Silent Hill 4 scoop

[Jolly Rogers]

Info allegedly from OPM:

The Creepiness continues

Ready to get creeped 0out again? Fresh off the best game in the series, Konami is already hard at work on

SH4, scheduled for release later this year. This is the first time you're seeing it anywhere. As with the previous games in the series, and eerie premise sets the tone for the adventure ahead. Protagonist "Henry Townsend"

(A resident of Ashfield (a town near Silent Hill), awakens from a nightmare only to find himself locked in his apartment. "The windows do not open, the walls can not be broken, the telephone does not work, and nobody can hear his voice from the outside,"the game producer, "Akira Yamaoka, tells us. "[The front Door is]" locked with chains and huge lock, In short, he's trapped.

On the fifth day that Henry finds himself locked in his apartment, he sees a huge hole in his bathroom wall, "Yamaoka continues, with out a hint of humor as to how bizarre that sounds. Henry cannot stop himself from climbing inside. Beyond that hole, he finds himself in a gore-filled world where there are strange creatures and ghosts. Hmmm...any idea where that could be?

And therein lies the mystery for Henry. Hen can enter the creepy hole and encounter various monstrosities, or stay in the safety of his own room, which would make for a pretty boring game. "The theme of the story line lies in solving the connection between the room where you live and the alternate world," says Yamaoka. "Why is the alternate world tied to your room?"

We can't wait till we're able to answer these questions ourselves.

SilentHill 4 takes place in totally different settings," says Yamaoka. "However, there are some names which may seem familiar to you. People you would never expect."

There is no connection in story lines, but there is a common theme of the alternate world of Silent Hill," says Yamakoa."The story is darker than in the past games

And that's it, except for the stunning screens that surely look better than SH3.

Interesting that Yamaoka has taken over as producer (he did the music for the first 3 games). Rumor has it that some game elements may be tied to characters from Silent Hill 2.

Link to screen shots

Edit in:

MWers in the Bay Area should find a way to crash this party - Akira Yamaoka is DJ'ing it!

Konami Gamers' Day 2004!

Konami Digital Entertainment - America is ready to kick off the New Year with a bang! We'd like you to join us as we present our explosive 2004 lineup which features the return of all-time classics as well as several never-before-seen, sure-fire hits. With numerous VIP guests scheduled to attend plus lots of secret surprises, you won't want to miss this one!

What: Konami Gamers' Day 2004

When: January 9, 2004

Where: "The Action Theatre" in the Sony Metreon, San Francisco

Time: 9:30am - 2:30pm

Please be sure to 'save the date' and join us for what will is sure to be our most fun and informative Gamers' Day yet!

* Media check-in begins at 9:30am. Doors close promptly at 10:00am.

* Please RSVP to this email. Maximum capacity of two (2) editors per media outlet.

Additional details of the event will follow shortly. We look forward to seeing there!

--------

KONAMI GAMERS' DAY AFTER PARTY

After the event, you are cordially invited to join us in the evening for a few drinks to celebrate the upcoming year.

What: Konami Gamers' Day After Party

Featuring Konami's own DJs - Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill) and Jason Enos as well as GMR's James Mielke

When: Friday, January 9, 2004

Where: Sno-Drift - 1830 Third Street (at the corner of 16th), San Francisco, 94107

Time: 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Edited January 6, 2004 by Jolly Rogers

[Max Jenius]

Another Silent Hill?

*yawn*

[Pat S]

Cool news! Pic didn't work for me, but thanks, glad to hear it. I love those games!

[Winkle]

Yea link doesn't work.

But I am getting tired of Silent Hill series, the first one was great but it just started getting boring after that. It seems like they are milking the franchise for all it's worth. Sadly, it appears Silent Hill is going the way of Resident Evil.

[Abombz!!]

Yea link doesn't work.

But I am getting tired of Silent Hill series, the first one was great but it just started getting boring after that. It seems like they are milking the franchise for all it's worth. Sadly, it appears Silent Hill is going the way of Resident Evil.

What are you talking about? Silent Hill 3 was great!

[bsu legato]

What are you talking about? Silent Hill 3 was great!

Except for the 1/2 hour I wasted on the "dream" sequence in the beginning.

[Abombz!!]

What are you talking about? Silent Hill 3 was great!

Except for the 1/2 hour I wasted on the "dream" sequence in the beginning.

Well.... you could've just killed yourself or something.

I just wish they make good enemies for the new one. Seriously, something that really pissed me off in SH2 and 3, the enemies were pussies. You could blow through both games without killing anything. <_<

[bsu legato]

Well.... you could've just killed yourself or something.

That's what we ended up doing! After running back and forth all over the level, and getting sick of my friend suggesting "did you look over there yet?" I just got fed up and said "I'm dumping this bitch into that huge hole." Of course it turned out that was the idea or something.

[Abombz!!]

Well.... you could've just killed yourself or something.

That's what we ended up doing! After running back and forth all over the level, and getting sick of my friend suggesting "did you look over there yet?" I just got fed up and said "I'm dumping this bitch into that huge hole." Of course it turned out that was the idea or something.

lol. I did get more enjoyment then I should've out of the tentacle death scene. I must have replayed it about 15 times before moving on.

[Jolly Rogers]

Guess there was enough interest to flood the bandwidth of the first picture's host server...

Here you go:

[Abombz!!]

Guess there was enough interest to flood the bandwidth of the first picture's host server...

Here you go:

Those pictures look pretty cool. Really creepy stuff.

One thing that bothers me.... I was never a fan of the characters design in Silent Hill 2 and 3... they just looked odd to me. And I hope they fix the textures. Silent Hill 3s characters all looked like they had some really odd skin condition.

[BoBe-Patt]

ok, first the link, now the pictures don't work? what gives?

[Jolly Rogers]

I can still see them, maybe your browser needs more memory?

[JsARCLIGHT]

I played Silent Hill 1 expecting a Resident Evil ripoff... I was unimpressed.

I played Silent Hill 2 thinking it could not be as annoying as the first one... I was wrong.

My play-by-play feelings while playing those games:

"What is the deal with this game? Why is it so slow and plodding?"

"What the hell? You call that scary?"

"Alright! Finally I got a freaking gun!... WHAT?! Only ten rounds of ammo and they don't kill jack?!?"

With Resident Evil getting tired out and repeatative and Silent Hill needing a more appropriate name like "Walk around and do nothing for ten hours while getting killed by weird ass "jacob's ladder" ripoff badguys as you try to solve some stuid riddle that is more or less one long annoying series of happenstance Hill"...

I'm jonesin' for a decent zombie/horror/spooky game to show up.

[Jolly Rogers]

You're missing the point... Silent Hill 2 has great story and characters. Doom or Quake it ain't. How far did you get with Silent Hill 2? Did you even finish it?

Ever tried Zero / Fatal Frame?

Edited January 7, 2004 by Jolly Rogers

[UN Spacy]

MWers in the Bay Area should find a way to crash this party - Akira Yamaoka is DJ'ing it!

I'd love to take another trip to the Metreon but I have work that day.

[Abombz!!]

You're missing the point... Silent Hill 2 has great story and characters. Doom or Quake it ain't. How far did you get with Silent Hill 2? Did you even finish it?

Ever tried Zero / Fatal Frame?

It also had a much better atmosphere and sound then any Resident Evil ever had (except maybe for the remake).

[JsARCLIGHT]

You're missing the point... Silent Hill 2 has great story and characters. Doom or Quake it ain't. How far did you get with Silent Hill 2? Did you even finish it?

Ever tried Zero / Fatal Frame?

No, I "got it" allright... and yes I played 1 and 2 all the way through to the end (even though it took me months because I kept getting sick of the games and leaving them for days at a time before going back to them).

Silent Hill's story and characters were no different than poorly written Twilight Zone material... I kept waiting for a chain smoking man in a suit to pop up and give me a diatribe about the game's moral compass. Video games have never had very good characters or stories aside from one or two really genre busting titles... video games are like movies in that they need fast story movement, fast character development and shallow element progression so even the dimmest bulb in the audience can say "huh-huh... this game is fun..." IMHO those two games suffer from "great idea, poor execution" syndrome. They had a nice idea about how to make a game but they rushed through it and most likely cut out all interesting things in order to focus on the not creepy "creepy" look, get the games out on time and able to run on a console.

But as I always say, I only actually enjoy like five percent of the games on the market and it takes a real doozie of a game to get me to do anything but yawn and trade it in a week later... that being the main reason I sold off all my consoles.

[Jolly Rogers]

If you trade games in a week later, how come you kept Silent Hill 1 and 2 for months?

[Jolly Rogers]

Found some bigger and clearer scans:

page 1

page 2

[JsARCLIGHT]

If you trade games in a week later, how come you kept Silent Hill 1 and 2 for months?

Because I kept thinking the games would get better in just a few more minutes... they never did. I did not keep them that long because I liked them... actually now that I think about it it was only #1 that I kept for a few months, I got rid of #2 in like a week... and if I remember correctly the games cost me like $49.99 each and had jack for trade-in worth, something like $10 each if I remember right again.

[Abombz!!]

get the games out on time and able to run on a console.

This statement doesn't really make sense. This was a multi console release. Silent Hill 1, 2 and 3 were all built to work on a PSX and PS2..... how do you figure they had to make it "run on a console"? If its built from the ground up with a console in mind... why would that be an issue?

And I have to remind you.... Japanese companies are not as keen to releasing rushed games as american (and non americans) are. So if the game is bad.... its not that it was rushed, its simply that they thought it was "good" enough.

I do have to agree with your on Silent Hill 2. Silent Hill was 1 of the creepiest games I ever played. But SH2 wasn't nearly as scary or creepy as the first one. They made the monsters creepy, but not scary. The characters were alright and so was the story, but the game itself wasn't that great. <_<

Edited January 8, 2004 by Abombz!!

[JsARCLIGHT]

This statement doesn't really make sense. This was a multi console release. Silent Hill 1, 2 and 3 were all built to work on a PSX and PS2..... how do you figure they had to make it "run on a console"? If its built from the ground up with a console in mind... why would that be an issue?

What I was referring to was the way game graphics and content get "knee-capped" so they can run on a console. The way game makers use lower res textures, less polys and dodgy tactics like trying to hide the load screens to make the game capable of running on the console. I know they try their best to make the games both visually appealing and immersive but sometimes you get levels, play elements, context, enemies and items like the ones in Silent Hill that just have too few of polys and really bad low res textures to were they loose a lot of their possible "scariness".

Most of the enemies in Silent Hill 1 and 2 were messy, their textures looked like someone took a generic rust or bloody glop texture, reduced it to 256x and randomly applied it to the model. I mean, compare the detail of the lead character in SH to the enemies... the difference in quality is noticeable. Also another production thing that irked me about SH 1 and 2 was that they never showed anything really "horrifying". Yes they had some images that went that direction but the poor textures on the "scary" things always made them look goofy to me. Here is an example: compare the zombies in resident evil 2 or 3 to the critters in Silent Hill 1... the RE zombies were bloody, barfing, blood spewing, decaying messes that looked scary to me... even though they had low res textures and low poly counts they still "read" as scary. On the flip side of that coin the shambling weirdness that were the enemies in Silent Hill 1 were just rusty looking... things... that were very ill-defined and not very scary at all. Most of them like those things that crawled around on the ground and the dog-like things to me were more funny than scary... but it was in a "look how stupid that thing is" funny rather than a "it amuses me" funny.

But then again like I say every time I critique a game: my standards for games are rediculously high. Very few games I play I actually enjoy. It is not the graphics or the story or the character or the type of game that it is... it's just that undefined "thing" that makes a game special and entertaining to me that I look for, the other things like graphics and sounds and story are just pieces in the puzzle. But all those things need to work together to make a game a great game... if a game faulters in one of those areas it can make up for it in another. But some games just get a lot of stuff "wrong" in my eyes and I tend to have a very negative reaction to those games... Silent Hill 1 and 2 were some of those. The trouble I have is that I have found some games that everyone hates I simply love and vice versa so I sort of need to play some games just to see what they are like... occasionally I'll love something that I never in a million years would have thought of playing (GTA: Vice City) and other times I'll hate the living guts of a game that seemed tailor made for my tastes (BF:1942).

It's just who I am.

[Opus]

Another Silent Hill?

*yawn*

Silent Hill 4 : The Quest for More Money? <_<

I miss the little snoring smiley.

[Jolly Rogers]

actually now that I think about it it was only #1 that I kept for a few months, I got rid of #2 in like a week... and if I remember correctly the games cost me like $49.99 each and had jack for trade-in worth, something like $10 each if I remember right again.

If you hated the first one so much, why did you buy its sequel? Like Dubya said:

There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.

Anyway, it's kind of ironic because I had the same reaction towards Silent Hill 2 when I got it new at $49.99. I was disappointed because it wasn't like the first one at all, and the first half hour virtually nothing happened. However, a few years later I played it through to the ends (there are multiple endings, and most of them are equally valid outcomes to the scenario) and realized it was a rare gem with a lot of depth. The writing was much better and more mature than any other video game I can think of. They don't hand you everything on a silver platter, but all the good stuff are there if you are willing to look for them.

You should give it a second chance. The graphics may look a little dated by today's standards, but a good story is timeless, unless you only play games for the adrenaline rush of blowing realistic-looking things away with BFGs.

Edit in:

Now that the cat's out of the bag, Konami's updated their site and put up 8 new screen shots.

Konami's Silent Hill 4 page

The team that worked on Silent Hill 2 is back for this installment, so there is hope it won' t be an action-fest like Silent Hill 3.

Edited January 9, 2004 by Jolly Rogers

[JsARCLIGHT]

If you hated the first one so much, why did you buy its sequel?

Because some idiot at Gamestop talked me into buying it on the promise that it was nothing like the original one... needless to say like all Gamestop employees he was full of crap and I was cussing his name minutes after starting the game.

You should give it a second chance.  The graphics may look a little dated by today's standards, but a good story is timeless, unless you only play games for the adrenaline rush of blowing realistic-looking things away with BFGs.

Nope. No second chances.

The only games I play a second time through are games that left me wanting more in a "positive" way. The Silent Hill games left me wanting so much more that a complete redesign of the game would have been needed. It was NOT the lack of action or the ploddingly slow and annoying pace of the games... it was those things coupled with everything else that made the games a real drag on the senses to me. You have to admit that the games are terribly slow and about as exciting as stamp collecting. The only thing to draw people into the game was the story and it failed to even make me sit up and notice. Video game stories are there for one reason: to hold together the loose scope of pushing buttons to make the little man on the screen do something... there are no aspects of Silent Hill's story that other games do not possess on some other level as well, it's just that other games that I have liked have had better execution of the game involved in the story and that made me like them more. If I want a good spooky story I'll read a book or watch a movie, some genre in which the story is the make it or break it point of the endevor.

Our tastes in games are obviously different. I don't like Silent Hill and you obviously do. Other people see it my way and others see it yours. My comments in this thread can be simply summed up like Max said: YAWN. Next time I'll just sneak in, sucker punch it and sneak out rather than trying to explain my distaste for these games.

[bsu legato]

Come on, JsARCLIGHT....those weird baby-things with knives in the first game were kind of creepy.

[Abombz!!]

What I was referring to was the way game graphics and content get "knee-capped" so they can run on a console. The way game makers use lower res textures, less polys and dodgy tactics like trying to hide the load screens to make the game capable of running on the console. I know they try their best to make the games both visually appealing and immersive but sometimes you get levels, play elements, context, enemies and items like the ones in Silent Hill that just have too few of polys and really bad low res textures to were they loose a lot of their possible "scariness".

Well... what do you expect? Not everyone can get a state of the art computer every year to run games. Thats why consoles are more mainstream then PCs... all you have to do is pop the game in and play, you don't have to worry about bugs and games not running because of random crap. Have you seen the PC games that ship now a days? We are back to the age where developers get games out the door simply to earn money. Do yourself a favor... get Deus Ex: Invisible War and tell thats not a complete mess of a PC game.

Silent Hill ran on the PSX... what did you expect? The hardware was extremely limited. Thats what Konami had to work with, and consider they actually got a whole 3d world instead of 3d models on prerendered back grounds like Capcom did with RE... they did a damn fine job!

Untill PCs are easier to deal with, and developers learn that ppl don't want to buy a game just to wait for a patch that will make the game playable..... ppl will have to deal with consoles, and their limitations. I realize you were not comparing consoles to PC, but your post was a typical console games Vs PC games comparison... so I just couldn't help it.

You actually found the zombies in RE2 and 3 scary? Thats pretty funny.

IMO.... what was scary about SH weren't the monsters.... it was the atmosphere and the sound. Running around the dark school, with the lights off, the volume turned loud and some sort of surround sound was a great experience. SH wasn't a game about running around shooting random things, the monsters aren't even a variable here since they could all be easily killed with meele weapons or avoided all together (in SH3, other then the bosses, theres actually 1 ocasion where the game forces you to kill monsters).

I'll love something that I never in a million years would have thought of playing (GTA: Vice City)

Then your standards aren't as high as you think. Actually... its not that your standards are high... they are simply random.

Edited January 9, 2004 by Abombz!!

[JsARCLIGHT]

I'm just going to stop adding my opinion on things on this thread as it is blatantly obvious that "I don't know what I'm talking about" and my opinions have no merit compared to those of others as my standards are just "random".

My parting thoughts on SH will be what Max posted: YAWN.

[Abombz!!]

I'm just going to stop adding my opinion on things on this thread as it is blatantly obvious that "I don't know what I'm talking about" and my opinions have no merit compared to those of others as my standards are just "random".

My parting thoughts on SH will be what Max posted: YAWN.

No one said you have no merit, and no one said you don't know what you are talking about. You posted an opinion, and ppl posted a counter opinion, thats all.

And I don't understand why you think having random standards is bad. I have that too, it what makes me enjoy some bad games while hating good games at the same time. All it means is that while you really enjoy a genre of game, you won't necessarely enjoy every single game of that genre, and you might end up enjoying a game that is seen as bad while hating games that are seen as good. Its almost as if you liked games according to phases of the moon. You don't have a predefined favorite genre.

Calling your standards random wasn't meant to offend.... it was a simple explanation as to why you enjoyed a game you felt you never would (Vice City) and you dispise 1 that was meant for you to enjoy (Battlefield Whenever).

[Abombz!!]

Funny... the game is being produced for the Xbox too. I wonder if Konami plans on releasing SH3 for the Xbox too.