Transcript

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the gaming Backlog book club.

Silent Hill F released two days ago, reviewed pretty well. And while the detractors say where’s the connection to the town of Silent Hill, I know after arriving halfway through this Silent Hill 2 remake, I’m all in for F. And it looks like an excellent modern take in a different locale. I mean obviously purists like their things a very specific way, but it looks great to me.

[00:00:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I’ve. I’ve watched a few of the trailers for it. It looks really great to me as well. I’ve seen it. Just a couple people, not like complete spoiler free reviews, just saying basically that this is one of the scariest Silent Hill games that they’ve played in a while. Like they’ve really made it quite a lot scarier compared to some of the previous ones and so that definitely makes it more intriguing. I’m already terrified playing Silent Hill 2 Remake. It’s going to be fun playing F.

[00:00:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I mean from what I can tell, it seems like a lot more of the enemy designs are even creepier or grotesque in two remake. It’s wow, they already did a good job with that. So if you can out creep that, then I’m in.

But not for a while. It’ll be a break after this one.

[00:01:15] Speaker B: No, yeah, it’s going to be a.

[00:01:17] Speaker A: Break for probably a long break. I’ll wait until it’s on sale or free subscription game. Yeah, maybe give a year at least. And you know, there’s still some other horror games to throw in in various other series. Silent Hill will take its break anyway, we must finish up to remake first.

[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yes, exactly.

[00:01:37] Speaker A: So just to remind, we go into spoilers both story and gameplay wise. So if you want to avoid that, start another episode, play along and come back. Anyway, as we kick off this one, we had just left the Blue Creek apartments and you run into a girl who you later find out Laura. And she just immediately says, you didn’t love Mary anyway, but this is the first time you’ve spoken, so how does she know anything about that?

That’s my question.

[00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah, the same here. Same here. I was like, I was like, how did you know her? And I was like, I was like, why are you being such a little brat telling her you don’t know I didn’t know her.

[00:02:15] Speaker A: And she does. You do have a little bit of a longer. Like she’ll actually talk to you for a couple of minutes in the hospital later and she says, you know, James asked her, how do you know about that. How do you know about Mary? And he says, I just do. There’s a lot of very, you know, childlike conversation coming from there. But I think there’s a lot more to it. Obviously she’s very vague.

[00:02:37] Speaker B: Very vague, obviously.

[00:02:39] Speaker A: And you end up.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. A lot of attitude. I think that just comes with the territory. But she doesn’t seem to be creeped out by anything, which is good on her. And. Yeah. So you end up meeting a number of interesting characters throughout this portion of the game. So your late wife is Mary. Then when you finally reach your special place, which is the sort of boardwalk in Rosewater park, you run into someone named Maria who sounds and looks like Mary but with blonde hair instead. Not suspicious at all. It doesn’t help my suspicions that they add this weird seductive, femme fatale type music behind it either. And every interaction with her is her flirting with you, basically.

[00:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah, she’s very seductive. She’s. She obviously has bad intentions to do with. To do.

[00:03:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I guess it could be good intentions, depending how you look at it.

[00:03:32] Speaker B: But you know, from her view. Yeah, but James is like, I love how like multiple times James is like, I’m looking for my wife. I’m looking for my wife. It’s okay, I’ll come with you.

[00:03:41] Speaker A: He just grabs him when she reunites with you later in the other world hospital too, he sees her silhouette and calls out to Mary and it’s an oh, sorry. Anyway. And she gets all pissed off.

[00:03:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that was funny.

[00:03:57] Speaker A: Well, I, you know, I will also, just as a layering over this entire thing, the sound design continues to be on point. When you’re with Mary in the park, if you walk into the bathroom and she follows you in, her footsteps change to heel clicks on the hard floor.

And so like even just really minor things like that that probably don’t happen all that often were included, which I think is just a really props to whoever was doing the sound editing here and sound effects.

Another interesting thing too. So when you’re wandering through after the park and trying to continue on, if you go to the stave, like go to save your game, basically, while Marie is with you, she makes a comment asking if you’re all right and says, it’s like you froze for a second.

[00:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that did you notice that did happen.

[00:04:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I got that Clever commentary on saving a game from a meta perspective, but with an in universe explanation.

[00:04:55] Speaker B: I appreciated that.

[00:04:57] Speaker A: Same here. Why are you just staring at this piece of paper for a long period of time?

[00:05:02] Speaker B: It’s like Are you okay? Are you having a stroke? Are you okay there, James?

[00:05:05] Speaker A: Clearly he’s not okay, but, you know, she hasn’t realized it yet. And. Yeah. Okay, so if you go in that, you run over to the motel, right. If you go into room 106. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a required room in the Pathway.

James says there’s something wrong with this room and he’s not sure that it’s not sure if it’s better to be in there or run around with the monsters outside. What did you do in this room, James? That’s what I want to know.

Yeah, I don’t know that we’ll ever find out, but what paths do you.

[00:05:33] Speaker B: Have with this room?

I will say, before I went to the motel, I went down.

Is it Stanley Road?

[00:05:40] Speaker A: Yeah, all the way to the other end. Did you go all the way?

[00:05:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I went to everything down there. Everywhere that you could go. The bowling alley, the gas station.

[00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the gas station has a. Has a massive ambush from a bunch of enemies.

[00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that was. Yeah, that got me.

[00:06:02] Speaker A: That got me good. You get the. Did you get the garage sort of jack to open the garage door in the other corner?

[00:06:08] Speaker B: Yes, but I’m an idiot and I got it. And then I got so caught up in all the other stuff like going down, that then I just went straight to the motel and I forgot to use the jack. And so I kind of missed something. Now I’m a little.

Yeah, I was like, oh, I was doing well of like, finding and using everything. And then I was in the hospital. And later on I’m like, why do I still have the jack in my inventory? I was like, I must have had to have used this earlier. And I completely forgot.

[00:06:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think you can’t actually, like, get rid of it. What happens in that. In that garage is you find, I think, some ammo and some health. And then there’s like one of those strange photo collectible items. I think now’s a good time to bring up the strange photos as well. Like, you find them lying around everywhere. Like what? They’re usually out of focus photos of random objects with numbers scribbled on the back. You know, genius of the puzzle puzzles. What is the grand scheme point of these things? Or is the point just to have an unsettling collectible item because they wanted to throw a collectible item in there?

[00:07:11] Speaker B: I know.

That was the thing. That’s why I was kind of upset because it’s like I’ve been finding all the strange photos I believe so far and I wanted to get all of them, but I’ve missed one now, so I don’t know. I don’t know if it opens back up to be able to go to the Western Sofville.

[00:07:29] Speaker A: I don’t know, maybe someone who’s played before and let us know. Yeah, it’s funny, in the, in the bowling alley, I got a super random trophy there for examining a mostly eaten pizza. And James makes a snarky comment about eating pizza with monsters outside.

[00:07:45] Speaker B: Yep, I got that as well. Yeah, that was.

I don’t know. But hey, everyone, you get hungry.

[00:07:52] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, you get hungry. You’re playing monsters fighting monsters. Gotta have some pizza. Which it looked like Eddie ended up having a pizza later, so maybe it was him on his way over there.

[00:08:04] Speaker B: Maybe it was pizza.

[00:08:07] Speaker A: And you know what this means, though.

Yet another connection to pizza in our podcast. Right. We’ve seen it already in Death Stranding. We’ve seen it in Turtles in Time.

Now we’ve seen it in Silent Hill 2.

I guess we’re just choosing games based on pizza. I didn’t know it.

[00:08:22] Speaker B: Pizza. We love pizza.

[00:08:25] Speaker A: I don’t even like that pizza that much. It’s good sometimes, but, you know, it’s not an essential food item. Anyway, anyway, yeah, when you get to the.

[00:08:33] Speaker B: Oh, I was gonna say just when you get to the end of that street, there’s that like dead body completely at the end of the street.

[00:08:41] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:08:42] Speaker B: Like a note that says, like, he almost made it, I’m gonna make it.

[00:08:45] Speaker A: Or yeah, he was trying to escape or whatever.

[00:08:47] Speaker B: Trying to escape. They didn’t quite make it though.

[00:08:52] Speaker A: You know, similar to the strange photos, there are also some things in the environment that have the X pop up and when you interact with them, they just kind of focus in and play some weird music and then pull back out with a what the heck vibe to them.

I guess that’s another form of collectible. But it doesn’t really add up yet.

[00:09:10] Speaker B: It seems like it’s like a flashback or a memory or a moment that may have happened. I don’t know. But yeah, as I said, they’re very. Again, vague because you just. You go on to them and then it just kind of.

[00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think the pizza was one of those too. It’s just. Yeah, it’s just like, why are you showing me this?

Who knows? Anyway, you know, you continue on, you go through the motel and all that, and you’re. And you end up trying to basically run around. You’re Going through the neighborhood and you use your 2×4 with the nails in it to bar a gate in the neighborhood and then immediately pick up a pipe from a nearby running car. So I guess I wasn’t wrong. There is indeed a pipe in this game as a melee weapon. And it appears to be an upgrade, full replacement of your 2×4, I would say. It doesn’t seem to kill anything much faster. It definitely doesn’t knock anyone down any faster, but I guess it’s sturdier. I would have expected that 2×4 to crack in half ages ago.

[00:10:09] Speaker B: Yeah, a long time ago. Yeah, you’re right though. I saw right when I picked up the pipe, I always said to myself, like, ah, Andrew was right. We do get a pipe.

[00:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I thought I had seen it somewhere, but I guess I don’t know. And yeah, so you know, you end up going. Once you get that, you. You work kind of maze your way around and end up at a strip club. And I think what they did really good with, at least with this remake. I don’t know how it was in the original, but the expressions on James face are great. The apprehensiveness on his face when Maria pulls out a key and opens the back door of the strip club is just so well portrayed. He peers in, then gives her a confused look, really nervous before walking in. Like, are you about to attack me or what’s up?

Exactly my thoughts, Jane. This seems to be a little too good to be true.

[00:10:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it does. Maria just has that.

It’s just a weird quality.

[00:11:01] Speaker A: There’s a weird vibe with her and a little too, too coincidental, like she was expecting you to show up, but maybe not. She makes a lot of weird comments about how you’re supposed to protect her. I don’t know.

Yeah, she does, but she’s definitely.

[00:11:19] Speaker B: That was one of the things. When you go down Stanley Road, she does make a lot of weird comments. But when you go down Stanley Road and you like smash windows and stuff, she’s like, oh, you scared me. Oh, you startled me. You just be like, why did you do that? Why you keep breaking.

[00:11:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I was like, I need all the health and ammo, don’t you know?

[00:11:35] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:11:36] Speaker A: She also puts her. Puts her hand up. If you shine the flashlight in her face, she like tries to cover her eyes.

[00:11:43] Speaker B: Oh, really? Okay.

[00:11:44] Speaker A: So the little subtle animations are well done. You know, it doesn’t. It’s not like anything major game changing, but it, but it’s good to see things like that. And the sound Effects all play a role in here.

So, you know, backstage in the club, as you’re working your way through because Maria just runs off. There are two arcade cabinets. One’s called Defenders of the Horizon and the other one is Trample. Not sure if they’re references to real arcades.

Does anyone on Discord have any ideas about that? They could just be made up names and that’s that. But I’d be curious if they were in universe versions of something else.

[00:12:20] Speaker B: Oh, I missed those. I didn’t see that. What is the. What is Trample? What did Trample look like? Did it have like a picture on it?

[00:12:27] Speaker A: Oh, it didn’t really. It didn’t. It had just kind of the name in some certain font and that was about it. It didn’t really give me a vibe of anything in particular.

[00:12:34] Speaker B: It makes me think Trample is like Rampage.

[00:12:38] Speaker A: Oh, that’d be cool.

I did enjoy Rampage back in the day on N64. That was a lot of fun. And in the arcade.

[00:12:44] Speaker B: Yeah.

And then what was the other one? Defenders.

[00:12:48] Speaker A: Defenders of the Horizon. Which sounds like it could be a lot of things. Probably something that may or may not involve a plane or a spaceship.

[00:12:57] Speaker B: Galaga.

[00:12:59] Speaker A: I thought Galaga or asteroids or something. But then horizon means like you’re on a planet.

[00:13:04] Speaker B: I don’t know.

[00:13:05] Speaker A: I guess we’ll never know. Or someone on Discord can tell us. As you keep working your way, you obviously walk into the strip club, there’s a cutscene. Maria is for sure trying to seduce James at this point, you know, and trying to get him drunk and all that.

[00:13:20] Speaker B: And.

[00:13:22] Speaker A: Don’T need to keep beating a dead horse in the that analysis there because I may or may not see anything later. And then you continue on, you get into the movie theater.

Eddie sure is a weird guy, huh?

[00:13:38] Speaker B: Eddie is a very unique.

Yeah, very weird person.

[00:13:44] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, in the movie theater there, between the sound and the appearance of it, I get the feeling that he might not actually be eating popcorn because it was kind of a little weird looking. It didn’t look white and small, so I don’t know. But I also don’t think they made him a cannibal or something even weirder.

[00:14:04] Speaker B: I don’t know.

[00:14:05] Speaker A: It might just been an animation quirk. I just zeroed in on it too hard. But he sort of gives off an unusual vibe. That’s like. He kind of seems just like the helpless doofus dude. But also. I don’t know.

[00:14:17] Speaker B: Yeah, but there might be more.

Definitely more to him.

[00:14:23] Speaker A: Yeah.

And so you arrive at the hospital, and the hospital man at PTSD about that.

But actually I was quite surprised by how pleasant the hospital was at first.

There was some natural light, which is a little unusual considering how foggy it is outside. But the lights are on in the lobby. And then all of a sudden things take a turn for the bat shaped. Crazy.

[00:14:49] Speaker B: Yes, they do. Yes, they do. At the hospital. That was, yeah, very crazy.

[00:14:56] Speaker A: And so obviously, through the accessibility features, you can rebind buttons to other buttons, which I’ve done for a couple things. But you can’t bind some functions, but not other functions of the same button to another button. So, for example, when you get grabbed by an enemy and have to mash X to get them off, I hate that. Just that it’s bound to X, not the mashing itself. But I’m terrible at mashing with X. And I want to mash with something that’s easier to move my index finger to at a moment’s notice without risking it sliding off. I would prefer maybe square. I know it’s really close, but at least it gives you something to center on. Basically, I’m just so much faster at matching with my index finger than my thumb that I end up taking damage just because of that.

Okay, complaint over. But now onto the nurses, which made me extra aware of this. So the nurses grab you a lot if you get too close.

So I started shooting them in the kneecaps more often to knock them down and then go run up. But that’s why I started to really hate the X button as the mash button. Otherwise, the nurses are just as expected, creepy, unpredictable, make weird noises.

And they’re also meat sponges.

They take so many pipe hits to take out if you’re going just melee. Jesus.

[00:16:07] Speaker B: Yeah, they take. They take a lot these, as they call them bubble nurses. It’s crazy. I mean, I actually now realize why they call them bubble nurses because their heads are kind of bubbles if you look at them closely.

[00:16:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s unusual.

[00:16:19] Speaker B: And you can with so early on we get like, you can get the shotgun. And if you can get them in a shotgun blast, you can like one shot him in the head with a shotgun blast. But yes, I didn’t do that very often because I didn’t want to waste the ammo, the shotgun at all. Not much.

I did what you did where I would shoot a lot in the knees or like if you do a head shot as well with the handgun, it kind of stuns them. So I’d like if I could hit him in the head and stun him and then just hit him a couple times with the pipe. But again, this is my gripe. It’s just the dodging sometimes with James, man, like I’m trying to like do the sprint and the dodge back at the same time, but the guy just. Yeah, sometimes does not dodge either. Like he doesn’t dodge very far or complete opposite way of the way I’m doing my. And it’s just. Then I’ll get hit needlessly. Like I don’t need to get hit by like the pipe from one of the pipe wielding nurses or.

Yeah, it’s just.

[00:17:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, the. The. And I think the nurse is actually what makes it even tougher is that they sometimes after their first one, they usually do a double swing. So they’ll swing at you twice. So if you dodge the first one, you got to remember to dodge right away again.

Otherwise they. And with the ones with the pipes can really hit you. The ones with the knives seem to kind of lunge forward.

[00:17:34] Speaker B: But I remember so much more damage though. Like if you get caught, you gotta. They do way more damage.

[00:17:41] Speaker A: The. I remember at one point later there’s one of those cracks in the wall hit X to go through. And I saw through and could see a nurse in there, but I could hear one of the other lying figures with acid or whatever on the ground. And so I went through the. Because they weren’t coming anywhere near to shoot them through the wall.

Killed the one acid thing. And then I was like, okay, I think the nurse is coming. So I went really quickly back through the wall again to try to turn around. And before I could even turn around, I got hit by the nurse through the wall.

Because you just started sprinting basically and then had to. I got caught on the wall somewhere. So I couldn’t even dodge and somehow survived it. But it’s just I did go through. You know, I walked into the hospital, I think with a hundred or so handgun rounds and well, fortunately you keep picking up more and more and they’re pretty plentiful, I would say, considering the survival nature of this game. But I ended up with like 40 maybe at the end of the hospital section. Just because I.

Between mannequins and nurses, I don’t really go melee. I take two or three shots. I think the. The mannequins now take either three bullets or two bullets to the knees. To knock to the knees and then hit them and then smack them.

[00:18:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s what I do. I just do two bullets. I try and hit each leg with A bullet to knock them down, and.

[00:18:58] Speaker A: Then I just sprint and smack them.

The nurses, I think take three or four. I think their damage is very like their health is variable. A little bit. Like some of them, even though I hit them dead on in the legs, will.

It might be specifically knee versus thigh or something, but yeah, like three or four rounds and then go. And when they’re kneeling, I think what the big difference that I found out though is you can hit a nurse twice and then go hit them while they’re still standing. And it still takes like four hits with the pipe to knock them over. So it’s much better to just take that extra round into them and then hit them while they’re kneeling because they instantly fall while they’re kneeling.

[00:19:37] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:19:40] Speaker A: So that’s my strategy moving forward for sure. As long as I have ammo available.

[00:19:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, the ammo is definitely.

I mean, I’m. I search everything to hopefully to find as much. Hopefully get some more everything I can. Yeah.

[00:19:56] Speaker A: The. And. And yes, the shotgun has arrived and I’m so glad it has. I do appreciate the plentiful ammo for the handgun, so I kept using it. I really saved my shotgun rounds almost all for the boss.

Um, now I try not to rely on it too much, but that. That kneecap strategy works out well. And yes, I’m still really bad at timing the dodge of most of their attacks of most enemies.

[00:20:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I. I will say now with the bubble nurses, for me, there are times where because they’re attracted to your light. So I’ll turn off my flashlight if I can have one of them, and I’ll creep up slowly and if I can get him. If you can get them from behind, then you say the second you hit them from behind, they go straight down onto the ground with the pipe.

[00:20:39] Speaker A: So I don’t think I tried going from behind.

[00:20:42] Speaker B: So if you can sneak up, if you shut your light off, and then you can. If they usually do like a pattern, it’s like a square or whatever or something. If you can get them to turn around or be behind them and the him with a pipe, they’ll go straight down to the ground. And then you can just beat on them while they’re on the ground and then that takes them out easier.

[00:20:59] Speaker A: Very good to know.

[00:21:00] Speaker B: Yeah. But it’s also sometimes tricky because I’ve had it where I’ve had it behind, and then the second I’m about to swing, all of a sudden they spin around and then I hit them. But it’s obviously not going to Put him on the ground.

[00:21:11] Speaker A: It doesn’t register that. That. Yeah, that. Auto knockdown.

Okay, well, that’s good to know. I’ve tried the. I’ve done the turn off the light so they don’t notice me, so I can, like, sneak around them, and that works, but I haven’t actually tried hitting them. The only thing that really freaks me out about turning my light off, though, and trying to sneak up on someone would be someone else sneaking up on me, most likely a mannequin.

[00:21:34] Speaker B: Totally agree on that.

Yeah, I’ve had that before where I’ve turned off the light, and I’ve snuck up behind a nurse, and I hit it in the back and then taking it down, and then all of a sudden, I turn around, and a mannequin’s, like, jumped on me, and I’m like. There have definitely been a few times, especially this chapter, I have literally jumped while I’ve been playing.

[00:21:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Even. Even sometimes, you know what happens to me, too, is I’ll know. I’ll see.

I’ll walk into a room. I’ll expect something. I’ll see a mannequin trying to hide behind something. But obviously, it’s, like, not super sneaky. It’s kind of like a kid hiding, and you see it kind of just slightly moving around until I’ll get perfectly aimed up, and then the freaking flashlight flickers, and it’ll spark into motion, and then you miss the shot, and then it hits you and all that.

[00:22:22] Speaker B: Yep, that happened too.

[00:22:23] Speaker A: I’ve also had the.

Had a. In that area where there’s. Towards the end of the other world hospital, where there’s, like, the clock and some other stuff. There’s. I saw a nurse, and I was like, okay, I’m gonna go around the long way with the light off. And then I saw a mannequin wander off in the corner, like, kind of in the same direction. And then I never saw it again. And so every step, I was turning and trying to find out where it was so I could take it out, but I never found it. So I don’t know if I just ran away or what, but.

Yeah. So at one point, James crawls into a space in between two walls and then falls a floor down with the rough landing. I guess he would have benefited from YouTube existing with videos of people dropping into tight spaces in nature to put that fear into him, because that’s not something I would ever want to do. Like, why? Why? Obviously, everything else is walled off, but why would the best choice be to go into a hole A claustrophobic hole in a wall.

I guess it’s just what you got to do.

[00:23:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I don’t know. That’s not something.

He’s also very lucky. He falls into the wall and there’s a part where he can push it down to get back out.

[00:23:34] Speaker A: Yeah, really. Like he just happened to land in front of the lockers. Like, lucky you.

[00:23:40] Speaker B: You are very lucky.

[00:23:42] Speaker A: He keeps getting these weird breaks. But, you know, I did find. I really liked the puzzles in the hospital. Overall, there were a couple that were kind of just fetch questy almost. But the X ray puzzle was really cool.

[00:23:56] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:23:57] Speaker A: You define, you know, there’s an X ray right in front of it. So it gives you the hint that, yes, that’s what you gotta do. And then you go and find the mold, the X ray later, and you remove the mold and then you end up having to spin them around and all that. I thought that was really well done.

And also the wristbands with the alchemistry ciphers on the director’s safe, like, it’s a. I think they did a good job of combining the fetch quest thing, like have you to go find this item with actually doing something with it when you have it.

[00:24:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to talk about. Yeah, I enjoyed the puzzles just like you in this chapter. The bracelet one was fun. Creepy. You go to some weird creepy places. Like the pool. That pool was disgusting.

Until you drain it out. And then obviously this one bracelet behind the wall, like in the wall of the pool, which was crazy.

[00:24:46] Speaker A: So even though they were supposedly drowned in that pool, I still went up and whacked all the enemies that were lying at the bottom of the pool just to.

[00:24:54] Speaker B: Not I. I jumped in and just gave him a few whacks on the ground. It’s like, nope, you’re not getting up. I also do that every time I backtrack and I go past something that’s on the ground. I’ll just like. Like a nerd or whatever. I just really like, you’re not getting up.

[00:25:09] Speaker A: Stay down.

[00:25:10] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:25:13] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:25:13] Speaker B: But yeah, I think actually the alchemy symbols and all that, I actually took like I had a post it note and a pen by me and I like drawn down.

[00:25:20] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:25:20] Speaker B: Like drew the symbols and wrote like, it’s this number, this number and like, whatever. So I could.

[00:25:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I did something similar.

Otherwise it’d be too much back and forth with the map and all that stuff.

[00:25:31] Speaker B: I thought, I thought when it was weird because I thought when you put the books in order for that puzzle to create the picture.

I swear I thought I saw James, like, take this, like, notepad out and like, draw, like, do something.

And so I was like, looking through, like, yeah, yeah, I was looking through. I was like, nope, okay, there’s nothing here.

[00:25:48] Speaker A: So I does that a lot.

[00:25:50] Speaker B: But yeah, so I just sat there and then I made it all myself and was like, okay, now I go back over.

[00:25:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

But I think that just the use of something like weird and off kilter like that, the alchemistry stuff and using it to open the director’s safe and History three, you know, hopeless patients and all that, it really fit in well with the theme at all. They just did a really good job.

[00:26:16] Speaker B: Yeah, they did.

[00:26:17] Speaker A: And then, so, yeah, okay, you get. You get the X ray puzzle done and then the director’s safe and you get access to the roof.

And then Pyramid head jump scares you on the roof, but rather than kill you, he throws you through the floor. What is his end game here? He could have crushed you so many times by now.

[00:26:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that. That got me. I was actually sitting. My wife was sitting next to me on the couch watching me play. And that got both of us. We both jumped on that when he just came right through the door and grabbed. I was not expecting that. Not at all.

[00:26:49] Speaker A: Has she watched much of this?

[00:26:51] Speaker B: She’s. She’s watched. Yeah, she’s just watching play some of the hospital. Yeah.

[00:26:56] Speaker A: But she’s into horror too, so I know that.

[00:26:57] Speaker B: Yeah, she’s. She’s a big. She likes horror, so.

[00:27:00] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. That’s a. Entertaining experience for the whole family.

[00:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah. I will say just before backtrack. So when you get actually like straight into the hospital, is it, I think when you get into the basement or maybe the second floor, like, you leave Maria. Maria goes into her room.

[00:27:15] Speaker A: Maria goes to the second floor. Yeah. And to some to just like.

[00:27:17] Speaker B: Yeah, she goes just like, chill. She’s like, I just need time. Like, I gotta just chill and all that. And I have a little thing about that later on when she comes back, which I’ll say when we get to that part.

[00:27:31] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:27:31] Speaker B: I was like, fine. You stay there. That’s fine.

[00:27:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It becomes less of an escort thing or a, you know, companion thing, which happens a lot in horror games now that I realize it.

[00:27:41] Speaker B: Because she can get attacked.

[00:27:42] Speaker A: Like, she can get attacked, but she can’t defend herself.

[00:27:45] Speaker B: No. So you have to go and take him out. Yeah.

[00:27:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And so Pyramid throws you through the floor. You know, you still want to know what the hell he’s dragging his Feet on, like, just kill James. You know, you got the opportunity left, right, and center. Anyway, you end up in a room.

The boss, who apparently is called Flesh Lip. Man, that thing is creepy looking. It, you know, it.

It’s in a cage. It jumps through the. It swings through the ceiling. And it has a long range on its swing. I kept getting hit by that. I unloaded shotgun shells into it. And I think half of them didn’t, even though they were straight into it, didn’t register or something because it took a long time to kill. For me.

[00:28:31] Speaker B: It took me a while to kill, but I will say I.

I don’t. This boss, Flesh Lips, I’m assuming this was also in the original game. Like, this is a original boss. Like, not a new boss.

I don’t know. Whoever designed or created this needs help. Like what?

Like when it died. And I was like, what the am I looking at?

[00:28:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:57] Speaker B: Like, these lips should not be where these lips are. Like, what is this?

[00:29:03] Speaker A: Yeah.

And the whole like, eventually you keep hitting it with. Keep hitting it either with whatever weapon you decide to, and it breaks the cage, but then it uses the cage as like these sickle sword things.

At that point, I was actually very happy for my souls game experience because I was dodging towards the boss and it somehow, even though you would have definitely been hit by those things, it didn’t, you know, register a hit. So I was able to dodge a lot of its attacks in that way. I thought that part was easier than the first part.

[00:29:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I did. I actually didn’t do too bad in this. I didn’t die on this boss try. I. I did get him first time. Um, I said. Yeah, I put. When he was coming through the ceiling in the first part of it, I’d put shotgun shells into him to knock him down, knock him back up. And then when he fell down and had the blades. There are a couple times I put shotgun shells. But then I had. At that point, I had like 120 handgun rounds. So I just used the handgun. But by the end of the fight, I was down to like 80. So it took, as you said, it took a good amount of.

[00:30:11] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:30:12] Speaker B: Rounds to take him out.

[00:30:14] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:30:15] Speaker B: But I will say before. So before you even. We fight him, like, we.

We only get in there because, like, we go when we find Laura.

And like you have a conversation with Laura and she’s like, how she knows Mary and. And then you call her a liar and she’s like. Then she just gets like that little evil thing in her and she’s like, oh, okay. Well, you don’t believe me? It’s like, well, I wrote a letter to her and it’s in this room back here behind this pipe. It’s like, why don’t you go grab it for me?

And then she’s like. And then just walks you in and she’s like, yeah, you want to call me a liar? Like you fart. I think she called Fart Bay or fart whatever.

[00:30:51] Speaker A: Fart face.

[00:30:52] Speaker B: Fart face. Yeah, Fart face. Like, I’m not a liar.

[00:30:56] Speaker A: I don’t.

[00:30:56] Speaker B: I think she knew Flesh Lips was in there. I think she just locked him in.

[00:31:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Just wanted to lock him in.

[00:31:03] Speaker B: Yeah, to like, just. Yeah, because he called her a liar.

[00:31:05] Speaker A: Get him away from him.

[00:31:06] Speaker B: But then.

[00:31:06] Speaker A: Yeah, obviously. Yeah, the other thing too was like, james, you gotta stop being so dense. You know? And he seems to be like semi with it, but then every time he interacts with Laura, he’s just an idiot. And, you know, she’s clearly really skittish and running away from you. Why are you immediately jumping at calling her a liar and then calling her a brat? Like, dude, this is not the way to get the information you need.

[00:31:30] Speaker B: No singing about James. I was like, I hope you don’t get Mary pregnant because you are not treated as like, you want this. You want help from this child.

[00:31:39] Speaker A: This is not a. This is not a good way. Yeah, so, yeah, that is a really good point. Like, you’re just, like, ruining your chances with Laura here every time that you have. She gave you an opportunity in that moment and you could have gone along with it, but no, you just had to snap for some reason. But again, I really don’t think James is all.

[00:31:59] Speaker B: No, he’s not. He’s not all there.

[00:32:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And so right after you beat the boss, you get grabbed by something from the ceiling that kind of looks like flesh up again and you get dragged off to the Otherworld.

Reminds me of a couple different moments in Bloodborne, which I won’t spoil here because those are best deserved to be experienced on your own. But in Silent Hill 2 is much more disgusting, that’s for sure. And arriving to the Otherworld hospital, it reminded me of how fantastic the use of lighting is in this game.

Obviously, lighting becomes a major highlight when a game is 80% pure darkness when not using your flashlight.

But the atmosphere and the mood setting with darkness punctuated by a very deliberate light coming from what in real life would just be a normal old functional light, usually an overhead ceiling light or a lamp or Whatever. It’s just top notch here.

The various spotlights on items or things to draw your attention obviously helps make it easier to find useful info or lore building notes. But it just sets that tone on a consistent basis that I really appreciate in. It immerses you so well.

[00:33:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. The lighting here, everything, the way they’ve done it, the tone for the Other World Hospital.

It just looks great. It does. It’s as it is. It’s the Otherworld hospital. It’s so much creepier. And the whole tone of it and just walking through and everything’s kind of like. Some are like. Lots of places are like blocked off more where you could go before, you can’t go now. And.

[00:33:31] Speaker A: Mm.

[00:33:31] Speaker B: There are like some. I saw like fans and other weird things like giant fans. And I was like, what are all these doing here? Like this is just.

[00:33:38] Speaker A: Why is this place full of fans to blow the fuck around of? Now, the Otherworld hospital itself, right there’s pretty. Pretty quickly come into the complex chained box puzzle that requires you to fetch some items and info. I went through the nurse’s room first. And you end up having to lobotomize a mannequin using the tools that you find.

Now, as a psychology degree holder, this just feels so wrong. Obviously it was a widely practiced procedure back in the day, but. No thanks. I’m glad it was a mannequin and not a person though. At least I hope.

[00:34:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I’m not so sure about that.

[00:34:12] Speaker A: It looks pretty scared.

[00:34:14] Speaker B: I’m not 100% sure it wasn’t someone.

[00:34:19] Speaker A: Who used to be.

Not. Not ideal, but at least they portray it as a mannequin.

[00:34:28] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:34:29] Speaker A: Maybe we’ll find out that was different later. There’s also nothing worse than coming back from getting that key there. To have the previously locked door that was wide open for no reason and then have it slam shut behind you. That’s just pure haunted house stuff right there.

Okay. No, I take it back. Going through an elaborate puzzle with multiple locks to open and then opening that box and it’s empty.

That’s worse.

[00:34:53] Speaker B: I just.

[00:34:54] Speaker A: And yet again, there’s a part of.

[00:34:55] Speaker B: Me I laughed at that because he opens it and it’s empty. And the like expression on his face is just like his mouth is just open.

[00:35:00] Speaker A: Like it just absolutely nails the feeling the player has in the major moments. You know, James was us in that moment.

[00:35:08] Speaker B: Yes, he was.

[00:35:12] Speaker A: And. Right. So you may have other things to say in between, but you know, Maria finds you and in the basement and all of a Sudden, it’s now James’s job to protect her and stay with her. Doesn’t seem all that reasonable to me. You just met.

[00:35:25] Speaker B: I know. No, that was my comment. So she comes back and, like, the first thing she says is, like, I almost died up there. I was terrified. You left me. And, like, to myself, I said, I was like, you wanted to stay in that room by yourself. Like, don’t come yelling at me.

You almost died. That’s not my fault. That’s your fault that you wanted to stay here by yourself.

[00:35:47] Speaker A: Indeed.

Oh, Maria. Mistakes, mistakes. And right. So did you survive that chase sequence with Pyramid head on your first try?

[00:35:58] Speaker B: I did, yes. But I will say one of the parts. He burst through the wall and I straight. Like, I straight jump. I was not expecting it. And I actually ran into the wall because I didn’t. Did not expect him to come bursting through the wall.

[00:36:16] Speaker A: That got me to the game with the clumsies. Running or sprinting ever. And they want you to outrun anything at all.

[00:36:21] Speaker B: Come on.

[00:36:22] Speaker A: Like, this is not a game.

[00:36:23] Speaker B: James, why are you running in slow mo, dude, it’s like you’re running in sand. Like. Or quicksand. Like, oh, my God, could you speak? Like, Maria’s going faster than you and she’s like, in heel. Whatever.

[00:36:33] Speaker A: Like, yeah, yeah, come on. And like, you know, it’s like the Seinfeld thing. You got to lift your knees. He’s just like, shuffling along like some.

And, you know. Maria, horror 101. Never ever trip.

[00:36:47] Speaker B: Nope.

[00:36:48] Speaker A: She got skewered.

[00:36:50] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:36:51] Speaker A: Tough break. But honestly, I wasn’t her biggest fan.

Kind of was just overbearing and annoying.

Oh, no.

Anyway, it’s kind of.

[00:37:00] Speaker B: It kind of is like, oh, no.

[00:37:04] Speaker A: Moving along. Yeah, it’s like.

[00:37:05] Speaker B: Anyways, yeah, that, that I.

[00:37:09] Speaker A: In that moment, I channeled Jeremy Clarkson also.

[00:37:12] Speaker B: I love that, actually, when that happens and you get through that, the trophy is called, like, alone again again.

It’s just like, wow. Even though even the people, the developers didn’t even like Maria that much.

[00:37:26] Speaker A: Yeah.

There’s. As you’re on your way out, right, you’re alone again, and you go into the back to the sort of lobby reception office. There’s a really great memo note in there where you get the key to leave the hospital and it goes into a lot of depth about the other side, they call it. And the nurses ponderings on a patient, she asks, asks if it’s really necessary to drag someone back to our reality, if he’s actually happier on the other side now, based on how things have gone. My first inclination is, this is obviously describing James, but his other side is dark as hell. I can’t imagine that being him unless it’s just devolved really heavily since that note was written.

[00:38:10] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. I’m not gonna speculate. I don’t know. It could be him.

[00:38:14] Speaker A: Yeah.

And so, okay, earlier, if you go to find. I think you might have missed this because you didn’t go into that garage earlier. So if you go find the garage door, jack in at the gas station, and then open the garage, there’s a newspaper there that says the layhouse at the hospital let go of more than 10 people, which is over half of the staff.

Now, I admittedly am not great at math, but it sure seems like there are many, many more hospital staff enemies than the ones left after the layoff.

So I don’t like this otherworld one bit. How are they recreating themselves?

[00:38:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that. No, that math is.

[00:38:53] Speaker A: The math does not add up.

[00:38:54] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it does not. The math does not. Math doesn’t. There was definitely a lot more than what that article was saying. Yeah, I was gonna say, actually, I know now we’ve gone through everything, but there was a very unique puzzle. I don’t know if you did it. So remember when.

When we get the button to go down to the basement again towards the.

[00:39:17] Speaker A: End in the other world? Yeah, yeah.

[00:39:19] Speaker B: You get like a three minute long radio. Like a few minutes long, like radio transmission that basically is like, hey, James, let’s play a game.

What’s like. Yeah, and they like three questions.

Mm. Did you do that?

[00:39:40] Speaker A: I was expecting you to be able to just like choose options while you were going down, but when I landed on the floor.

Yeah, I did.

[00:39:48] Speaker B: I did.

[00:39:48] Speaker A: I ended up going over to the.

[00:39:51] Speaker B: Yeah, the pharmacy.

[00:39:52] Speaker A: What room? The box in the pharmacy. And then I took.

[00:39:54] Speaker B: Yeah, the box in the pharmacy.

[00:39:56] Speaker A: Put two and two together at that point because I just didn’t make it. It had 1, 2, 3 as the options for ABC.

[00:40:02] Speaker B: And yeah, it took me. It took me a second. I was like, why does it say 1, 2, 3? When I was like. I knew the answer to the first one because I had looked at the plaques out in the park.

[00:40:12] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:40:13] Speaker B: And I was like, how do I do?

[00:40:15] Speaker A: Oh. So I remember. I don’t remember what the second question was. I remember the first one because I also saw the plaque. I remembered the third. Third one because I remember reading a newspaper in the apartments that said Miriam on it, which was, I think one. Yeah, I Don’t recall what the second one was. It was something.

[00:40:31] Speaker B: The second one was, what road will you take from Sanders street to the lumber yard?

[00:40:36] Speaker A: So I haven’t figured that out. I was like, okay, I’ll just look at the map. But then when you’re. When you’re in. When you pull up your map, it only shows the hospital map. I guess I probably should have tried opening the item menu.

[00:40:48] Speaker B: And then you have to go into your full inventory.

You have to go to your full inventory and then to the actual maps section. And then you can change. You can look at any of the maps you’ve ever had. So I did it.

[00:41:00] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:41:01] Speaker B: What is it? It’s Wiltsey. Wiltsey Road was the answer is number three. So. Yeah.

[00:41:06] Speaker A: So I took. I took damage, actually, by answering the second one wrong, but ended up getting all the items for it. So that’s good.

[00:41:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. I will say I was happy I did it because it was kind of a treasure trove.

[00:41:18] Speaker A: It was whatever helped me double shotgun shells. Yeah. Can’t go wrong with that. I think that.

And okay, so leaving the hospital.

Right. That. That’s where we set the cutoff point for this week. I left the hospital and then obviously could have turned right back inside to save, but I just pushed on a little bit to the next save point. The game at this point gave me a very distinct Resident Evil 2 set of vibes with the heavy rain. I guess we’ll see whether that comparison goes beyond that at all. Probably not.

But they did a great job of rain particles and all that.

It just. I was like flashbacks to using Leon in the police station. And then. Let’s see. I think just final thoughts here. Damn, this game is dark. It’s oppressive.

It’s a great game, I think, for me at this point, to play alongside another game to keep the spirits up.

[00:42:11] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:42:11] Speaker A: Because it’s a dampener. Yeah. I haven’t had a chance to actually play much more of it, and I have been playing with headphones and mostly in the dark, so it just double layers on there. So right now I’ll probably jump into some silksong or something to switch it up for a day and then go back in to continue on.

[00:42:28] Speaker B: Go back. Yeah.

[00:42:29] Speaker A: And something else that came to mind while in the Brookhaven Psychiatric Hospital. I know people typically only want direct adaptations of their video games, especially their favorite ones when it’s in movie or TV format, and they want it to stay true to the original story and change almost nothing and want everyone to look exactly like Their characters and all of that. Especially seeing the commentary from so many about Silent Hill F not being a Silent Hill game. Blah, blah, blah. I hear you. And I wouldn’t name this idea a Silent Hill movie at all. But I feel like Silent Hill could be used as the jumping off point in a movie in a similar vein to something like the number 23 with Jim Carrey. Not sure if you’ve seen that, but.

[00:43:09] Speaker B: I saw that like when it came out. Yeah, long time ago.

[00:43:13] Speaker A: But like, my thought for a movie here is like, okay, you have someone start playing Silent Hill, get a good chunk through it, but then they get so obsessed with it that they lose their grip on reality. I think it would be a really good psychological thriller with an unreliable narrator. Just like, use the Silent Hill as the jump off point. It’s not a Silent Hill movie, but I think it could make something interesting out of that. Anyway, I’m not a film writer. Maybe I should look into it.

[00:43:39] Speaker B: You definitely could. I was curious because obviously this, this is being made into the movie. Like, and it’s coming in January next year.

There was a part of me like, obviously they’re not going to touch on everything that we go through and all that.

[00:43:52] Speaker A: Everything that’s in the game.

[00:43:54] Speaker B: There’s a part of me that wonders. After we. We fought Flesh Lips, I was like, sweet God.

[00:44:01] Speaker A: Everyone tells me they might skip that.

[00:44:05] Speaker B: I. I think, I think that boss will be skipped. I do not think. I think. Well, there’s definitely Pyramid Head. There’s definitely Bubble. Bubble Nurses.

I’m sure there might be some of those lying figures, but it’ll be interesting to see. I’m sure Laura is in the movie.

[00:44:20] Speaker A: Obviously I’m pretty. I don’t remember if it was Laura. I think Laura is what? The one that they said that they actually got the same person that did the mocap and voice acting for Laura in. In the remake to be in the movie. I think that’s what it was, I guess. Okay.

I think I read that. Could be good.

[00:44:36] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:44:38] Speaker A: But, yeah, creeped out for sure. Enjoying it so far. Still got a little bit of chills going on. Best not to play it right before going to bed. But hey, we’re adults here. We can handle it.

[00:44:50] Speaker B: We can handle it.

[00:44:52] Speaker A: So for next time, and again, don’t want to spoil anything. So just using as generic of a name of a location as possible. Our goal by next time is to play up until you complete the prison section. So once you finish that save and quit and hang on for next time.

[00:45:07] Speaker B: Yep, definitely.

And Actually, before we leave, I just wanted to speak very quickly on this because we talked earlier, just right at the beginning, Silent Hill F just came out, but we also got a trailer for the new Kojima game, OD.

[00:45:21] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:45:22] Speaker B: Which again, just because we’re on Silent Hill 2, the horror theme, it just goes in with it and it could be like a new. His new Silent Hill.

[00:45:33] Speaker A: Yes.

And now that you mentioned it, I think we’ve discussed it before, so. So Kojima had never worked on a Silent Hill game. While at Konami, he was working on. He made pt, which was a conceptual design for a Silent Hill game called Silent Hills. So maybe that’s where that idea came to your head.

And so while that never actually happened because he had his rift with Konami and left and all that, pt, the demo, which is not available anymore, was meant to eventually become a Silent Hill game. And yes, od, this new game looks to be very much in the same vein as PT was. So I’m sure it’ll be creepy. The trailer was creepy.

[00:46:16] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:46:17] Speaker A: It has the.

From it. Right.

[00:46:21] Speaker B: And who else went?

[00:46:22] Speaker A: Dungeons Dragons movie.

[00:46:23] Speaker B: She was. Yeah, she was in Dungeons. She was so good in the new IT films, and so it suits her to be in this horror game. She. Yeah, she’s really good.

Yeah, it looked creepy, but I just wanted to touch on that quickly at the end because again, it’s just scary. It just.

[00:46:38] Speaker A: Nope.

[00:46:38] Speaker B: Yeah, good.

[00:46:39] Speaker A: Good point.

[00:46:39] Speaker B: Another good survival horror coming out. We’ll have F. And then whenever OD comes out next year, whatever. So.

But, yes, but again, thank you everybody for listening this week, and we will talk to you again next week after we go through the prison, which I’m sure is going to be something.

[00:47:00] Speaker A: Just a walk in the park. Yeah. Just a nice little carnival experience. Yeah.

[00:47:05] Speaker B: I have a feeling if the hospital was an intensity of 10, the prison might be an intensity of 13 plus. So this will be fun. So good times ahead.

Yeah. Thank you everyone for listening and have a good one.

[00:47:18] Speaker A: Thanks. Catch up soon.

[00:47:21] Speaker B: If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of native games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music, or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram under the same name. Thanks.