I made quite a splash with the fine folks who made "The Real Silent Hill Experience" videos on Youtube the other day with a comment that I placed in their "part 13b - Questions Unanswered" supplementary video.

About three and a half minutes into the video, Rosseter and DerFuzhwar begin discussing their views on the fate of Cybil Bennett from the first game. They assert that the Good+ ending (in which Cybil survives) is likely to be the canonical ending, even though conventional Silent Hill wisdom suggest that the Good ending (in which Cybil dies) is supposed to be orthadox, and they present the following quote from the first game's event programmer, Hiroyuki Owaku:

After reading this quote, I left a comment on the video saying:

Actually, if "what happens to [Cybil] afterwords is up to the player's imaginations", then that would REQUIRE that the Good+ ending be canon. Because in the Good ending, she dies. There's no ambiguity to be left "up to the player's imaginations".
   - MegaBearsFan

This quote apparently impressed the folks at Twin Perfect so much that they highlighted this post and replied:

HUGE BUMP. EVERYONE PLEASE READ.
   - TwinPerfectChannel

I somehow missed this back at the end of September, but apparently, Konami has struck a deal with the Guy Cihi and the original voice actors from Silent Hill 2 in order to be able to re-use their original voice and motion capture performances. Supposedly, both the original voice work and the newly-recorded voice work will be included in the game.

UPDATE November 22, 2011 (3:18 PM PST)

According to an article on gamepur, the version of Silent Hill 3 that is included in the Silent Hill HD Collection will not include the original voice work:

"The HD Collection is on schedule for Jan 2012 release. The deadline for releasing the masters to the duplicators is like, this week. All major actors for SH2 have signed releases and so the SH2 game will offer players both voices – original and new. One SH2 actor was unwilling to sign, or had unreasonably delayed signing, but he has only two lines in SH2, so Devin and Tomm decided to use the new voice for those two lines. SH3, however, is a problem. Konami people have been unable to locate/contact Heather Morris so they cannot get her to sign a rights release. I have tried to find Heather but I was unable. If you know her contact information, please tell me ASAP otherwise SH3 will not have the original voices."
   -Tomm Hulett

Wait, what?

Why is this the first I've heard about the HD Collection not containing the original voice work for Silent Hill 3? As far as I was aware, Guy Cihi (from Silent Hill 2) was the only one preventing the original voice work to be included in Silent Hill 2. I had no idea they were having problems with the Silent Hill 3 cast as well.

I don't understand why this is such a problem. Doesn't Konami own the rights to the games and all vocal performances within? Why is it so hard to re-use the original voices?

Unfortunately, this means that I can no longer recommend the Silent Hill HD Collection for purchase by any Silent Hill fan when it is released on January 24th. If you want to play the games, buy the original versions. You can find used copies on ebay or Amazon at fairly reasonable rates.

As for the people who know me personally: if you have any interest in playing Silent Hill 2 or 3 (or any Silent Hill game for that matter), you are welcome to come over and play mine or borrow a copy. I have plenty to go around!

I came across some interesting articles today relating to video games, and I'd like to share my thoughts about them with you.

• Military parents' game addiction leads to infant deaths
• Video games cure adult lazy eye
• Video games nullify nightmares

Silent Hill senior associate producer Tomm Hulett has been very active this past week discussing upcoming Silent Hill projects for Konami. I've already talked about the release of the first voice recording samples for the Silent Hill HD Collection - it wasn't pretty. But news about the series didn't end there. Hulett has gone on to discuss more information about the two new games and the HD Collection.

Table of contents

• Silent Hill: Book of Memories revealed (video)
• More information about Downpour (videos)
• Tomm Hulett interviewed by Siliconera (screenshot)
• Tomm Hulett is scared of me!
• But Hulett isn't the only one opening his mouth
• Why Silent Hill 4 isn't being included in HD Collection

Silent Hill: Book of Memories revealed

Konami recently released the first footage and information from the new PlayStation Vita handheld game Silent Hill: Book of Memories...

Konami recently released a preview of the new voice work for the upcoming Silent Hill HD Collection. Due to legal issues with at least one of the original game's voice actors (specifically, Konami refuses to pay James Sunderland voice actor Guy Cihi royalties for their re-releases of the game on other platforms), Konami had to find new people to perform the voice work for the games. So now they've got two sets of people that they will need to play royalties to, and in the meantime, us fans get this:

Nerd Rage Time!