Konami's E3 Event Shows off Silent Hill 5

Konami's press conference was short and sweet, but the focus was on the unveiling of Silent Hill V . There's almost no information about it out yet, though there is a singularly unhelpful trailer available online. From the press release: "Building upon the series trademark foundations of atmosphere, adventure and storytelling, Silent Hill 5 introduces players to a frightening new experience. When confronted by the perverse incarnations of evil that roam Silent Hill and Shepherds Glen, players will be able to utilize an enhanced combat system and execute a number of offensive and defensive maneuvers as they experience every terrifying encounter with the games numerous nightmarish creatures. Players will also have to solve a variety of puzzles as they progress through the highly atmospheric game world, using cues from the environment to unlock Silent Hills darkest secrets. Continuing the series tradition of standout music and sound design, Silent Hill 5 features an original soundtrack by famed composer Akira Yamaoka."

The "trailer"...

[badasscat (563442)]

...is not promising. It utterly fails to capture the Silent Hill mood. It's probably at least partly the voice acting (not that that bodes well either), but it's also the script that leans heavy on the military aspects of the main character's background, and supposedly that's something Konami also played up at their press event. I get the feeling that, in the hands of a new western developer, they're going to go all Resident Evil on us. Which is pretty much exactly the opposite of what most Silent Hill fans want. Silent Hill is the anti-Resident Evil.

Anybody remember the initial previews of Silent Hill 2? (And the final game did live up to that promise.) How still and quiet they were, how the acting was always slow, wistful... "In my restless dreams, I see that town... Silent Hill. You promised me you'd take me there again someday, but you never did... I'm there now, in our special place, waiting for you..."

Gives me chills just thinking about it. There's no such magic about the teaser that was released yesterday.

Still, I'm sure I'll buy it. Hell, I bought SH4 and it was terrible too.

Ah, SH2

[subl33t (739983)]

The scariest game I have ever played, loved it.

Hope #5 can line up to it.

SimChurch

[Petersko (564140)]

" I get the feeling that, in the hands of a new western developer, they're going to go all Resident Evil on us. Which is pretty much exactly the opposite of what most Silent Hill fans want. Silent Hill is the anti-Resident Evil."

Well, the opposite of Resident Evil would be SimChurch. Silent Hill would better be described as Resident Evil's sublime second cousin.

Re:

[ACS Solver (1068112)]

Not to mention the whole thing with attacking and defensive moves. Silent Hill (or at least the first two games) were about having limited combat possibilities and being unable to easily shoot all enemies. SH3 beefed up combat with adding some more powerful weapons, looks like SH5 might just have a kickass protagonist. Which isn't good for SH.

Re:

[Red Pointy Tail (127601)]

The atmosphere is really good .. but the game sucks. The control is sucky, and the gameplay... which is mostly traipsing about hunting for Key C to fit in Lock C... no thanks!

Horrendous voice-over

[Kelbear (870538)]

If that's the main character's voice acting this game will be a rental at best. Silent Hill's critical acclaim has been the immersion and atmosphere it creates. Using some random guy off the street to voice the protagonist completely destroys that. If this was a plan to save money it was not thought out very well. They need to get a real voice actor like what the japanese versions of media get. This is too important to the game to forgive. Silent Hill dialogue and script have been its weak points, but using terrible voice acting is just rubbing salt in the wound.

I hate trailer text

[halcyon1234 (834388)]

Players walk around and fight monsters by using attacks against monsters that they encounter while walking around.

Arg, it's like trying to read the back of a movie at a rental place. Please stop letting your ADHD marketing drones masturbate out the preview-text.

It hardly "shows off" SH 5...

[flitty (981864)]

It was a 30 second trailer of the logo! I don't care what the press release says. SH 4 sounds like a great game on paper too. To make a slashdot post about this single game that had a 30 second trailer is strange to me. Anyone care to explain why this game gets it's own post, when this game possibly has the least amount of information around it from E3?

American Developer

[ludomancer (921940)]

The Collective is developing this one, though I can't think of a single effin' reason why you'd hand over a successful mega-franchise to an American developer. :(

Why don't we just skip this one and move on to part Six?

The Collective

[LKM (227954)]

For reference: [collectivestudios.com]

1. The Da Vinci Code
2. Marc Ecko's Getting Up
3. Some Star Wars games
4. Indy and the Emperor's Tomb
5. Buffy
6. A Star Trek game
7. "The Game of Life" (seriously)
8. MiB

Not looking too great.

pleasebegoodpleasebegood

[Tol Dantom (1114605)]

I think people are being a bit hasty to criticize based off a 30 second spot of a logo which clearly shows that they have no assets yet. Also, people who are afraid of SH4 should pay attention because they basically say they're going to try to copy SH2.

That being said I'm hardly confident about this next effort. They say they're going to capture the atmosphere of Silent Hill, but apparently they're going to do it with multi hit frame advantage combo system and gravity gun puzzles. This is a lot better t