Transcript
Speaker: Why are we here?
Speaker: Well, all right, fine, I'll go ahead and get started.
Speaker: Welcome everybody to the Silent Hill 2 Remake Roundtable.
Speaker: We got PimScript, we got Hot Cider, we got Sputnik34, and myself, Kevin from Pixelit.
Speaker: We're here to talk about the Silent Hill 2 Remake Roundtable.
Speaker: Thoughts, feelings, impressions, James Sunderland's music playlist, possibly who he voted for, his movie tastes.
Speaker: All of these things may come up over the course of this roundtable.
Speaker: But first...
Speaker: I want everybody to introduce themselves starting from my camera right.
Speaker: Pim, go ahead.
Speaker: Who are you and what would you say you're doing here?
Speaker: Yes, what am I doing here?
Speaker: That's the question.
Speaker: What are we all doing here?
Speaker: Okay, so my name is Pim.
Speaker: I run the YouTube channel Pim Script.
Speaker: I...
Speaker: just like a couple of days ago, released a video, an hour long video on both the original Silent Hill and the Silent Hill 2 remake, and more importantly about the discourse surrounding both.
Speaker: And we might get into that later.
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: I'm assuming.
Speaker: We'll get there.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Silent Hill 2 has been, or rather the Silent Hill franchise as a whole has meant a lot to me for years at this point.
Speaker: I played, I think Silent Hill 2 was my first one and that was around 2007 or 2008.
Speaker: I was either 13 or 14 years old.
Speaker: I don't know if that makes me the youngest member of this round table.
Speaker: It does?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm 30 years old now, if that helps.
Speaker: But yeah, so this franchise has been with me for a long time and piqued my interest in regards to psychological horror in video games.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: James, Jimmy James from Hot Cider, the Hot Cider.
Speaker: What's up?
Speaker: What's up?
Speaker: Well, I mean, I think I'm the person who technically made this podcast.
Speaker: Well, I mean, technically you're the person making this podcast happen now, but I think I was the person who threw out the suggestion of, oh, we should have a discussion or like a podcast of some sort talking about the Silent Hill 2 remake when it comes out.
Speaker: So my, so yeah, so quickly, hello.
Speaker: I'm James.
Speaker: I'm from the channel Potsider where I cover...
Speaker: video games and the like.
Speaker: My most recent video isn't about the Silent Hill 2 remake, it's actually about a bunch of demos that were out at Steam Next Fest during October.
Speaker: They weren't very Halloween themed either, so we messed up on that topic.
Speaker: But in regards to my relationship with the Silent Hill franchise, I had never...
Speaker: played like any of the original ones like i did not have a ps2 until really late in its life cycle and at that point it was all kind of stuff like um like just all the greatest hits stuff like um snake eater and um san andreas and stuff like that uh the one silent hill game that i had played before the remake was funnily enough shattered memories on the wii which i know is like an odd remake of
Speaker: the first one but they kind of do their own thing and if anything that game didn't really make me a fan of Silent Hill so much as it made me a fan of the writer of it, Sam Barlow who obviously wanted to do his story Immortality but I've always had this kind of like interesting sort of past, I think it's I'm into obviously games history and I think everybody here is obviously but like I've always known of Silent Hill 2 kind of as this sort of
Speaker: Almost like in the world of control, it's an object of power.
Speaker: Everybody kind of gravitates towards it and it kind of creates different... It bends reality to its will.
Speaker: And so I think everybody kind of knows about the game to the extent of like, you know, you know all the beats of it, you know why it's good and stuff like that.
Speaker: And then obviously making a lot of thumbnails to people over the years, you kind of pick up why, you know, all the sort of important iconography from that game as well.
Speaker: So when the remake was announced, I did kind of have an interest with it.
Speaker: And I guess maybe I'll save a few of these points for when we get to them, but also just kind of the initial reaction around it as well.
Speaker: Kind of the adversary against it kind of made me a bit of a contrarian of being interested in it from that angle.
Speaker: And so when it finally came out, I decided to give it a go.
Speaker: I definitely have thoughts on it, but...
Speaker: I'm still not quite sure if I am a Silent Hill fan, but we'll see how I feel at the end of this podcast.
Speaker: Yeah, we'll circle back around to that.
Speaker: Sputnik, what's up?
Speaker: I know you're the Silent Hill.
Speaker: I mean, Pim made the video, but I know Silent Hill 2 is, I think I'm quoting you correctly when I say it is the most important piece of media in your life.
Speaker: Is that the...
Speaker: No, the quote is, it's the most meaningful piece of art in my meaningless life.
Speaker: Okay, there we go.
Speaker: Yeah, my story is actually quite similar to Pym.
Speaker: For the record, I do YouTube as well.
Speaker: I cover games mostly, but I do movies and music sometimes.
Speaker: But yeah, no, I played Silent Hill 2 when I was like 13.
Speaker: I remember distinctly...
Speaker: Like my mom would take my brother to an art class during the summer.
Speaker: So I had the house to myself for about like an hour and a half every morning.
Speaker: And I would play it during those breaks.
Speaker: And I got to just fully invest myself in that game.
Speaker: And it was the first time a game blew my mind through its story.
Speaker: Silent Hill 2 has changed and shaped the way I look at art, interpret art, engage with art.
Speaker: It's the most meaningful thing in my meaningless life.
Speaker: I don't know how else to put it.
Speaker: It's...
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: It's been there when I needed it most and sometimes when I probably didn't, but it was still there.
Speaker: Nice, nice.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So with the introductions, mostly either way, actually, I should introduce myself.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: I run the podcast called Pixel Lit, where we read, recap, and review video game novelizations.
Speaker: I haven't actually looked into, I'm pretty sure there's some sort of Silent Hill tie-in that we haven't.
Speaker: Yeah, there is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There is.
Speaker: We have not gotten there yet, but I assure you, we will.
Speaker: So we read these books so that you don't have to.
Speaker: We all heard the song.
Speaker: I could not help myself.
Speaker: I knew we all heard it.
Speaker: I cannot stop myself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So in my experience with Silent Hill as a franchise, never really played it.
Speaker: I was I made a joke months ago that I was a Resident Evil kid.
Speaker: I was already several games deep into Resident Evil.
Speaker: Silent Hill 1, was it, came out in 98 or 99 or something like that?
Speaker: 99, yeah.
Speaker: 99, you know, we were already three games into the Resident Evil series.
Speaker: And Silent Hill 2 comes out in 2001, which...
Speaker: That was my junior year of high school, uh, actually senior year of high school, depending on when it came out in the year.
Speaker: So I don't know, just never really clicked into my game-o-sphere.
Speaker: And, uh, before the remake came out about a month before the remake came out, I finally played the original through the enhanced edition, which you listener, dear listener can go to my abandoned where.com right now, grab yourself a copy of silent hill too.
Speaker: Grab the patch for enhanced edition.
Speaker: Go ahead, do it.
Speaker: It's worth it.
Speaker: Up-res to all the textures.
Speaker: It looks beautiful.
Speaker: Runs at 4K, 60 frames a second.
Speaker: It's a nice experience.
Speaker: And if you are on the fence, I recommend going and doing that first before you play the remake, because I think there's some meta-textual stuff about the remake that makes it more of a...
Speaker: Metasequel, as I like to call it.
Speaker: Metasequel, a resequel, like, or a metasequel, kind of the way they started going with Final Fantasy VII and then apparently dropped it in the second part of Final Fantasy VII.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: From what I know, in the second Final Fantasy VII remake... Kevin, that's another podcast that we would... It's another podcast.
Speaker: It's another podcast.
Speaker: We have to save a few hours on to that.
Speaker: Meta sequels are a thing now.
Speaker: They exist, and we are all existing.
Speaker: I was going to say, could I actually quickly mention onto my introduction as well of why I suggested we do a podcast about this as well, and kind of the names we threw forward, which is the fact of...
Speaker: So I hadn't played the original and my thought was what would kind of like, but I had, I was sort of on the fence of whether I wanted to play the remake.
Speaker: And my thought was rather than following the suggestion that everybody told me and Kevin that you had done of, I'm going to play the original first and then play the sequel.
Speaker: So I had, or sorry, the remake.
Speaker: So I have kind of a better idea of the contrast.
Speaker: I had the weirder thought of, what if I only just play the remake and that is completely my onboarding into The World of Silent Hill 2?
Speaker: After playing it, and again, I guess we'll go into thoughts on it, but I kind of felt like I did need a little bit of, not so much context, but maybe kind of closure on my experience with the CD2 remake.
Speaker: So I also played Enhanced Edition a few days afterwards.
Speaker: So I played the remake first and then played the original.
Speaker: But as I said, I kind of already came into it with this weird sort of cultural osmosis around Silent Hill 2 anyways.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So why don't we get right into it?
Speaker: Let's just go around the round table and discuss a condensed version because I know everybody on here is an essayist and I have been known to just talk
Speaker: off the cuff for literal hours.
Speaker: So a condensed version of what your thoughts were of the remake, your thoughts, your feelings, uh, Pim go right ahead.
Speaker: I know you already, you already had your, your video out on it, but just like a, the TLDR of your video basically.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: As many people were, I was definitely skeptical of how the remake was going to turn out based on the, for those who don't know who are listening, the developers behind the remake are Bloober Team, who are famous or rather infamous for having universally been agreed upon to be quite bad at depicting topics regarding mental health issues.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so when the game was announced, was it like, was it two years ago?
Speaker: Or was it even further?
Speaker: Yeah, it wasn't very long between when it was announced and when it came out.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It just feels like it was ages ago.
Speaker: Yeah, it really did.
Speaker: But so I was right there with a whole bunch of people of being skeptical.
Speaker: And I did kind of jump the gun occasionally and...
Speaker: criticized Bloober for a game they hadn't even released yet.
Speaker: But as we got closer to the release date, I started feeling like I didn't want to be part of that, like what I say in my video as well.
Speaker: I think it's a toxic discourse.
Speaker: I just wanted to step away from that and just
Speaker: have an open mind and be like, okay, if it's bad or if I find it to be bad, then so be it.
Speaker: The original still exists and I still enjoy that.
Speaker: If it's good, well, yay, good for me.
Speaker: And I went out of that experience really liking it.
Speaker: I think the issues that I have with the original game are still very much present in the remake, considering that Bloober Team...
Speaker: They clearly have a reverence for the original material and they didn't want to change too much of it.
Speaker: Maybe also because they thought that people would go like berserk if they changed too much, which they probably would have.
Speaker: So like the major changes they made was to the gameplay and...
Speaker: I am a big defender of the clunkiness of the original game, like the combat being somewhat clunky, regardless if you're doing melee combat or even firearm-based combat.
Speaker: It's still quite clunky.
Speaker: And I think...
Speaker: that adds to the entire vibe of it.
Speaker: However, I can't deny that I really enjoy the combat of the remake and just how frantic it is, how satisfying it is when you finally get to defeat an enemy.
Speaker: Because just a singular enemy can be a big hurdle to overcome.
Speaker: I started replaying the remake very recently, just a couple of days ago.
Speaker: And I'm currently in the hospital portion of the game and just started fighting the nurses.
Speaker: And having two nurses in the same room fighting you at the same time, that's...
Speaker: That's a struggle.
Speaker: It's a death sentence.
Speaker: The nurses are... Yes, because they will counter your melee.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: They will counter you and they are tanky AF.
Speaker: Yes, and I mean, it's obvious that you're supposed to use specific tactics and specific weapons for specific enemies.
Speaker: So, like, when you use the shotgun against the nurses, because the shotgun is introduced in the same part of the game as the nurses, so it's quite obvious that you're supposed to blast them with this...
Speaker: with this particular gun, but ammo for that gun is scarce, so you might not be able to do that every time.
Speaker: And you do feel way more powerless when you have to hit them with a stick instead.
Speaker: So I do think that the changes they made to the gameplay overall, I have some gripes with the gameplay changes that they made, but overall I think they made some really interesting changes that makes for a very interesting alternate way of experiencing the same material.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And now for something completely different.
Speaker: James.
Speaker: Well, I was going to say, could I... You want to go last on this one?
Speaker: Could I hear Sput's point?
Speaker: Yeah, Sput.
Speaker: I was going to... Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: No, that's all I'll say for now.
Speaker: Yeah, Sput, go ahead and kind of outline your thoughts.
Speaker: I will try to make this brief.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: It's not like we have a time limit, so...
Speaker: I guess so.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So I don't want to say that I was never skeptical because, I mean, it's the fucking Silent Hill 2 remake.
Speaker: It's going to be like a big, you know, a big what if, you know, but I always had faith because Bloober clearly loved that game and it's they've been making Silent Hill 2 basically their entire career.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Like them getting the Silent Hill 2 remake was like, okay, they know how crucial this is.
Speaker: They can't mess this up if they do the studios over.
Speaker: Like, so I always believed.
Speaker: And as more stuff came out, I was like, okay, this is looking good.
Speaker: This is looking good.
Speaker: And then I got it.
Speaker: And, ooh,
Speaker: It's simultaneously the most vindicating game release of my entire life.
Speaker: And it's also the most emotionally confusing one that I've ever had.
Speaker: I'm getting into that point in the video that I'm working on, but at that part, it's really difficult to do.
Speaker: But, you know, it's it's a lot to take in.
Speaker: I love so much about what they did with the mechanics of that game.
Speaker: My whole they the Silent Hill 2 remake reminded Silent Hill 2 that it's a survival horror game.
Speaker: And that's one of my favorite things about the remake.
Speaker: It's like the original game.
Speaker: You have a thousand bullets, a thousand all the time.
Speaker: And you have a million health drinks.
Speaker: And then the sound of the remake comes along.
Speaker: It's like, oh, you have six bullets and you have two health drinks.
Speaker: And you're like, there are seven nurses in this room.
Speaker: Mechanically, it's everything I wanted, mostly.
Speaker: I'm still bummed that the town exploration was really hindered as the game went on.
Speaker: I really wanted more of that.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The first two hours I was like, this is everything I wanted.
Speaker: I wanted to explore so much of this town and then I'm finally get to doing it.
Speaker: And then like you leave the apartments and like, there's like two buildings, I think optional.
Speaker: And then you leave the hospital.
Speaker: I think there's maybe one.
Speaker: And then you just go to the hotel and it's over.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Mechanically, it's everything I wanted practically.
Speaker: Storyline-wise, it's practically one-to-one.
Speaker: A couple tweaks here and there.
Speaker: There are definitely things about the remake that I'm not super big on, but they're basically nitpicks.
Speaker: I loved it.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Now, James.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: I knew this was going to be a difficult podcast because obviously it's kind of working from people who have kind of sat more with Silent Hill 2 as well, just as a game and concepts and whatever.
Speaker: And obviously this is meant to be like a
Speaker: This isn't a battle of wits or anything like that.
Speaker: It's people expressing their own opinion.
Speaker: It's a battle of ideas.
Speaker: Yeah, this is the marketplace of ideas.
Speaker: And I have Dave Rubin waiting to have a talk.
Speaker: Oh, Jesus.
Speaker: In fact, he's a huge Silent Hill fan.
Speaker: I only play Bore from a Wish, so.
Speaker: Oh my god, the only thing he played.
Speaker: Yeah, I played the HD collection with the Comic Sans.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, I will go with my... Well, so it's just initially...
Speaker: I didn't particularly love the remake.
Speaker: And it's one of those things that my opinion on it has kind of like settled down a lot, the further I've gone away from it to the extent of.
Speaker: When I finished it initially, I did feel a bit like I don't quite understand where the kind of positivity has come from from this versus now where it's kind of, and especially after playing the original, it's kind of a bit more like,
Speaker: I think it's just more my tastes maybe weren't quite compatible with this versus I can understand actually why this is like a strong product.
Speaker: Because I think I will echo the points that have been brought up so far, which is in terms of presentation, I think it is a, well, it is an obvious improvement over the original to the fact of obviously it's been
Speaker: done to kind of a modern standard like i think the visuals look good the character performances especially i think are really and i think for a game like this which is so about character and directions i think is like incredibly well done but i think to speak to spot's point
Speaker: This has been basically Bloober's entire career has been a portfolio that they have put together to basically say, put us in, coach, let us remake.
Speaker: And I think with that does come with a bit of a interesting thing of, yeah, like there's points of it where they absolutely did not want to touch it in regards to its plot and how stuff plays out, which...
Speaker: I especially feel today as games have kind of moved on and have evolved, there are places that Silent Hill 2 could have been improved.
Speaker: And I'm surprised that the remake didn't use the opportunity to do such a thing.
Speaker: But obviously we can get into that in a bit more detail afterwards.
Speaker: But I would say my big point of disagreement with the rest of the group is the kind of the mechanical side of it.
Speaker: I, before playing it, I, obviously I saw the previews and everybody kind of said, well, they are following after the Resident Evil 2 remake in regards to how they want to do a mechanical approach to this.
Speaker: In my head, I was like, well, I love the Resident Evil 2 remake.
Speaker: So just kind of stapling that onto something else makes perfect sense.
Speaker: And I think as well, following In the Wake of Valen Week 2 last year, which funnily enough is another game that I initially started very, after I beat it, I was very cold on it.
Speaker: but have only since kind of grown an appreciation of what it was actually doing.
Speaker: I still kind of hold that the gameplay side of that isn't its strongest point versus everything else.
Speaker: I think as a experience, the actual experience of playing Silent Hill 2 remake was a very kind of bitter experience to me.
Speaker: I found its navigation incredibly frustrating, which...
Speaker: arguably there could be something that on reflection we will do the same like we did with the original Silent Hill 2 where we said well the flaws in it's kind of combat and navigation or what that actually adds to the experience I don't know if I would quite make the same argument like this almost feels like a that there was a better solution in place maybe they didn't quite follow after but you know that's sort of my opinion on that and the fact that it is more combat heavy I think really kind of
Speaker: neutered and sort of... The way that I would analogize it, and I know this is really contentious, but the way that I thought about it, and this will be my final point on this, is that the Silent Hill 2 remake to me is like the film adaptation of Watchmen, where...
Speaker: What's his face?
Speaker: Zack Snyder in interviews said- I kind of see what you mean with that, honestly.
Speaker: This is text for text.
Speaker: We are recreating frame for frame.
Speaker: But there's something in the motions and in the tone that they're not quite right.
Speaker: And there's obviously the argument that you can make of, like, well, Watchmen was obviously written for comics, the way that that is told, and the fact that you take all panels into account when you're reading it is more important.
Speaker: And you could argue the same as that Silent Hill 2 was so built around the mechanics and structure of being an old...
Speaker: RE1 style adventure game that you can only really tell a story like that through that, which is why I go back to, I am surprised with the remake and maybe obviously we can always come up with a better game in our heads, which they didn't make, but
Speaker: I do think with such a fundamental change to the mechanics, the story could have followed with that.
Speaker: And because it didn't, I was just kind of felt a bit... My final experience of playing Silent Hill 2 remake left me with the experience of Silent Hill 2 going, oh, is that what people have been boasting about for so many years?
Speaker: It's interesting.
Speaker: What about you, though, Kevin?
Speaker: So, I don't know if I want to say I'm in between James and Pim or James and Sput.
Speaker: So, I was...
Speaker: The initial impression I got off the remake after it had, and so I'm just coming off the original.
Speaker: Like I played the original for the first time, then rolled into the remake.
Speaker: I was like, oh, this is padded to hell.
Speaker: Like that was my initial impression.
Speaker: Like when I've got to the town, I was like, I was like the Neely's bar stuff has taken me.
Speaker: I got to fucking go down the street and get the thing.
Speaker: And then I got to go to like, and be like, there's another apartment building before the apartment building.
Speaker: I got to do that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was like, I was like, am I losing my mind?
Speaker: Did I do this in the original?
Speaker: And I had to go back and watch it like, no, I would have already been in the Woodside apartments by now.
Speaker: So I think I think.
Speaker: I was really low on it after the first two hours.
Speaker: I kind of got into the rhythm and started really enjoying it.
Speaker: And I think once I caught up to the mechanics of how it wanted me to play, I liked it better because in the original, I felt like 90% of the time I just didn't engage.
Speaker: I was just like, James had a nice little jaunty sprint and I was just like, doot, doot, doot, doot.
Speaker: I was just like, I just, I just like do a little, little juke and then keep running down the hallway.
Speaker: Whereas combat is less optional in this one.
Speaker: So it, it took me a little bit to unlearn the fact that yes, these combat obstacles are more, um,
Speaker: It's more likely you're going to have to engage at some point rather than just constantly ducking and diving.
Speaker: Overall, though, yeah, I liked it.
Speaker: But it's not...
Speaker: It's not going to be top of my game of the year list, that's for sure.
Speaker: But I did enjoy my time with it.
Speaker: And I'm enjoying slowly playing through it again with a chainsaw.
Speaker: So... Can I ask a question of Pim?
Speaker: Because you played the Alone in the Dark remake that came out earlier in the year.
Speaker: Right, yes.
Speaker: Oh, I also played that.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: I can ask this to both of you.
Speaker: What do you think in regards to which do you think was the more kind of interesting, like, positive kind of approach to doing a remake of a survival horror game between Silent Hill 2 remake and the Alone on the Tartt reboot?
Speaker: I love that question.
Speaker: And I have to say that, like, I do think that, like, I think...
Speaker: Overall, I might... No, I can't say this definitely because this is going to change tomorrow.
Speaker: No, of course.
Speaker: But I think that maybe it's just the comfort of the Sun Hill 2 remake that makes it
Speaker: speak to me a bit more just in this moment, but I do think that the Alone in the Dark remake is more interesting since it makes all these huge changes to the original material, both in terms of gameplay, like camera perspective and combat and just the story in general.
Speaker: That's the kind of remake that I wish we would get more of in video games because there's just this
Speaker: interesting dynamic between remakes of films and video games where like one of the best examples is the Gus Van Sant Psycho remake where people were like this is just shot for shot or Watchmen as we mentioned before like this is just shot for shot I mean obviously Zack Snyder did make some like changes as like
Speaker: mostly relating to action, which I think makes it a good comparison with the Silent Hill 2 remake, actually.
Speaker: But yeah, so when it comes to films, people want the remakes to differ more.
Speaker: Whereas with video games, I feel like people mostly want the game to feel...
Speaker: as samey as possible sure but but that's not necessarily the most interesting remake you could make because if you want to stick as closely to the source material as possible in terms of both gameplay and narrative then well why not just yeah do a remaster i agree uh so um and i mean i still appreciate the silent hilt remake and i still like it a lot but yeah
Speaker: like when you compare these two specifically i do think that like the alone in the dark remake is more interesting i wouldn't necessarily say that it is the better oh no game in my eyes but it is certainly uh what i would want to see more of when it comes to remakes and video games yeah i liked the alone in the dark remake uh i think it's a shame it it
Speaker: It didn't get great reviews and I believe the studio got closed down not long after.
Speaker: Didn't perform very well and all that.
Speaker: Still, it was one of the first games I played.
Speaker: It was the new, the 2024 calendar of games.
Speaker: One of the first games I played this year and
Speaker: Same.
Speaker: It was it was fun.
Speaker: There's some missed opportunities in that alone in the dark remake.
Speaker: It kind of hints at a Resident Evil style to Resident Evil 2 style zapping system that actually never is implemented because you have two main characters and there is no B story.
Speaker: When you play it the first time, you're playing it and you're thinking that there is going to be a B story with the other main character, and there isn't.
Speaker: When you choose, you get the same story regardless of which character you choose, just with some different cut scenes regarding their personal issues.
Speaker: Yeah, one specific chapter as well.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So, yeah, that was kind of it.
Speaker: But, yeah, I will agree that –
Speaker: But it's to liken to another movie, it's it's Ocean's Eleven, right?
Speaker: You take I think in film, a lot of people are more interested in seeing like, OK, that was a cool concept.
Speaker: Can somebody else just like take another crack at it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's funny that you mentioned the Ghost of Ansan Psycho remake, because I think when I was playing... And I will say this as well, actually.
Speaker: So I think the reason that my opinion on Silent Hill 2 remake has softened quite a bit is because... I don't feel a lot of people talk about when they talk about game stuff, apart from people who cover horror games.
Speaker: Because I think the...
Speaker: Actual atmosphere of where you play horror games, I think, is so important in regards to when people tell you to turn off the lights, put in your headphones, stuff like that.
Speaker: It does create a cool, isolated experience, which it is you in the game in that respect.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: I played the Silent Hill 2 remake initially in a Discord call because people were interested in knowing, what does this game look like?
Speaker: I want to see it.
Speaker: Now, Spot, your fault in the face is going to get even wider in a moment because it was probably the worst call you could have been in.
Speaker: And obviously, I'm not going to mention names or whatever.
Speaker: And if they listen to this podcast, I do apologize because I don't want this to make it sound like, you know, blame it all on them.
Speaker: Blame it all on them.
Speaker: It was Snake's fault, wasn't it?
Speaker: The call was very split between people who had no genuine interest in Silent Hill 2 whatsoever and people who were very into Silent Hill but incredibly negative about the remake even before it came out.
Speaker: And it kind of felt in some instances that they were looking for anything that could justify the remake being bad.
Speaker: I was in the section where you, it's just after you meet Maria for the first time and you go to a motel, I think it's after the apartments or something, but you go to a motel and there's the 0451 thing in there.
Speaker: But there's also the bit where she, you know, there's the callback to her finding the old dress that she wore in the original and going, hey, what do you think I wore this?
Speaker: But then that turns into kind of like an action chase section, which obviously isn't in the original.
Speaker: They were watching that and all the way through complained about it going, why is Silent Hill 2 doing this?
Speaker: Why is this like, you know, why are they going to introduce this?
Speaker: And the people who had no idea about Silent Hill 2, the only kind of like sort of basis that they had was more about the RE2 remake of going, well, I've played that game.
Speaker: This game kind of looks like it's trying to do a poor imitation of that.
Speaker: So I will say that playing the game and sort of having those voices in my ear maybe did kind of influence a tiny bit.
Speaker: I would probably want to go back and replay it a little bit.
Speaker: And I think replaying it would certainly fix my frustrations that I had with the initial navigation stuff of, again, being in a call and playing it and without having a walkthrough to sort of point me in the right direction.
Speaker: especially Blue Creek Apartments, I was there for hours trying to figure out what, and it was literally because I was missing certain rooms that I hadn't gone to.
Speaker: Even using the map to kind of like ground myself a little bit, which is funny when you play, well, when I then play the original where I never really had that issue, and I don't want to say it's because, well, it's because I've already done it in the remake.
Speaker: I think placing yourself in the world in the original versions I've done a lot, which is funny considering the fact that it's an old, well, quote, old-fashioned style RE game.
Speaker: But then... And I guess this is more to people at home as well, which is that if you've been on the fence about playing the original because you're worried it's tank controls, Silent Hill 2 doesn't actually, if you want, you don't have to play it with tank controls, which goes a very long way to fixing the main frustrations with it.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Yeah, it was like a really, I think, to speak to your point, Pim, of saying that initial kind of negative response that the game was getting because of Bloober Team's involvement, I think did very much kind of create this interesting basis of both people to be wowed by the fact that they did manage to pull it off, but also, again, kind of gave people the ammunition of, well, I don't really want this to be good.
Speaker: I want to find examples that that will be the case.
Speaker: And I think that plays in a lot with the way I start off my Silent Hill 2 video is just quoting Justin Leeper, who used to write for Game Informer, where he...
Speaker: At this exact instant, I don't remember exactly what he said, but there was some harsh criticism thrown against the game anyway.
Speaker: I actually reached out to Leaper for this video, and I was very surprised to actually get a reply.
Speaker: And he admitted that, like, yeah, I mean, my opinion on the game hasn't changed that much since back then, but I did replay it later in a setting that was more conducive to, like...
Speaker: He wasn't pressed to do a review of the game after cramming it for publication.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I think similarly, I do think a lot of people will play the remake with all of this discourse around.
Speaker: Like in the case of you, James, you heard literal voices in your head while you were playing.
Speaker: But some will have more like metaphorical voices in their head as represented by the discourse and just be like looking for things that aren't...
Speaker: that aren't good.
Speaker: But I'm not saying that to say that any negative criticism isn't warranted.
Speaker: I have my own negative criticisms of this game.
Speaker: But I do think that this is just such a fascinating case of you needing an open mind going into it.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: The discourse surrounding this particular game has been so...
Speaker: overtly negative.
Speaker: Very disforcy.
Speaker: Yeah, it's been so disforcy.
Speaker: The most disforcy game will be here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it does feel, as I think you said before, Sputnik as well, that it's sort of, it feels almost validating that the game turned out the way it did because you just want to tell those people like, you know,
Speaker: Fuck off.
Speaker: My favorite thing about all this discourse is that like half the people have self-admitted to have never played the original game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, what are you even talking about then?
Speaker: What's the problem?
Speaker: Yes, but I know you are Silent Hill's strongest soldier.
Speaker: So how... Silent Hill simp.
Speaker: Right here.
Speaker: So how did you deal with the discourse over basically the two years leading up to it?
Speaker: Did you have an evolution of what you were thinking and then you're bouncing back against the world?
Speaker: I thought we weren't going to mention him by name.
Speaker: Are we going to bleep it out like you said to Slay?
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's absolutely fine.
Speaker: All I'll say is that I'm glad that he liked the game.
Speaker: I'm glad he liked it.
Speaker: But the worst that it ever got for me was probably after the combat trailer, where I was like... Because I made a video talking about that trailer after it released, and I was like, you know, there's...
Speaker: it's not great but you know there's no release date on it it's probably not coming out for like at least another year they have enough time to fix everything and i think that was omega cope because that trailer is not good um it's a bad trailer um but like that was the worst it ever got uh i i think that like the the trailer that came out after one with uh was the one where they showed off angela for the first time
Speaker: And like that started the whole, the real discourse in my opinion, because like, you know, say what you will about like whatever Bloober team would do to the game itself.
Speaker: Like the vitriolic discourse, I think, started with the reveal of Angela.
Speaker: And like, in my opinion, the worst you could ever say about that trailer with her specifically is that that one shot didn't look great compared to everything else.
Speaker: It was like, it looked not fully rendered or something.
Speaker: That was the worst I think that you could say about it.
Speaker: Uh, so when all the actual vitriolic discourse started, I was like engaging with it for like a second, like being like, what the, what is your problem?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But then I slowly was like, okay, there's no reaching these people.
Speaker: I'm just backing off and I'm going to, I think it looks good.
Speaker: I'm just going to wait for it to come out and I'm better for that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Mentally and emotionally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think there was some weird discourse, honestly, about a lot about the appearance of, uh,
Speaker: I mean, and I don't feel the need.
Speaker: We need to get really into it.
Speaker: But the appearance of female characters in the game got a little weird, particularly sometimes I would see tweets over about Angela and how she looked and things like that.
Speaker: And then it comes out like the her face model is it's the voice actor, the voice actor's face.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you look at the voice actor, she it's Angela.
Speaker: It's it's that's her.
Speaker: That's the thing that drives me insane too.
Speaker: It's like, you know, complain about the old voice or the old character models.
Speaker: It's like, they're just, they're just like renders of, you know, fictional people, but those are literal people in the remake that you're like calling ugly.
Speaker: That's insane.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's lunacy.
Speaker: So this is breaking news.
Speaker: Uh-oh.
Speaker: Uh-oh.
Speaker: The Silent Hill subreddit, this just got posted a couple hours ago.
Speaker: The photos, you know, the puzzle behind the photos, it's been solved.
Speaker: Oh, interesting.
Speaker: The message, when you solve it, and this might...
Speaker: play into some discussion as to why it's a meta remake.
Speaker: And this is the first time you guys are hearing it, right?
Speaker: You all are hearing this for the first time?
Speaker: Yeah, I have no idea.
Speaker: The solution after you, if you count things within each photo, example, the open windows in photo one equals six, then count the number across the writing on each one.
Speaker: You will get a letter.
Speaker: It spells out after all the photos, you've been here for two decades.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which kind of leans into the loop theory, doesn't it?
Speaker: That's really interesting.
Speaker: I, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I have a grievance with the loop theory.
Speaker: I want to get this out of the way.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Go for it.
Speaker: I've never liked the loop theory, but you go first.
Speaker: I, okay.
Speaker: But to say I've never liked it is actually disingenuous.
Speaker: I think it's, I think it's cool.
Speaker: I just, it's not the interpretation I stick with, but the issue that I've always had with the loop theory is,
Speaker: is the confirmed reality that Laura is real.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Because if James is stuck in a loop for 20 years, Laura literally can't be there as a real person.
Speaker: It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker: That's my biggest issue with the loop theory.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the remake, super confirming that, sort of bums me out a little bit, but, you know, it's fine.
Speaker: It's big whatever.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, James?
Speaker: Oh, Pim.
Speaker: Whomever.
Speaker: Oh, sorry.
Speaker: Pim, you go first.
Speaker: I think it's just like, again, as like a meta sequel, it is an interesting concept of just like, okay, sure, we have maybe not been playing Silent Hill 2 since 2001, or in my case, 2007, but...
Speaker: like James has been stuck there since like, there's like something kind of interesting about that, I guess, like from a meta perspective that like this story has lived on for so long and it keeps being replayed by people, like almost in the same way that they made the fact that like they, they turned the, the, the legacy of the doom franchise into a,
Speaker: like into canon with you being the doom slayer, like this internal force.
Speaker: Like it is kind of similar in that regard, but also like, if you look at it as this like canonical fact that James is going to leave with Laura only to like go into the fog with, with his car and then loop back around, um,
Speaker: That is not very interesting to me, honestly.
Speaker: Yeah, that's my main, like, thing, is that, like, that is cool, but that kind of goes to, like, my sort of issue with one, like, it is padded so much, like, this game to get it.
Speaker: And I think that's just kind of down to... And I'm sure they had this discussion with... Either with Konami or whatever, but it was a thing of, like, well...
Speaker: you can't make a game that is as long as the original Silent Hill 2.
Speaker: Like, I was trying to think of this in regards to, and again, I guess maybe I'll just evoke it now while it's, uh, while I'm talking about it, but obviously this is the game that kind of only really exists as it does because of the Resident Evil 2 remake.
Speaker: And obviously that's a game where it's like the first time you play it is as long as it is because you're trying to work out the puzzles in a way.
Speaker: But then it has that nice kind of Capcom thing to it of, well, now you get to do the adventure again as somebody else, but also we're going to give you all these weapons.
Speaker: So if you want to speed run it, you can do that, which I think this obviously has a bit of as well.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: for the most part, they don't want to kind of extend the length longer than it has to be.
Speaker: And those games can be pretty quick when you, like, Resident Evil 7 especially is only about three or four hours if you want to, like, re-play it from the start.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This, and again, I'm sure it's quicker on re- and I'm sure you can speak to this, Pim, because you're on another playthrough of this at the moment, but, like,
Speaker: I can say this is the case, yeah.
Speaker: But then again, that's also because I remember some of the puzzle solutions.
Speaker: So it's more about that than you aiming to cut corners necessarily.
Speaker: But that first playthrough is really long.
Speaker: And I don't know if it's too... And it kind of feels like it's that long because it's almost like Bloob's kind of like, we're going to really let you live in this world and kind of soak it in.
Speaker: And it's very different to the first game where, because of that pulled out camera and, you know, kind of how they present the game, you're not really, like, James is kind of like a rat in a cage, for lack of a better term, where there is that sort of distance between you and him.
Speaker: And although you are feeling the atmosphere of being in Silent Hill with him,
Speaker: the traumas are his traumas they're like you know the people that he's interacting with it just between them you're more of a passive observer to what's happening you know like a classic haunted house sort of novel or story this because it is a third person shooter you are like a parrot on his shoulder throughout the entire thing and he's humongous like you know he fills the frame and everything is so much tighter because of that
Speaker: And the way that they've bulked it out is that, yeah, it feels like all this stuff that used to be fan theory and sort of like kind of more in the margins, they've moved from subtext to text.
Speaker: And I was thinking about in regards to, and again, I only know of this because somebody on the call had mentioned this, but when Maria speaks about
Speaker: the mystery, you know, when they're in the park and they're talking about the lady in the lake or story of the lady on the island.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And how that's kind of part of the resurrection myth.
Speaker: And like, again, that was something that was more sort of left in the margins previously.
Speaker: But the fact that they've sort of ratified that now as well as ratifying this is kind of like, I don't know if that entirely improves Silent Hill 2 as a story.
Speaker: It's kind of more like,
Speaker: by removing that like layer of interpretation and just kind of giving it to players as is, I, yeah, it sort of robbed Silent Hill 2 of what the magic was that we had decades of people doing analysis on it.
Speaker: And instead, now we just have the game that goes, no, we've already done that for you.
Speaker: Here you go.
Speaker: Like, obviously that's my, that's my thought on it.
Speaker: Like, no, no, no, Jacob Geller, please stop.
Speaker: I mean, that's what J.P.
Speaker: Geller can't even play this version because he can't even talk about this version because he worked on it.
Speaker: Yeah, they put golden handcuffs on him and said, no, no, no, no videos about this.
Speaker: No, no, no, no.
Speaker: That's how they got him.
Speaker: But yeah, I have to say, I think because they do elaborate on some things, for example, that cut scene in the park and as well as...
Speaker: that new cutscene with Angela and James, which I mentioned in my video as well, I think works well to have Angela even be aware that Laura is in town.
Speaker: Those characters never cross paths in the original game.
Speaker: And I think that trying to elaborate on some of those things, like the park scene specifically, I think is good because...
Speaker: This is maybe a me problem, but as I mentioned in my video, I made a whole section about it.
Speaker: I don't think the multiple endings of the original game work that well because they're just sprung upon you like that.
Speaker: You might retroactively think about, okay, yeah, maybe I did not use that many healing items or whatever.
Speaker: but you might not even know that that's the reason why you got this ending.
Speaker: You might only know it because you looked it up online afterwards.
Speaker: Like the first couple of times that I played the original, I first got the leave ending.
Speaker: Then I got the Maria ending, not knowing how I got either of them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My first time playing the original, I got the water ending.
Speaker: Yeah, I got the water ending in both versions.
Speaker: I've beaten the original game, I want to say nine times, and I've gotten the leave ending eight out of nine times.
Speaker: Well, that's good.
Speaker: I got the leave ending on the I got the leave ending on the remake.
Speaker: But yeah, I got the remake.
Speaker: I got the leave ending on the remake, too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But on the on the original, I got the water ending.
Speaker: I was like, well, I guess he drove his car into the water.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: There's no cut scene, really.
Speaker: I think that speaks to something of you mentioned in the video, which is kind of like.
Speaker: Silent Hill 2, or Silent Hill in general, isn't Resident Evil.
Speaker: Resident Evil is the kind of thing where you would have gimmicky different endings by playing as different characters or whatever.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Whereas Silent Hill 2 is a story with a definitive middle beginning and end.
Speaker: It is analyzing a character that you are playing as.
Speaker: And if anything, there should be some kind of definitive...
Speaker: solution to that so the fact that it does kind of it becomes choose your own adventure at the end is very odd but again and that goes back to kind of my sort of feeling on feeling like oh is silent hill 2 not as good as people have been saying it is for so many years
Speaker: that's the original game.
Speaker: Like they, they pick something up and, and again, like it almost raises the question of, well, why didn't you choose, like, especially if you're now ratifying fan theories and stuff, why didn't you just choose one ending to be the cyber kill to remake ending?
Speaker: I, I, I, maybe I'm interpreting much more, uh,
Speaker: dislike with the multiple ending thing than is actually being said.
Speaker: But I have always loved the way that the original game does the endings because it's not like... The game psychologically profiles you without you realizing it and then the ending is just your version of James and that's the ending that he gets.
Speaker: And whether or not you are understanding what happens, that never bothered me.
Speaker: I actually think that's really, really cool.
Speaker: um so i i'm actually glad that they kept that uh yeah and i think it just kind of in fact the the in water ending in the original game to me always made zero sense because like there is a line in the original game where james specifically says i would never kill myself and then they took that out in the remake and i'm like thank you now they would now we're instantly in better waters no pun intended
Speaker: Which is funny because the in-water ending feels like if you had no idea and you played this game you'd go, oh classic Bloober doing it again.
Speaker: People can't be happy.
Speaker: Exactly, exactly.
Speaker: That was like one of the main reasons I wanted to make my video in the first place because that is such a classic Bloober thing to pull.
Speaker: But people are so occupied beating this dead horse to even...
Speaker: debtor grounds uh that they just forget or choose to ignore the things that the original game did sure uh it's uh yeah which yeah i mean can can we can we hit a controversial point now go for it let's dive in
Speaker: Hit that controversy.
Speaker: Let's talk about Angela.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think the remake does a lot to try and improve that character, but even she didn't quite work for me in this, which left me going like, oh, is this the game that people have been celebrating for so many years?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: This is...
Speaker: And I think the remake did a somewhat, I will say the remake did a somewhat better job handling Angela.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Because in the original, it seemed like they were trying too hard to beat around the bush with Angela.
Speaker: They were trying to be like, I'm not.
Speaker: The thing I'll say about the original as well is the fact that playing that after the remake is one, oh Jesus, this thing's fast.
Speaker: You just fly through.
Speaker: the original like oh yeah the original does does it does a move at a at a good clip but yeah i think but it even also has a bit of the thing of and again and i always get pissed off when people do this kind of thing of like well silent hill 2 original was always shit and that's why it's good and one of the things we say is that that drives me insane
Speaker: And one of the things that they say is that the performances that they give, because, yeah, it's almost quite like I think positively it's quite Lynchian, as in everyone's given these kind of very big sort of not odds, but it is like everybody's slightly off kilter.
Speaker: And you could argue, well, that's because it's a Japanese team that probably don't speak English and they thought that those and that was the excuse people made Ferrari won.
Speaker: But in RE1 it works because it's just like, well, that's like people would give performances like that in Roger Corman movies.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Roger Corman movies were like that.
Speaker: Corman, Resident Evil, Lynch in Silent Hill.
Speaker: Yeah, but then in Silent Hill, but then like playing the original, and I think it is just because it was coming off the remake, it was kind of a bit like, oh, because less is said, it is like, yeah, it leaves kind of more to the imagination and everybody's kind of a bit off-kill because you could ask, well, who's real and who's not in Silent Hill and stuff like that.
Speaker: But, yeah, just in the remake, because there is more to it, because you sit with it longer, I don't know.
Speaker: It was almost hitting a bit of an uncanny valley thing for me.
Speaker: And Angela was sort of the crux of that for me.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I could see that.
Speaker: Somebody said, I think this was on...
Speaker: Might have been on Blue Sky, actually.
Speaker: Somebody said in the first scene when you first meet Angela in the remake, it's a very nuanced performance with actors who are giving very good subtextual emotions and hinting at things and stuff like that.
Speaker: And in the original, it is two of the most unhinged people you have ever met talking to each other in the graveyard.
Speaker: There's people fighting through like early mocap.
Speaker: Can I just say that hearing Angela say lost in the remake was one of the wildest experiences of my entire life.
Speaker: Hearing that line delivered without the crazy inflection felt like I was lost.
Speaker: I love that delivery by the way.
Speaker: I'm making fun here.
Speaker: I'm making fun, but I love, I love that.
Speaker: I love it too.
Speaker: But like hearing the remake where she's just like, lost.
Speaker: I was like, what is this?
Speaker: Where am I right now?
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: It's been 20.
Speaker: It's been a 20 year loop and Angela has learned nuance.
Speaker: She took an acting class over Zoom.
Speaker: I like Angela in the remake quite a bit.
Speaker: The only thing I think I'm deeply in the minority here, but I really didn't like the abstract daddy boss fight.
Speaker: No, I hate.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: So here's the thing.
Speaker: I thought this would be the big point of disagreement.
Speaker: This is- I played this on- nobody was in the room for this, this was all on my own.
Speaker: I absolutely despise what they did with Abstract Daddy in the remake.
Speaker: It is so indicative of what is wrong with this remake.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: No, no, no, you're good.
Speaker: The abstract daddy boss fight, I think mechanically is actually fine.
Speaker: I think it's pretty intense.
Speaker: Like you're constantly running and stuff.
Speaker: Like I'm okay with that.
Speaker: But like the abstract daddy boss fight is what I think everyone thought Bloober was going to do with the remake.
Speaker: Like it's so bombastic and overt.
Speaker: And like when, when you go like the original fight with the abstract daddy, it's in that one tiny room.
Speaker: It's the most disturbing monster with the most tragic character.
Speaker: And you get the thrusting pistons.
Speaker: And like Angela says, daddy, no.
Speaker: And like, that's all you need.
Speaker: That's all you get.
Speaker: You interpret enough from that.
Speaker: And then the remake, you're like, you're going through these hallways.
Speaker: You're going to like these closets that like symbolize probably something really messed up.
Speaker: And then like, you're encountering these TVs with her dad, like screaming at her.
Speaker: And it's like, this is way too much.
Speaker: You can tone this back like 70%.
Speaker: It is so over egged.
Speaker: And like, yeah.
Speaker: And again, playing that first episode,
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: The moment that I got to that in the original version, it was on the way I described it to somebody was like, is when you would go into somebody's house in earthbound and there was like a funny scene.
Speaker: Like you just walk into a room and she's just cowering in the corner of a room covered in meat and pistons and the abstract daddy's in the corner.
Speaker: And it's almost like a, you're like, what?
Speaker: But that's the thing because it's so odd and off kilter that fits way more as the tone versus in this where it is.
Speaker: you're running through infinite hallways and then you get to the end where it becomes a more, it feels like an evil within style standard arena third person shooter thing.
Speaker: I was like, you fuck this up.
Speaker: This is such not the way to do it.
Speaker: I watched Northern Lion play this, the abstract daddy boss fight.
Speaker: And he,
Speaker: World-class yapper at Northern Line.
Speaker: He just wails.
Speaker: I don't know how he was doing it.
Speaker: He kept firing bullets at Abstract Daddy, and the chat is like, you just need to run from him.
Speaker: And he's like, all right, well, I'll just run.
Speaker: And he gets into the little arena, and it's just a loop of him hitting him with the pipe.
Speaker: Dodging, hit with the pipe.
Speaker: Dodge, hit with the pipe.
Speaker: Dodge, hit with the pipe.
Speaker: Dodge, hit with the pipe.
Speaker: That was basically the original.
Speaker: It just goes on for like three minutes and it's just like, you know, he's built different.
Speaker: I will say though, because I'd be interested in hearing Pim's opinion on this, but there's one thing that I will at least give abstract, well, kind of abstract to an extent in the remake is that
Speaker: I'm glad they don't make him a recurring enemy in the hotel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That seemed like such a weird thing.
Speaker: I'm glad you brought that up, yeah.
Speaker: Because again, the cool thing about Silent Hill 2 is that it feels like people's traumas and sort of nightmares are intersecting with one another and it's almost like you walk out of James's and I know people have said that, oh no, well the abstract daddy is both Angela's trauma but it's also Mary on the bed combined and it's
Speaker: like yeah that's not like I don't find that it diminishes Angela's experience exactly I find it more interesting that essentially Silent Hill 2 can be different to everybody and like you know even Angela says that at the end of it's always looked like this for me
Speaker: And again, it makes an interesting point of James of just kind of like, and it says, obviously, to the end of the fact that he obviously, you know, what he does to Mary, but he almost is kind of like an invader in other people's lives of just this kind of weird, passive oddball watching stuff happen and then sometimes getting it.
Speaker: I mean, the Eddie boss fight is so much that as well.
Speaker: But yeah, that's the change of abstract that I like.
Speaker: Sorry, I've said so much, Pim, please go ahead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I have to say that I think... I absolutely see what you're saying about the abstract daddy fight being sort of what people feared the entire game would be like, like super explicit and all that.
Speaker: But I personally, I think...
Speaker: this moment kind of earns it because we haven't really had a moment that is this bombastic beforehand.
Speaker: And as I mentioned in my video as well, I think it very much sells like the gravity of, of how horrible Angela's experience has been in this town.
Speaker: Because when you enter the boss fight in the original game, again, I totally agree with what you're all saying about like this confined space being like such a, like an interesting choice.
Speaker: And I do like that fight as well.
Speaker: But there is something about that...
Speaker: depiction of it where it's just you.
Speaker: It's more from James's perspective in the original, I would say, because you're just entering this room.
Speaker: It's like, oh, well, what's happening here?
Speaker: But in the remake, you're really put into the mindset of Angela because you see the abstract daddy as just as much of a threat that she does because it is this force of nature breaking through walls, completely ignoring her sense of privacy by the...
Speaker: bashing of walls uh yeah so i i think it is very uh explosive compared to to anything else in the game to the point that like i even if you dislike this boss fight i think a lot of people will probably see that as one of the most memorable parts of the remake uh and and um i i i think it
Speaker: I think it works.
Speaker: Uh, specifically, I will give it this, like in regards to like the imaginary, like in regards to like, if this was a different, if this was a new silent hill game, like,
Speaker: Again, it's very kind of like control when you go through the tobacco maze.
Speaker: That's just something that you completely are thrown by and you're sort of surprised by like, oh my God, I can't believe that this happened.
Speaker: Whereas... Take control.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like I do.
Speaker: I think you do make a good point of just like, yeah, it's almost like the abstract daddy is as huge to you now as he is obviously to Angela, but...
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It was just something about it, like of initially doing that fight where it was just kind of like, this feels totally off.
Speaker: I could definitely buy that.
Speaker: I think I do agree, though, that in the original, it was a mistake to have Abstract Daddy appear again as a regular enemy in the hotel.
Speaker: Like, this doesn't make sense.
Speaker: Like, why are we getting Abstract Daddies just walking up and down the hallway?
Speaker: What are all these daddies doing here?
Speaker: That did always come across as an oversight, maybe on the devs team.
Speaker: But it gave me an interesting theory that maybe the abstract daddy is never what Angela was seeing, but it always was what James was seeing.
Speaker: And it gave me this interpretation that James was maybe very abusive to Mary.
Speaker: But especially in the remake, that's like...
Speaker: That's basically Axe, and I'm okay with that, but the abstract daddy appearing in the hotel always gave credence to that being a possibility, which I was kind of okay with, but mechanically, yeah, no, I'm glad that they're gone.
Speaker: Those things in the hotel are a nightmare.
Speaker: I will actually say as well something of when you play the remake first and then go back to the original, when they introduced Pyramid Head for the first time in the remake, I was kind of like, oh, this is subtle.
Speaker: Like, you know, they don't want to show too much off.
Speaker: You play it in the original and it is just like,
Speaker: No fucking nuance.
Speaker: It is literally you walk into a room in terrifying shit.
Speaker: It's like, oh, wow.
Speaker: Yeah, they tone this down quite a bit, which, you know what?
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: I'm not going to hold on to the course of that.
Speaker: I think they had to do what they had to do with that.
Speaker: So the way Angela always sees the world in her time in Silent Hill is Covenant Fire.
Speaker: And the flip side is true for Eddie, of course, and they make that a little bit more explicit in the remake, I think, with him eating...
Speaker: This is upset me.
Speaker: I don't get this choice.
Speaker: They just made it worse.
Speaker: They just made it worse.
Speaker: So instead of eating pizza in a bowling alley, he is eating melted ice cream
Speaker: By hand.
Speaker: Hand, by perfidious hand, just sloppily into his mouth.
Speaker: Except he's breathing.
Speaker: His breath is frosted.
Speaker: Like he's breathing out the steam as if he is cold.
Speaker: But the ice cream is... So it's like, what if we don't change anything about Eddie?
Speaker: And then also...
Speaker: Subtext is for cowards.
Speaker: I will say, now that you've confirmed the time loop theory, I guess it makes a bit more sense.
Speaker: But one question I was going to ask, which is kind of like, the thing that I at least liked about the RE2 remake was that they didn't update the time it took place in.
Speaker: They tried to ground it in the mid-90s as much as possible to the extent of they commissioned a grunge track for the credits.
Speaker: Which is cute.
Speaker: What a funny little detail with that.
Speaker: This is with this where it's like, did Konami tell them nobody goes to Bularamas anymore?
Speaker: It has to be something that people... And again, I think changing it to a theater, I think, is also boring because of... Again, speaking to, oh, of course Bloober would do this, but then I don't know whose decision this was, but you walk past the movie posters and it's like knocking you on the head with a hammer going, do you get it?
Speaker: Where all the movie posters are like, alone, fake reality.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: artificial sky you know what was the kind of there was like a sequel to like a twilight zone episode that was what was that was one of the movie posters i can't remember what it was disappearance at blue creek or something like that oh yeah yeah yeah that's completely familiar yeah return to owl creek or something that was really i laughed out when i saw that that is actually a uh
Speaker: You might be thinking of Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.
Speaker: Yes, that one.
Speaker: Which became an episode of Twilight Zone.
Speaker: Which is an old short story.
Speaker: Is this a British film?
Speaker: No, it's, well, so it's, the original is set during the American Civil War.
Speaker: It's about a man who, he is like in line to be executed.
Speaker: He thinks he gets away.
Speaker: He is running to find his wife.
Speaker: He gets to see his wife and in the last shot, he keeps running towards his wife, but, and she's running towards him, but she never actually gets any closer.
Speaker: And then it cuts to the end and the guy drops from the gallows and his neck snaps.
Speaker: And basically the entire movie, the entire short was the instant in between him starting to drop and him dying.
Speaker: His brain created this entire universe of him getting away and finding his wife.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Jacob's Ladder, basically.
Speaker: You can see Jacob's Ladder would be inspired.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, the occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, I believe the story is really old, and I think the... Oh, yeah, it's like the 1800s, but it got adapted into a...
Speaker: Twilight's an episode.
Speaker: It's funny because one of my notes is literally like because of the change that they had done to Ari to... Yeah, Ambrose Bierce, by the way, was the author of an occurrence at Al Creek Bridge.
Speaker: And Ambrose Bierce is definitely a pre... He's basically one of the people that kind of feeds into Lovecraft later is a guy like Bierce.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, you see that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's funny because one of the notes that I made was that she like the fact that they have made this more from the third person shooter perspective is like they did try to remake Jacob's Ladder as John Wick.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Which I don't know if it's quite to that extent, but I do feel like it does say something about the era that we're in of just kind of like... Because again, this, the Alone in the Dark reboot, and Alan Wake 2 are all third-person shooters, and it does kind of set a weird precedent of...
Speaker: Is this the only way that we can make survival horrors now?
Speaker: Which isn't true, because obviously we had Hollow Body and Pro Country and stuff come out this year, which, you know, did their own perspectives.
Speaker: And I would say Hollow Body, I really loved Hollow Body, but I also felt like it was like, eh, it's wearing Silent Hill a little too much on its sleeve.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, that's what they were kind of going for.
Speaker: It was like, oh, we're in an apartment building.
Speaker: Like, I played in the demo, but I was like, this feels...
Speaker: Too familiar.
Speaker: I'm fine with it.
Speaker: I was like, I liked it, but at the same time, I was like, hmm, okay.
Speaker: But I think it speaks to, obviously, people who are like, oh, I couldn't play the original because of, like, the control.
Speaker: But it's like basically saying I can only eat food in burger form.
Speaker: Like, that's the only way that I can consume stuff.
Speaker: Which I think is a shame.
Speaker: A valid criticism.
Speaker: Which I would say, like, with this, is that, like, would this remake have been better if it wasn't a third-person shooter?
Speaker: But then you can do the minecasting thing of, well, I can come up with the best game ever in my head because of infinite budget and infinite time.
Speaker: But I don't know if changing it to a third-person shooter was the... I don't think it was the right call for this, but obviously I'm...
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, give me some dissenting opinions.
Speaker: I guess I'll never say the ones like the objectively best choice because, you know, there's a million things you could do.
Speaker: But I personally think that Silent Hill 2 as an over the shoulder survival horror game works.
Speaker: And I'm personally totally fine with with it as is.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm big.
Speaker: OK with it.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it and keeping in mind that the original was more or less a mix of OTS and fixed camera.
Speaker: It was kind of one of, you know, it's it's it's kind of merging those two concepts together.
Speaker: And you had the floating third, like when you were in a in an area that allowed for a floating third person camera.
Speaker: to just track you, it did.
Speaker: So I, I think it's not as much of a jump, let's say as a resident evil going from a fixed to a third person.
Speaker: But that being said, Capcom took a lot of care and dedication going in resident evil two, to actually recreate shots of,
Speaker: from the original so they would hit you the same way in that over-the-shoulder format so that when you turned a hallway, you were suddenly framed up in a way that'd be like, it kind of spoke to you.
Speaker: Every frame of painting and all that.
Speaker: It's an interesting thing because I think that one thing that people have said about the RE remakes is, well, when are they going to redo one?
Speaker: Because, I mean, obviously, you can say what they already did.
Speaker: Like, they did it on the GameCube.
Speaker: But then, I think it's because of, obviously, two onwards that you've been using this third-person perspective.
Speaker: But it works for two onwards, because two going on from one was already an action game.
Speaker: Like, Hideki Kamiya came on board and basically said...
Speaker: we can make these games better if we lean more into the kind of the shooting and the positioning and the, you know, and make the survival horror aspect, like, obviously it's still there, but it's mostly an inventory management and item management, but we can tune that down.
Speaker: So I always thought that when those changed to third person, it wasn't really that big of a leap.
Speaker: Like it was like, no, we kind of already figured it out.
Speaker: And so when it's like, well, what, how would he remake one?
Speaker: I mean, on one hand, you could say, well, that's kind of what Seven is, of they're recreating the look of, you know, cinematic camera angles by having this really, really tight FOV first-person game.
Speaker: And making it more about really scary close quarters stuff.
Speaker: And muggling your way forward with puzzle stuff.
Speaker: I think if you had remade that game as a third person shooter, you would just completely lose that.
Speaker: And it's the one thing I would say is a shame with the Resident Evil games is that it feels like they have now basically accepted for now
Speaker: they've got to be third-person shooters to the extent of even 8 has a third-person shooter mode.
Speaker: Yeah, I was kind of disappointed by that change.
Speaker: I'm so terrified for Resident Evil 9 and all of the wrong reasons.
Speaker: I really like Village, and I'm so scared that 9's going to be a pile of garbage.
Speaker: Yeah, like it feels like they're going to go back to our E6 again, which is like, no thanks.
Speaker: Please don't.
Speaker: I will say that there is one game that is out there that does play in that Resident Evil and sign on the Hill Space and still uses the mostly fixed camera.
Speaker: It's an indie game and the sequel was just announced.
Speaker: Tormented Souls.
Speaker: I gave ribs!
Speaker: The first one's so good.
Speaker: Oh, it's so good.
Speaker: You need to get on some Tormented Souls.
Speaker: Does it have some pointless nudity of the main character?
Speaker: Sure does.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Well, she wakes up in the beginning in like, it's like the, like the bathtub full of ice type trope where somebody would wake up and find their like kidney removed.
Speaker: So that's kind of like why she doesn't have any clothes on in the beginning.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So they're doing haunting ground basically.
Speaker: Instead of a kidney, it's her eyeball.
Speaker: So she only has one eye.
Speaker: Either way, it's an interesting, it's a really neat survival horror game that really harkens back to that style of mostly fixed camera angles.
Speaker: Now, the camera does move, but it moves more in like the way you would see in like a film where it's like, all right, you're walking through this hallway and the camera is now, you're not controlling the camera.
Speaker: The camera's on a dolly following the character as opposed to you're repositioning it.
Speaker: It's really nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it's pretty clear that it's not just a thing where all of the big survival horror games in the AAA space are trying to replicate Resident Evil 2.
Speaker: I think also it's very much a case of the... How do I say this in English?
Speaker: This isn't my first language.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: They're trying to like...
Speaker: homogenize... Yes.
Speaker: Is that the right word?
Speaker: Like, every single game is supposed to be like a third-person action type of deal where the controls... They're trying to standardize it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right, exactly.
Speaker: Almost every single game is supposed to play basically like a Ubisoft game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I think... I mean, certainly, the Alone in the Dark remake... I mean, the devs have openly even said that they were inspired by the Resident Evil 2 remake in that case.
Speaker: And certainly...
Speaker: The devs at Bloober Team were influenced by Resident Evil 2 as well, I imagine.
Speaker: But I feel like it's more of an issue, depending on how you look at it, obviously, that AAA video games are now more and more being produced to play almost... I don't want to say identically, because obviously they're... Standardized.
Speaker: Standardized, yes.
Speaker: Whereas in the indie space, you're going to see a whole lot more of these games that are going to still flirt with the same kind of nostalgia.
Speaker: for classic survival horror games, but they will actually try to translate the gameplay and or not even translate, just retain the kind of gameplay that you used to play in those older ones.
Speaker: So I think
Speaker: For better or worse, if there's going to be a new Silent Hill game coming out after this from Bloober Team or otherwise, you're going to be seeing a whole lot more of that kind of gameplay.
Speaker: I don't know if I would expect that from maybe No Code or making Silent Hill Townfall, which, I mean, based on the other games that they've made so far, they're not exactly third-person action horror games by any means.
Speaker: So I'm...
Speaker: frankly, even more interested in that Silent Hill game than any other at this point, just to see what they do with the material.
Speaker: But yeah, I feel like...
Speaker: that kind of classic gameplay, we're going to see a whole lot more of that from the indie scene and way, way less of it in the AAA space.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So an interesting thing about the two remakers, and I don't know whether any of you noticed this, I was recording some footage of it, and in OBS it tells you what the process name is of the...
Speaker: of the game that you're hooking into.
Speaker: And the thing with Unreal Engine games is that when you hook into the process, it doesn't tell you the name of the game.
Speaker: It tells you the name of the project file that they built it on.
Speaker: And Silent Hill 2 Remake's project name was Silent Hill Prototype.
Speaker: So very obviously what it had, well, what the thing was was that Bloober Team, who have already made a lot of Unreal Engine games, and as we said earlier, have very much been like, hey, put us in coach.
Speaker: We can make a Silent Hill game.
Speaker: probably just went to Konami and said, look, we made Silent Hill 2 in Unreal Engine.
Speaker: Unreal Engine, we can keep the costs down because it's all middleware, so all you need to do is get a license for it.
Speaker: And we know that's the case as well because Ascension is built in Unreal Engine.
Speaker: The character models in it are all the, quote, metahumans, which is they're like, you can use them to generate realistic looking humans.
Speaker: Yeah, so Konami are probably looking at it from, because obviously they went to no code because they were like, we like what you guys do.
Speaker: Can you do that for Silent Hill?
Speaker: And it's probably a thing of just like, hey, yes, a two remake makes perfect sense because your team has their head on straight up, like how we're going to do this stuff.
Speaker: But I think it does play more interestingly into, yeah, is this the basis of, is this like when they remade Metroid Prime for the Switch to kind of figure out how they're going to make a new Prime game?
Speaker: Like, is the next idea going to be another Silent Hill?
Speaker: And it does make me wonder, like, because obviously a lot of my main quits with this is that it felt like, not that they were hamstrung, but because they adore Silent Hill 2 so much, they didn't want to color outside the lines, especially with Angela.
Speaker: Eddie, I think, as well, is kind of a thing of, we want to keep it respectful to...
Speaker: the original vision of Eddie.
Speaker: Eddie who is not a respectful character in shape or form.
Speaker: Meanwhile, I'm like, no, please change Eddie.
Speaker: Can you believe Eddie's not Pokey from fucking Earth?
Speaker: And they're like, what if we made him worse?
Speaker: Can I just say quickly- Go ahead.
Speaker: Let's hear the Eddie defending.
Speaker: Yeah, no, okay.
Speaker: So my, one of my biggest, so before the game came out, like I think six months after it was announced, I made a video about like detailing a bunch of things that I thought Bloober could do to improve the original game in the remake.
Speaker: And I believe the third big point was just Eddie.
Speaker: And my biggest issue was that Eddie's, because Angela's character arc, every single time you meet her, it's like a steady progression, like back to back to back to back.
Speaker: It all makes like cohesive sense.
Speaker: Eddie, you meet him, he's puking, he's scared, he's terrified.
Speaker: The second time you eat him, he's just shoving pizza in his face and he's a goofball and you laugh at him.
Speaker: Big meme.
Speaker: And then the next time you see him, he's a full-on psychopath.
Speaker: And it's like, what happened?
Speaker: But in the remake, I am so, like, I am slightly disappointed that they didn't add a scene like they did with Angela.
Speaker: But, like, at the very least...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But at the very least, they made that second scene make so much more cohesive sense with the rest of his story that I'm OK with the Eddie in the remake.
Speaker: I think it makes so much more sense to him as a character.
Speaker: And like there's no weird disconnect or like incoherence with his character anymore.
Speaker: And I'm a big fan, big fan of that.
Speaker: It's just wild that Laura hitched a ride with him into town.
Speaker: That bothers me on a wholly different level.
Speaker: That was in the original, too, as well.
Speaker: I've never...
Speaker: you know so many people from the original dev team have said laura's real i just do not accept that yeah i was going to say now that i'm part of the silent hill 2 fan community you can now come up with my own theories uh my theory is is that laura is actually the child that james and mary were going to have before she passed away and uh she's haunting i mean uh i mean i was gonna say kevin the funny thing that i learned from somebody who's a hardcore um silent hill head was so have you ever played silent hill homecoming
Speaker: No, I've not.
Speaker: Okay, there's a character in there who's a female cop, and originally the plan was that there was going to be an adult Laura who helps you, like, do... Oh my god, I forgot!
Speaker: I did not know that!
Speaker: I had no idea about that!
Speaker: I'm going to say, I'm kind of glad they didn't, because that is very... And again, I think that's the thing that kind of would suck if they did another Silent Hill game of, like, if it becomes The Force Awakens of just...
Speaker: I'm not saying the third one is that, but obviously it's obviously it's Heather Mason and it's the daughter from.
Speaker: Well, it's the kind of composite daughter that happens at the end of the first game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Then the fourth one does something completely different, but the fourth one didn't sell any copies.
Speaker: So it's kind of like, oh, shit, what do we do now?
Speaker: And so all the Western-developed ones, like Homecoming and Downpour, it's like, oh, the triangle-haired guy, he's back.
Speaker: Oh, what's this about?
Speaker: Oh, like with Shattered Memories, where it's like a remake of one where they have stapled in bits of two and three.
Speaker: And it's like,
Speaker: But what do you like?
Speaker: Can we not do something different?
Speaker: Kind of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's in that end.
Speaker: That's I guess that's probably why I am excited to see what no code does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Especially with like the fact that they are very.
Speaker: It's almost like they they they're FMV pills a little bit.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm OK with that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'd like to see some of that folded in.
Speaker: Just, you know, give me some good spooks like stories untold and I'll be happy.
Speaker: Town Falls in a weird.
Speaker: Oh, sorry.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: I'll make it real quick.
Speaker: Town Falls in a really weird kind of like main entry, but still like also kind of like a spinoff at the same time.
Speaker: That's the vibe I get from everything they've ever said about it.
Speaker: So I hold out hope that that is the one that is a fixed camera game.
Speaker: And then F is just maybe just another over the shoulder.
Speaker: F I have no... I mean, F is like the nearest thing I could probably think of.
Speaker: Is that always going to be like Fatal Frame?
Speaker: Because it's like, you know, Japanese village with school girls in it.
Speaker: Oh, what's the only horror game that does that?
Speaker: Fatal Frame.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: It's going to be like Fatal Frame.
Speaker: Now, I was going to say something that you mentioned in your video, Pim, that I just think of all the time, which is just the fact that you go out on a foggy day and everybody says the same thing of, oh, it's like I'm in Silent Hill.
Speaker: It is like...
Speaker: it's funny that this is the franchise that has seemed to have spawned to so many opportunities and yet it is still instantly iconic of like you think of fog you think of like you know the elements of two and one and you always think of silent hill and it does show me that like konami just doesn't know like you could just make a new silent hill game like one two is like one but with a different character well that's a bit reductionist but you get what i mean of like
Speaker: Two is obviously playing in the same sandbox of one.
Speaker: And then the idea is with like every single one afterwards is that the cult influence grows enough that a Silent Hill could be anywhere.
Speaker: The sense of like when Kojima says that his PT demo was called Silent Hill and then the S appears, the Silent Hill as you go.
Speaker: Oh, so the idea is that like Silent Hill could be anywhere in America kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like Springfields.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's, that's also, I made my second ever video on, on my current channel.
Speaker: I'm saying that as, as if it's going to be another one after this one.
Speaker: No, but the second ever video I made on, on the Pim's Crypt channel was actually about, because this was before the remake of, of two was even announced and the, and the Sunhill transmission wasn't even a thing.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: I suggested that the way this franchise could have been saved would have been to make it more of like an anthology thing where you change the time period, the location and all that.
Speaker: And then the transmission happened back in, what was it, two years ago or three?
Speaker: October 2022.
Speaker: Still remember it like it's yesterday.
Speaker: Goddamn.
Speaker: Time dilation.
Speaker: I don't even know where I am right now.
Speaker: But yeah, when that transmission was aired and I got to see F specifically, I was like, okay, they're doing it.
Speaker: They're actually doing it.
Speaker: They're taking the potential of this franchise and expanding it because it's bloody difficult to have an entire franchise take place in the exact same location.
Speaker: for multiple sequels.
Speaker: I mean, Castlevania did it, I guess, but it's a completely different type of game.
Speaker: Like, imagine if the Resident Evil games never left Raccoon City.
Speaker: Like, that... Right.
Speaker: It was... No.
Speaker: It was never gonna work.
Speaker: And they tried.
Speaker: They tried to milk Raccoon City for as long as they could, and they...
Speaker: It didn't work out.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm very happy about or optimistic about the future of this franchise now, especially given how the remake of 2 turned out.
Speaker: Yeah, cautiously skeptical as one should always be, I think, but optimistic most of all.
Speaker: I think, yeah, that's sort of my takeaway of this is that, and I think I kind of agree with everybody, which is like the two remake did what it needed to.
Speaker: Like it sort of, it stuck the landing for the most part.
Speaker: And I would even say probably even went a little bit further ahead in areas that it needed to.
Speaker: But yeah, my hope is that like, because if the idea is that Bluebeak, you get to do another one, it's not a free remake.
Speaker: I think that would be the least interesting thing in the world.
Speaker: I really hope it's not that.
Speaker: To me, they have two options.
Speaker: Bloopers got two options.
Speaker: They either remake one or they make a new game.
Speaker: I kind of hope they make a new game, but at the same time...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Bloober could Bloober it.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Like, I don't know.
Speaker: Bloober is their town.
Speaker: Especially because very recently they announced, you know, Cronus colon something, you know, whatever that space game they're doing is.
Speaker: And it's like, oh, it's another third person action survivor horror game.
Speaker: Huh?
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: And again, like, obviously it felt like Konami was like, well, again, they put together this proto and they were like, sure, you want the job, go ahead.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: My hope would be that they could actually learn from what, like, the few flaws that are in this remake and, like, make a Silent Hill that isn't, that's completely unburdened from having to make it, like, two.
Speaker: From not having to appeal to, like, the Bob Vids of the world of being like, oh, she's holding the knife at the wrong angle.
Speaker: Her eyebrow isn't doing quite enough.
Speaker: Like, just make something new.
Speaker: But, like, don't even feel like you have to...
Speaker: My main takeaways from this was that I wish it was less of an action game.
Speaker: I wish it was a little bit shorter.
Speaker: But like, and also just how they kind of handled Angela and Eddie.
Speaker: And like, again, the stuff that they felt like the gameplay stuff tightened that up, which whether Bluebird will or will not, because the gameplay is always kind of the weakest element, whatever.
Speaker: But if they can come up with new characters, come up with better, come up with 2024, better ideas than characters from a 2001 game, you know?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Just as a side note, I was looking at the logo for Silent Hill F, and I'm not sure, somebody might have pointed this out, but the way F is written is actually a music notation of forte, which just means loud.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: On that note, actually, real quick, I heard this proposed to me once, like right after the original transmission, and it stuck with me because in Old English, that F is also used as a soft S, right?
Speaker: which makes it a potential like Silent Hills.
Speaker: If you want to be very like conspiratorial about it.
Speaker: And then, oh my God, that's Hideo Kojo's music.
Speaker: That little girl takes her mask off and she was Norman Reedus all along.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: We get Jim Ross back just to announce Hideo Kojima coming in with the steel chair.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Just out of curiosity about the remake, what was everybody's opinion, just generally speaking, about the combat?
Speaker: I didn't like it.
Speaker: Generally speaking- You didn't like the combat?
Speaker: It was fine.
Speaker: It took me a little bit to get used to.
Speaker: I actually appreciate the fact that unlike Resident Evil.
Speaker: So Leon, for example, in Resident Evil 2 and 4, when he lines up a shot, like the radical is like wide.
Speaker: But if you just wait a second, it'll snap tight and it will be like dead center.
Speaker: Like, yeah, he has it lined up because he's a professional.
Speaker: Whereas when you.
Speaker: Oh, no, we lost James.
Speaker: Uh-oh.
Speaker: Uh-oh.
Speaker: And Pim.
Speaker: Pim and James.
Speaker: James says, please keep talking.
Speaker: I'll be right back.
Speaker: It's just funny because they both like bounced at the same exact time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I saw Pim get up and then I saw the message and I just assumed it was them.
Speaker: And then I look over and then James is gone.
Speaker: So anyway, we...
Speaker: What was I saying?
Speaker: Oh, so yes, the combat for James Sunderland is, I like it in that the reticle is always kind of shaky.
Speaker: Like he's a dude that has, like maybe he played paintball once.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: but is not very good and doesn't really have the nerves of steel as some other characters.
Speaker: they're they're they're both back simultaneously wow impeccable timing but but it's just funny because james you said your message please call keep talking i'll be right back pym left at the exact same time so i noticed that too we just like we co we co-messaged
Speaker: I have been needing to go to the bathroom for like an hour or so.
Speaker: I'm just going to go.
Speaker: I don't want to interrupt the flow here.
Speaker: I'm just going to go.
Speaker: Two seconds.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: No, I just gave my thoughts on James Sunderland's combat experience.
Speaker: And I mentioned that he probably played paintball once and then was thrown into Silent Hill.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, I always think about that in any survival horror game of just like, why do I mean, you'd always make the joke of Willie lives in America, of course, and he was out of shoot a gun.
Speaker: But then that's assuming that Kevin and Sputnik know how to shoot guns, which would be assumptive.
Speaker: And I fired a gun once or twice, a couple of times, actually.
Speaker: And I have only ever shot targets
Speaker: with a.22 caliber rifle, which is not, if you know anything about calibers, a.22 is not very much at all.
Speaker: It's not a very strong caliber.
Speaker: So I used to do it at my dad's hunting lodge.
Speaker: He would set up a cardboard box with orange stickers on it and just teach me how to load it and all that stuff.
Speaker: But that was literally 30 years ago.
Speaker: As a Swede, I've only ever watched someone else fire a gun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's the only thing I think of, because obviously, Kevin, you said right at the beginning of the pod that you were more of a Resident Evil guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, my first Resident Evil game was 4 when I was like,
Speaker: 14 or 15 and it was like changed my life.
Speaker: I was like, oh, greatest game ever made.
Speaker: Resident Evil 4, they're never going to improve on it kind of thing.
Speaker: I've always liked the game since then.
Speaker: But 7 was the one where I was like activating and was like, no, actually Capcom seems to be really good at what they do.
Speaker: But the one thing that always puts me at 7 is that he gets his hand chopped off and then goes up into the attic and finds a gun and goes, okay, fine.
Speaker: But like a guy like Ethan doesn't seem because again, like being able to just point and shoot a gun seems like everyone can do that.
Speaker: But he knows how to eject and then reload the magazine.
Speaker: It's like, no, you would have to be trained to do.
Speaker: Well, you'd have to learn how to do something like that.
Speaker: But then every other Resident Evil game before and after that, it's like, well, either the trained police officers or your Leon Kennedy or in eight, it's like, well, no, he's actually had to go for combat training because of obviously what happened in seven.
Speaker: But, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: I didn't want to go into Resident Evil too much when I was... And again, I will say this.
Speaker: The reason I didn't like the combat in Remake 2, Silent Hill Remake 2, isn't because it wasn't like the combat in RE2 Remake.
Speaker: Because at the end of the day, Leon Kennedy's a police officer.
Speaker: He's going to be using the... You know, he's going to be shooting shit.
Speaker: Like, that makes sense to me.
Speaker: My main issue was just how often they make you do the combat, and the combat just wasn't very appealing.
Speaker: Like, I...
Speaker: when I played the original after the fact, the fact that you could just run past stuff and it was just more about like, it was almost like enemy management with the few tools that you had, I thought made it like, this feels way more fitting of the kind of story that you're telling.
Speaker: And as you say, they do give you millions of bullets, which are useful when you do the few final bosses at the end, which I'll say as well,
Speaker: When I got to the final boss of the remake, I didn't realize that it was like some kind of weird cage spider that Mary was in.
Speaker: And I was like, I did have somebody on the call and I was like, just to ask, this isn't the original, right?
Speaker: This isn't a blue.
Speaker: And they were like, no, this is how the original ends as well.
Speaker: Which was part of my thing of like, oh god, why do people like Silent Hill 2 so much?
Speaker: It's so stupid.
Speaker: This is really stupid and gamey.
Speaker: I love those kinds of reactions though.
Speaker: This is why I was looking forward to this talk so much.
Speaker: Just to hear the perspectives of people who both played the original way back when and who've only played it recently.
Speaker: and comparing it to the remake this closely in time.
Speaker: I just find it so fascinating to hear those perspectives because I agree that that boss fight is...
Speaker: And I'm okay with gamey.
Speaker: Like, that doesn't necessarily mean... It's not an inherently negative term, but it is a very gamey finale to a game that shouldn't perhaps have had a very gamey finale.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like at the end of Arkham Asylum where you fight the buff Joker and you go, the entire game was... Right!
Speaker: And I think as well... Yeah, the very boss fight is like...
Speaker: I was just going to say the Mary boss fight is like the best fight in the original game.
Speaker: I say that with a million quotations.
Speaker: It's weird because it's one of those things I feel like Silent Hill 2, and this is a much broader topic for another day, but it's Silent Hill 2, the type of story that they are telling almost really could have used...
Speaker: dialogue where you choose dialogue options.
Speaker: What, like some kind of... Maybe a developer that tells tales of some sort?
Speaker: Well, yeah, I'm just saying, like, I feel like the final boss fight with Mary could have been just talking to her.
Speaker: Instead of trying to kill Mary, an incarnation of Mary that's a spider.
Speaker: I'm getting...
Speaker: If you're listening to the audio version of this, Sputnik has been shaking his head so fast he looks like the Jacob's Ladder cover.
Speaker: On feed.
Speaker: Tim Robbins is in the room.
Speaker: Tim Robbins is in the room with us, folks.
Speaker: But I think that goes back to the fact of what I said right at the beginning of the episode, which is that the only thing I knew about Silent Hill 2 was when, like, the first piece of critical analysis I saw of it was, funnily enough, Yahtzee's video on it, where this was in 2011, so it was him saying, like,
Speaker: This 10-year-old game is better than the glut of 360-era, grey-brown, third-person shooter shit that we have to struggle with now.
Speaker: This is like a masterpiece.
Speaker: But he only talks about it from a story perspective.
Speaker: And all the Jacob Galloway videos and all the videos that have since come only really engage with Silent Hill 2 as this kind of interesting object of like...
Speaker: how they're handling the plot and the characters, the stuff like the infinite staircase.
Speaker: And so when you don't play the game, you just imagine a version of that in your head where you think of it as this kind of like almost more of a cinematic game or like a telltale game, weirdly, where there is.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: If there's combat, it's all very reactive.
Speaker: Like that's the thing.
Speaker: I didn't realize that combat was a, quote, active element.
Speaker: I just always assumed it was reactive of James gets chased by Pyramid Head or, like, he's in a room and he has to defend himself.
Speaker: I didn't realize that, like, with the enemies, like, the, you know, the body bags or the Harlequins that are walking around, you just walk up to them and just, like, you know, knocking shit out of them.
Speaker: And it's just like...
Speaker: I don't, what I understand of James Sundle, and that doesn't seem like something he would, but then like, that's the thing you played that, you play the remake, you play the original and you go, Oh no, this is the game.
Speaker: Like that is the limit.
Speaker: Well, I don't want to say a limitation.
Speaker: Cause I think that's maybe the interesting thing about silent Hill is that, Hey, we want to tell a more grounded and maybe emotional story than most games, but we still want to be a video game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's the thing of like Silent Hill as this manifestation of people's nightmares of, well, no, we still want to give you a way to fight back and solve puzzles and do all that stuff, you know?
Speaker: Before you talk, Spud, I just want to say it would be hilarious that if before the Merry Boss fight, there was like a secret item that you could unlock and you just like open a locker and there's a pillow in there.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: If you want to skip the boss fight, there's just like a... It's a new game.
Speaker: How do I jump out of this call?
Speaker: James equips pillow.
Speaker: It's really effective.
Speaker: Anyway, continue Sponnik.
Speaker: Literally the worst thing I've heard all day.
Speaker: How can I follow that?
Speaker: My God.
Speaker: Kevin, what are you doing?
Speaker: I want to say two things.
Speaker: What are you doing?
Speaker: I want to say two things.
Speaker: The first was going off of what Kevin said about like talking your way out of Mary or talking your way out of the boss fight.
Speaker: I shook my head.
Speaker: No viciously only to then think I could see that being maybe not like a gameplay element, but if you've earned the in water ending, maybe you don't fight Mary because like the fighting Mary in the leave ending makes sense because you're overcoming the guilt and like, she's a representation of the guilt by fighting the boss fight.
Speaker: In the Maria ending, you fight Mary because you're over her and you fight her and you kill her and that's it.
Speaker: But in the in-water ending, fighting Mary seems really weird.
Speaker: So I could see maybe the in-water ending, you just have a conversation with Mary and then you die.
Speaker: Again, getting the in-water ending after the boss fight as a Bloober team game, you go, Bloober, you fuckers, you did it, you moron.
Speaker: You drop the ball.
Speaker: You're Bloobering it up.
Speaker: You fight a representation of your wife dying and going,
Speaker: Well, I'm a bad guy for killing my wife, so obviously I should, you know, I should wrap things up as well, you know?
Speaker: But again, that's the original game, so.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: The second thing is relating back to the weirdness of it being a game, because like, Silent Hill 2 is a story, it can, in my opinion, really only...
Speaker: defiantly works as a video game and experiencing it by playing as James Sunderland.
Speaker: You have to, it's the rat in the cage.
Speaker: Yeah, but at the same time, like, I don't even think about it as a game.
Speaker: When I think about it, I, yeah, it's, it exists in this weird, uncanny valley of storytelling that I think only it really exists in.
Speaker: It's a very, very bizarre, bizarre little story, bizarre little game that I love with all my heart.
Speaker: I think I think the reason why we bring up the term gamey in this context is perhaps because
Speaker: Again, it is not an inherently bad word.
Speaker: It's just that I think the word comes up when there is this sort of disconnect.
Speaker: Because I totally agree with you that, like, overall, I think you just immerse yourself in this game, whether it's the original or the remake.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But then there are these moments where you're kind of pulled out of it, for example, with the final boss fight, where it feels just like you're fulfilling an obligation.
Speaker: Like, oh, right, this is a video game.
Speaker: I'm supposed to kill this final boss now.
Speaker: So I guess that's why we start thinking about these terms like...
Speaker: gamey as being sort of maybe a negative.
Speaker: But I have to say that I really like the combat.
Speaker: I like the... It feels odd to say that I think it's satisfying because you're not supposed to go to Silent Hill wanting to fight monsters.
Speaker: Like, fuck yeah, I'm pumped!
Speaker: Let's bash some fucking herbs in!
Speaker: But I do think like...
Speaker: because we talked about this before as well, where in Resident Evil games or even the original Silent Hill 2, you can just sort of try to walk past enemies.
Speaker: And I think that is a good option to have.
Speaker: And you can occasionally do that in the remake as well.
Speaker: I do think that the frequency of the enemy encounters and their absolute hostility and then their speed and aggression makes for a more...
Speaker: well hostile environment.
Speaker: Like you feel like this town is actively, it's not just like a passive entity that is, you know, like, oh, here are some monsters.
Speaker: You can try to bash their heads in or you can run past them.
Speaker: Like that's up to you.
Speaker: Welcome to Tyler Hill.
Speaker: The town itself felt way more aggressive in the remake.
Speaker: And that's not even like... I'm not saying that in a negative way.
Speaker: I think with all of the updated mechanics, it worked.
Speaker: The only thing I will say is that we...
Speaker: they needed to take the mannequins and just dial it back just a little bit.
Speaker: Just dial them, just like 10% less mannequin around the corner.
Speaker: I'm fine with them too.
Speaker: I was big okay with the mannequins.
Speaker: I'm fine.
Speaker: It's just like, mannequin.
Speaker: I have to do, like, here's the thing.
Speaker: In order to actually play them,
Speaker: So if you wanted to play the character, to me, this is just a weird thought I have.
Speaker: To me, it takes you out of playing James Sunderland because in order to deal with the mannequins, you have to start clearing the rooms like Leon Kennedy.
Speaker: Like somebody who knows how to clear a room would play.
Speaker: Like, because they're in there, you have to like check the door sides.
Speaker: Like, okay.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Clear.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: It's just, it's like, that's, that's not something James Sunderland would, would ever like, it would like occur to.
Speaker: picture just for a moment that you are in silent hill for an extended period of time would you not after two hours be like okay i'm in a new room i want to make sure there's nothing here with me it's fair yeah after two hours i don't want to get if i can't in the face with a with a leg get get double leg punched um yeah um
Speaker: I buy both arguments, honestly.
Speaker: I can see... I can't remember who said this, but it was like the majority of people who were fans of Silent Hill 2 actually haven't played it.
Speaker: You think of in the original where he sees like an enemy body bag and he walks over a wall to pick up a piece of rebar and just starts knocking shit out of it.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: and they redo, and then I remember when that teaser came out for the remake where he's in a house and he finds the radio for the first time, then the enemy comes through the wall and he pulls a piece of, like, wood, you know, off a window frame and starts knocking.
Speaker: They were like, well, this, Jane Sunderland wouldn't do this.
Speaker: This isn't very, you know, within, and it's like, well, no, like, if anything, this is more contextualized than it ever was in the original, but I think that's the thing, isn't it?
Speaker: It's like, you know,
Speaker: In my head, I kind of created this version of Silent Hill 2 based on what people had told me about.
Speaker: And so actually playing it, I was kind of a bit taken aback of like, oh, okay, this is actually what Silent Hill 2 is.
Speaker: And I think, yeah, in the weeks since it's now me being digesting that and going, no, I can sort of appreciate it even for that.
Speaker: those oddities kind of add to it more than because again i don't think the original plays badly i think it still looks good and whatever like that it is just more kind of like and the remake as well i think will it be a thing in a few years time that people will look back on the remake with those same kind of like well that's what games were like at the time because as we were saying about the re2 remake and stuff
Speaker: you know, of then kind of thing.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is that, is that what it was?
Speaker: Is that just where games were between 2017 and 2024?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In that style of game.
Speaker: I would like to think so.
Speaker: I would like to think so just because like I've seen, I've, I've gone out of my way to like find people playing the remake for the first time that have never touched Silent Hill 2 before.
Speaker: And I've seen plenty of people being like really touched by that, by the, by, by the end of the game.
Speaker: And I, and I think that like that it makes it very likely that I think it'll be maybe not as revered as the original, but like revered in years come because I've seen people like break down in tears at the end of it.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's definitely left an impact.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So just we're coming up on two hours now.
Speaker: So I figured we could do some final thoughts and go in reverse order that we did at the beginning.
Speaker: James, what are your final thoughts on the Silent Hill 2 remake?
Speaker: I will say after speaking to Spartan Pym and you about it, I'm probably a bit warmer than I was initially.
Speaker: To be honest, I'm certainly warmer than I was when I even pitched doing the... I think it is an interesting versus like the Resident Evil remakes where you can see that more consistent through line of you kind of get what Capcom's going for.
Speaker: And if anything, all the stuff that they've been injecting RE7 into, I think it's been...
Speaker: like perfect across the board, but that is a different podcast for a different time.
Speaker: I think maybe the thing that I, that maybe, and again, like with the remake that maybe sums it up in a good way is that I think that final vocal performance of Mary during the ending where she reads the letter, I don't think can quite match the original, just where that voice is breaking up.
Speaker: But the visual of the In Water ending where you think it is the car sinking and then it turns out to be the letter, I think is like,
Speaker: oh, that is an example of one visual identity and a new creative kind of vision on that, like, elevating something that you had previously.
Speaker: And the game does have a lot of that.
Speaker: I think...
Speaker: I'm now that they've done, now they've made this remake and like, you know, they, for all intents and purposes, they've dunked the ball.
Speaker: They got it in, you know, the, the, the team are taking home the gold medal.
Speaker: If they do another one, I would hope that they would be more, especially considering their entire portfolio has been, we can do silent Hill too.
Speaker: I, I, I need to see blue, but do something with a silent Hill franchise, which is more interesting, especially on the back of,
Speaker: You know, the not Townfall, but the one that the one that the Observer guys are doing and obviously F seem like such an interesting direction for the series.
Speaker: I need to see that from Bloober rather than them sitting on the laurels, which so far the space game seems like they are doing.
Speaker: So hopefully.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fingers crossed on that one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sput.
Speaker: um i said basically ever since the remake got announced that if it was a seven out of ten i'll be the happiest person alive because remaking silent hill 2 should be impossible and it turns out it was at least an eight maybe even a nine so good golly god was i a little happy boy um i think that there while there's definitely things about the remake that i'm not
Speaker: super sold on some of which we touched on in, in, in this conversation.
Speaker: I think that there's enough that they updated and added that work significantly.
Speaker: Um, one of the new endings that they did, the stillness one, which is basically like in water 2.0 is the best ending of the game, like hands down.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: um, if you've not seen it, it's basically the same ending just tweaked and it hits so much harder, gives it way more context.
Speaker: It's so it's beautiful.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, Bloober nailed it.
Speaker: I always had faith, but I kind of can't believe it's as good as it is.
Speaker: And my video hopefully will be done soon.
Speaker: And I'll go into conversation about why making the game more fun makes me very weird inside.
Speaker: Hell yeah.
Speaker: Pim?
Speaker: Yeah, on the last note, relatable.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, like...
Speaker: As someone who's followed the discourse surrounding this game up until its release, I am just very glad to have looked at the comment section for my Silent Hill 2 video and see people... Like, some takes have not been that good in my comment section, but that's to be expected in a YouTube comment section.
Speaker: But I'm just happy to see, and that's not reflected of the entire internet, obviously, but I'm just glad to see people having, like...
Speaker: calm discussions about disagreements about Silent Hill, but it's not disagreements of like, oh, this is hot garbage and you suck because you think it's good.
Speaker: It's like just people...
Speaker: you know, having rational discussions about like what this remake did and what it didn't do.
Speaker: And I'm just, I am honestly kind of moved just by that because there's been so many years, like going all the way back to the years of twin perfect where silent.
Speaker: If you heard the word silent Hill, there was like,
Speaker: you got these memories of enjoying the games, but also you were like flooded with these negative emotions and takes you've heard from the internet.
Speaker: So there's been like, this well has been poisoned for years and people have kept drinking from it and drinking from it and drinking from it.
Speaker: And now finally someone decided it's fucking time.
Speaker: to switch out the water or purify it or whatever you want to use for this clunky metaphor.
Speaker: And it feels like maybe there is some hope for this fan base.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As well as this franchise.
Speaker: So I'm very glad that we're now sitting here discussing a new Silent Hill game and it's not just like
Speaker: you know, the two minute hate thing from 1984.
Speaker: We're just screaming at the screen.
Speaker: If this was Townfall and it's trauma, we might be doing that.
Speaker: Oh, you mean Ascension?
Speaker: Oh, sorry.
Speaker: Ascension.
Speaker: Ascension.
Speaker: Yeah, okay.
Speaker: I mean, we could absolutely do that, but that's also one of the things that I'm so happy that we're already so past Ascension.
Speaker: Like Ascension was- Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: from what I've heard, terrible.
Speaker: And we've all kind of moved on from it.
Speaker: Everybody has just pretended it really didn't happen.
Speaker: Except for the sticker that we have in the Discord that says it's trauma.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And let's not forget the Tengamushi video that everyone should watch when it arrives.
Speaker: But Tengamushi is great, by the way.
Speaker: Everyone should watch Tengamushi.
Speaker: But I'm just so happy that we've sort of moved past that and are now able to appreciate a Silent Hill game again.
Speaker: Ten years later, ten years after PT was put out there and cancelled,
Speaker: yeah yeah we're so back baby we're so it feels so good let's go we never left uh yeah i i echo a lot of what everyone was saying um i i liked it uh it it had some had some weak spots for me in terms of length but overall uh i liked it i mean i i loved the first the original when i played it the enhanced edition it's like oh it's a tight little game this is a a
Speaker: brisk little survival horror game.
Speaker: I enjoy this.
Speaker: I could see why I would have liked it way back when.
Speaker: And yeah, the remake, aside from my stated issues with it, has some really good moments.
Speaker: And I do agree that it is nice to see that the fan base does have
Speaker: some reason for optimism to explore the themes and ideas of this town right here.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, we're your 3D printer.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's why we did this on webcams, just so you could have that reveal at the end.
Speaker: Just so I could show that I 3D printed the Welcome to Silent Hill sign, and yet I have not gotten around to painting it yet.
Speaker: So, you know, because I...
Speaker: I will say though, one thing that we haven't mentioned about the remake, which does make it a zero out of 10 in my eyes, which is that at the end, when they give you the results screen, it doesn't tell you how fast you were rowing the boat.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I was curious.
Speaker: I couldn't believe that of all the things they took out.
Speaker: Why is the timer?
Speaker: So, uh, so, uh, Pim, where can people find you on the internet?
Speaker: Well, currently they can find me in Silent Hill.
Speaker: Well, you can find me at Pim's Crypt basically everywhere.
Speaker: I am on Twitter, but more than anything now I use Blue Sky because Twitter is...
Speaker: I can't believe it's worse than it's ever been.
Speaker: It keeps digging that hole, finding new lows along the way.
Speaker: But yeah, on Blue Sky, Twitter, Letterboxd, YouTube, Tumblr, Myspace, fucking LinkedIn, I don't know, basically everywhere.
Speaker: Patreon.
Speaker: Most importantly, Patreon.
Speaker: Sputnik, go ahead.
Speaker: Plug your pluggables.
Speaker: I echo Pim.
Speaker: You can find me basically anywhere.
Speaker: Don't even bother looking me up on Twitter because my tag on Twitter is Sputnik345.
Speaker: Don't know why.
Speaker: You can find me on Blue Sky, Sputnik34, YouTube, not Patreon, maybe soon.
Speaker: Basically anywhere.
Speaker: YouTube, Blue Sky, all the good stuff.
Speaker: Find me there.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Also, I want to plug one more thing.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Go for it.
Speaker: Plug away.
Speaker: Just because this is not just self-indulgent.
Speaker: This is because other people were involved with it as well.
Speaker: So in my Silent Hill 2 video, we actually put out an original song based on Silent Hill.
Speaker: And you can find that song.
Speaker: It's called Never Perfect.
Speaker: And it's on Bandcamp under the name Freya Carolina.
Speaker: Carolina with a K. That's awesome.
Speaker: Freya with a J. So check that out.
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: Were you inspired by Monty doing an original song for his Alan Wake video?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I'm not ashamed of admitting that whatsoever.
Speaker: And it's funny too, because I've had like the riff for that song.
Speaker: I've had that in the backlog, question mark.
Speaker: I've had that.
Speaker: I wrote that over 10 years ago.
Speaker: Didn't have song, didn't have lyrics.
Speaker: And then I saw Monty's video and I was like,
Speaker: Fuck.
Speaker: If I don't do this for my Sun Hill 2 video, I'll never get the chance to do this.
Speaker: I have the perfect riff to work on.
Speaker: Let's just do this.
Speaker: So I reached out to my dear friend, Freya Carolina, and a more recent friend, Jamie Wallace.
Speaker: And they helped me make this song a reality.
Speaker: So huge thanks to the both of them.
Speaker: Awesome, awesome.
Speaker: James, go ahead.
Speaker: Sure, I'm going to recommend to watch Pim's video, because as part of my research for this podcast was also including watching Pim's video, which I enjoyed very much.
Speaker: I also say please look forward to Spuzz video when it comes out, and I'm not saying because I did the thumbnails for both of them.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: creating contests between them.
Speaker: But I'm also a fan of your introspection into stuff as well.
Speaker: I quite enjoyed your video on Wild Escape 3.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: But yeah, I'm James.
Speaker: You can follow me at Hotsider, H-O-T-C-Y-D-E-R on YouTube.
Speaker: I am on Twitter, but yeah, follow me on Blue Sky where we're having a lot more fun at the moment.
Speaker: Podcasting-wise, Bullet Sound might be back soon-ish.
Speaker: Hell yeah.
Speaker: Some additional Kevin.
Speaker: added to it and yeah maybe you might see some more Silent Hill 2 discussion on the channel as well hell yeah and you can always find Pixel It wherever fine
Speaker: Pixelit podcasts are sold.
Speaker: Go to Instagram, go to Blue Sky, all that stuff.
Speaker: If you go to PixelitPod.com, you get redirected right over to Patreon.com slash Pixelit.
Speaker: $1, $5, $10.
Speaker: $10 gets you.
Speaker: Shout it out.
Speaker: At the end of the episode, to that end, I want to shout out Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mutter, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Chut Beaks, Dummy Thick, and Friendly Friends.
Speaker: Thank you so much being a friend.
Speaker: And I think that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Thank you so much, everybody.
Speaker: Hey, Kevin.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Could we say that we just put the body in the lake?
Speaker: Question mark?
Speaker: We put the body in the lake!
Speaker: In Toluca Lake.
