Friday, July 29, 2011

THE HORRORS OF IT ALL: Vampire's Daughter! / The Impatient Ghost!


I can't resist these wonderful vintage comic book blogs. The Horrors Of It All is one of the first I stumbled across a couple of years back. They post frequently, so there is always a lot to see. Click through and enjoy!

THE HORRORS OF IT ALL: Vampire's Daughter! / The Impatient Ghost!: "THOIA friend Robert Susor recently reminded me that there is still one story left for me to post called 'The Impatient Ghost' by Dan Lopr..."

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Zombies + Sim City = Epic Win


JayIsGames.com has a great review/article on a Flash browser game named Rebuild. Take one part Zombie apocalypse and one part Sim City to get pure awesomeness. There is a lot to it (its rather deep), so make sure you set aside some time to try it out.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Akira talks


Akira Yamaoka talks about his time at Konami and his present/future at Grasshopper in this podcast from the game localization company 8-4. Enjoy!

Friday, July 22, 2011

Vintage Silent Hill updated for the 21st Century


RelyOnHorror.com (always on the ball) brings us a mix of the old and new from ComicCon this week. While everyone else is showing us all the great Downpour screens, Rely on Horror brings us a couple of more that confirm James still looks like James in Silent Hill 2 HD. This is relevant, because James will no longer "sound" like James in the Silent Hill HD Collection because of a legal dispute with voice actor Guy Cihi.

I'm looking forward to the inevitable fan dissection of the differences between the original games and their HD remakes.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Great Memories of Shattered Expectations


GameSpite has an interesting reflection on Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and its role in the survival horror genre. The article is concise and to the point, with some interesting reflections on this title's place in Silent Hill history and the tension that results from its challenges to what has come before.

Having still not yet finished this game myself (shame on me), I do think that it tries to do many interesting things, including trying to create a profitable game on an experimental platform. The HD gaming revolution is its own worst enemy, raising the costs of development sky-high, and this high cost is killing the smaller and more experimental games that were such a large part of the past two generations of console gaming. HD gaming is causing developer flight to the more profitable portable and social platforms available with the iPhone and Facebook, and ultimately limiting what is being published on consoles. Combine the gimmick of motion controls, with a huge install base, and old school non-HD development, the Wii "seems" to be a system ripe for the picking, but this is obviously not the case for a large number of its releases.

Click on over to the article, Shattered Expectations: A Lonelier Silent Hill.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Play for Japan


While many of us in the West go on with our daily routines, people in the world, both here and abroad, face all types of adversity. Japan is still recovering from its disaster earlier this year, and the video game industry has been playing its part in raising funds to help with the recovery. One of these efforts has been Play for Japan, offering unique and one-of-a-kind items for auction to raise money to aid the recovery.

If you're like me (or most folks) you can't afford to buy Suda 51's own beam katana, but what you can do is spare a few bills for good music, especially when 100% of the proceeds go directly to recovery efforts funded by the Japanese Red Cross.

Akira Yamaoka has put together an album known as Play for Japan being sold on iTunes and Amazon. It features music from video game composers across the world, from games as diverse as Super Mario Brothers, Call of Duty, and Prince of Persia. The playlist features incredible tracks from these games, and allows you to participate in the fund raising efforts while receiving a small token in return. Click on over and make a purchase that means something for someone in need.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Silent past


Last week Konami asked fans on their Facebook page if they would be interested in exploring the history of Silent Hill through games. It's certainly an interesting proposition, and not without merit, as the comic has been exploring the early history of our favorite town for a while now.

Every Silent Hill game has gone to great lengths to grow the history of Toluca Lake and its residents, but IDW's recent comic, Silent Hill: Past Life has been garnering more than the usual amount of attention with it's own tale of the past.

With Konami showing us it won't hide from experimenting with the series, I think we can be hopeful that interesting things might pop up in the future.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Come in and have a drink


Stumbled across a great post at Retronaut that screamed a little bit of Silent Hill to me. Retronaut found this wonderful post on Cool Stuff in Paris that featured several photos of le Café de L'Enfer, The Cafe from Hell. Apparently very little information still exists on this place, and only black and white photos, leaving one to wonder what kind of garish and crazy colors this place was actually painted in. Click on over for more pics (including an interior photo from National Geographic), along with a picture of its neighboring cafe Le Ciel (Heaven).

Friday, July 8, 2011

Everyone loves the music

You can't have this.
 Gotta love the Twitters. @SilentHillWorld brings us a link to a post from MMOMFG on the music of Silent Hill, Beyond the MIDI: Silent Hill series.

The post calls out the quality inherent in Yamaoka's work on the series, and also notes the upcoming changes in Downpour with the debut of Daniel Licht's work on the series. Its worth a look, so click on over.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Destructoid and the emasculation of Harry Mason


Wow those Destructoid folks posts some interesting things when they go beyond the usual gaming news practice of regurgitating press releases (like so many other site do). Digging around Destructoid the other day I found another in-depth article on Silent Hill, focused on Harry and the role of men in the Silent Hill games.

This specific essay addresses the recent Wii game that so many gamers seemed to either miss, dismiss, or just not play. I have it near the top of my "to play" pile once I decide I am sick of multiplayer Call of Duty.
 
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