) and Guillermo del Toro (director of Hellboy and Pacific Rim) as a sort of proof-of-concept / test pilot / marketing effort / obnoxious troll. The two are supposedly teaming up to make a Silent Hill game starring Norman Reedus, who everyone else knows from Walking Dead, but I still think of the guy as Murphy from Boondock Saints.

At the start of the episode I said, “I can’t imagine a worse lineup for a Silent Hill game.” To be fair, I think del Toro could do a fine job. I question the involvement of Kojima, because the guy is notorious for games that are cutscene-heavy, intensely complex, self-indulgent, and which frequently break the forth wall. I’m sure Kojima’s many fans will defend him by saying he’s capable of capturing the Silent Hill vibe. Fine. But I have yet to see any proof of that, and I’m going to remain skeptical. This poor series has been abused many times by various well-meaning dolts who just don’t “get” Silent Hill, and I’m not going to get my hopes up again. So many other developers have talked big about how they “get” Silent Hill, and then missed the point in a spectacular way.

The choice of Norman Reedus is a big indicator to me that someone is still confusing “survival” with “badass empowerment fantasy“.

On the other hand: This is actually pretty good.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.