Always a good sign when you boot up a tech demo and the frame rate hitches for a solid minute during the opening cinematic. I don't have any real dog in the "classic versus modern Silent Hill" debate; Konami, the speculator market, and the ravages of time have made it damn near impossible to quickly boot up the analog horror masterworks of yore while their maligned contemporaries are just making their way to market. So speaking as a newcomer - thanks, I hate it!

Silent Hill: The Short Message is the American History X of video games: an unsubtle, dog-eared attempt at tackling serious subject matter with all the grace of a sledgehammer. Points for some liminal FMVs and Akira Yamaoka's backing instrumentals, but otherwise, this hyper-linear puzzle game for the 13 Reasons Why crowd has nothing to offer that wasn't pilfered directly from Hideo Kojima's 10-year-old "playable teaser", beginning a new wave of interest in the series before Konami summarily deleted its existence from their portfolio (and yours if you were foolish enough to let it escape your PlayStation hard drive).

Konami's remedial understanding of trauma and suicidal ideation is so inept, they have to flash a trigger warning accompanied by the number for the suicide hotline during every loading screen because a textual reading of the game essentially tells you to take a dive off the nearest high rise when people on Twitter call you a "LOSER" or an "IDIOT." "Show us sexy pics!" screams the mob. "I'm 14 and this is deep!" responds your protagonist. On my social media feed, I see that town...

A worthless download that may cost nothing, but will force you to pay with your time, sanity, and hopes for a better future. Not nearly short enough.

it's awful. somehow they hoped to repeat P.T. by Hideo Kojima but it absolutely doesn't reach those levels. plus there's everything except Silent Hill. it doesn't reach the terror, the anguished settings and the narrative of the great games in the series. I can understand that there is a need for modernization and the theme offered by this demo can also fit, the problem is that it doesn't lead it to an allegorical thought and ends up being a very boring experience that consists of running around a dirty building from a creature that runs at 10 fps. I have no faith in the Silent Hill 2 remake, the new Silent Hill game, and probably not even metal gear solid delta.

I just...can't go on with this title. Where Origins was a more simplistic take on the SH formula, Downpour is just...terrible in many ways. I liked some of the early setup and moments, such as when the diner turns into an absolute hellscape. But my god, the open world town is so boring the explore. Not to mention that they somehow made the already weak combat through the entire SH series and made it even worse. Just a clunky, boring, and worst of all: not scary experience. Maybe I'll pick this back up when I'm bored or streaming to a friend, but for now, I just have no drive to keep going.

Basically a perfect horror game; such a laser-focused experience that didn't let up once in my entire playthrough - I don't really get scared by much any more but this routinely made me shit myself in a way I haven't experienced since I played Alien Isolation as a kid back in 2015. It's kind of a miracle that this balances itself as well as it does - each of the mechanics introduced in this walk a perfect tightrope of being intentionally arduous and stressful without crossing over into annoying territory and it brings a certain weight to literally every action you take; each time I shut a door too loudly I think my soul left my body. Speaking of scares; I love how almost every scare I experienced in this game (besides like, 3?) are all unscripted moments - I think it's so fucking cool that I didn't even get a glimpse of the monster, feeling him as a all encompassing presence until the prison section, where I spotted him lurking in the dark. It's one of the most genuinely frightening moments I've experienced in recent memory and it's insane to think that it was born completely organically.

don't even know what else to say about this thing, it's perfect! Adored this so much, excited to go back and play it more soon.