Graphically speaking.

[silenthillking]

Are the graphics that bad what`s the problems are they low res what i`ve been watching walkthroughts and everything looks okay the amout of paint decaying
on walls looks good if anything what game would you say the graphics compare to.

also have the graphics changed from earlier builds of the game.

[Piers909]

Heh... I didn't think the game looked at all bad graphically... there are some small things like muddy textures, clipping and popup, but generally I thought it was beautiful. I was especially surprised in the facial animation...

I dunno what I'd compare it to... there are definitely better looking games - But I think Downpour is confident graphically.

[Falconv1.0]

Heh... I didn't think the game looked at all bad graphically... there are some small things like muddy textures, clipping and popup, but generally I thought it was beautiful. I was especially surprised in the facial animation...

I dunno what I'd compare it to... there are definitely better looking games - But I think Downpour is confident graphically.

I don't want to just...fruitlessly hate on the game. I actually liked most of it, but I think the only way you can call it beautiful is if you don't compare it to anything good. I mean seriously SH2 and 3 had a much more defined yet subtle look and didn't lag to all hell. Yet Downpour comes out in 2012 looking worse than most games from 2009 with frame rate issues and texture popping and generally uninteresting areas. Seriously that orphanage was just so...drab...and so was the prison. Seriously the underground subway area in 3 was more memorable just because at least it followed some things that make Silent Hill good, you know, effective use of silent and all that stuff.

[Piers909]

Heh... I didn't think the game looked at all bad graphically... there are some small things like muddy textures, clipping and popup, but generally I thought it was beautiful. I was especially surprised in the facial animation...

I dunno what I'd compare it to... there are definitely better looking games - But I think Downpour is confident graphically.

I don't want to just...fruitlessly hate on the game. I actually liked most of it, but I think the only way you can call it beautiful is if you don't compare it to anything good. I mean seriously SH2 and 3 had a much more defined yet subtle look and didn't lag to all hell. Yet Downpour comes out in 2012 looking worse than most games from 2009 with frame rate issues and texture popping and generally uninteresting areas. Seriously that orphanage was just so...drab...and so was the prison. Seriously the underground subway area in 3 was more memorable just because at least it followed some things that make Silent Hill good, you know, effective use of silent and all that stuff.

Well, fair enough. Differing opinions and such. Something just strikes me about the exteriors specifically:




Maybe I'm just being swayed too easily by the volumetric fog and such. To each their own.

[Falconv1.0]

You can see how muddy the textures are, and that's like the best the game ever really looks.

Also the game does not do aa that well and I'm pretty sure you can't ever really hit that angle in the first shot, maybe I'm wrong. Either way don't rely on resized images with bs aa, cuz that's what the first image is.

It's not like GARBAGE but it should run so much better looking like that. Also, seriously I still like the way 2 and 3 looks more, it just stands out so much more.

[silent_hell]

I think most criticism of the visuals in Downpour are more to do with the age old problem of texture pop-in, which is when graphical textures take a second or more to fully load and the player sees this.

Even so, I think any criticism of the visuals in Downpour are invalid. Downpour is the best looking Silent Hill game to date, graphically speaking. It looks WAY better than Homecoming, which is the next best looking game in the series.

Proof:

Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill 3

Silent Hill 4

Homecoming

Downpour

[Falconv1.0]

Homecoming is nothing but gray and orange, Downpour's style had infinitely more class.

Silent hill 2-4 look better than Homecoming. Homecoming is drab and ugly as sin.
._.

[silent_hell]

I've updated my previous post to show the changes made from Silent Hill 2 to Downpour.

[Falconv1.0]

Way to find the lowest quality image possible without showing the huge difference in how they make amazing use of subtle mood lighting and-no, you know what, no. Not doing this.

It's not just texture quality, which btw is ass in homecoming either way. It's the way you light things, the color, the mood. All you get in homecoming is ugly friggin grey or sunny d orange.

[aj4x94]

Homecoming is nothing but gray and orange, Downpour's style had infinitely more class.

Silent hill 2-4 look better than Homecoming. Homecoming is drab and ugly as sin.
._.

Don't forget those Ninja Turtle teeth that pop up with the even worse lip-synching that game had. And by far, Homecoming has the absolute worst hair textures I've ever seen in a video game. Just look at Elle or Judge Holloway.

[Yuki]

Based on that screenshot, Homecoming looks really, really oddly shiny. Also, I hope the lip-syncing is better in Downpour than, say, SH3. A lot of the mouths in that latter game seemed far too wide-open.

[alone in the town]

Silent Hill 2 had the same problem, everybody's mouths were odd to watch when characters were speaking. I don't know whether they were shaped just a little wrong or whether they were given too much range of movement, but they reminded me of monkeys.

[RottenRat]

generally I thought it was beautiful. I was especially surprised in the facial animation...

Huh, there are some seriously mixed messages coming in regarding this game... I'm in Europe and waiting for the 29th, but a review in a local gaming magazine hated on the facial animations something fierce...

Overall, mouths seem to be tricky to render - look at Heavy Rain, everybody in that game looked like they recently suffered a stroke.

[Aerith Gainsborough]

This game definitely has the best environmental graphics I've seen in the franchise. That's for sure. The character design isn't too shabby either. I hated how 'glossy' their faces looked. It made them look pretty well there, but eh, I guess it's more realistic than a face that looks like chalk. I didn't notice any problem with lip syncing, actually, which is a vast improvement over some prior titles.

[Yuki]

Silent Hill 2 had the same problem, everybody's mouths were odd to watch when characters were speaking. I don't know whether they were shaped just a little wrong or whether they were given too much range of movement, but they reminded me of monkeys.

For sure. I just distinctly remember it in Silent Hill 3 when Heather yells at Vincent in the library.

[Martee]

The graphics in the game were pretty good, it just ran badly and most environments were boring and empty which is more to do with the level design than the art assets themselves.

[KingCrimson]

I couldn't help but notice the really blatant reuse of props and textures, especially indoors. I think every resident of the town had the same stack of books with a pencil on top. That said, the faces actually looked good this time around. The worst part of the graphics, in my opinion, was the otherworld. Some areas were so bright it made everything look flat and overexposed, and overall way too big and gaudy with the special effects. I could deal with the textures being bad, but I am not fond of their take on the otherworld.

[dr bones]

Environmentally the game looks great to me, and most of the characters look fine. The creatures, on the other hand, are not only uninteresting conceptually, but not very impressive graphically. Mostly, I'm thinking about the Screamers... There's some concept art of them floating around, hold on I'll dig it up.....

.... here we go.


Not the best design, in my opinion, but you can see how they were conceptualized. Now compare that to in-game (sorry, I couldn't find any decent comparison pics), and I have to wonder what happened. Textures on the Screamers are muddy, pixellated and awful. They look pretty bad, imo.

(Also.... Snape???)

[swedish]

As far as textures and modeling goes (and not art direction/mood), Homecoming's graphics were moderately adequate to abysmal for its time, and I don't think it deserves a direct comparison to previous generation games such as SH2 and SH3. That said, some of the character modeling and texturing were laughably embarrassing, and some of the previous generation games looked way better than certain charas like Alex's mom or Judge Holloway.

From what I've seen in videos and screenshots and not direct gameplay by me, Downpour's character modeling and texturing look fine. It kind of suffers from the "shiny" and "glistening" look especially when Murphy gets wet, but that's generally a problem across some games on the Unreal 3 Engine. With Homecoming's video walkthroughs and previews, I've always had the impression I was looking at placeholder models for the human charas and I would see a better product in the final release. They were that bad.

It'll be really difficult for Silent Hill games to set high standards for gaming graphics now when there's competition like Battlefield 3

[Skele]

Eh, overall i think Homecoming looks better than Downpour, however Homecoming has it's areas where i think it looks pretty good, and then it has times where it makes you cringe (like with the women's hair in the game). Homecoming had decent character models for the most part, and the enemies all had pretty good textures and decent design. I just think the women's hair needed work, and i guess lighting on some of the characters during cutscenes could've been better.

Downpour on the other hand... well Downpour has decent art direction, but it's textures are just as bad as Homecoming's (if not worse), the enemy designs are terrible and low res, and the lighting is definitely the worst in the series. I mean, i got into the "town basement" and i couldn't see jack with the flashlight. Also, there's no anti aliasing going on in Downpour at all, and the framerate is laughably bad. Those screenshots posted above for Downpour don't represent how the game actually looks at all. it's like someone took a screen capture and cleaned it up because the game doesn't look anywhere near that sharp, or clean while playing.

After having played Silent hill 2 and 3 on my pc in 1080p, i can say both games look better than Homecoming and Downpour. if the HD collection got the same treatment, but with better textures, you'll see it for yourself as well.