“Please don’t loose hope…”
Welcome back for yet another late post. I apologise but, like Mass Effect 2, Doctor Who has priority.
Hopefully I’ll get Wednesday’s post done on time.
Firstly I’ll talk a bit about about this issue. Read the article and the comments (on that site and on every gaming related website around the globe) and make up your own mind. Here’s my opinion:
DRM is mostly a bad call. Why do I say this? because unlike most I buy games. I have often borrowed a game or taken a copy at a LAN party but 98% of the time after woods I’ll buy it. Call me a liar if you will but those who know me can confirm how much I love packaging and physical objects. I don’t feel like I own a game till I have a CD copy in my hands. My bounty of collectors editions and 90s game boxes can confirm this lol.
Anyway back to the point. I can see exactly what the Publishers are doing, but in reality it’s a pointless endeavour to say the least. Games will be cracked, no system is un-crackable. If humans can create it, other humans can break it. Simple fact of the universe and most likely one of the almighty rules of the internet.
Will I refuse to buy a game because it has really horrible DRM? hell no, if the game is good enough I’ll deal with it. Although I have been known to crack a game I’ve bought legitimately because the DRM is so very bad.
Publishers, just give up, you can’t beat the pirates so stop trying. Stop annoying people who actually buy your games for the sake of the ones who will steal it. Seriously most of them probably wouldn’t buy it anyway so it can’t really equate to a lost sale now then can it?
Anyway just something I figured was worth mentioning. Back to the Awards!
Today I bring you the best horror game of the decade, hands down. I know on this one I will have a lot of support.
Best Horror – Silent Hill 2 (PS2) (2001) Wikipedia
A great sequel to one of the greatest games of all time, if you didn’t shit your pants playing this game you must have been fucking constipated.
Few games since have been able to equal the fear this game brought down on players and is one of the few games people will actually turn off out of pure fear. I’ve often told people of how scary this game is, yet most were still foolish enough to try and disprove my beliefs.
Unlike many Horror games (and even films) Silent Hill 2 succeeded in scaring players and spectators by playing with their heads. Silent Hill 2 constantly put players in uncomfortable and unnerving environments. It used more than just scary monsters to scare the players it also used the power of suggestion to a level I’ve still yet to see replicated. How? Simple, using Sound.
I don’t think there is a game out there that matches the sound design of Silent Hill 2, thinks rattle and clank but not with obvious CLANGS! and BANGS! that cause you to jump (although there are a decent amount of those) but with subtle and eerie noises, much like the small sounds we hear late at night when we are all alone.
They even managed to tie sounds in with certain creatures to suggest their presence. The most notable of this would be the infamous Pyramid Head (or Red Pyramid as the original Japanese translation goes). Anyone who has played Silent Hill 2 remembers the subtle sound of Pyramid Head’s Giant Knife (and I do mean GIANT) scrapping along the ground. The thing that made this work so well was that just because you could hear that noise, didn’t mean he was actually going to jump out at you at a certain point. You often heard this and similar noises constantly throughout the course of the game, keeping you on edge at all times.
This simple effect, complimented by a twisted story full of themes so dark they are rarely touched on in mainstream cinema or games. The whole place oozed immersion and it was impossible to escape it’s grasp without quitting the game or throwing the console out the window (I’m sure this must have happened at some point).
This game has stood the test of time so well, even playing it now with it’s outdated and fairly crude graphics the game still manages to make people shit themselves throughout.
If you own this game and haven’t played it in a while, revisit it and remember what it’s like to be scared. 😀
The best Horror Game of the last decade and possibly of all time. It’s a shame the franchise took a bit of a nose dive after this game but at least they still managed to keep the scares up for a while.
Play it at night. I dare you 😀
Honourable Mentions
Dead Space: Honestly a pretty close second to Silent Hill 2 and the first game to scare me in a very long time. Eagerly awaiting Dead Space 2 at the end of this year.
Aliens vs Predator 2: The Marine campaign of this game definitely provided a fair few scares back in the day. Much like Silent Hill’s horrible radio static which implied the approach of monsters. The Motion tracker in AvP2 provided much of the same ‘oh fuck’ feeling.
Join me on Wednesday for the next edition where I’ll name the Best RTS of the decade.
Until Then…keep your eyes on the shadows.
– The Valiant Knight
The Valiant Knight 