I'll Stop After This, I Promise.

Imagine that its 201X and God of War IV has come out for the Playstation 3.5. You gleefully pup it into the Hiper Definition RedRay drive on the PS 3.5 and then go to sleep. In the morning you do your usual routine and then check on the system, amazingly it's already at 35% installed. When it finishes you await patiently for the chorus to signal the beginning of Bloodsplatterfest 201X.

However, the chorus does not come. Instead a violin begins playing a tune of intrigue. In the first scene Kratos, wearing a toga and without his melon sized biceps, wakes up agitated in a shabby straw bed. He then proceeds to tell his uninterested wife about his dream where in he was the son of Zeus in a vicious quest for revenge. Afterwards he walks joyfully through the streets of Athens to his job as a Horse Theft Investigator, where he must quickly put together all the clues to save the stolen equestrians.

Naturally disappointed, nay furious, you continue to play the game only because it cost you $125 used and you didn't keep the receipt or the Digital Notarized Letter of Receipt Acceptance (or DNLoRA). However, once you begin playing through the game, you realize that it's actually really good. No it's beyond anything you have experienced before. You have never been so totally intellectually or emotionally engrossed with anything before.

The game changes you life. You begin to exercise and eat right. You call your mother just for the hell of it, every other day. And in between all the good you do, you take some time to continue replaying the game for the seven-hundredth time.

Now here is the question: Is this game worthy of the title, God of War? or to put it another way is this a good God of War game?

Well, no. It's a great game on its own, but it's not really a good GoW game. This is because a GoW game has certain elements that make up what its experience entails in the same way that soccer can never be mistaken for football. Sure they are both sports and a fan may experience similar excitement, but no one will tell you that an American football match was a great soccer game.

My point: re-imagining a series works best when you understand and keep the core of a game, whether that be a combat style, a particular experience, or a particularly interconnected story element. Otherwise don't keep anything and start a new franchise like Lucius: Athenian Horse Theft Investigator.

Here it Comes

A new Silent Hill is in the works if Hamza Aziz is correct over at Dtoid. Not much was said about it, but more will likely follow.

Also of interest I found two commentators who represent the two sides on the Silent Hill is dead debate, or new Silent Hill=Suck.

Here is what seventhevening had to say:

"No, No, No....Konami needs to let the series die. Silent Hill 4 was alright, but as soon as Team Silent left, things went to hell. Origins was awful, Homecoming was playable, yet totally ignored the mythology and butchered the plot, and Shattered Memories was an abomination that butchered the original classic.

The only positive thing I can say about those three games was "At least Akira Yamaoka did the music". But Akira Yamaoka left Konami after Shattered Memories. With no team silent and no Akira Yamaoka, and with Konami's disregard for the mythology of the game, there is no way it could possibly be good.

I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY hope it's a new horror IP. I don't know if my heart can stand watching Silent Hill suffer anymore."

That pretty much sums up the feeling of the old guard of SH fans.

Here is what EdgyDude had to say to that:

"@seventhevening: As long as the games perse are good and follow/keep at least part of the roots of the franchise it's ok to keep making new games, look at Mario, Zelda and Metroid games if they had numbers they'd be at least in #10 each, but does anyone complain about them...no, because they keep the core formula intact but take different approaches to it and of course gameplay is polished ad nauseum.

Look at RE4, you think it would have been better if Capcom had stuck to the old system instead of the more action filled, fast paced one? hell no, the IP would have gone the Sonic route and eventually died. SH is no different, the games themselves have remained great, they just have taken different approaches to the IP:

- Like i said SH:H took a more streamlined combat approach to the franchise, sure, story wise could have been better but it certainly wasn't bad, hell the 3 editors that made the review are all SH fans...and they even gave it an Editor's Choice Award.

- SH:SM was different, only the initial premise was the same to SH1 and that was more of a marketing mistake than a problem in the game itself, also if you reached the ending you'd understand why therapy sessions where so crucial plot wise and if you played multiple times and made different choices you'll understand how cleverly they were used game wise to alter the experience.

I still stand by my point, SH fans are so fixated with the past glories of SH2 that they just can't move on and accept the new chapters and that's very sad IMO cuz they miss out on different but still great experiences based on a memories of times long passed."

I would tend to disagree with EdgyDude (I guess you know what side of the debate I'm on) mostly because the changes that helped RE4 were game mechanics not canon or mythology and Nintendo's franchises have always had a certain freedom with regards to story. Unlike series which build canon with each entry most of Nintendo's series reinvent themselves with each new game, sort of like Final Fantasy, but to a lesser extent.

Though I do agreed that you shouldn't yearn for SH2 so much that it stops you from enjoying all SH games. It may have seem like I hate SH SM, but I really enjoyed it, despite the crippling blow it delivers to the canon. As a stand alone game it delivers some good experiences. I just don't like it as part of the SH family or canon.

Something Something: Shattered Memories

When I finished Silent Hill Shattered Memories for the first time, I wasn't sure what to make of it. It was over all a good experience, if a short one, but something kept bothering me. It wasn't until I played through the game a second time that I realized why I could never bring myself to say that it was a good Silent Hill game: because this is not a Silent Hill game.

Read on to find out why.