Overwatch 2

The original Overwatch was a runaway success that garnered a sizeable player base and many awards, and many fans were understandably excited about the sequel. Overwatch 2’s announcement sparked excitement with promises of expanded PvE and a broader scope, but what we got in reality was a shooter that lost focus of what made it so special in the first place. The magic of Overwatch’s PvE was gone, and the expanded PvP options felt shallow and generic.

SILENT HILL HD COLLECTION

Never has there been a more infuriating example of a remaster that completely misses the point of what makes the original game so good. Silent Hill has always been all about the atmosphere, and the visual changes made in the HD Collection did everything in their power to completely destroy that, from the almost complete removal of something as crucial to the experience as the mist to the baffling lack of improvements made to character models, objects, and environments.

While Konami’s Silent Hill series peaked early – way back with Silent Hill 2, though there was a chance of a legitimate classic horror game with the Kojima-led Silent Hills we never got – future games in the series aren’t quite as bad as some hyperbole surrounding them would have you believe. Some, like Homecoming, are actually fairly decent.

On the other hand, the Silent Hill HD Collection, which tried to remaster the original games for the Xbox 360 and PS3 last generation, was decidedly inferior and sub-par, with graphics that completely missed the point of the original games, ruining their tone and atmosphere. For many, however, they may remain the only way of playing the classic Silent Hill games anymore.

The good news is, Microsoft has made Homecoming, as well as the Silent Hill HD Collection, playable on the Xbox One via the backward compatibility program. True, there are better ways of playing Silent Hill, and there are better Silent Hill games, period- but I don’t think anyone will mind having the option to play through these either, should they wish to.

https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/1021787238307225601

First off Konami went and lost the blasted source code for Silent Hill 2 and 3, meaning vast swathes of the HD collection were ported from unfinished builds, not exactly a stellar start to proceedings.

The HD collection was released to a cavalcade of bugs, rendering the games unplayable in parts. Now the collection is getting a patch for the PlayStation 3, addressing frame-rate and audio-synching issues but plans for an Xbox 360 update “have been cancelled due to technical issues and resources.”

In a press release the Japanese publisher stated “Konami apologizes to any players who are continuing to experience these issues on the XBOX 360 sku.”

Silent Hill HD Collection which is completely broken on the PS3 will finally receive a patch to fix most of the issues which made the collection a financial disaster. The patch is now available for download on PSN, improves a lot of things which you can check out below.

The reason for the broken port is due to Konami losing the original code of these games, which forced the porting developers Hijinx Studios to work on a incomplete code.

“Understanding the issues some users are experiencing, development teams are currently creating online patches for both games, which will fix the frame rate issues, the audio-synching in Silent Hill HD Collection, and the Auto-Save issues in Silent Hill Downpour, ” Konami mentioned in a press release.

Players have voiced their concerns, and solutions to these issues will be fixed and launched in the coming weeks.”

Patch fixes are detailed below:

• Improved Frame rate
• Voice Synch is greatly improved
• Missing sounds have been fixed
• Missing music has been addressed
• Fog density issues are resolved
• Other minor visual/audio improvements

]]> https://gamingbolt.com/silent-hill-hd-collection-ps3-patch-aims-to-fix-a-terrible-port/feed 1 96406 https://gamingbolt.com/konami-lost-the-source-code-for-silent-hill-2-and-3-resulting-in-hd-collections-poor-quality https://gamingbolt.com/konami-lost-the-source-code-for-silent-hill-2-and-3-resulting-in-hd-collections-poor-quality#comments Mon, 28 May 2012 06:41:38 +0000 http://gamingbolt.com/?p=90970 In an interesting turn of events, it has been revealed that Konami has lost the source code for Silent Hill 2 and 3, which resulted in a massive bug quashing period for the developers who ported the games to the HD consoles.

They had to work with an unfinished build, and also fixed some issues that the original developers of the game had to fix in their final build. It is incredibly hard to believe that a company like Konami can lose the source code to, what is, one of their best franchises.

“We got all the source code that Konami had on file – which it turns out wasn’t the final release version of the games,” senior associate producer Tomm Hulett said to 1UP.

“So during debug we didn’t just have to deal with the expected ‘porting’ bugs, but also had to squash some bugs that the original team obviously removed prior to release, but we’d never seen before.

“A lot of assets such as textures and sound had to be taken out of the compiled game, and that brings with it a host of unique issues, especially taken on top of the tricky coding workarounds at play in the original games. We certainly had our hands full.

“I think at one point Heather was blue,” he added. Now if you are wondering why the HD Collection doesn’t have fog and other effects the PS2 version had, this is why.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Konami has confirmed the release date for Silent Hill HD Collection. It will be released on March 29th for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

They have also released a new trailer which you can check above. It is rather short so don’t expect too much of gameplay footage.

Silent Hill HD Collection includes the second and third games from the series, both of which were previously released for PlayStation 2. The soundtrack has been re-recorded, as has all dialogue. The included version of Silent Hill 2 will feature stages from original Director’s Cut supplemental release.

Thanks to Siliconera for the info.

Konami today announced the definitive release dates for the three 2012 Silent Hill franchise titles: Silent Hill HD Collection, Silent Hill Downpour and Silent Hill Book of Memories.

Silent Hill HD Collection: March 6.
Silent Hill HD Collection serves as a tribute to the core Silent Hill fans by taking the most famous games of the series, Silent Hill 2 & 3, and re-mastering them in high-definition graphics and adding new voiceovers.

Silent Hill Downpour: March 13.
Silent Hill Downpour follows the story of Murphy Pendleton, a convicted felon, who finds himself trapped in Silent Hill after his prison transport bus crashes. Silent Hill Downpour is the most expansive Silent Hill to date, as players can embark on side missions, explore the town and piece more of the mystery of Silent Hill together.

Silent Hill Book of Memories: March 27 Available exclusively for the brand new PlayStation Vita handheld device, Book of Memories is an all-new game in the Silent Hill series, with a unique premise and storyline. The story begins with a strange book that is received; inside that book is your entire life story and all of your memories. You discover that by altering what’s written you can actually change the past. You can write your own ideal history. And for the first time ever in a Silent Hill game, it will support multiplayer, so friends can share in the fright in a co-op mode