Vatra closing?

[Droo]

You didn't have the game lag every time Murphy took more than a few steps while outside? Because that was a universal problem from what I understood.

My personal favourite bug was the one where monsters started being scared of ME and being content to circle me from a distance, running away from me should I approach them. It made an already-dull game that much more boring. Once the bug hit me, they continued doing it for the rest of the game.

[Falconv1.0]

Downpour isn't just bad due to the bugs, it's the monster combat, it's the drab looking levels, side quests with really vague direction, ham-fisted attempts at symbolism (herp derp BOGEYMAN), and Jesus Christ anything involving that god awful prison level.

But yeah the bugs do a pretty good job of killing the immersion too. Also loved how they apparently can't even do fog as well as the Left 4 Dead engine can seeing how you can see it take awhile to go away when you go indoors because the system has to say "oh yeah it's not supposed to render at this distance anymore but we don't know how to dynamically do that". Immersion!

[AuraTwilight]

Downpour isn't just bad due to the bugs, it's the monster combat, it's the drab looking levels, side quests with really vague direction, ham-fisted attempts at symbolism (herp derp BOGEYMAN), and Jesus Christ anything involving that god awful prison level.

Holy subjective qualifiers of personal taste, Batman!

[Falconv1.0]

The monster combat is easy as fuck, the levels do not stand out visually at all especially compared to SH2 and 3, a lot of the sidequests do not give you very good directions and I thought the over exposition involving the Bogeyman was just stupid. Also fuck that prison level.

Please tell me which of these you're trying to debate. The game is easy, the game is full of muddy textures and eh graphics with enemies that have been universally panned by the fans as being fairly boring and not disturbing in the slightest. No one dislikes the game just due to the bugs is my point.

[thy_butcher]

I'm not trying to step on any toes here, but I'm just saying, that I honestly like Downpour's monsters.
I think I'm completely alone on liking the Minions
Especially the stabbers, they are horrifying.

[KiramidHead]

I sort of like the faces on the minions. but their look from the neck and the noises they make when hit are pretty ridiculous.

[AuraTwilight]

The monster combat is easy as fuck, the levels do not stand out visually at all especially compared to SH2 and 3, a lot of the sidequests do not give you very good directions and I thought the over exposition involving the Bogeyman was just stupid. Also fuck that prison level.

Please tell me which of these you're trying to debate. The game is easy, the game is full of muddy textures and eh graphics with enemies that have been universally panned by the fans as being fairly boring and not disturbing in the slightest. No one dislikes the game just due to the bugs is my point.

I've heard people argue that the monsters and combat were annoyingly difficult, that the Otherworld sequences are the best in the sequence, that the sidequests are too easy,and that the Bogeyman is one of the best parts of the story. Also, the prison levelwas kind of cool.

You are treating personal tastes as objective failures in game design. That's silly. I'll give you that a lot of people find the monsters really weak and poorly designed, however.

[Falconv1.0]

There's a difference between a sidequest being easy and the location of what you need to find to actually do it being vague as hell because of how little Murphy actually updates his map.

Also lol at anyone who finds those monsters hard. Just lol.

[AuraTwilight]

I've heard lots of bitching about how many health packs were wasted, but I think many of the complaints were less about difficult monsters so much as difficult controls. I don't know.

I never really had a problem with following the sidequest locations. You just need to know how to listen to Murphy's self-dialog and actually read maps on your own. The auto-map feature of Silent Hill is nice, but it can't work perfectly with an open world setting by necessity and people kind of use it as a crutch.

[Droo]

It's not a crutch. When you have a large town, and a bunch of identical buildings to side quest in, it becomes difficult to remember which quest is associated with them. And when the game hiccups when I take more than three steps outside, I really don't want to be running from incorrect building to incorrect building.

And since the side quests offer no rewards of any useful kind, and often ended up making you consume more resources than you walked away with, they hardly seemed worth it. Even without rewards, they could have been worthwhile had the stories they told been interesting or moving. However, save for Ribbons, they were all total nonevents that beg the question of why the town would even be presenting them to Murphy.

[AuraTwilight]

It's not a crutch. When you have a large town, and a bunch of identical buildings to side quest in, it becomes difficult to remember which quest is associated with them.

Then keep your own notes?

[JuriDawn]

I guess I must have gotten lucky with the lag. I did still experience it, but only after Murphy had run about a block or so.

[Droo]

It's not a crutch. When you have a large town, and a bunch of identical buildings to side quest in, it becomes difficult to remember which quest is associated with them.

Then keep your own notes?

I don't actually keep very much paper in my apartment. I also don't play video games to become an amateur cartographer.

I know you're a Downpour apologist, dear, but at least try to be objective about it. The map system was atrocious.

[Wigeke]

I guess I must have gotten lucky with the lag. I did still experience it, but only after Murphy had run about a block or so.

See, the beauty of computing is that it's an exact science, the same software on the same hardware on the same conditions will always run the same way, considering the ps3 and 360 are closed platforms that you can't change components and every copy of Downpour out there is the exact same code that means you didn't get lucky, it just means that the frame rate issues aren't that big and people are blowing it out of proportion for some reason.

[Falconv1.0]

Really, we got someone trying to defend the map now with "keep your own notes"?

I love how the closest thing one can mount to a valid defense is HEY MAN, IT'S JUST OPINIONS, BECAUSE EVERYTHING EVER IS SUBJECTIVE.

I'm still shaking my head at the bit about the "difficulty". So it's not the monsters it's the controls? Is that why I still never died? Oh no, they're attacking, press the block button! Oh no! They're not attacking! Press attack! Uh oh, weapon broke, better just run while they barely do any damage if they even manage to hit me. But hey man, opinions, maybe I'm just secretly the Batman of Silent Hill.

lol Wigeke. "I didn't notice lag and computers are exact thus no one should have noticed much lag". I fucking froze for a good second or two repeatedly in some rooms.

._________.

[Wigeke]

I never said it's not there, it is, but it's not nowhere as near as crippling or as bad as people make it to be. Mostly it's just some minor stuttering when the game is streaming something, I actually thought the screen tearing was way more annoying than the framerate issues.

[Glenn]

I wouldn't complain about the lag, but it would lag almost every time I rotated the camera, and almost every door that I went through, and even after just walking several steps throughout the town. Strangely the stuttering improved a lot in the prison, but the rest of the game was stuttery.

The levels are all drab and the same? Huh? Did you play through the 3 major areas? They are all distinct with their own feeling.

The map system could have used a bit more creativity instead ? there and a ? over there. I ended up using a paper and pen to help me keep track of things.

[Falconv1.0]

I said drab, as in I found them largely boring to look at. The muddy textures didn't help much in that regard. I never said "all the same". Nice attempt at a strawman though.

@Wigeke: I don't think anyone found the lag to be crippling, our problem was how immersion killing it was, especially when nothing about it looks like it should be causing that kind of a problem. I don't know if it's because Konami rushed them or because they suck, but the fact of the matter is the end product is incredibly rough and feels borderline unfinished at times, my favorite example being the friendly monsters glitch. Weeeeeee free Bank sidequest victory get.

[Wigeke]

Borderline unfinished? Really? You can count the bugs this game has on one hand, try playing a Bethesda game on launch to see a true bugfest.

[Falconv1.0]

Oh good, we're comparing it to a Bethesda game now. A game like Silent Hill should not have that much stuttering, muddy graphics, and a glitch that causes enemies to fucking act afraid of you.

Strawmans are fun!

Gonna stop trying to argue with this apologist logic, it's ridiculous.