Next Up: Halo

Halo. The game that brought first person shooters to the masses, and revolutionized the use of the right analog stick is one that I have never beaten. I will tell you all right now - FPS's are probably my least competent genre. I am flat out terrible at all of them, and I play very few. I had both Modern Warfare games just cuz everyone else had them, but I don't have the time to dedicate to be good enough to where I'm not getting destroyed every round. Eventually, I would trade in almost every FPS I had, and barring a few exceptions (XIII, Bioshock, Portal) I generally stay away from them unless there is something really compelling about it.

That being said, I am very excited to play through the first Halo. It's just old enough to make me a little nostalgic, but still part of the modern era of game design. Although if I remember correctly, the game opens with the now outdated  "move the sticks in this direction so you can see what they do". Game designers now assume you know that the left stick moves and the right stick looks around - but that is thanks to Halo, and partially Goldeneye.

So from most reports, Halo is between 6-8 hours for the campaign. I will be playing on Normal - not Legendary or Balls Out or Rape Me Plenty or anything like that. Normal is fine for me.

Also, I must make mention of Chad Warden - who refers to this game as Gaylo. You can watch his idiotic "PS Tiple" fanboy rant here. Watch it to see how he thinks that if a game doesn't have 50 Cent or Fat Joe in their trailer, those games are in fact, "gay shit". And how "true niggas" don't play Halo. But who does play Halo? "Gay niggas."  I suppose I'm not a "true nigga" but, in fact, a "gay nigga". 

Alright, let's hit it. Halo: Combat Evolved for XBOX.

Review: Silent Hill

In 1999 the survival horror genre of video games was just starting to get its footing in the marketplace. Carried by Capcom's popular Resident Evil franchise, the market quickly opened up a nice big slot for games that were designed to scare the hell out of you. Konami decided to jump into the fray with their first attempt at a game in this fledgling genre - Silent Hill. Attempting to differentiate itself a bit from the Resident Evil series, Konami employed a much more cerebral type of horror in Silent Hill. Where Resident Evil would have zombies bursting through doors, Silent Hill would have shadows of enemies and "did I just see that" moments; where Resident Evil would have lots of firepower with characters trained in combat, Silent Hill would have underpowered, normal characters with very little in the way of weapons. Clearly Konami was doing everything they could to distinguish Silent Hill from the competition, but was it successful?

Story
As I mentioned before, the story in Silent Hill is by far the game's greatest asset. It deals with horror and scares in my favorite way - the horror of the mind. Movies like the Shining, Jacob's Ladder and the more recent 1408 use these same types of scares. To get an idea of what it's like to play Silent Hill, watch the scene from the Shining where Jack is in the bar talking to Lloyd. The camera cuts back and you see Jack sitting at the bar by himself, but to him, the liquor in his cup, the man behind the bar and people around him are as real as the stool he's sitting on.

Silent Hill focuses on Harry Mason's search for his daughter, Cheryl. He and Cheryl are on their way to take some time off in Silent Hill when they get in an accident. Harry wakes up behind the wheel and finds his daughter missing. This is Harry's motivation to continue through the horrors awaiting him in the accursed town. As if through an IV drip, you slowly learn little details about the town and the 3 or 4 actual people you meet, but many of the stories conflict with each other - leaving you to wonder "Is what I'm seeing real?"

The locales you visit, including the town itself, shift from a fairly creepy, fog laden environment to a hellish, pitch black nightmare. After every "nightmare" sequence, Harry suddenly wakes up and you're left scratching your head as to what is reality and what is in his imagination. From a design perspective, this works so well. You are controlling Harry and seeing everything he's seeing so you begin to wonder yourself about the things you see on the screen. Are they real? Are you imagining things? And in the end, many details are left hanging, leaving it open to interpretation - which is an excellent tactic when you have a story such as this. For me, one of the true marks of any good piece of horror media is this - are you still scared after you're done watching, reading, playing? With Silent Hill, the answer is a resounding yes.

 "MOMMY!! Can we go to the...um...nevermind..."

One of the other things that the developers did so tactfully was to make the town itself feel alive, as if it was a character in and of itself. Similar to LOST when the characters would refer to "The Island" as if it was someone they knew, characters in this game refer to "The Town" in the same way, but unlike The Island, the town of Silent Hill actually feels alive as you play through it. There was a specific scene toward the end of the game where you're in the "nightmare" version of a theme park. The ground is made of rusted chain link fence, walls are made of flesh, there is a siren blaring in the distance, and then right in front of you is a perfectly clean and operating merry go round. It stands in such sharp contrast to the rest of your environment that you feel like the town is actually taunting you - trying to make you feel like you're slowly losing your mind.

Gameplay
Ninety-five percent of the time, if a game isn't fun to play, it doesn't matter how great anything else is, the game is a lost cause. Silent Hill is not fun to play, but in this rare case, it actually adds to the overall experience.

Pitting someone against the horrors of their mind, is something no protagonist is prepared for - especially a single father who's never fired a gun in his life. Harry frequently misses shots, he swings melee weapons like his eight-year old daughter, and he can sustain very few hits before succumbing to death's sweet release. From the players perspective, this can be INCREDIBLY frustrating, but from the perspective of the overall experience, it fits in perfect harmony with the other elements of the game. You'll quickly learn to favor flight over fight when you starting burning through ammo and health packs. And when you know you're underpowered, it adds a whole extra layer of stress when you turn each corner - as opposed to having a flame thrower and mowing down rows of zombies. That's not scary. It's awesome, but it's not scary.

While some of these clumsy fighting mechanics were clearly intentional, there are others that were unintentional and ended up taking away from the experience.

1. The camera. In maybe the only instance where Silent Hill following the blueprint from Resident Evil, the designers implemented fixed camera angles to allow for "classicly creepy shots". Most times you are able to swing the camera behind Harry, but other than that you have very little control over it. This can get really annoying when you're being attacked by multiple enemies and you can't see any of them. 
2. 2D, or "tank" walking controls. I lied, this is something else they took from Resident Evil. If you're unfamiliar with this type of control set up, it means that pressing up on the d-pad is the only way to make your character walk forward. So if you're used to modern controls where if you want to make your character walk toward you, you would press down, or make him run to the right, pressing right - forget all of that before playing this game. Pressing and holding right on the d-pad will only make Harry spin in a circle - so if you want to make him walk right, you first have to hold right until he's in the direction you want him to face, and then press up to send him on his way. It's not so bad once you get used to it, but it can get really tiresome in tight corners where you have to be precise about where you're walking. 

 Chilton Memorial Hospital: Providing the most terrifying care anyone could ask for.

Outside of the combat there are puzzles. Some of them fall back on the "find strangely shaped key for strangely shaped hole" mechanic, but some are actual noodle scratchers. You're often given very cryptic clues and left to yourself to figure it out. Things like colors, astrological signs, music, and time all call on the players knowledge of things outside of the game. I often had to do a Google search on certain things, or I found myself with a pen and paper jotting down potential solutions to puzzles. The game certainly assumes it's audience is educated when it comes to puzzles and definitely doesn't pander to the masses. They respect your intelligence and let you figure it out on your own without spoon feeding you answers like so many other games.


Stuff I Liked: 

• The story is pitch perfect and the way the environment plays so nicely with it just makes for a much more enjoyable game. 
• The horror! THE HORROR! Seriously, once you get away from the worst voice acting this side of the Mississippi, this game will terrify you, even with it's dated visuals. 
• The puzzles are fantastic. When you figure them out you actually feel smart. 

Stuff I Hated: 

• Clumsy controls can be frustrating at times. 
• One playthrough is relatively short at six hours, but there is incentive to play it again. 
• Just in case you didn't believe me about the voice acting:

In the end, the game is fantastic. The voice acting is just part of the legend of Silent Hill, and if they did an actual HD remake, I don't know if it would be the same without the campiness. In a way, the awkward voice talent kind of added to the suspense. As if these people aren't reacting to the events in a realistic way, almost like lobotomy patients working through a mystery. Likely that was not the intention, but like I said - all part of the legend.

I would definitely recommend this game to a friend. It's available on the PlayStation Network for download, so if you don't have it - pick it up.

Review in Ten Words or Less: 
Solid experience. Scary as hell. Frustrating controls. 

Finished: Silent Hill

I did it.

Final Hour Count: 6:13
Mode: Normal
Ending: "Bad"

An all in all enjoyable experience. Barring the voice acting (so bad...) and the sometimes frustrating camera/walking controls, I was gripped throughout the length of the game. The concept of the story is superb and that was the carrot on the string for me to continue through to the end. I am definitely compelled to play through the entire game again with the offer of one of those 'New Game+' things where you get cool new weapons (Chainsaw!) and access to areas (Police Station!) that were previously inaccessible - but it will have to wait until I finish everything else...

I'll have my full review up in the next couple of days.

Just Started: Silent Hill

So I played up until the first save point a couple nights ago, which is only like 15-20 minutes into the game. But I was quite upset to find that the SD graphics from PS1 look ATROCIOUS on an HDTV. Now I'm not trying to be all elitist rich guy complaining about having an HDTV - believe me, I am extremely grateful for everything I have in my life, but the way the image stretches out, the pixels are all over the place, its hard to make out what is what, and to add a layer of difficulty, there are no 3D controls. Meaning no matter which way the camera is facing, Up is always "walk forward." Even if your character is walking towards the camera, you still press up to walk forward. It's really confusing and frustrating until you get used to it.

Also, I don't remember the voice acting being as bad as it is. One of the first scenes is your character talking to a policewoman about your missing daughter. Now, let's remember exactly what's happened. You were in a car crash, your young daughter is missing in an abandoned town where you're pretty sure you just saw a few demons from hell walking around stabbing you with knives. Do you think you could work up a little more excitement than:

"Hello. Have you seen my daughter?"











"Haven't seen her."

That massive blank space in there represents the uncomfortable, unnatural pauses in conversations in this game. I'm still convinced that I will allow the game to scare me, and in a way, the unnatural voice acting adds a certain layer of creepiness to the whole affair, intentional or not.

I was talking to a friend about this game and we got on the topic of the fog. If you've ever played a Silent Hill game you know that when you're outside, there is the ever present entity of a heavy fog that hangs over the town. Now, this is obviously a deliberate design choice, but it's also a very clever coverup for straggling technology. In the days of PS1 there was something called "pop in" - this is when objects in the distance would appear or "pop in" to the scene unnaturally. This happened because the system couldn't render the objects until they were a certain size. So if you throw a thick blanket of fog over the entire outside world, with a visibility of only 4 or 5 feet in front of you, the problem is eliminated, or at least unnoticeable. Very clever, Konami-san. Very clever.

Up Next: Silent Hill

The Silent Hill series is among my favorites. I started playing the series at SH2 and continued on from there, playing through most of the games, but I quickly found that Silent Hill 1 had become somewhat rare and a bit of collectors item, usually selling for around 50-60 bucks on ebay for a used copy. Then one day I found a brand new, sealed copy in Blockbuster for 10 bucks. I instantly jumped on it, but I never beat it.

I feel like my last save on my memory card was really close to the end, but I'd like to play through it again. Most SH games are only around 6 hours anyway, so it's not too bad.

I'm looking forward to this one. I absolutely adore the Silent Hill games. They are terrifying in a I'm-still-scared-after-I-turn-off-the-TV kind of way. They play with your mind and your anticipation of things unseen. Monsters are replaced by mood music and sound effects in many cases, keeping you on the farthest edge of your seat at all times.

Let's hit it - Silent Hill for PS1.

Review: Castlevania

How does one review such a classic game as Castlevania? It would be like trying to review a Beatles album, or the Godfather today. Everyone already knows the ins and outs of these types of things. I suppose, as will all of my projects, I will try to make it as personal as possible.

I never owned this game as a kid, but I played it a good number of times just from rentals and at friends' houses. But this was the first time I ever saw anything past level two. It really is amazing how scarce the content is in these old games - the programmers made the games so difficult so you would have to practice sections over and over until you got it right, which would artificially inflate the length of the game. This would by no means fly in the modern era of gaming. We nerds expect at least 8 hours of a single player campaign and every second of that better be a new a unique area otherwise we will complain about it on every message board we can find.

But playing this game did not feel like I was being ripped off. I felt as though I was getting better at something as I slowly progressed through. Each boss I killed felt like a fantastic achievement. Now compare this to the 50+ hour Final Fantasy XIII where the sense of accomplishment came not from overcoming a challenge, but just making it through the entire length of the game. Castlevania gave me a true sense of victory when I finally beat it.

Gameplay

Castlevania was made at a time when game design was much simpler. Designers had only two face buttons to work with so it goes without saying that actions were usually limited. But every once in a while, a game would surprise you with the amount of depth that could come from those two simple buttons. Castlevania is one of those games. One button is your whip while the other will make you jump - pretty standard NES controls, but there is a lot there to grab on to.

Jumping is incredibly stiff in this game. Unlike Contra or Ninja Gaiden, once you commit to a jump direction, that's the way you're going. There's no tweaking or moving backwards while you're in the air. This is much more realistic, but much less fun from a gameplay perspective. The loosey goosey style of Contra really let you control the exact spot you were going to land, while Simon Belmont jumps like a stiff robot.

The whipping is where the depth in the controls comes in. It's not apparent when you first start playing, but when you have to start timing your attacks, you'll notice that there is a slight delay from when you press the button and when the whip is flung out in front of you. The designers put in a half second "backswing" on your whip, again making it more realistic: if you were going to whip something, you'd first have to pull it back and then whip it forward. This slight delay really plays into how you approach certain enemies - especially the dual dragon skull heads that shoot fireballs at you. You have to be close enough to attack, but far enough away to hit the fireballs - and you have to time it correctly. It can be incredibly frustrating if you don't understand that the delay exists, but once you do, you'll feel like you are in much more control over the game than if the whip just shot out in front of you.

 

The backswing

Finally, the subweapons really give the game the extra oomph and layer of control and creativity to how you make your way to the man with the D on his grave. There are a good number of these subweapons but the only one you'll really need is the Holy Water. This creates a small fire where it is thrown and anything that touches it is either killed or temporarily stunned. It is insanely useful in boss fights as I've mentioned. The biggest issue with these is the fact that you have to press Up+B to use them. If you are anywhere near a staircase, you will automatically start walking up the stairs instead of throwing your weapon. I'm sure if the designers had an extra button to use, they would have, so you can't really blame them - it's just annoying. 

Enemies and Bosses
There are a good dozen or so enemy models in the game and most of them are pretty well done based on the limitations of the NES hardware. Whipping enemies to kill them felt incredibly satisfying as they poured out against you. There are a couple of standout enemies I want to make mention of:


Level 5 Knights - these guys are a real challenge. They move backwards as you approach them, so to fight them properly (without holy water) you have to jump towards them to gain any ground. At the same time, though, they are throwing axes at you, so you have to time your jumps and attacks just so.

Monkeys - Nothing is more aggravating than those damn monkeys (hunchbacks) they are low to the round, they don't follow a pattern and they are incredibly fast. They also take away a ton of health if they hit you. A nightmare of an enemy.


Effing Medusa Heads - These flying terrors threats don't come from the damage they induce, but rather they exploit a larger issue with the game design: the knock back. Every time an enemy hits you, your character is knocked back a couple feet. This is extremely common in games of that era - even Zelda II had it. These Medusa heads are hard to judge as they fly in a sin wave formation and you never know which direction they'll come from or whether they'll be coming up-down-up or down-up-down. My biggest main game nemesis.

The bane of every gamer's existence

The bosses in the game are pretty generic. They basically just picked antagonists from classic horror movies - Giant Bats, Medusa, Mummies, Frankenstein, The Grim Reaper...none of them have anything to do with Dracula or vampires at all. Why wasn't I fighting Edward Cullen? Or Bill Compton?

As far as the boss's fighting designs go, their difficulty curve explodes after level 3. Levels 4, 5 and 6 are freaking awful and the bosses just get increasingly more and more difficult. My struggle with the Grim Reaper and Dracula are well documented, so I won't go into it here, but they are certainly infuriating. At the same time though I never felt like they were cheap or unfair. When I died, I felt I was the only one to blame. Again, the practice that was required to beat Dracula was well worth it for the sense of achievement I felt when I finally did beat him.

Stuff I Liked

• The music. Everyone praises the music from Castlevania and I will not stray from that consensus. It is awesome. This being one of the first kind of creepy games on the market, the composers managed to really create a epic monster movie atmosphere with the music and sound effects. A tradition that has carried through the series. 
• The difficulty. As I mentioned, I can really appreciate a game that requires practice and patience from the player. Castlevania requires those in spades. 
• The graphics. An early game in the NES library there are certainly better looking games. But in the same vein as the music, they were able to really create a creepy environment with very little horsepower. 
• Infinite Continues and frequent checkpoints. In a game that requires practice, it's nice of them to allow you to do so.  Especially the infinite continues outside of Drac's final chamber.

Stuff I Hated

• The knockback
• The mother effing Grim Reaper
• Stiff controls. 

All in all, the game still holds up. It's challenging, it's exciting, it's atmospheric, it's hard not to love. I would definitely recommend it to a friend. If you don't have it, it's only 5 bucks on Virtual Console, definitely pick it up.

Review in Ten Words or Less
Classic, elegant gameplay. Brutal difficulty.

This video sums up the game very, very well.

  

Finished: Castlevania

I did it.

Final Hour Count: 8:22
Final Item: Holy Water (with x2 modifier obtained from hitting the fireballs from Drac's second form)

Tonight was a good night. We had a nice dinner at a friends house, came home, hung out with the dog and at around 1:45 AM, I had just finished my Bible Blog for the evening. We have off of work tomorrow, so I decided to give Castlevania a quick try. I beat it on the third try.

I got to Dracula's second form with only one hit point left. I started launching the Holy Waters at him and by a sheer stroke of luck, one of the bottles hit his fireballs on its trajectory and one of those fireballs produced a x2 multiplier and I was able to unload all my Holy Waters on him at a quick enough rate to freeze him in place. In case you're wondering, it takes about 45 Holy Waters to kill him, so stock up.

So hooray! Two games down, yo! Here's proof, by the way.