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Silent Hill Downpour |OT| Rain, Rain, Go Away

Glad to hear more positive feedback. I bought it during the BB deal as well but have not opened it yet. Sort of want to hold off until they release whatever performance patch they announced a few weeks ago.

I've definitely run into a few parts where the game just stops, then the MC jumps ahead a little. I've noticed this with enemies on the screen. Otherwise the game looks pretty solid, and the Otherworld is cool.
 
My copy came in earlier than expected, and I decided to pop this in after I finished my run through of Lollipop Chainsaw.
So far, I'm really enjoying it. Well, except for one or two issues.


The opening segment was definitely a good way of saying "hey, things are a little different this time around."

The new music has been growing on me, and the exploration stuff has been nice. It's unfortunate that I don't really get to enjoy much of the exploration due to the enemies CONSTANTLY badgering me. They're pretty bleh in their designs, and their ability to trap you in tight spaces is a pain in the neck. Not to mention, there are a TOOOON of weapons everywhere. I guess that's good if you're trying to fight everything, but the enemies are getting on my nerves, so I'm just running away now.

I completed the sidequests for
the police station and returning the belongings of the people in the apartment. I was kind of disappointed that they're basically pointless (at least, seemingly), and that they went to great efforts to push you towards the right answer. Really, you don't think I'm smart enough to figure out that the room with the spinning light ball thing and kids toys isn't the kid's room? You need to put the audio of crying children in there too? And the war noises... The worst was the victory march band playing after I put the medal back. I mean, I appreciate giving me a reason to poke around these places, but I don't want everything spelled out for me.

I'm only just now starting to get into the town itself, and I'm looking forward to more time with the game.
 

Mature

Member
I completed the sidequests for
the police station and returning the belongings of the people in the apartment. I was kind of disappointed that they're basically pointless (at least, seemingly), and that they went to great efforts to push you towards the right answer. Really, you don't think I'm smart enough to figure out that the room with the spinning light ball thing and kids toys isn't the kid's room? You need to put the audio of crying children in there too? And the war noises... The worst was the victory march band playing after I put the medal back. I mean, I appreciate giving me a reason to poke around these places, but I don't want everything spelled out for me.
You and I definitely saw this in different lights. I didn't even think of them as being audio clues or a hand-holding mechanism. To me, or at least the way I saw it, it was purely an atmospheric addition. I even think it's misleading to refer to the little events scattered throughout the game as "side-quests" or even puzzles (though some of them require problem solving). Some are small morsels of story that just make the game a bit deeper while others may just be for straight up scare-factor (God, some of them are pretty unnerving-- the "heart" one comes to mind). But, you know, I think that's pretty nice given the game they're in. Silent Hill has never had a totally conventional approach.

Wait a second...
There's a reward for both of those. You get the thief's outfit for the personal belonging quest and the reward for the dispatcher one is that the police cars don't harass you the whole game.
 
You and I definitely saw this in different lights. I didn't even think of them as being audio clues or a hand-holding mechanism. To me, or at least the way I saw it, it was purely an atmospheric addition. I even think it's misleading to refer to the little events scattered throughout the game as "side-quests" or even puzzles (though some of them require problem solving). Some are small morsels of story that just make the game a bit deeper while others may just be for straight up scare-factor (God, some of them are pretty unnerving-- the "heart" one comes to mind). But, you know, I think that's pretty nice given the game they're in. Silent Hill has never had a totally conventional approach.

Wait a second...
There's a reward for both of those. You get the thief's outfit for the personal belonging quest and the reward for the dispatcher one is that the police cars don't harass you the whole game.
I'm sure the atmosphere was what they were going for, but it felt extremely obtuse and lazy. It's a shame, because I didn't really mind exploring the different rooms, but when I revisited and there were the audio cues now, it just felt bleh.

Can't speak to the spoilered stuff. Mostly because I'm not there yet to know.
 
Oh, my mistake, I thought that was some future event.


Continued on a little bit, and I started finding things for some other sidequest out of order. I examined something I found on the ground and he said "this means go left" and I was beyond confused. It wasn't until later things made sense, hahaha.

Made it into the
centennial building
. Going to continue tomorrow.
 

Everdred

Member
Been playing this game over the weekend. Finally got a hold of it and was quite excited to play. I'm about to go to the last section of the game and my impressions so far are not very positive. I've played every Silent Hill title except for Shattered Memories. I'm a big fan of the series and this title has left me pretty disappointed. The graphics I don't mind but the creature art styles are pretty bad. None of the creatures bring an ounce of fear and the overall direction is pretty bad. From the grudge girl to the ceiling crawler, they are annoying to fight and lack originality.

What is this game saving constantly? If you quit the game you are often not brought back to the last point it said "Saving..." and the process itself causes massive frame drops and has occasionally locked up my console completely (360).

I don't mind the story so far, I expected much worse. My biggest gripes are with the gameplay itself and occasional poor level design. It is interesting how halfway through the game you can basically go anywhere in the town and completely skip over main plot areas. You can't progress out of Silent Hill but you can roam the town.

The game often gives you no direction and I would spend a long time roaming around trying to figure out what to do next. I do think the last few areas of the game (not including final) are better than the beginning and middle.
 

Mature

Member
What is this game saving constantly? If you quit the game you are often not brought back to the last point it said "Saving..." and the process itself causes massive frame drops and has occasionally locked up my console completely (360).
.
It's apparently supposed to say "loading", though honestly I wouldn't know what it would be loading either.
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
Couldn't wait for the patch any longer so I just started the game.

Are there multiple endings like previous SH games? Since I usually don't care for multiple play through of games (not enough time these days) is there anything I should pay attention to that might affect the ending or how the game plays out in general?
 

SadAli

Neo Member
Taking into account how you played the game up to that point, you can view a fair number of the endings from different choices you make in the final scenes so you don't necessarily have to play through the whole game loads of times.
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
Am I missing something or is there no way to manually save your game? Just wasted half a hour because I thought the game had auto saved right before I died but I ended up having to replay an entire section. Wtf lol
 
Am I missing something or is there no way to manually save your game? Just wasted half a hour because I thought the game had auto saved right before I died but I ended up having to replay an entire section. Wtf lol

There's no way to manually save. I usually figure I'm safe if I get to a new section or building. That doesn't help though if you have to quit part way through an area...
 

ironcreed

Banned
Finally got this on the cheap and started last night. Game is a trip and a half, the atmosphere is great and it feels like it has been forever since I have played a horror game that requires you to explore and use your head. Is Silent Hill back? It is for me with this game. Only thing I don't like is how it stops and stutters sometimes, but it is no biggie.
 
A few things...

1. Is the patch ever coming out?

2. I just found out that some of the lockers in the game, with numeric keypads, are only opened via "special codes?"

from Konami's site:

shdlockers.jpg

please don't tell me those are pre-order only codes...
 
A few things...

1. Is the patch ever coming out?

2. I just found out that some of the lockers in the game, with numeric keypads, are only opened via "special codes?"

from Konami's site:



please don't tell me those are pre-order only codes...
1. Tomm apparently stated they were coming along (he's not over them though) recently on a podcast

2. They are pre-order codes, but they're universal.

353479 - Pistol + Baseball bat
911977 - Rifle + Golf club
171678 - Nailgun + Axe

There are like three lockers in the game, and they all use the first code you put in.
 
No problem.

Also, to clarify my last point about "using the first code you entered"
The other lockers will already be unlocked, but their contents will be the same as the code you first put in, so yeah.
 
Oh so it's like, pick which code I want to use (in this case the Rifle) and then both other lockers after that will have the Rifle also? That's alright.
 

JEKKI

Member
been playng this game, quote good!!!

but I need help! I wanna do all the sidequests but the frikken doors in the subway areas are locked!!!

any way to unlock them so I can backtrack?!?!?! I still have the
jacket
to give to the
homeless man
but alas the door is locked!
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
been playng this game, quote good!!!

but I need help! I wanna do all the sidequests but the frikken doors in the subway areas are locked!!!

any way to unlock them so I can backtrack?!?!?! I still have the
jacket
to give to the
homeless man
but alas the door is locked!
I think the homeless dude is the key. Homer or something?
 

JEKKI

Member
I think the homeless dude is the key. Homer or something?
but he already showed me some of the routes when I gave him candy bra,

and those routes are locked!! do I really hafta backtrack alllllllll theeeeeeee waaaaaaaaaaay to see him again?!?!?!

:(
 
Any word on when this damn patch will come out?

i reeaaaally need to know too, as ive been holding off buying the game for so long just waiting for a patch... if i buy it next week and then the patch comes out just after ive finished it, i will be pissed.

they should give an approximate date or something. next week, next month, october? when?
 

JEKKI

Member
noooooooooooo~!!!! I cant find the fricken fish pole!!!

I did a gamefaqs search, and apparently this entire hobo / subway quest is one big glitch!!!

the doors never unlock and lots of ppl cant even find the last item!!

I'm so done with sidequests now!! argh! not worth it, jus gonna go finish up the game.

for reals, had it not been for all these glitch + stutering times this game would be awesome!!

but instead it's just whateverz...
 

JEKKI

Member
that sidequest has even more backtracking!!! grrrr! it totally defeats the purpose!!

anywayz...

I beat it! yeah!! but I have a story question,

I dont understand the whole monastery / nun / children's hospital thing... like it makes u think the story has something to do with something he did to his son or a place where he put him into, but in the ending they reveal a bully killed his son?? So what was the point of leading you to believe something else??
??
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
that sidequest has even more backtracking!!! grrrr! it totally defeats the purpose!!

anywayz...

I beat it! yeah!! but I have a story question,

I dont understand the whole monastery / nun / children's hospital thing... like it makes u think the story has something to do with something he did to his son or a place where he put him into, but in the ending they reveal a bully killed his son?? So what was the point of leading you to believe something else??
??


Murphy grew up in an orphanage. Murphy isn't re-living events from the past. Rather these events are a representation of things that haunt him from the past. His guilt over his son's death and realization that his revenge plot and the consequences that resulted from it made him just as much a Boogeyman as Napier. I think a Church is an appropriate setting for this.

Just my two cents of course. It could very well have been that Charlie was also an autistic kid and Murphy was somehow responsible for the drowning like what happened with the milk carton girl. They didn't explicitly say that Napier was Charlie's killer right? Bad ending. LOL
 
I'm getting massive migraine while playing this game. I'm playing ps3 version and the frame rate is just fucking horrendous. Not sure exactly what's causing headaches while playing, but I'm guessing it's either frame rate or depth perception.
 

Mature

Member
I'm getting massive migraine while playing this game. I'm playing ps3 version and the frame rate is just fucking horrendous. Not sure exactly what's causing headaches while playing, but I'm guessing it's either frame rate or depth perception.
You may want to consider holding off on playing until they patch the game. Frame rate issues are one of the things being addressed IIRC.
 

Locke_211

Member
Just finished the Orphanage bit and am loving the game now. I really disliked the first hour or so, until I'd spent some time in Silent Hill itself. But the plot is great, it's very atmospheric and there's frequent fairly clever puzzles. It's also surprising how easy it is to just miss most of the side-quests. There's a lot of fairly meaty hidden things to do that you could completely overlook.
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
You may want to consider holding off on playing until they patch the game. Frame rate issues are one of the things being addressed IIRC.

The patch that may or may not materialize? :\ I was waiting for it too...but I ended up playing the beginning of the game and not being bothered too much by the technical issues so I completed it and moved on.
 
This game totally blew me away.

Yes, there are some glitches and unfortunate framerate issues, but damn if this isn't the creepiest, most atmospheric game I've played in a LONG time.

All the puzzles made sense and were eerie as hell, the story was very well-told, and the characters were real and fleshed out.

Look past the glitches and bugs people, this game is a great surprise. Best Silent Hill since SH2, and this is coming from a guy who really enjoyed Shattered Memories.

This game also shows how out of touch most game reviewers are these days, but that's probably best left for another thread.

Stunning game. So sad more people didn't give it a chance.
 
This game totally blew me away.

Yes, there are some glitches and unfortunate framerate issues, but damn if this isn't the creepiest, most atmospheric game I've played in a LONG time.

All the puzzles made sense and were eerie as hell, the story was very well-told, and the characters were real and fleshed out.

Look past the glitches and bugs people, this game is a great surprise. Best Silent Hill since SH2, and this is coming from a guy who really enjoyed Shattered Memories.

This game also shows how out of touch most game reviewers are these days, but that's probably best left for another thread.

Stunning game. So sad more people didn't give it a chance.

Seriously, this game is fantastic. The Dead Man's Hand sidequest scared the crap out of me, and the gramophone and cinema sidequests have unique, fun mechanics.
 

Locke_211

Member
Interesting thing about the story-telling and the ending: the choices you make affect
not only the end of the story but what crime or crimes Murphy actually comitted. So his backstory from before the game actually started can be one of several different things. It's telling that I liked playing as him enough to be glad that I got the nicest possible ending!
 

nel e nel

Member
LTTP: picked this up last week and have been having a blast. It's been a nice change of pace for me since I haven't really picked up anything new in a while and have been falling back on my Gears/L4D/ME3 shootbang playtime. Also nice to mix it up before I get Borderlands 2 next week.

I posted a pretty long winded impression on another forum but here's the bullet points:

Pros:

- character design: all the humans really look like actual people
- atmosphere: really creepy, and I love that they weren't afraid of silence and didn't feel the need to have music all the time. I'd also argue that the combat adds to the sense of desperation and helplessness as well
- sidequests: they are so well woven into the environment and tell such great little vignettes of the residents of Silent Hill. Really well done

Cons (mostly technical):

- framerate drops: mostly happens when I'm trying to move quickly, which makes me wonder if they had intended you to not run all the time and instead go through it with a more plodding pace
- glitches: some problems with puzzles not loading correctly or unlocking when I solve them. Also, I've unlocked all the subway shortcuts, but a couple of them are still locked off forcing me to just use the streets.
- tropes: yeesh, how many times can Murphy wake up in a strange room after being in the Otherworld exclaiming "What just happened?" I've just finished all the sidequests and am about to embark to the point of no return, and I fear I'm going to have at least 2 more of these.

Other than that, I'm having a blast and can't wait to get back into town!
 
I don't know if I'm missing something with this game or what.. but I found it downright horrible. All the positive word of mouth had me thinking it was a return to silent hill 1-3 but it's just... I can't even continue it. I have absolutely no desire to go forward with it. The combat is clunky and annoying, more so than past games. When I think it's going to get to a creepy area I end up leaving the area thinking "Oh... that's... it? Nothing happened..." Story is pretty blah. Ah whatever, maybe I just had my expectations too high.
 

Cudder

Member
I don't know if I'm missing something with this game or what.. but I found it downright horrible. All the positive word of mouth had me thinking it was a return to silent hill 1-3 but it's just... I can't even continue it. I have absolutely no desire to go forward with it. The combat is clunky and annoying, more so than past games. When I think it's going to get to a creepy area I end up leaving the area thinking "Oh... that's... it? Nothing happened..." Story is pretty blah. Ah whatever, maybe I just had my expectations too high.
That's pretty much the game. Now that I think back on the game, the best and scariest part of the game were some of the side quests. Oh and that stage play part was pretty awesome.
 
I believe recalling hearing that installing it on the 360 harddrive helped a little, but you're going to run into problems either way.


I got it on PS3, and slowdown was my biggest issue. If you just take it a little slower in a few spots, you'll be right as rain.
Eh? Eh?
Also, it won't be as good as that made it sound. I just wanted to go for the pun.
 

nel e nel

Member
That's pretty much the game. Now that I think back on the game, the best and scariest part of the game were some of the side quests. Oh and that stage play part was pretty awesome.

Yeah the sidequests were pretty ingenious.

- Cinema Verite
- Mirror Mirror
- Gramophone
- Dead Mans Hand

All great stuff.

Agreed with Typographenia: I'm playing on 360, had it installed, and I'd only get some slow down hiccups when I was trying to move too quickly or do to many actions in a quick sequence. It's almost as if they coded the game to force the player to slow down, and only run when trying to escape enemies.

Started a 2nd run on easy today to view the additional endings and get the New Game+ sidequest, and it's glaring how many WTF moments there are in the main story. Knowing the ending definitely answers some questions I had during my first play (what is up with all these wheelchairs?), but it also highlights some of it's shortcomings as well (what's up with the mailman/DJ/nun?)
 

LaneDS

Member
Right on, thanks guys. Was $17 last night on Amazon for both consoles (imagine it's the same still) so I guess I'll get a 360 copy after work.
 

nel e nel

Member
Seems like a lot of spoilers for those who haven't played the game; did you just reveal the solution to a sidequest?

Well, it's not the final solution to that sidequest, but I changed it just the same (couldn't remember the name of it at the time). And those are all the titles of the sidequests, so no real spoilers there.

The other thing that I thought was a nice touch, is the ability to choose different difficulty levels for the gameplay and puzzles. So you can play easy difficulty with hard puzzles, or normal puzzles with hard difficulty. Also, the difficulty level of the puzzles really does change up their solutions. Items you may need will be in different locations, clues will be more obtuse, notes you pick up will be completely different, etc. On hard all of the action prompts are also automatically turned off, so I didn't even know that some of the drawers were searchable for a while.

Right on, thanks guys. Was $17 last night on Amazon for both consoles (imagine it's the same still) so I guess I'll get a 360 copy after work.

Yeah, it's been hovering at ~$20 for a while now on Amazon, and the trade in value is ~$18. My 2nd run was super fast (3-4 hours or so) so I'm ready to send it back. Best $2 I ever spent.
 
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