My cosplay for 2010-2011

Silent Hill is sadly one of the most misunderstood game franchises in existence. Part of this is due to the fragmentary and disjointed way in which the original games tell their stories. The designers of the first three games didn't just tell the player what the game's story is. There is no “Bond villian wrap-up” at the end. The designers respected the intelligence of the player, gave us clues piece by piece over the course of each game, and relied on us to put it all together in the end.

But too many fans rely on information that has been circulated by many third-party documents, including some “official” strategy guides and plot analysis that contain possibly inaccurate information that ignores information specifically provided within the game. And when Team Silent disbanded after Silent Hill 4, this erroneous information became the basis for the plots of the future games (and the movie), further tainting people's ideas of the original plots.

As such, this is going to be the first in a series of analysis and interpretation articles that I will be posting on this blog in anticipation of the upcoming Silent Hill Downpour.

Of course, any discussion of Pyramid Head is going to include PLOT SPOILERS for the game. If you haven't played the game yet, read ahead at your own risk. Also, this post contains images and video that may not be safe for work!

The “Rape Time” myth

One example of an unfortunate misunderstanding with the franchise is that Silent Hill fans have latched onto this idea that Red Pyramid Thing (a.k.a. “Pyramid Head”) is a raving serial mannequin-rapist. I believe that label is unjustified.

The idea that Red Pyramid Thing is a mannequin rapist comes almost exclusively from this first major encounter with the creature in the apartment buildings.

More photos have been released from the set of the new Silent Hill Revelation 3D movie. These images were captured by professional photographer Sara Collaton using a long-exposure technique in order to avoid the use of a flash and maintain the dark tone. The pictures are all of an amusement park set. Lakeside Amusement Park was an important location in both the first and third Silent Hill games.

The photos themselves are quite neat, because the long-exposure method gives a sort of blurry flatness to all of the objects in the photograph, giving them an almost video game-like quality. Wait a minute... Did I just compliment somebody for making a photograph of real life look more like a video game? I think I just did!

But, what if you compare the above images with some screen captures from the third game:

Last week, the Italian version of Xbox360 Magazine quoted Silent Hill Downpour art director Radek Marek as saying:

"At the moment there will be no multiplayer modes in Silent Hill: Downpour, but Konami are investigating a separate chapter devoted entirely to the Multiplayer. ... We do not know the details but it should be an XBLA title that most players have to survive in the town of Silent Hill."

The quote seemed to be confirmation that Konami was working on a multiplayer Silent Hill project that would likely have ended up being a stand-alone XBox Live downloadable game. But Konami was quick to debunk the claim a few days later, saying that Marek's comment was mistranslated and clarifying:

"Whoever that Italian interviewer was either took Radeks comments completely out of context, or it was lost in translation. As previously mentioned, we were (many moons ago) investigating a separate Multiplayer mode, but that was quickly extinguished when we costed it out and determined how much resource time it would detract from the core singleplayer experience."

So it would seem that Silent Hill fans will be going without any sort of multiplayer mode in the near future.

New photos from set of Silent Hill Revelation 3D movie

Hot off the release of the first official filming photos from the Silent Hill movie sequel yesterday, some new photos from the set of that movie have been made public (don't think these ones are official though). You can see all the pics at Century 21's website (don't know why a real-estate company is posting photos from a movie set...). These photos mostly show some painting and remodeling work being done by the movie's production staff to make Cambridge, Ontario look like Silent Hill, but there is one photo that stood out to me:

Earlier this month, an official photo of actress Adelaide Clemens as Heather Mason in the upcoming Silent Hill: Revelation 3D was released to the public. It was an interesting photo that probably made a lot of fans of Silent Hill very hopefully that this sequel might actually turn out right.

Take a look at the photo, then read the official plot synopsis for the movie:

“For years, Heather Mason and her father have been on the run, always one step ahead of dangerous forces that she doesn’t fully understand. Now on the eve of her 18th birthday, plagued by terrifying nightmares and the disappearance of her father, Heather discovers she’s not who she thinks she is. The revelation leads her deeper into a demonic world that threatens to trap her in Silent Hill forever.”

Sounds pretty promising doesn't it?