Is Silent Hill the greatest survival/horror series of all time?

>>3922089
Siren is better

Probably. It has roots almost as deep as Alone In The Dark and it has gone farther while still avoiding straying from form like Resident Evil. Clock Tower petered out and Fatal Frame doesn't go far enough back - it's not even retro!

>>3922089
From an audio/visual or story perspective it's pretty good. From a gameplay perspective it's pretty bad.

>>3922147
>avoiding straying from form

Ehhh. The recent entries have definitely been more action oriented. Plus there is whole Book of Memories thing.

>>3922198
>Book of Memories
Yeesh guess I'm glad I don't have a Vita and haven't even opened my PSTV's box. As far as being action oriented, part of what I liked about the original Silent Hill over other games is that you actually could effectively beat shit to death with a pipe so even Downpour still feels like a Silent Hill game - to me anyway.

File: 8def07f4f6de2f46e51c8345635cdc61.jpg (83KB, 479x800px) Image search: [Google]

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Live right near Centralia, PA. Spent many spooky nights walking the graffiti highway.

>>3922095
I can vouch for Siren, that was such a fucking awesome series.
I remember just camping like a little bitch, constantly sight jacking and planning my moves hoping I wont get detected. Surprising how a mechanism intended to be advantageous has an almost opposite effect by heightening anxiety to proceed.

I still enjoy silent hill though.

>>3922241
Have you got any more photos? I would definitely love to visit one day even if just passing by.

>>3922241
>>3925270
I lived in PA about 13 years ago. The coal region. Me and 2 of my friends went there. It was hot as fuck, rather sulfur smelling as well. They really diddnt want people fucking around there because of sinkhole risks. I think they put the whole town off limits. Last I heard.

>>3922089
Is the first Silent Hill a good starting point for someone who hasn't played any of them?

>>3927146
yes, i would recommend to play the first 2-3 games, then only if you really liked them you can move on to 4 and the other games.
my mistake was that my first silent hill game was "origins", it was ok for a psp title but its not that a good jumpstart to the series for newcomers....in other words, play the regular order.

Silent Hill wins every time because of 2, but >>3922095 is actually a solid contender. Siren is amazing but it's not for bitches.

>>3927146
Play 2 and 4, and if you like those, jump into 1 and 3, which are less about character development and more about the lore and religion of Silent Hill. The rest of the series can be safely ignored, since they range from so-so to shit.

>>3927146
Play one first since it's a way stronger audio visual experience than 2.

Silent Hill couldn't even get the gameplay right. Some of the puzzles are good, but otherwise it's just a letdown.

Compare that to Resident Evil, who took all the great revolutionnary ideas Alone In The Dark had, and perfected them while also adding a lot of new mechanics to the mix.

Then came Dino Crisis who pushed these mechanics to the extreme, finding the perfect balance where the survival mechanics are as extreme as possible while never coming off as unfair or bullshit.

In comparison Silent Hill is just a clone with passable gameplay, which as far as RE clones are concerned is already saying a lot (the vast majority are broken, unfinished, or had no idea what they were doing while trying to ride the hype).

Besides, the AITD/RE style is only one side of the 'survival horror' genre, and that side is dead now. First person survival horrors existed before AITD, co-existed during the RE bandwagon, but also outlived the RE and these days are pretty much the only type of survival horror remaining. My point is claiming Silent Hill is the greatest is completely disregarding that side of the genre.

P.S: Silent Hill 2 fucking ruined the series anyway and Homecoming has the best survival gameplay of the series.

Are there any good horror games with turn-based gameplay (or gameplay where you can just act whenever, like in most parts of point-and-click adventure games) that are genuinely frightening?

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers gets pretty creepy at times, but never genuinely frightening. Haven't played the others yet.

I wanna sip my coffee and solve puzzles and uncover secrets that scare the shit out of me.

>>3929291
this oughta get some yous

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>>3929291
everyone knows about your hardon for RE.

Silent Hill 2 had at least a storytelling concept beyond "lol zombies".

>>3929473
>Silent Hill 2 had at least a storytelling concept beyond "lol zombies"

Are you implying that RE has no story or storytelling at all?

Dude.

The entirety of the game is centered around bringing movie like storytelling to video games. You know, that very thing that video games stories have been all about since the PS1 erat? RE1 was very influencial in that regard, it did it a couple years before MGS. Things like the camera angles or the absence of a hud all serve that storytelling goal too.

On top of that the story differs depending on player action, so that storytelling and gameplay, the player's actions, are linked. Yes, that was not entirely new, but the way RE1 did it, again, was very influencial. In fact, what Silent Hill 2 does with the different endings and cutscene is nothing more than taking that idea from RE1 and putting more variables to it.

It's fine to be fan of a series, but Silent Hill fans like to pretend the series didn't take a lot from RE, and that's just biaised fanboyism.