What were the last video games you played?

[Cipher_Peon]

I've been playing Silent Hill 3 HD.
I'm very glad that even after TWO playthroughs, the game manages to always surprise me and I find horrors that I never experienced in my first two. The same applied to Silent Hill 2 HD and I'm very glad that even though all the scare spoilers are blasted to oblivion, it still holds up as a horror game.

[Mega-Tallica]

I've recently been given a ton of games from a friend who sold his system. One of those is Silent Hill Downpour which I decided to delve into first. For a horror game it creates great horror scenery and atmosphere, however it is extremely boring. It's more centered around walking around, looking for clues, solving puzzles, to try and get to the next part and it gets tiring easily. It's a pretty rare thing for a zombie to attack you in this game and when they do, the melee gameplay is frustrating. I didn't realize that zombies have the ability to juke and dodge, but apparently they do. It also glitches and freezes, a lot. Silent Hill provides cheap thrills and has its moments, but it is not a perfectly balanced game and it has plenty of flaws. I'd give it a 5.5/10.

[Dangimarocker]

WWE '12: Lackluster menus, but overall the focus on a faster pace this time has paid off. It's much more fun all around.

Meh/Hated:
Create An Arena (nothing too exciting honestly)
Menus
I also didn't like Single Player that much, could just be me though.
The Blood System (it looks really fake and i thought by 2012 [i haven't played a wrestling game since '06] that the game would let you get more bloody and brutal. lol.

Loved:
Online
Create an Entrance
Create a Wrestler

[Cipher_Peon]

I've recently been given a ton of games from a friend who sold his system. One of those is Silent Hill Downpour which I decided to delve into first. For a horror game it creates great horror scenery and atmosphere, however it is extremely boring. It's more centered around walking around, looking for clues, solving puzzles, to try and get to the next part and it gets tiring easily. It's a pretty rare thing for a zombie to attack you in this game and when they do, the melee gameplay is frustrating. I didn't realize that zombies have the ability to juke and dodge, but apparently they do. It also glitches and freezes, a lot. Silent Hill provides cheap thrills and has its moments, but it is not a perfectly balanced game and it has plenty of flaws. I'd give it a 5.5/10.

Without stating my opinion of the game (I still haven't posted my thoughts on it yet!), the messy combat and lack of enemies is kind of the point.

[Cipher_Peon]

Now that DemonUnicorns rented Silent Hill Downpour, I feel that I must post my thoughts on the game before it's too late.

Silent Hill Downpour... is an awful game. Awful awful awful.
I played it after beating Silent Hill 3 and I expected a drop in quality, but had some hope that it would be decent. Besides, the fanbase roared in triumph over "the next best Silent Hill game since Silent Hill 2" so I thought that pleasing even the most jaded fans most be worth something.

Anyway, the game has several problems that I need to address. Firstly is the worst part of Downpour: it's not scary. The game never has it's moments where I'm absolutely terrified of continuing to play it or moments where I drop/throw my controller over a particular scene. The monster designs are awful and are about as unscary as they are frustrating. I mean, compare the most common enemy of Silent Hill 3 to the most common enemy of Silent Hill Downpour. As for the frustrating bit, the enemies (just like in traditional Silent Hill titles) are awkward to fight due to the suspenseful and sticky combat system. HOWEVER, unlike the better titles, Downpour feels that it's necessary to have situations where you simply can not run away from these enemies, which is complete BS. Some enemies will NOT let you get away, and if you get caught unaware you might as well have to reload your save since the enemies are incredibly aggressive and annoying.
The Otherworld also needs a mention for being even LESS scary than the regular world, since it's only chase sequences that become frustrating fast. Death should be rare in horror games, not frequent!

My next biggest gripe of Silent Hill Downpour is the story. Everyone applauded it for its story, but I can't grasp for the life of me why. When entering the game and learning that the protagonist is an arrested criminal, the first question that pops into the player's head is "Did he do it?!?" And the answer to that is... maybe. What. The game's story changes on your behavior throughout the game (IN MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS AT THAT >:C) and since I played the good guy route, the ending I got ruined the entire story, made the final boss completely pointless, rendered all of the symbolism and suspense completely obsolete. It baffles me that the payoff to a genuinely intriguing buildup was handled so poorly. The next problem that the game has are the characters. Not ONE character besides the main character is necessary to the game's plot. Every character is COMPLETELY useless in terms of the story and do no more than add frustration over their underdevelopedness. The female lead comes off extremely stupid and unlikable, as her thirst for revenge is never explained until the end (which was totally ruined thanks to my ending) and comes off as unreasonable when she refuses to let the protagonist explain himself. No character is memorable, which is unfortunate because of the unforgettable characters in the original games.

Another problem that the game has is that the town feels... so empty. And not in a good way. Murphy REFUSES to interact and examine the world around him, which would be a fantastic way to characterize him through how he examines the strange occurrences throughout the town. Examining the world around you brought INCREDIBLE characterization in Silent Hill 2 and 3, especially when it comes to alcohol and mirrors, respectively. With the lack of interaction, the world feels like it's a bunch of scenery instead of a haunted world that the character is a part of. The menus are also incredibly irritating to navigate through and the partial zoom for the memos you have is probably one of the worst ideas in the entire game. How can you make reading text so frustrating?!?

My final and smallest issue with the game is the amount of technical problems it has. Freezes, LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG, framerate drops and hiccups are all incredibly frequent and make a non scary game even less scary.

This game does have its redeeming values, however your mileage may vary. The game ATTEMPTS to execute some fairly brilliant ideas (such as the blood detecting flashlight, lighter, water theme, claustraphobia, etc) however poor execution and missed opportunistic are everywhere. If you're able to look past the bad use of the new ideas the game brings, the fact that the devs are trying will comfort you. However, the BIGGEST pro this game has going for it are the side missions. The side missions were a FANTAAAAAAAAAAASTIC addition to the game, expanding the world and its lore as well as being the only source for scares in the entire game. Unless you have a guide on you, you won't be able to find all of the side missions on your first playthrough, but the fact that they're well hidden and encourage exploration are very very satisfying. While playing Silent Hill 2 and 3 HD, I genuinely missed scouring the town for secrets (mostly Silent Hill 3, because there's not much of the actual town in it). The side missions added so much depth to the game and provided such fantastic avenues for narration that I can not help but to applaud the game for it.

At the end of the day, Silent Hill Downpour is easily one of the worst games I've ever played. However, I kinda liked it. Yes, there's problems up the wazoo with it, but the redeeming values were too much for me to leave with a bad taste in my mouth. I will replay it again and I'll most likely enjoy it, but I can not recommend it to a newcomer to the franchise. Play through the good ones first and then decide if you're a hardcore enough fan to take the quality drop to continue trekking throughout the scary town once more.

[Lowlander2]

I'm sure that it can't be as bad as Homecoming or Origins. Play them and know the true meaning of fear...of a game's quality.

[Riffrockrat]

I'm sure that it can't be as bad as Homecoming or Origins. Play them and know the true meaning of fear...of a game's quality.

Nothing is as nightmarishly bad as the games Data Design Interactive made for Wii. I've never even touched the games and, just from reading the (admittedly hilarious) reviews on IGN, I lost a considerable amount of faith in humanity.

[Cipher_Peon]

I'm sure that it can't be as bad as Homecoming or Origins. Play them and know the true meaning of fear...of a game's quality.

I own them and I'm going to play Origins after I beat 4. Homecoming looks like it's going to be awful, but Origins looks like it'll be pretty decent.

[MagicMurderBag7]

Spec Ops: The Line....chapter 2 starts with a Deep Purple song and the game ends with a Hendrix song...you shouldn't need to know any more. Go play it!

Deep Purple and Hendrix huh?
*looks it up*
Oh it's just another shooter. I thought it was a new rhythm game. I can listen to Deep Purple and Hendrix while playing the only shooter that matters, Doom.

[Gowienczyk]

Just went through a few cycles of Dynasty Warrios 6: Empires, still good fun; but I miss some of the elements of 5E.