Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - General Gaming - Silent Hill 4
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Sofie
Posts: 653/1210 |
Originally posted by Rydain
Master code
F4419E38 FF740D1E
Infinite Health
24DC1308 0671C31C
infinite ammo & items
24C326F0 15548500
24532668 1474C52B
24522668 0474C518
24403ED6 997C8C33
24D236E8 1055C589
24C03678 1966CCAA
24913628 30FE5C48
24012EAC 3CF61569
There's always this if you need it <<; XD |
Rydain
Posts: 219/738 |
Yeah...same here.  I don't think the 5/10 reviewers were bothered by the difficulty of the second half, though - it just seems that they weren't enthused by SH4's style of gameplay. It's interesting how certain aspects of a game can be extremely annoying to some people but not bother others at all. I loved Shadow of Destiny, which was more like a movie than a game, but it bored the snot out of a lot of people because you admittedly don't do much and they didn't care for the story, which is the game's main appeal.
I haven't picked SH4 back up yet (mainly because I haven't recently had time to park my butt in front of the tube for a few hours at a time), but I'll let you know how the second half is once I get there. On principle, I strongly dislike sharp spikes in difficulty, but since this is a nifty game, I'm going to make myself deal with it.  |
Sofie
Posts: 642/1210 |
It sounds alot better than the ebil review you linked to made it sound.
I just hope he didn't base it on the majority of the game you haven't played yet |
Rydain
Posts: 213/738 |
*bumpity bumpity bump*
I haven't gotten any further in the game yet, but I did come across some stuff that might be of interest, so I'm reviving the thread yet again.
Somebody on GameFAQs posted this - some Japanese guy's speed run through SH4 on hard mode. I downloaded all of the videos and watched some of them for a preview of what's coming in the second half of the game. I learned from the boards that you're invincible while executing a fully charged attack. This guy puts that feature to good use, and I think I shall, too. 
Bad news: I came across some other page with the full SH4 soundtrack up for download (I can't exactly link to it because I lost the URL), and a bunch of the in-game music wasn't included. Good news: I found the Water Prison song available for download elsewhere (somebody ripped a bunch of said in-game music and was nice enough to share with the rest of the class). I have a few other background tracks from that same site (of course, I lost the URL to this one, too...bleh), so if anyone wants them, bug me and I'll find a way to pass them along. I still haven't seen any confirmed track listing for the soundtrack that you'll get with a preordered US version of the game, so maybe the ambient tracks will wind up on that one anyway. |
Rydain
Posts: 202/738 |
It is a cool game. One thing I forgot to mention is that its story is revealed in ambiguous little bits and pieces, which really appeals to me, and I like what I've seen of said story so far. The difficulty of the second half is the only aspect of the game that might get really aggravating. If that's the case, the following (for Gameshark 2 v3) might be of use. 
Master code
F4419E38 FF740D1E
Infinite Health
24DC1308 0671C31C
infinite ammo & items
24C326F0 15548500
24532668 1474C52B
24522668 0474C518
24403ED6 997C8C33
24D236E8 1055C589
24C03678 1966CCAA
24913628 30FE5C48
24012EAC 3CF61569
Disclaimer - they may change for the US version of the game, but I figured I might as well put them here in case anybody else is playing the Japanese version (and for my personal reference in case the topic I found them in gets too old and falls off the board). |
Abnormal Freak
Posts: 83/364 |
Well, preordered from ebgames.com...better be a kick ass soundtrack CD, 'cos if they botch tracks up or any of that, I'll be pissed. ;)
Yeah, game better be cool too. o.o
Rydain
Posts: 201/738 |
According to this article, it's the full soundtrack, and it includes bonus tracks not found anywhere else. I'm pretty sure you'd still be able to buy it separately, but it would probably be a version without those extra tracks. The Japanese version comes with a small disc that, as far as I can tell, is a partial soundtrack.
(I edited my post! Yaaaaaaaay!)
Somebody on the GameFAQs SH4 board said that this game was harder than the others, so I asked for some clarification. They replied that for several reasons, the difficulty increases significantly in the second half of the game. Aaaarrrrgghhhh! Why, Konami, WHY?!  At least the good thing is that you can arrive at the second half with a full cache of supplies (as long as you don't use any of the expendable items that you pick up), so you can save right then and, at worst, only have to restart from there instead of having to redo the entire game. I'll certainly need to replay objectives multiple times so I can get through with minimal loss of supplies (and minimal damage to a certain NPC), but I'm hoping that I won't need to do this too much. I'm still psyched out, though, so I'm putting off picking the game back up again for a little while. 
I'm going to preorder tomorrow (me sleepy now). I must have that soundtrack. The Water Prison "music" is frickin' awesome. It's not really very musical (most Silent Hill music isn't ), but it's perfect for the area (it sounds desolate and rather creepy and has this cool part where a single note is held for a while and then slid down to another held note, and that part just somehow sounds...spiraling and round, just like the layout of the building). I had the slidey note stuck in my head earlier today. |
Abnormal Freak
Posts: 82/364 |
So that's how you get the soundtrack this time? Spiffy. Although I do hope it's a full soundtrack, and not just a select few tracks. That would be bogus... |
Rydain
Posts: 199/738 |
Because I'm impatient and because we have access to the requisite technology, we just acquired an, uh, "unofficial try before you buy" copy of SH4. Reading all of the discussion on GameFAQs was making me extremely curious, but I didn't want to just go buy the game because, as I've mentioned, I was worried about what some of its new features might do to its playability.
I'm happy to report that SH4 (at least the first half, which is what I'm on) is much more fun than I'd feared. I even started on Normal - a first for me. I decided that I want to get my survival horror feet a bit wetter, so why not do so in a game where you can heal for free up to a certain point? I can't write a full review because I'm only about 1/3 through the game, but I can at least give some impressions.
The Good
The quick dodge move = teh w00tness. Though the blocking in SH3 was well-intentioned, I didn't like it because you had to time it (which seemed bizarre to me - why couldn't Heather just hold her arms up for protection like people do in real life?) and it didn't work against all attacks (the dogs would bite right under your arms). Quick dodging is much more intuitive and useful.
There are multiple holes back to your apartment in each level. When you go to the apartment and then return to the level, you start at the hole you left by, which does cut down on the backtracking I was worried about. This feature is also put to use in a certain puzzle - a nice touch.
The Water Prison is the coolest board ever. The entire building is a puzzle, and it's fun to figure out. There aren't any ghosts here, either (at least the first time ).
Thus far, the ghosts aren't really that much of a pain in the ass. You can beat on them to stop them for a few seconds and shove your way past them. Some of them can be easily run around. I heard this changes later...but at least there are items to pin them down as long as you wish.
Hooray for the automagically healing room! This allows you to work your way through enemy-infested areas because the vast majority of monsters stay dead once you squish them (the only enemies I've seen regenerate are trivially pathetic ones like slugs), so you can bump off one or two, go heal, return, etc.
Contrary to what some people claim, there is main character development. You just have to keep checking stuff in the apartment. As the game progresses, Henry will have different descriptions of items that reveal more about himself.
The Bad
I hated the fscking subway car maze. It was an unfriendly "puzzle" to put so early in the game. If there wasn't a ghost around, it would have been fine...but as it stood, the first time through, I got lost and was about to die because I couldn't get away from the damn ghost. It would have been helpful if Henry would actually mark the blocked spots of the train on the map he draws. As it stands, all you see are outlines of cars, which doesn't help you remember where you can and can't go.
Ghosts can hurt you just by being close by, which I thought was rather cheap. You can be doing a great job avoiding the ghost's normal attacks and still lose health just because. Incidentally, this is what that stupid subway ghost was doing - not actually attacking but being close enough to drain my health.
The Other Stuff Worth Mentioning
This game really isn't that scary (so far, at least). It has some bloody/rusty environments and some creepy music, and the ghost static sounds like something out of The Ring, but it's more "spooky and interesting" than "nerve-sawingly wracking". I got freaked out after tangling with some new enemies and having my health brought down to the red and being unsure of how close I was to a hole back to the room, but that was just stress - I didn't want to die and have to redo the last 20 minutes of the game.
Your room quits healing you halfway through, and it can also hurt you then as well. I'm concerned that this is going to ramp up the difficulty quite a bit, but people have said that you should be fine as long as you hoard healing supplies.
There is a chaser enemy of sorts in this game who shows up during the second half. Evidently you can beat him up and knock him out for a while, so he shouldn't be that bad.
The Verdict
Eh, what the hell...I'm going to preorder it. Even if the second half irritates me that badly, the first half has been fun enough that I'll want to keep the game around. Plus, preordering gets you a free soundtrack CD. |
Colin
Posts: 2288/11302 |
Yeah, but it's Fark. It's totally random.
If I had noticed it... well... was MULE ever released for the Atari? I sincerely doubt it could handle it but the alien graphics are blocky enough.
*mental note - make some sort of Atari image down the line* |
Rydain
Posts: 163/738 |
Yeah...and some of the really godawful ones (e.g. some random screencap from a Tony Hawk game shoved through a mosaic Photoshop filter, which involved zero creativity on the submitter's part and would have been impressive for the SNES era and downright IMPOSSIBLE on an Atari) actually got votes. At least the very Atari-like (yet bouncy) Lara Croft animation got first place, so I thought justice was served. I was just happy someone noticed mine at all because I entered it pretty late in the thread. |
Colin
Posts: 2284/11302 |
I remember seeing the collection of pictures on FARK's site.
Too bad that a lot of people, even though they had good entries, didn't understand what Atari-style was. |
Rydain
Posts: 160/738 |
I just realized that I never posted my entry into a Fark Photoshop contest where the idea was to illustrate a modern game as it would have appeared in the Atari era. It got 4 votes, and a couple of people from different message boards have linked to it. (I know this because I go through the rydain.org logs every now and then. I like to see where people are coming from...and no, direct linkage doesn't bother me at all because I have a fuckload of bandwidth to burn.) I'm happy that people are amused by it.
 |
Mel
Posts: 429/991 |
I demand that XKeeper posts the Pyramid Head comic he did. |
Darth Coby
Posts: 620/1371 |
Originally posted by Toxic
And I didn't like how all the rooms and such are run down, broken, messy, bloody, and gross in general..
Uhm, that's the point. And if you're still in Normal Silent Hill then the rooms aren't all that messed up, then they're pretty ok, but the moment you get into Dark Silent Hill you're pretty much fucked. |
Toxic
Posts: 1565/2857 |
*shudders*
As much as I wanted to play through the series, I couldn't. It freaked me out a little too much.
And I didn't like how all the rooms and such are run down, broken, messy, bloody, and gross in general. They should make a Queer Eye for the Silent Hill Guy, and have some of those locales cleaned up. |
Darth Coby
Posts: 617/1371 |
Originally posted by Chaosflare
ive always enjoyed the Silent hill games for a little scare, especially when you play at night in the full moon by yourself in a dark room.....
NU UH! Something I don't do, nope, can't make me do it. Whenever I play SH I make sure I'm with too, it's more fun that way.  
And when I play alone it's usually broaght (spelling?) daylight. |
Sokarhacd
Posts: 298/1757 |
ive always enjoyed the Silent hill games for a little scare, especially when you play at night in the full moon by yourself in a dark room..... |
Rydain
Posts: 159/738 |
*B to the izzump*
So what if I started this 1 1/2 months ago - it's my thread and I have significant new content to share, so there ya go. SH4 is out in Japan, and it has an English language option, so a bunch of people on GameFAQs have imported it. The two reviews posted thus far gave it a 5/10. Of course, a significant population of the SH4 board is whining over the fact that the reviewers dared to have a negative opinion about the game, but I think their criticisms are well-written and fair. Be warned that kyouki's review has an unmarked puzzle solution spoiler.
Review page linky
For a different perspective, here is another well-written review from someone who enjoyed the game much more than the two people mentioned above.
Positive review (message board thread)
My opinion thus far is that the game looks entertaining, but I'm concerned about some of its features that seem artificially tedious (like the item-based puzzles that require lots of backtracking - sure, you had to run around somewhat in the other Silent Hill games, but it never seemed excessive), so I want to wait for more reviews before deciding whether or not to run out and buy it. At the moment, this seems like one of those titles that I don't think is worth $50, but I wouldn't mind picking it up used later (I actually just bought a couple of those yesterday ). It doesn't come out here until September anyway. |
Rydain
Posts: 126/738 |
*Rydain whacks Aioria with the Stick of Meaningless Blather*
If you hate something, explain why - don't just make a one-line post. (I'm honestly curious as to why someone would hate a game that hasn't even been released yet. ) Otherwise, you're spamming, and spamming is bad, umkay? |
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