Always important to keep in mind we do the best with what we have…

…even if the battle is ultimately futile

I was about to remark “now with Silent Hill in my rear view mirror”, in an effort of a more poetic, flourishing segwaying moment of punctuation and finality after my completion of the Silent Hill 2 Remake (SH2R) yesterday, I’m in reality, still in Silent Hill…but I guess that’s just the effect the town has on those who trespass its borders *cue creepy sound effect*. In a more literal sense (though the previous sentiment remains queerly true), I wanted to do at least one new game plus run, as per my usual, not only in my quest of satiating curiosity, but also…well, lots of reasons, actually, though I’m not sure detailing them explicitly here is a need be at the moment. While I did not have a ton of time tonight to dedicate myself to getting very far into my second run through, I was able to be greeted with the chainsaw unlockable the game generously throws your way, as means of congratulation for your first playthrough wrap-up. The least Silent Hill could do, for all of the nasty ass holes it had me shove my innocent hand into. (The Horror).

While the chainsaw does represent a cool reward to treat players to on their second go around, I’m fairly certain, outside of the extra endings to unlock, there is little else for players to look forward to, when having another go through that restless town of unsettling fuckery they can look forward to, which is a shame on some level. In my write up from a couple of weeks ago, where I was putting Resident Evil vs Silent Hill, I did mention one of RE’s strong points compared to SH, and it was in reference to RE being more “video gamey”, which was a prescient point of interest, as so little to look forward in a post credits reality is a definite bummer. In my pseudo review yesterday, I casually cited but brushed past this point, reiterating its relevancy, without taking more of a moment to really consider the ramifications of the theory vs execution of the observed moment, and I think it is a topic of interest with which to briefly discuss further, for interesting reasons beyond the obvious ones that may spring to mind. One of the more surprising ones may be in regards to Hollow Knight: Silksong, which was a game that helped inspire me to write a great deal about many relevant points about game design and the industry in general, and will be a likely source of idea harvesting for awhile yet.

Before I fully dive into that, I will say, while the chainsaw in SH2 is cool, as they often are portrayed in horror media, I can’t help but feel shortchanged by its existence on some level. High attack power aside, as a Doom enthusiast, the attack animation of said chainsaw leaves a lot to be desired in terms of viscerality, as the only method of interaction with said Chainsaw, is James doing a vertical slice downward towards the enemy, with the weapon merely clipping through the target without a true interaction occurring between the blade and the flesh. This might sound somewhat psychotically demented of me, but with being so use to the glory kill system in Doom, this level of lacking interactivity for a chainsaw is downright depressing, as when one primes themselves to use a weapon of such graphic lineage and inspired level of gore, to get so little in the ways of animation or palpable feedback almost makes one feeling more shortchanged then rewarded in the matter. I don’t even think I’m being too absurd in my disappointment here, as that kind of expectation is almost hard-coded into such a tool of destruction, it’s near akin to using a grenade without an explosion, or a shotgun that skips a reload animation. The thing-in-itself becomes nothing at all in that moment, lacking an essential aspect of its own being….”What’s in a weapon? That which we call a chainsaw/By any other name would not cut as visceral.” Well, a chainsaw by any other name may actual have a more impressive cutting animation than the SH2R one, as any animation compared to the absence of one is technically infinitely more by definitional comparative standard, quite obviously. Such a sadness, in the realm of the bloodied and the absurd.

I will elaborate only a little further on one aspect of this new game plus moment, as I have less time than I imagined I would in writing this, and I have a feeling the meat of the premise I desire to discuss will take up the length of an article, so it simply won’t do to compress the entire thought into the tail-end of this one, which is well enough, as I enjoy having topics to discuss on the back burner for next time, and always fine it a dreadful shame when writers use but a mere sentence to make a point, when they could have the luxury to elaborate within an entire piece of informative nuance on the matter. I will say in brief, in leaving the door open for next time with further explication, that when mentioning an idea that I originally stumbled upon while playing Silksong, and one that remains relevant with my first playthrough of Silent Hill, and the same point that separates SH’s approach from RE’s, is the difference that separates an experience from being more grounded as a consumer product, and one that maintains itself more as “a piece of art”, though, if that sounds too heavy handed for some of you to swallow, we could rephrase this notion into “creative endeavor first, game second”, though the irony with making this semantic difference is entirely dependant on perspective, and helps to thoroughly maintain its reality through the phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.

More on that next time.

-Pashford