Lessons from the last few years

Come here to chat about Kojima's now sadly defunct Silent Hills.

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Redklok
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Lessons from the last few years

Post by Redklok »

I am excited about this upcoming new installment of Silent Hill. I saw the trailer and it was giving me the creeps, although it did remind me a bit of the psycho sections in Max Payne 1 (which in all fairness where pretty horrifying with the bloodstream and wailing baby). I think this is a good opportunity to look at the horror games of the previous generation (xbox360/ps3/wii) in general and SH games in particular to see what was good and what could have been better, also compared to the generation before that (ps2, gamecube, xbox):

Good:
- A good horror game doesn't need a big budget. Games like Amnesia, Outlast, Condemned prove that studios with a (relative) small budget can build proper horrorgames. In terms of horror quality they actually surpass big budget titles like FEAR 2&3, Dead Space and Resident Evil. If you look at the SH series, well I doubt Konami spend a lot of money on last generation titles because they let different studios with few experience on board (Vatra) have a go at it. Silent Hill seems to be the exception compared to the rest of the genre.

- 1st person perspective does work. Just take a look at the titles above and you see that the best of them are 1st person horror games. Maybe it's because these games are cheaper to produce, but 1st person perspective can also work miracles for immersion. Still I had less overal connection with the protagonists of these games.They are not as memorable as James Sunderland.

- Lack of weapons do make for a terrifying experience. But sometimes it makes it just frustrating.

Can be done better:

-Story: Last generation horrorgames mostly are lacking in one department: story telling. I have difficulty remembering what the story of most of the horrorgames were. They were not very memorable. Silent hill suffered from this as well, Shattered Memories being an exception.
-Creativity of scares: Last generation horrorgames relied too much on jumpscares. There's nothing wrong with jumpscares perse but it's getting old once you overdo them. Part of the brilliance of the SH series is making you feel eerie by a weird, alien setting. Please for the love of god, don't take tortureporn as a new standard.

I'm probably overlooking some important stuff. Anything that can be added?
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Matt S »

Konami spent no money on Downpour, I guarantee it. No print advertising that I saw. No banner ads, no nothing.

I think lesson 1 for them is this: Get the right team with a sense of passion.

I believe that they have done this for the new game. That right there is huge.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Skele »

To be fair, the last couple of teams working on Downpour and Homecoming, said all the right things (especially Vatra). They seemed passionate, and spoke as if they understood what it took to create a great SH game. Sadly, the games left fans divided. Of the two, Downpour was that one that really disappointed me. I was super excited for it, and it just let me down.. It was as bad/disappointing for me as Devil May Cry 2.

and Redklok, I agree. Games like Condemned and Outlast, are very good examples of 1st person done right. I don't think anyone wants a ton of action in SH, so I don't see it going the route of RE, Dead Space, or FEAR.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by jdnation »

Disagree on the budget to this extent -

Horror games do need to keep up in the visual department so a budget to match the scope of the game is suitable. Particularly for developers like Konami who can afford it. Better graphics do help sell your game to a larger audience and gather more interest. We do tend to be forgiving of this for the indie scene titles which are sold for cheaper and aren't big sellers in comparison to the mass market.

The game doesn't need some outrageous budget, but Silent Hill, for its scope, can't get by on the cheap if it wishes to reach the acclaimed status it once did of offering artistic visuals while being a premiere horror experience. The PS2 games were no slouches in the visuals department. Frankly Climax and Vatra did some good stuff with the lower end budgets Konami gave them. But extensive QA and especially marketing are necessities that shouldn't be cheapened out on.

Clever ways of marketing like what the PT demo did are also great as it's a lot of mindshare for relatively low costs.

Also when entering a more modern era where expectations are greater, if SH wants to garner relevance, then it makes sense to adapt to new advances, such as an open-world system, and reinvent itself in other ways with regards to creature AI etc. and this means additional costs.

Games are getting more expensive to make, undoubtedly. But this doesn't mean you can't wisely budget and produce something excellent and timely. It just requires smart management.


----

As for choice of 1st versus 3rd, I'd say this also comes down to narrative. If you're trying to connect with a character, then 3rd is the way to go. 1st is primarily to put you in the experience as yourself. Frankly I'd prefer they utilize both. 3rd person primary toggable to 1st. And sections of 1st person locked, and moments of fixed camera angles. Of course the key is for there to be a sense of consistency and things that require you to use both perspectives to make a difference.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Redklok »

Frankly I'd prefer they utilize both. 3rd person primary toggable to 1st. And sections of 1st person locked, and moments of fixed camera angles. Of course the key is for there to be a sense of consistency and things that require you to use both perspectives to make a difference.
Ah another lesson: don't follow the Alone in the Dark example of trying to implant to much new ideas and leaving everything half done. Alone in the Dark (part 5 from 2008) also had both 1st and 3rd person perspective and it was incredible non intuitive. (apart from all the other problems which really tore my heart out)

But I agree Silent Hill has too have a decent enough budget at least in the looks department. Konami has funds enough so it's disheartening how it treated the series over the last couple of years with scrutiny.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by dias17se »

Skele wrote:To be fair, the last couple of teams working on Downpour and Homecoming, said all the right things (especially Vatra). They seemed passionate, and spoke as if they understood what it took to create a great SH game. Sadly, the games left fans divided. Of the two, Downpour was that one that really disappointed me. I was super excited for it, and it just let me down.. It was as bad/disappointing for me as Devil May Cry 2.

and Redklok, I agree. Games like Condemned and Outlast, are very good examples of 1st person done right. I don't think anyone wants a ton of action in SH, so I don't see it going the route of RE, Dead Space, or FEAR.

Downpour was ok for me..had a few memorable moments. Wasn´t the silent hill comeback we all wanted tho ( like sh 2 ;D )


On the other hand all SH have flaws of some sort... i love homecoming although it was screwed up, but the ideas were there, they blew it.


Not sure what the hell will this game turn into , but at least franchise is alive lets pray for something memorable ;D
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Catch23 »

I think SH does need a larger budget at this point, as jdnation stated. The old games weren't cobbled together with a tiny budget. They were pretty well funded, I believe, and this shows in the visual department. Only recently has SH as a series been pawned off to the dev teams willing to spend the least amount of money. The drop-off in quality is a testament to this.

I believe Konami learned their lesson, as evidenced by the inclusion of Kojima, Del Toro, and Reedus in the new project. Hopefully this time around we'll see some polish.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Redklok »

Catch23 wrote:I think SH does need a larger budget at this point, as jdnation stated. The old games weren't cobbled together with a tiny budget. They were pretty well funded, I believe, and this shows in the visual department. Only recently has SH as a series been pawned off to the dev teams willing to spend the least amount of money. The drop-off in quality is a testament to this.

I believe Konami learned their lesson, as evidenced by the inclusion of Kojima, Del Toro, and Reedus in the new project. Hopefully this time around we'll see some polish.
It's because Konami were totally mental and had a complete and utter lack of regard for their own IP's. You can make a very good horror game without a Call of Duty budget. That being said, Konami probably could have made serious profit if they invested and advertised in Silent Hill.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by jdnation »

Konami has been through an interesting phase.

- The company had been shifting away from gaming to other businesses that were non-gaming related reducing the gaming division to only being a smaller portion of it's overall business, with 90% of the gaming revenue being Metal Gear.

- Considering Silent Hill was a much smaller piece of the pie, Konami understandably wouldn't have seen much reason to invest a lot into the franchise, despite having Hollywood films, not to mention until the resurgence of horror ames, it was believed to be a genre in decline unless you went the action route as Resident Evil did. SH4's reception also would've cooled them on further investment.

- Console gaming in Japan is in decline while rising in the West. So Konami must've been figuring, like other Japanese major devs that Western studios would better cater to Western tastes.

- Growing pains in the HD era also might've necessitated turning towards Western devs and using engines like Unreal which Western studios are more familiar with but which have yet to really break through in Japan due to poor documentation for the Japanese language. So Japan has had a lack of good third party tools/engines like the West does and benefits from. Kojima himself made it a point to visit and learn from Western studios at Ubisoft and even Infinity Ward to learn how they do things.

- Now that Kojima has gotten the FOX Engine up and running and has put together the pipeline for creating games from what he's learned, he is now pushing for more game development inside of Konami and to use FOX for many other projects. Even PES used some of the FOX Engine's animation systemand now finally we're seeing Silent Hills running on it. I expect to see a growth in Konami's output moving onwards after MGSV is out.

Redklok wrote:Ah another lesson: don't follow the Alone in the Dark example of trying to implant to much new ideas and leaving everything half done. Alone in the Dark (part 5 from 2008) also had both 1st and 3rd person perspective and it was incredible non intuitive. (apart from all the other problems which really tore my heart out)
Alone in the Dark had severe issues in many areas.

But as the MGS series proves, you can indeed make a good game with multiple camera options.

MGS4 and MGSV can go from 3rd to over-the-shoulder to first person fairly well and fluidly. And MGS makes excellent use of all perspectives for gameplay purposes. I can easily see this being carried over to Silent Hills -

Third person for exploration and traversal, over-the-shoulder for more direct combat/confrontations, first person for closer examinations of the environment around you. Occasionally, as the demo shows, the developer may lock you into first person for a particular experience/moment.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Reverend »

Photorealism is a big thing for me. I always associated Silent Hill with the most realistic graphics you could squeeze out of the ps2. Sure the textures were hand painted, but in the most realistic way. The ps3 era games bafflingly decided to go cartoon-style, perhaps to make it easier on themselves. Just like the movie, artistic taste, believability and restraint went right out the window.

Homecoming was a huge step down in this department and the series never recovered from it. Just looking at the covers for the games you can see a sudden massive downgrade in style and subtlety. Suddenly everything went from clean simple fonts and character faces to splashy cartoon logos. The graphics got technically "better" but the artwork took a huge step back. Textures got simpler and more repetitive. It looks like no thought was put into how real-world places decay. Suddenly there are HUDs with spooky typewriter fonts, pictures of X buttons popping up (quick time events, vomit). In my mind, Silent Hill was a classy piece of art. The post-team silent games have felt like some horrible foreign knockoff called "Silent Hill: The Animated Adventures".

Another thing is the depiction of technology. In the real games, the world generally seems to have stopped living some time in the early 90s, and there isn't a lot of indication of when the story is taking place. It's like how painters often use nude figures to avoid placing them in a certain time period with their fashion choices. The games are ambiguously modern: no smart phones, but no horse and buggies either. You feel like it could be any time in the recent past. The overall effect is a hauntingly familiar world that could be any real town, but something is very wrong.
Over the last 8 years we've seen too much "old-timey 'cause it's spooky" Victorian designs and 50's cars, and in Shattered Memories you have a goddamned iPhone. Throw ambiguity out the window.

the writing of the text, cutscenes and dialogue really lost the David Lynch / The Shining otherworldliness. Monster designs have been completely uninspired, either just repeating what has come before (while again failing to capture the texture details) or making new creatures ripped out of some Slipknot video (and music by Korn? Is there any doubt that Tom Hulett doesn't get it?).

In short, I got nothing out of these games and movies, but PT has done such a great job of bringing back the maturity of the old games that I'm shocked it's a different developer. I'm not a negative nancy, I can be satisfied, and I have.

Lessons from the past few years? Pretend they never happened and carry on.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Redklok »

Interesting point of view on Konami JDnation, it sounds like you have some information from the inside to have such detail. It all sounds plausible but I can't phantom that they just couldn't hire some translators to work with new hd engines. And the folks at Square enix didn't seem to have problems generating hd graphics (though I don't like any FF games and if I'm right they arent really appreciated in the hd era)

-------------

I think you have a very good observation Reverend. I also regard Silent Hill as a modern art masterpiece and art direction is very important factor why the recent Silent Hill games failed to convince.

Mod Edit: Please do not double post so close together, use the edit function if less than a week as passed. A full explanation of the rules is given here http://silenthillforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=25371
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Catch23 »

Redklok wrote:And the folks at Square enix didn't seem to have problems generating hd graphics (though I don't like any FF games and if I'm right they arent really appreciated in the hd era)
As far as I know, they developed their own engine for the new FF games, and it cost them a boatload of money. Their low-effort FFXIII sequels were arguably attempts to recoup some of the costs.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

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Reverend wrote:Photorealism is a big thing for me. I always associated Silent Hill with the most realistic graphics you could squeeze out of the ps2. Sure the textures were hand painted, but in the most realistic way. The ps3 era games bafflingly decided to go cartoon-style, perhaps to make it easier on themselves. Just like the movie, artistic taste, believability and restraint went right out the window.

Homecoming was a huge step down in this department and the series never recovered from it. Just looking at the covers for the games you can see a sudden massive downgrade in style and subtlety. Suddenly everything went from clean simple fonts and character faces to splashy cartoon logos. The graphics got technically "better" but the artwork took a huge step back. Textures got simpler and more repetitive. It looks like no thought was put into how real-world places decay. Suddenly there are HUDs with spooky typewriter fonts, pictures of X buttons popping up (quick time events, vomit). In my mind, Silent Hill was a classy piece of art. The post-team silent games have felt like some horrible foreign knockoff called "Silent Hill: The Animated Adventures".

Another thing is the depiction of technology. In the real games, the world generally seems to have stopped living some time in the early 90s, and there isn't a lot of indication of when the story is taking place. It's like how painters often use nude figures to avoid placing them in a certain time period with their fashion choices. The games are ambiguously modern: no smart phones, but no horse and buggies either. You feel like it could be any time in the recent past. The overall effect is a hauntingly familiar world that could be any real town, but something is very wrong.
Over the last 8 years we've seen too much "old-timey 'cause it's spooky" Victorian designs and 50's cars, and in Shattered Memories you have a goddamned iPhone. Throw ambiguity out the window.

the writing of the text, cutscenes and dialogue really lost the David Lynch / The Shining otherworldliness. Monster designs have been completely uninspired, either just repeating what has come before (while again failing to capture the texture details) or making new creatures ripped out of some Slipknot video (and music by Korn? Is there any doubt that Tom Hulett doesn't get it?).

In short, I got nothing out of these games and movies, but PT has done such a great job of bringing back the maturity of the old games that I'm shocked it's a different developer. I'm not a negative nancy, I can be satisfied, and I have.

Lessons from the past few years? Pretend they never happened and carry on.
I agree about lack of detail from Homecoming and Downpour, and the weird 'olde time' aspects of the games and just plain weird aesthetic design. I remember when I saw a screenshot for Homecoming, and I saw those fences outside the police station, I just though "oh god why", its like they tried to make the fences spooky for some unknown reason. Compare that to say, The Room's design, or even P.T.'s design, you have a perfectly normal 21st century room, an enviroment that most people can quickly relate to, having an area like that invaded by Silent Hill is much more terrifying.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Reverend »

redrum wrote: I agree about lack of detail from Homecoming and Downpour, and the weird 'olde time' aspects of the games and just plain weird aesthetic design. I remember when I saw a screenshot for Homecoming, and I saw those fences outside the police station, I just though "oh god why", its like they tried to make the fences spooky for some unknown reason. Compare that to say, The Room's design, or even P.T.'s design, you have a perfectly normal 21st century room, an enviroment that most people can quickly relate to, having an area like that invaded by Silent Hill is much more terrifying.
That's funny, I was going to bring up those damn fences! And post a screenshot. They look even worse looking down the side of them. All cartoonishly bent, Straight out of a scooby doo episode.

Here are some other examples of how bland and half-assed this game was.


http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/wp-con ... -apr21.jpg

Compare this to the mirror scene in sh3.
http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l ... d-some.jpg

http://www.invisioncommunity.co.uk/wp-c ... coming.jpg


How's this for a jump scare? I'm shaking.
http://gamingsnack.com/wp-content/uploa ... ng-PS3.jpg
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by redrum »

Yeah, some of the areas in Homecoming looked like they'd just made a box room, slapped some textures on and added a few generic props. I always thought 0rigin's did a really good job of being a Silent Hill game.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by clips »

jdnation wrote:Disagree on the budget to this extent -

Horror games do need to keep up in the visual department so a budget to match the scope of the game is suitable. Particularly for developers like Konami who can afford it. Better graphics do help sell your game to a larger audience and gather more interest. We do tend to be forgiving of this for the indie scene titles which are sold for cheaper and aren't big sellers in comparison to the mass market.

The game doesn't need some outrageous budget, but Silent Hill, for its scope, can't get by on the cheap if it wishes to reach the acclaimed status it once did of offering artistic visuals while being a premiere horror experience. The PS2 games were no slouches in the visuals department. Frankly Climax and Vatra did some good stuff with the lower end budgets Konami gave them. But extensive QA and especially marketing are necessities that shouldn't be cheapened out on.

Clever ways of marketing like what the PT demo did are also great as it's a lot of mindshare for relatively low costs.

Also when entering a more modern era where expectations are greater, if SH wants to garner relevance, then it makes sense to adapt to new advances, such as an open-world system, and reinvent itself in other ways with regards to creature AI etc. and this means additional costs.

Games are getting more expensive to make, undoubtedly. But this doesn't mean you can't wisely budget and produce something excellent and timely. It just requires smart management.


----

As for choice of 1st versus 3rd, I'd say this also comes down to narrative. If you're trying to connect with a character, then 3rd is the way to go. 1st is primarily to put you in the experience as yourself. Frankly I'd prefer they utilize both. 3rd person primary toggable to 1st. And sections of 1st person locked, and moments of fixed camera angles. Of course the key is for there to be a sense of consistency and things that require you to use both perspectives to make a difference.

Completely agree with this.....
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Huknar »

Origins had the most similarity to the first four games. To me, it felt like Silent Hill. It didn't have quite as much effort behind it as it should have, but it was still good. Great music. Great atmosphere.
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Mephisto »

Redklok wrote:
Catch23 wrote:I think SH does need a larger budget at this point, as jdnation stated. The old games weren't cobbled together with a tiny budget. They were pretty well funded, I believe, and this shows in the visual department. Only recently has SH as a series been pawned off to the dev teams willing to spend the least amount of money. The drop-off in quality is a testament to this.

I believe Konami learned their lesson, as evidenced by the inclusion of Kojima, Del Toro, and Reedus in the new project. Hopefully this time around we'll see some polish.
It's because Konami were totally mental and had a complete and utter lack of regard for their own IP's. You can make a very good horror game without a Call of Duty budget. That being said, Konami probably could have made serious profit if they invested and advertised in Silent Hill.
Exactly. Konami only cared about MGS and PES. They've been doing that for years. It's about time they pulled their heads out of their asses to deliver something with GREAT marketing.

Reedus is going to bring the whole TWD crowd with him. And everyone knows the fanbase is huge. I personally don't give a damn about the series but I won't deny that it is a commercial success. I don't really know why though because we're flooded by things with zombies and diseases already. It's nothing new or spectacular to begin with...
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Reverend »

This might be a good time/place to revisit the Zero Punctuation reviews, as he makes a lot of good points and does it quickly.

SH2
http://youtu.be/7jbhCOCdHUw

Origins
http://youtu.be/VS26wbFePSk

Homecoming
http://youtu.be/GpmgP9DcOU8

Shattered Memories
http://youtu.be/8dJD9l3E7Gg

Downpour
http://youtu.be/w-cGrPLJvXI

And the making of Silent Hill 2, for some insight on what the creators were going for:
http://youtu.be/KSku98HqIHU
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Re: Lessons from the last few years

Post by Skele »

Mephisto wrote:

Reedus is going to bring the whole TWD crowd with him. And everyone knows the fanbase is huge. I personally don't give a damn about the series but I won't deny that it is a commercial success. I don't really know why though because we're flooded by things with zombies and diseases already. It's nothing new or spectacular to begin with...
If you don't give a damn about it, why offer up an opinion bashing it? Sure zombies are nothing new, but the series focuses more on the survival aspect, human relationships, and how animalistic humans can become in a post apocalyptic word. Seeing as the show is based on the comics, which many are a fan of, it's no shocker that the show has been so successful. Plus, it's just good.

Anyhow, it's good to see SH getting the budget/attention it deserves from Konami.
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