BlizzCon 08: Jay Mohr on his mighty steed. Which in this case is really a WoW gamer. In a turtle costume. OK nevermind.
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Barry goes to his "Homecoming"
Plus BlizzCon 08 news and warez pirates plunder Fallout 3
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Silent Hill: Homecoming by Barry Rollap
Silent Hill: Homecoming, the sixth installment of the well known horror/survival franchise, centers on Alex Shepherd, a freshly discharged soldier who is coming back to his hometown of Shepherd’s Glen to investigate his younger brother disappearance. Upon returning home, Alex discovers all is not well in Shepherd’s Glen and begins unraveling the town’s secret and terrible ties to Silent Hill.
I remember a time when people had to invest time and effort into a storyline to make it spooky. Today it seems all one need to do is forget to pay the electricity bill to set up a scary premise. While the graphics are amazing and the lighting effects; in the few areas where you can see; are quite good, the game is just too dark, giving me the impression this game could actually be played with the TV off.
Silent Hill: Homecoming trailer
Dark enough for you?
While you can get some really cool shadow effects and movement, the flashlight only seems to truly illuminate objects in rooms where you can already see pretty well. It is incredibly frustrating while trying to navigate stairwells or entering new rooms which seem to negate the little light the flashlight provides. Early on in the game I found myself frequently checking the status of the flashlight to see if it had turned off for some reason.
Developer The Collective did well in keeping true to the feel of Silent Hill while updating it for the modern console. Homecoming is the second game in the franchise to not be developed by Team Silent, the first being the PSP prequel Silent Hill: Origins developed by Climax.
The “Hell World” uses a cool filter to make it seem as though you are watching some old scratched film, and the transitions back and forth between the two worlds is very well done and obviously influenced heavily by the film with the tiling and peeling away of reality. Sadly any detail in the “regular” world is lost due to the ubiquitous fog effect, which is creepy but washes out all real detail.
The detail that went into texturing the monsters is excellent. Enemies will contort and show weapon appropriate wounds depending on what you happen to be wielding, and there was more than enough gore and blood to go around.
A huge improvement over is that the camera is no longer in a fixed position allowing you to see all around the characters, making it easier to spot needed health items and ammo as well as making puzzles more challenging.
Another noticeable improvement over previous titles is the combat system. Along with your standard attack you now have the option to use heavy attacks and combos, as well as dodge attacks. This element seems to stir a little distaste in some who’ve played the game, but I find it refreshing to see the system revamped as it fits Alex’s character. Compared to previous protagonists who were just your average citizen and could barely hit themselves in the head with the bat or pipe they were carrying, Alex is a soldier and thusly a little more adept at fighting. While many say this kills a little of the fear element of the game, I would be more disillusioned by a soldier who did not know how to fight or shoot.
Where the game really shines is in the audio. Akira Yamaoka has delivered and exceeded all expectations as far as I am concerned. Aside from the expected ambient buzz and noise that permeates every previous Silent Hill title; every area has unique aural experiences, not to mention everything makes a noise. Expect to find yourself in a panic searching an area only to discover you are alone and solely to blame for your raised blood pressure because you bumped into a chair which knocked over the garbage can sitting next to it which set off a cacophony of crashes and clatters.
Like all ventures into the Silent Hill universe, the plot seems to do little to tie up any loose ends from previous titles and does little to explain what really is going on. The characters won’t freak out when being attacked by giant skinless dogs; and will carry on afterward as if that was just another Sunday morning mauling.
While Homecoming is infinitely better than Silent Hill 4 (which as the diehard may know was not originally intended to be a Silent Hill game), it still is just another Silent Hill game. Don’t get me wrong, it’s most assuredly worth a rental, but only the truly fanatical will find this game worth the price of purchasing.
Price: $59.99 for the PS3 and Xbox 360, rated “M” for Mature.
BlizzCon 08: Starcraft II and a guy dressed as a Tauren.
Blizzard’s annual love-fest for WoW players has come and gone, with this year being a departure from what has traditionally been a getaway for Night Elf hunters.
This year the Con seemed to highlight its other ventures in gaming while at the same time reaffirming what we already know: “all our bases – and money – are belong to Blizzard.”
StarCraft II was shown off, with closer looks at the units and game play. But the biggest news was Blizzard’s release schedule with StarCraft II: it would be released as a trilogy.
The game will be essentially released with one disk per race. The first disk will feature the Terran storyline, followed by another release for Zerg and lastly Protoss.
The word from Blizzard is that there were concerns over whether or not all that content would be good to go by the street date. Which is all well and good, perfectly valid even. But I can’t help but feel like this is for economic reasons rather than quality. Releasing StarCraft II three times feels like a means to reap a large harvest of cash from gamers. The idea that after 10 years Blizzard has yet to finally master the medium is folly, especially considering how the game basically looks the same if not for a graphics tweak.
But if it’s not broke don’t fix it, eh? StarCraft is an incredibly popular franchise and in South Korea it’s practically the national pastime with television stations dedicated to watching ranked matches. To the unversed this may seem extreme but to such as we, this is interesting to say the very least. You could argue that with such an enormous fan base around the globe for StarCraft II that any changes would never deviate from the original.
I’m willing to be convinced. I am one of the StarCraft faithful that once had a ringtone saying “Nuclear launch detected.”
And now, the BlizzCon 08 costume contest. Jay Mohr looked as if he is in pain. Sure he may be smiling, but behind those eyes lie the suffering of a thousand souls crying out.
BlizzCon 08 costume contest
Fallout 3 cracked! Should you care?
First Spore was cracked and up on BitTorrent a day before release, now the long awaited Fallout 3 has suffered the same fate a week before its release.
While I haven’t downloaded it, nor have I spoken to anyone that has actually downloaded and installed the game, digital rights management advocates are practically Pavlovian over the recent crack claiming that this is “why DRM is necessary.”
No, this is why prosecuting pirates and down-loaders is necessary.
The irony that DRM punishes the consumer and not the pirate is not lost on me. While Activision has had success on prosecuting pirates, I can’t help but wonder at the Machiavellian maneuvering in the industry that increases strict copyright protections that fail to protect anything. Has the rate in which games have been cracked sloughed off in the years by warez kiddies and digital pirates? Perhaps, but at the same time I don’t see the great unwashed masses running to their computer to frolic in these ill-gotten goods.
The fact is that while pirating is a problem, it is not so significant a problem that the majority of gamers will be giving up the straight and narrow to download games. The download time – not to mention the problematic installation – makes such a thing more trouble than its worth.
The only people who win in this situation are pirates and the pro-DRM crowd. No one wants to reward criminal behavior – least of all me when it only encourages distributors to turn a game like Spore into a rental instead of a purchase.
In summation: piracy happens but don’t punish me for spending $60 on your game.
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