Silent Hill: A Nostalgic Nightmare

If you do not want spoilers for an almost-20-year-old game (Christ I'm old), TURN BACK NOW. You have been warned.

Fall, 1998: The Love Horror Story Begins

As I recall, I was at school (8^th grade) when I first heard of Silent Hill. My best friend (let’s call him AtOmOs, you know who you are) spent lunch time excitedly telling me about “this horror game that’s coming out soon”. Apparently, you played as some dude (Harry Mason) who was in a car accident with his daughter (Cheryl). He woke up from a coma in a deserted town with his daughter gone, and scary shit ensued.

It might not have been the most eloquent description, but it was enough to make me really, really want to play it. I finally got to do so the following year, soon after the game’s release: luckily for me, AtOmOs was the proud owner of a pirate copy of the game, as well as a "modded" Playstation that could play said copy.

The game made a hell of a first impression with its advisory screen:

Disturbing? Really!? AWESOME.

Then came a quote (“The fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh”) that was probably just mistranslated nonsense but which, to my fourteen-year-old mind, sounded, like, really deep, man.

The subsequent introduction cinematic set the tone of the game. It didn’t have anything overtly scary going on, just some melancholic, discordant music, and scenes that introduced every major character, without really explaining who or what they were. Not that it needed to, though, because: 1. the archetypes were pretty clear cut (the plain-looking protagonist, the little girl, the cop, the creepy old lady, the nurse, etc.), and 2. most of these characters are listed in the instruction booklet anyway (remember when games had those, as opposed to obnoxiously feeding you on-screen hints?)

Yet I always found that there was something off about the characters’ faces and expressions. To this day I can’t determine if this was intentional, or if it’s just the hardware limitations of the time playing in the game’s favour. My guess is that it’s probably a bit of both.

Then I started the game proper, and holy shit.

If you've played Resident Evil prior to this, seeing that sign while not having a weapon is scary as fuck.

Well, it looks like I won't have to deal with the dog after all...

Uh oh.

At least I have a lighter, and... it's raining now? Oh, I get it, this game is an allegory about climate change. Well played!

Oooooooh, maybe the dog got run over by that wheelchair! That explains it all, nothing sinister going on here, folks.

Nothing sinister, that's for sure. Ha ha.

OK, OK I get it: climate change is bad, and so is rolling over dogs with wheelchairs. Can I please wake up now?

OH JESUS! Because, you know, crucified dude and all. Also, AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!

WTF THESE THINGS CAME OUT OF NOWHERE. Also, is this monster killing me or servicing me? It's kind of unclear.

To quote Hotel California: "I had to find the passage back to the place I was before"... oh. Oh crap.

I was a relatively boring (some would say sheltered) teen, and had never been exposed to that kind of imagery. And to say it in terms I’d never have dreamt of using back then: it fucking blew my goddamn mind.

And also blew something else (if you know what I mean) and then tore me a new one. Worth it, though.

The amazement continued when, after waking up in a diner, obtaining a gun and a malfunctioning radio, and fighting off a monster, I found I could freely explore the deserted, foggy town. An open-world survival horror game? HELL YEAH.

Oh. You meant "open world" as in "the world has opened up into impassable, bottomless pits? That's... cool too, I guess? 

OK, so Silent Hill is not technically an open world, but try telling that to my awestruck 15 year-old self. Even though the path was in fact pretty linear, with locked doors and impassable chasms corralling me onward, the town of Silent Hill still gave an impression of space and freedom I’d never experienced in Resident Evil, or any other game for that matter. Maybe it was the fact that, unlike Resident Evil (the second and third installments of which were also set in a city), Silent Hill didn’t use fixed camera angles. Maybe it was that the quaint, Stephen King-esque small-town setting that resonated closely with me, since I just so happened to live in small town on the border of Maine. In any case, I adored Silent Hill.

Contrary to Resident Evil with its nonsensical street layouts and implausible building design, Silent Hill felt like an actual town. A common complaint about the game (and the franchise in general) is the overabundance of “broken” doors that can’t be opened, but even then, the town genuinely looked and felt like a place where people might once have lived, as opposed to a blatantly video-gamey arena, and to me this made it all the more terrifying. This is not to say that Silent Hill is 100% realistic, but I found that the “imperfect” details (such as the streets, which seem much too wide) only added to the surreal, dreamlike atmosphere.

And so after being handed a gun by a police officer (90's game logic at its finest) and picking up the aforementioned broken radio that reacted to the monsters' presence, I wandered these snowy, foggy streets for a while, dodging the occasional pterodactyl…

"Ha ha, nope," says the pterodactyl monster. "It's MY Key of the Lion now!"

…or skinless dog…

Truly, your powers of observation are astounding, Harry.

...

Look, those were alright monsters for a late 90’s horror game, OK?

In any case, what made them truly scary was not their design (more on that later), but rather that their presence was mostly hidden by the fog and yet telegraphed by radio static, making me dread the actual encounter.

The first part of the game – though to be fair, most of the rest of the game also follows this model – was the typical “search for clues” fare, in this case finding pages of Cheryl’s scrapbook, which led me to the local elementary school (but not before I had to find a specific house, which contained a map to the three keys needed to open the door that would let me proceed; again, this is a 90’s survival horror game). But then I finally collected the keys and opened the door and stepped into the house’s backyard… and the world became dark again.

This was absolutely brilliant, I thought. I was a relatively seasoned survival horror player, fresh off of my 100^th replay of Resident Evil: Director’s Cut, and so the foggy town with its few monsters had been a breeze for me. Now this comfort zone was being taken away, and the dread turned up a notch: it was just like the nightmare in the introduction. As I wandered the backstreets by flashlight, heading toward the school, the radio started spewing static, and wouldn’t stop doing so for the next minutes: it quickly became apparent that the monsters were far more numerous now that darkness had fallen. Still, I managed to avoid the creatures without too much difficulty, and went on to the school.

It was when I entered the building, when I saw the books at the reception desk with their cryptic poems (clearly clues for an upcoming puzzle, all written in blood, of course), that I knew this game was going to be something truly special. It wasn’t the gameplay or the mechanics themselves that had me so entranced: no, it was the presentation of it all.

Even without the blood splatters, this would still be creepy as hell. It's the printer. You know that printer is up to something.

At its core, Silent Hill isn’t much different from any other survival horror game of the era, but the oppressive, unrelenting atmosphere, the music (more like noise, really, but it works perfectly) and the set pieces (there’s just something that feels viscerally wrong about a mostly realistic elementary school filled with occult puzzles and demon children) all work in concert to make the finished product much, much greater than the sum of its parts.

Oh yes, remember the Freddy Kruger-clawed, midget demon things from the opening nightmare? They were back, in force: when I stepped into the school's courtyard, the radio started emitting static again and I could barely make out shambling shapes headed toward me.

My friend, who'd been watching me play, was growing more and more anxious by then, but I was ecstatic: I had finally found a true horror game. One that wasn’t just B-movie-style, in-your-face horror, but instead used more subtle methods to build up dread, and wasn’t afraid to play up occult themes. I took a step forward. My light fell on the faceless abomination. I took aim with my handgun, and…

"COME GET SOME!"

Tragically, this was there that my initial experience was cut short: AtOmOs – after I’d repeatedly ignored his pleas to stop the game – reached over and shut off the console. If you’re reading this, you prat, know that I still haven’t forgiven you for this. Even if you did kinda-sorta make up for it by eventually lending me your console so I could play it at my leisure.

And play I did, although after a while I ended up having to give back the console and pirate CD (granted I could have kept the CD, but it was of little use without a modded console to play it). Though I had my own Playstation and plenty of other games to keep me busy, I swore that I would one day track down a legitimate copy of Silent Hill and – to paraphrase Bryan Adams – replay it until my fingers bled. It was a few years later that I finally found a near-mint copy of Silent Hill at EBGames for 15$. To this day, it remains one of the best 15$ I ever spent, though my fingers have remained disappointingly intact after all.

Horror Revisited

Flash forward to this summer, when, after having played (or at least sampled) most of the Silent Hill franchise’s offerings, I decided to replay the venerable first installment to see how it held up, almost two decades after its release. This year was the time for me to do it: according to the instruction manual, Harry Mason is a 32-year old writer. At this exact point in my life, this makes him the most relatable protagonist in the history of ever.

For my latest playthrough, I had come full circle: I was playing an emulated version of the game on my PC in order to be able to take screenshots for this post. This had the added benefit of (very slightly) increased graphics resolution, as well as being able to save the game at any time, which, when you're a responsible (yeah, right) adult who's already way past your bedtime and can't be bothered to head back to the nearest save point, is a blessing.

And so, how does it hold up?

This is a complicated question to answer. For the concise version, I’m tempted to go with “relatively well, all things considered.”

Let’s address the obvious: this game was made during the infancy of 3D games. To vulgarize: the graphics, by 2018 standards, suck balls. Mind you, they were genuinely impressive for a 1999 game. Alas, that time has passed, and technology has moved on. One thing I have to say, however, is that a lot of the environments remain quite impressive even today, if only for the sheer amount of small details that were put in them.

Honestly, any game that features a derelict nightmare mall with a shop called "Just Cats" is an instant classic in my book.

Textures are grainy and tend to visibly stretch and distort as you move around, and character models, though quite passable for their time, are blocky messes.

Case in point, the first boss: Giant Fire Condom

The gameplay doesn’t fare much better: the game uses the unwieldy “tank” control scheme common to survival horror titles of the era, and even by that standard, controlling Harry Mason seems sluggish and imprecise most of the time, especially compared to the more responsive controls of Resident Evil. Granted, this may stem from the fact that Harry is “realistically” animated, and doesn’t exactly stop on a dime. This is refreshing in some ways: I like, for instance, how Harry goes “oomph” and recoils if you run into a wall; as opposed to Resident Evil characters, who’ll just keep running in place like idiots.

The camera is usually decent for an early 3D game, and normally follows the player (save for a few specific spots with fixed camera angles, most notably at the very beginning of the game), but may get “stuck”, especially if you’re in a tight space (NOTE: most indoors areas in this game qualify as a tight space), and completely screw your field of vision. Thankfully, there’s a button to reset the camera behind the player if needed, which is a huge boon when trying to navigate monster-infested corridors.

There are other, rather nice touches that hold up today. The fixed camera angles in the introductory nightmare sequence seen above, for instance, remain for me an all-time high of horror gaming. It was so effective that the same angles were copied, almost frame by frame, for the live-action Silent Hill movie and - in my opinion, made for one of the movie's most compelling scenes. The falling snow, something not seen in any other game of the franchise except for Shattered Memories (which grabbed that concept and ran it to its logical extreme), can be seen realistically falling to the ground and fading/melting, something much more advanced games (*COUGH* Skyrim *COUGH*) don’t feature. I also found that the light effects, though dated, have aged better than the rest of the graphics: I particularly like that you actually get a lens flare when turning the light toward the camera.

The perpetually foggy and/or dark setting goes a long way in covering some of the rougher graphical elements, especially the monster models. Most of them, as you'll have noticed from the earlier pictures, look bland, blocky and, often, outright silly when viewed up close. Thankfully, the game does a fantastic job of making you NOT want to see them up close: the grotesque sounds made by most of these creatures, paired with the oppressive radio static heralding their presence, ensures that most players will either give them a wide berth, or try to keep their distance as they unload pistol/shotgun/rifle rounds into the aberrations.

Perhaps because of the bleary textures and choppy controls, I still find that Silent Hill’s “Otherworld” segments trump those from all other installments of the franchise. It’s a dark, disorienting, oppressively terrifying mess that, playing alone in the dark at 2 a.m., really gives that surreal impression of having walked into a nightmare. Then again, it may just be the nostalgia speaking; there’s no denying that this game had the earliest – and largest – impact on my imagination when it comes to horror.

The bottles are a metaphor, because Silent Hill, it's like a drug, man. I'm addicted. I can't "keep out". This shit is deep, man.

The plot, without going into too much detail, deals with an evil cult and is rather surreal, taking cues from the likes of Jacob's Ladder and Twin Peaks; after a while Harry starts questioning whether he's dreaming and/or losing his mind, and I find that the game really gets across that dreamlike feeling of not knowing what's real or not. By far, the nebulous-yet-engrossing plot remains to me the best aspect of the game, and my favourite Silent Hill story to this day.

As for the voice acting that carries this story across, it is… infamous, like that of many other games from that time period. Though for me, the actors’ monotone delivery of inane lines (Harry seems the most spaced out of the lot) kind of adds to the game’s surreal aspect. However, there’s no denying that the dialogue is absolutely risible; here, have a listen. And a laugh:

Final Thoughts

Silent Hill is a profoundly nostalgic nightmare. There’s no question that I'm a drooling fanboy my personal attachment to the game colours my opinion of it, but even I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I had a slightly hard time getting back into it last summer: the primitive graphics and iffy controls kept me from wholly immersing myself back in the game at first. It took me approximately a half hour to get past that, and then it might as well have been 1999 again. But I can definitely see how those without an existing attachment to the game (or worse, you poor, young souls who didn’t even get to experience 1999) might just find that, holy shit, this game has kind of not aged well, especially compared to its absolutely stellar second and third installments, which, in my opinion, hold up much better by today’s standards. I still think you should give Silent Hill a chance if you like horror games and have never played it (ESPECIALLY if you want to fully understand Silent Hill 3, as it's a straight sequel to this one), but I definitely won’t hold it against you if you don’t.

On that topic, I recently spotted a used copy of the game at a local game store for about $60 (Canadian), but it’s also available for download on the Playstation store for a fraction of that price. There’s also a bootleg “PC” version out there (IE, the one I played while writing this post), but be warned that it uses the European version of the game, which censors the knife-wielding monster children normally found in the school and opening nightmare, and replaces them with the hollow-faced, Freddy Kruger-clawed, teddy bear-looking things seen in the above screenshots.

Well, at least, all versions of the game have the nightmare carnival horsies.

Happy Halloween!

---

And Now for Something Completely Different: An Epic Tale of Lightsabers and Facial Pain

Though I started this blog without a really clear plan for the content I’d be writing (except that it’d be mostly video game-oriented), in hindsight I realize that there’s been a distinct pattern to my posts: So far I’ve written about a superhero game with horror elements, an open world action FPS that actually really uses horror/survival game mechanics, another open-world FPS with definite horror elements, and a full-on horror game. Oh, and a rant on modern gaming, because I’m a happy person like that.

Well, contrary to what one might think, I’m not gloom & doom all the time. Here's proof:

The (not so) Epic Tale

Flashback to the evening of Monday, June 18, 2018. I had come down with a flu over the previous weekend, and called in sick from work in the morning. I would end up also having to call in sick the morning after. It wasn’t a fun time, is what I’m trying to say.

…OK. Fine, geez. Maybe I am gloom & doom all the time. I'll own that.

On that dreary Monday evening, I was sitting in the basement, shivering, sniffling, and chatting on Facebook with a friend while waiting for my latest dose of Nyquill to take effect. We’re both avid toy collectors, and we were discussing how, as kids, getting new toys would cheer us up when we were sick. We were also reflecting on how little we’ve changed in that regard.

And then the magnificent bastard sent me this:

A few thoughts immediately flew around in my increasingly cloudy, Nyquill-addled brain:

1. $29.99? That price is WAY too good to be true.

2. Dat crystal, though. So shiny.

3. I wonder if this could be one of those “decent” knockoffs, like that fake Black Series Darth Vader figure I got a while back (which looks damn good on my shelf, even if it doesn’t *quite* pass a thorough inspection).

4. Man, look at those brass components. Soooo shiny.

5. “Sold by Ideal Mall”? Sounds legit. Except that no, it doesn’t.

6. There’s practically no way this video is showing the real thing, I’d better go check out some revie- OHHHHH THEY TURNED IT ON! Look at that brightness. On second thought, don’t; my eyes hurt (as does the rest of my face).

7. Reviews seem to indicate that they’re OK toys/costume accessories. How bad can they really be?

8. Wait you idiot, those reviews are on the goddamn product page. This is shady as shit; only a complete sucker would order those things.

9. SHINY

10. Face hurts. Want new toy.

11. Shady = Shiny?

12. Why my face hurts?

At the time, my (sluggish) reaction is to discuss some of the above points with my friend. He says he sent me the link since the sabers looked cool and I’m – quote – “the expert on this sort of thing”.

Just to reiterate: At that particular moment, I’m sitting under two layers of blankets, shivering, dripping, and drugged up to my goddamn eyeballs. I don’t qualify as an expert on much of anything, except for maybe being able to give an exposé on how much summer flus suck.

I ponder. I sneeze, blow my nose. My head hurts every time I do that, so I try to keep it to a minimum; mostly I just drip. And keep pondering.

Finally, I do the most logical thing I can think of at the time

SPOILER ALERT: I CAN'T THINK MUCH AT THE TIME.

DRUMROLL PLEASE

I hit the “purchase” button.

Yeah, that’s right, you guys: never, ever give an Internet connection and credit card to a drugged-up person whose mental age is approximately 8 years old.

Also, this is going to be the very first toy review on this blog. Yay.

The Very First Toy Review on this Blog. Yay.

The package took a bit less than a month to arrive – though I am writing this on July 18, the package sat at the post office for about 6 days. I went to get it yesterday evening, along with some medication: I luckily don’t have the flu anymore, but I am recuperating from a gum graft surgery. As such, we have come full circle: I have the sabers, and my face still hurts.

Let’s see if some toys can cheer me up.

Erm, yeah, about that.

As ominous foreshadowing, I find myself compelled to profess some doubts, and provide a picture of the shipment box, compared with some actual "collector grade" sabers:

Using Ultrasabers as references: the bottom saber is "full sized", the top one is an Initiate model made mainly for children.

Look, let me try to at least be a bit optimistic about this: it’s possible that these have short blades like the Initiate model, and were shipped in separate pieces, especially if the hilts really can be taken apart as in the Facebook video.

…

OK, fine, this is about as likely as finding out that the Loch Ness Monster actually exists, and is in fact a unicorn-dinosaur hybrid, and shits gold nuggets if you'll only feed it some McDonalds. Still, one can dream. Realistically, I expect that these will be kids’ toys, probably along the same lines (slightly better, if I'm lucky) as those off-brand LED swords found at discount stores and the like. I mean, how bad can they really b-

Oh. Oh dear.

Yeah, did I mention I ordered 3 of these? The price was actually $29.99 in AMERICAN dollars. In Canadian dollars, this translated to $39.99 apiece. Except that if you ordered more than one, the price dropped to the effect of approximately $25 per saber. What a deal!

Offhand, these basically do look and feel like cheap, off-brand sabers you’d find at a discount store. That’s probably because THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE. To be completely fair, I do sort of like the hilt design (if I look from afar and squint a lot) – I likely wouldn't mind a “legit” saber with that pattern. Also, the blade looks to be a poly-carbonate tube (IE, the same kind found on actual "collector grade" sabers, albeit a lot thinner and flimsier-looking) within a larger, softer tube, with three LEDs at the base. I expect that when lit, these will at least look passable. There also appears to be a sound chip at the base of the hilt. Collector grade these are not, but they should at least make some young kids happy. For the two minutes it'll take them to swing the saber and accidentally snap it into a million cheap plastic pieces.

Anyway, I press what I assume is the ignition button (IE, the only button on the hilt).

Nothing happens.

There’s an obvious latch on the hilt that can be unscrewed, so I take a screwdriver to it and do just that.

Batteries sold separately. Of course.

Luckily, I have a jumbo pack of spare AAA batteries on hand. I pop two of them in and… wait, is that thing broken?

Looks for all the world like the contact plate broke off and left a gaping hole in the battery compartment.

 Goddammit. Really?

I open the other sabers, only to find out that they’re all like that. Oh, so those things really take three batteries, one of which needs to be pushed into the “hidden” part of the battery compartment. That’s probably why there’s two battery symbols on that side, duh.

Well played, saber. Well played indeed. You actually had me worried for a moment there.

I place the batteries, and push the button again.

Nothing happens.

What?! I double check to make sure the batteries are properly inserted, and try again. Nothing. I take another saber and load the batteries in, then press the button: nothing. Rinse and repeat with the third saber, with the same results.

Well, it must be the batteries, then. I take the ones from my Ultrasaber, which I know work just fine. I pop them into one of the toys. I press the button.

Nothing.

A kind of aggravated-yet-resigned understanding dawns on me at this point. I try the batteries in the other two sabers, with predictable results.

I sit there a while, looking at the three plastic swords. I take a deep breath.

Aaaaaand that’s it. We’re done. Review over. 

The best thing about these sabers is the packaging, specifically this grumpy rabbit with a staple in its mouth. It perfectly encapsulates how I felt, both physically and mentally, while doing this review.

I don’t know if it’s just me doing something wrong, or if all three of these things genuinely came broken out of the box, but what I do know is that if I spend one more minute with those oversized dildos, I’m going to use them as batting practice for my lawnmower. 

Kind of like this guy, but with more noodly arms, and angrier.

What, you’ve never swung a lawnmower around in anger before? It’s extremely cathartic, and totally safe. On a completely unrelated note, I'm awesome at typing one-handed. With two fingers.

More serious lessons I learned from this, which should have been common sense, really:

1. Never shop online while sick/doped up/otherwise mentally addled.

2. If an online ad looks shady as shit, that’s because it IS, dumbass.

3. My face still hurts, and I can’t help but feel that I sort of deserve it.

I was tempted to add “think before you buy”, but by that logic, I would never ever buy anything, which would kind of be bad for all the future toy reviews I plan to post here. That ratchet-ey sound you may be hearing right now is my wife, furiously rolling her eyes.

Final Score

I don’t tend to assign arbitrary, “out-of-five-stars” scores to things I review, but even if I wanted to, in this case, I couldn’t. This is a disappointment so massive that it generates its own gravitational field. This is a supernova of suckage that became a goddamn black hole. There are no stars left. My face hurts. I’m fucking done with this.

Time to return to what works: gloom & doom. By which I mean Silent Hill.

Which, incidentally, has a lightsaber that ACTUALLY WORKS. But that's for another post.

Silent Hills P.T.: the Dream of Remaking a Nightmare

IMPORTANT NOTE: I first started writing this post early last week (June 25^th). I originally intended to review the fan remakes of the Silent Hills P.T., but went off the rails (of course) and started writing an epic love poem to the series' first installment as an introduction. As such, I put my P.T. article on hold while I replayed the original Silent Hill, with the intention of writing a multi-article retrospective on the entire franchise.

Fast forward to July 3^rd when, while “researching” my next post (IE, compulsively browsing everything on the Net pertaining to my current obsession), I discover that a new fan remake of Silent Hills P.T. literally just came out.

Well, darn. Looks like that Wish Granter thingy from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. works after all.

And so I’m back to my original plan: as such, here is a retrospective on the three fan remakes of P.T. I’ve played over the last couple years. 

Spoilers are really the least of fears in Silent Hill, but you've been warned. 

Possibly the only time I’ve ever regretted being a grumpy, stingy, antisocial prick who makes a point of always being a generation late video game-wise (and about three generations late everything else-wise) was back in 2015, when I heard about a playable teaser ("P.T.") for the new Silent Hill game (creatively titled "Silent Hills"). Apparently, one of my favourite film directors of all time, Guillermo del Toro, and one of my favourite game designers of all time, Hideo Kojima, were teaming up for the new installment of my favourite series of all time. 

This collaboration's raw potential was completely off the chain: Pan’s Labyrinth had shown me Guillermo Del Toro’s skill at crafting the surreal visual aspect of a nightmare (seriously, just Google "Pale Man Scene" if you don't know what I'm talking about, and don't care for sleep tonight) and Hideo Kojima, well... For those who have played Metal Gear Solid 2, I think most will agree that it’s less “surreal” and more “What the fuck is going on, I’m losing my goddamn mind”. Which, to me, is exactly the feeling a good Silent Hill game should give the player. Also, holy shit, Daryl from the Walking Dead was going to be in it.

This was a dream come true. This was…

CANCELLED?!

Well, that was a damn shame, I thought, as soon as I had finished my twelfth hysterical screaming fit. But at least that playable teaser looked to be an interesting game in and of itself. I’d be sure to play it in a few years, when I’d finally get a PS4, and…

Wait.

Wait.

What do you mean, no longer available? Konami delisted... what?

I… just…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

My thirteenth screaming fit was, by far, the most intense yet.

Look, I think I took it pretty well, all things considered. I also had to buy a new computer around that time. There is no connection whatsoever between these two events, obviously.

Once I had regained my zen demeanour (and a functional computer), I read a fair amount about P.T., and watched Youtube plays. Despite the apparently simple concept and setting (a single, looping corridor where increasingly creepy things happen), it seemed to be a profoundly intricate game filled with a myriad of small details. As such, when I became aware of a fan remake of P.T., I wasn’t surprised to learn that it had a lot less going than the genuine article. Still, I was intrigued (and desperate) enough to give it a go:

Remaking P.T. with im-PuniTy (Yeah, I ran out of ideas for this one. Sorry.)

PuniTy is a basic remake based on - as the name implies - the Unity Engine. It was created by Canadian developer Farhan Qureshi for a 3D modeling course he was teaching in 2015, for which I sincerely hope he got the Teacher of the Year award.

First off, the bad: for some reason, Unity engine games never seem to run smoothly on my hardware unless I use low-to-medium graphic settings. It’s not a deal-breaker per se, but for a game that only contains one hallway, a lot is riding on how pretty that hallway is.

Luckily, the hallway is pretty, even on moderate graphic settings. One touch I particularly like is the swaying chandelier, which like other lamps in this remake has a nice wavy glass effect, and comes complete with an extremely ominous creaking noise (which I believe was taken directly from the original game).

It looks much, much prettier than it sounds.

I point this out because most of the content in PuniTy has been made by Mr Qureshi himself (which makes sense, given the game's purpose as a teaching tool, duh.) As such, the game takes some artistic liberties with the source material and is much shorter than the original P.T., but nonetheless, I believe it nailed the original's general feel. One main aspect of Silent Hill has always been the transition into the "Otherworld" - an alternate version of reality, overtaken by darkness and decay. The effect here is subtle, but I found that a simple change in lighting captured that sense of transition fairly well. Indeed, lighting was definitely one of this remake's strongest points:

"Well, this doesn't look too bad."

"Mommy? Help?" (Not pictured: that light at the end of the corridor buzzing and flickering ominously)

The gameplay is very basic: you can move around and look at stuff by zooming in. That’s it. There is no interaction of any kind, and the doors don't open: you just walk from one end of the corridor to the other, while increasingly creepy stuff happens (knocks on the doors, the distorted cries of a woman, twitching shadows following you around, cockroaches swarming down the walls, lights burning out, etc.)

The cockroach effect is especially nicely done, and a definite highlight of this remake.

Overall, I found PuniTy to be a well done, albeit very short (about 2-3 minutes if you keep walking and don't stop to admire the details) game that stands well on its own, and manages to keep the atmosphere - as well as the mother of all jump scares - from the original. The (few) animations and light/shadow effects in particular are very well realized and really contribute a lot to the scare factor. There are some rough edges here and there, such as the excessive motion blur, or the seemingly low-resolution textures on some of the paintings and the game's one enemy model, but

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, I TAKE IT BACK, THE TEXTURES ARE FINE. MORE MOTION BLUR, PLEASE.

Just a Corridor, Nothing (Well, Not Much) to See Here

Playing PuniTy scratched my Silent Hill itch for a while, and I moved on to obsessing over other games for a couple years (some of which I’ve written about on this blog). It was last month that I randomly got a Silent Hill bug again, and checked for any further developments in terms of P.T. remakes. And behold, there was Corridor, created by one SmoggyChips: an “Early Access” remake demo, built on the Unreal 4 engine.

Corridor worked MUCH better on my machine than PuniTy did. In fact, it ran like a charm even with maxed out graphics. It also looked better in my opinion, with clearer textures (most of which appeared to have been lifted directly from the original game), and no motion blur issue, though lighting was generally not as good as in PuniTy. The windows, notably, were a major standout for me: they were one of the few elements that wasn't very faithful to the original game’s design, but they had a gorgeous animated raindrop effect that really added to the atmosphere.

One thing I found with Corridor was that it was relatively clutter-free (making it look too “clean”, if that makes sense). Compare for instance this screenshot of PuniTy VS. the same area as depicted in Corridor:

In PuniTy, I can assume I'm being stalked by some homicidal, alcoholic ghost lady (albeit one with very white teeth): scary.

In Corridor, I can assume I'm being chased by the alcoholic's equally homicidal mother, who made her clean up her mess and sent her to bed without dinner (but still made her brush her teeth): scarier.

Other than that, the only fault I can find to this remake is that everything seems static. Aside from the raindrops, a single cockroach, and doors opening/closing, nothing really moves. Even the level transitions are jerky, with a sudden lighting change giving away the fact that you are really just being "teleported" into the next loop, as opposed to walking through several connected hallways.

There is no ominously swaying lamp, which is the worst thing about this remake IMO.

Besides one apparition and one door slamming shut, nothing really happens, either. The same could almost be said of PuniTy, except that PuniTy did have more dynamic lighting effects and the mother of all jump scares at its end. In Corridor, you simply walk through, and eventually you’re done, which I found a bit anticlimactic. To its credit however, Corridor’s splendid visuals (aside from the aforementioned lack of an eerie swinging lamp) and clever sound trigger placements keep a steady atmosphere of dread throughout. A first run (assuming you haven’t watched Youtube plays beforehand) will have you jumping at creaking floorboards and sudden thumps on the other side of doors. The apparition I mentioned earlier? While not quite on the same level as PuniTy's encounter, it's still absolutely terrifying if you don’t see it coming. The final hallway? Well…

Did I mention that this comes AFTER the apparition? Nothing actually happens here, but you don't know that initially...

And so kudos to SmoggyChips, because despite being relatively light on content, Corridor honestly creeped the hell out of me during that first run. And though it didn’t have a swinging lamp, it did have a cockroach on a banana, something no other remake (and no other game ever, for that matter) has given me thus far.

D'awww, just look at this little guy.

A New Hope (for P.T., not the Star Wars one)

I was still obsessing over browsing articles about Silent Hill at work this Tuesday (erm, during my lunch break. Obviously.) and happened to come across this:

My heart skipped a beat. My palms became sweaty (well, sweatier than usual). My lips, so unused to smiling, cracked open (like, literally cracked, with blood and stuff) into a shit-eating grin. Someone came by my office to drop a file but, upon seeing my rather... enthusiastic disposition, thought better of it and hurried away to call the cops. Some of these events may have been made up for dramatic effect.

Holy. Fucking. Shit., I thought. Could this finally be it?

Goddamn, not that "it". Get the fuck out of my Silent Hill, clown.

I couldn’t wait to get home to download and play this new remake (my work computer unfortunately wouldn’t run it). The file was 1 GB and took a little while to download – an eternity, really, given my eagerness to test this apparently “playable, perfectly scary” remake. To occupy myself during the wait, I booted up PuniTy again and took some notes and screenshots for this post.

Finally, I looked at my download bar and behold, it was done. At last, I would get to immerse myself in a new horror experience.

Well, I hoped.

I started the game. I was in the same concrete room from Corridor, only with graffiti on the wall (the game’s credits), and a slightly more detailed neon light above the door. Beyond it, the familiar hallway awaited. I walked forward, looked at the surroundings, smiled in approval. When I turned the corner, I grinned with delight. When I reached the sixth loop, my goddamn jaw hit the floor. And, best of all, by the end of it, I was genuinely immersed, utterly creeped out, and undeniably impressed.

Graphically, this new remake resembles Corridors (indeed, SmoggyChips is listed in the credits), but seems to have added most of the missing assets from the original P.T.

Gameplay-wise, well, I will admit that I was skeptical at first – not only did I not want to build up insane expectations and end up disappointed, I genuinely doubted that any fan remake could truly replicate the entirety of P.T.’s details.

Rarely have I been so happy to have been proven (mostly) wrong. In fact, rarely have I been so happy, period. The game's 17-year-old creator, Qimsar, has really created something spectacular here (and made me wonder what I've been doing with my life so far).

EVEN THE WALLS AND FLOOR ARE QUIVERING WITH JOY!

Sure, this newest remake is not 100% perfect, and there are still a few things missing, especially animation-wise. There’s no rain effect in the windows, for instance, and no cockroaches (I assume those from SmoggyChips’ version were not used on account of not being completely faithful to the original). There’s a few missing textures, and no ghost attacks or level transitions and blah blah blah. I could go on nitpicking, but the fact is that all of what I would mention is already on Qimsar’s “To-Do List” for future releases.

Though Qimsar indicates that this is only a playtesting version, I honestly wouldn’t be too upset if there never was another release (once I was done with Screaming Fits #14 to 23, of course). As it is, Qimsar’s remake is, as far as I'm concerned, the quintessential P.T. experience. I’ve briefly mentioned above what’s missing from this remake, but you know what's better? Pointing out all the awesome, scary shit actually in it:

The mess is back; we're dealing with the alcoholic, as opposed to the alcoholic's psychotic mother, thank God.

Holy shit, you can actually go into the bathroom now! But I kind of don't wanna...

THIS IS WHY I DIDN'T WANNA GO IN THE BATHROOM. WHAT THE FUCK.

WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK.

WHAT THE FLYING FUCK FRIDGE?!

Hey, it's the little girl from The Ring. In an animated, Harry Potter-style picture. Great.

THEN DON'T FUCKING ANSWER.

JESUS FUCK! ALCOHOLIC GHOST LADY, WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR... YOUR FACE IN GENERAL?!

STOP FOLLOWING ME, OR I'LL TELL YOUR MOM!

OK, nope. We're done. Sweet dreams, everyone.

Closing Notes

Though this most recent P.T. remake is by far the most complete of the lot, I would be remiss not to repeat that it's also a relatively hefty download at one gigabyte. Granted, that's positively puny compared to most modern games, but it's the largest by a fair margin if compared to PuniTy (a mere 68 MB) and Corridor (370 MB). 

I should also note that I tested these games on a dedicated gaming PC - your own experience may vary depending on your hardware.

If you're interested in trying any of the remakes, my obvious recommendation if you're hurting for disk space and/or don't have a very powerful PC is to give PuniTy a go. If you're lucky, it'll run better on your machine than on mine, and IMO it's worth a try even if you have the newest remake, on account of the ghost encounter at the end. It also has the best-looking swinging lamp, for what it's worth.

I'd probably skip Corridor in favour of the latest release, however I'd still recommend it to people who want a "light" version of P.T. without any super intense scares or puzzles.

And of course, if you like horror games at all, I heartily recommend getting this new P.T. remake. It's free, it's got scares, it's got puzzles, and it's got me addicted to Silent Hill all over again. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need my fix.