I hate those days when you just can’t decide on what seems like the better choice.

Decisions, decisions….

Today is that kind of day for, and quite honestly, a day that has no shortage of bad energy, truth be told. As a result, I’m not feeling terribly inspired to write. though I’ve mentioned in the past that I’ve been aiming to maintain a streak of writing every day, and I’m currently still in the midst of doing so, which means I’m summoning the intent to put some words to the screen. I am still currently making my way through the Silent Hill 2 Remake, but I think I’m going to shift writing focuses, as it does not seem that the articles are generating much interest, sadly.

I still haven’t decided which game to shift to, as it is still Spooptober, which means I should give another Survival Horror game a go, me thinks. I’m wondering if I should switch back to Resident Evil on some level, as it seems to attract a certain kind of energy. There is a small part of me that thinks people like it more because it’s inherently sexier than Silent Hill, not like from a graphical standpoint, as I feel both series have done a decent job with aesthetic over the years. And, while I wasn’t alluding to the cast, it is not lost on me that many of the characters from RE have a ton of fans due to the ridiculous lookers the ensemble represents, the entire series seems custom tailored to put thirst-traps on front and center on a regular basis.

I was more or less talking about the concepts inherent in both games, with RE being far more simplistic in its approach to horror as a series, both thematically and design wise. It’s easier to sell the idea of “bad monsters, shoot dead” as opposed to “abstractual destitution, confront self” kind of contrasting vibes. I will take this moment to say this isn’t me poo-pooing Silent Hill, and I always applaud media that attempts to take a smarter approach to story telling. There’s no denying however, the digestibility factor that comes into play when one starts to identify the pros and cons of media in its entirety, and how so many people want to placate their basic instincts, feeding both their primal urge to gluttonously gorge and fervently feast on both their wanton lust for sex, violence, and anything else they can fit in their mouth, or slather their brain-pan with., and usually the loudest of the lot get the job done with more gusto.

That kind of bombacity, the kind RE chases, can come back to bite it in the ass from time to time, of course. Even though the games are digestible, they do run into the issue that something like Assassins Creed does to some extent, in that they can become too formulaic for their own good, with the series needing a mix up several times throughout its life span. Unlike AC, however, Resident Evil has successfully done so in some fairly significant ways, which is saying something in service to the creative minds that wanted to shepard the series in a more authentic direction, or at least the kind of quality that the Resident Evil name is associated with. I think the obvious and big example is when Resident Evil 6 went too broad with its Hollywood coattail riding, becoming too bombastic and Michael Bay-esque in the process. Ironically, that game still sold like hotcakes, with over 10 million copies in fact moved. I don’t say that as a source of pride as a fan of a series I like: the fact that it sold brilliantly is in fact abysmal, as RE6 is creatively bankrupt, and represented a new low for the series, in-spite of selling so well. We are all quite lucky Capcom did not want to continue traveling down that road, lest Resident Evil go the way of Assassins Creed entirely.

Maybe that was one of the fundamental issues with keeping Silent Hill alive vs keeping Resident Evil alive. The core concepts represented different things to different people, and whereas one may have been a more conceptually inspired endeavor, the beats involved with the other had safer building blocks to play with. It could be that Silent Hill was never destined to be a franchise, even if the core idea behind the horror had plenty of gas in it to facilitate a variety of interesting concepts that could be riffed upon successfully, but the Resident Evil formula almost caters to a greater simplicity of design merit that services the more fundamental aspects of gameplay on some level. Which, is crazy when you think about it, cause if one wasn’t paying close enough attention, one could easily mistake both series as having interchangeable elements, but the gulf of difference between the two is vast indeed.

Well, this was more of an attempt at rambling and seeing what came out of it, so I don’t feel the need to officiate this comparison process with any rigid resolution in terms of saying one is emphatically better than the other, as I do enjoy both series quite a bit. Though, there is plenty to build off of here in terms of continuing to contrast the two titles with an even worthier deep dive as to what makes both series tick.

Sound like an article for another time, though.

-Pashford