Endacott1818

The Silent Hill series is one of the best and oldest horror game series out there. Many people, like myself, grew up with the games and can’t wait for new scares and plot twists to unfold. Many fans have been harsh on some of the more recent games, but I feel like they haven’t given the games enough credit. Silent Hill: Downpour is the latest game that has come out in the main series. Like Homecoming, it was an underrated game that deserved more praise. This game gave us well-written characters, a suspenseful plot, scary monsters, and a dark atmosphere that the other games gave us in the past. The main character, Murphy Pendleton, a middle-aged convicted felon, is being transferred to another prison. While taking a bus there, it crashes and he is set free to wander around the town of Silent Hill. This horror series has, for the most part, been great at plots and this game has a great one. It is menacing, thrilling, and keeps your mind guessing on what is really going on. With Silent Hill, you never know what really happened in all these characters’ pasts that brings them to Silent Hill in the first place. The main character is as conflicted and confused as James Sunderland from Silent Hill 2, which is a good thing. The atmosphere of the game is subtly terrifying. No matter if you’re outside or inside the atmosphere is dark, chilling, and creepy. The noises throughout the game make you jump and you never know what is going to get you. In the first Silent Hill, when an enemy was near you could hear the outside emergency alarm going off. A great aspect the developers did in this was the same thing but with rain. When it rained, you could tell you were going into danger. Another cool attribute was the realism of the violence. For example, the more Murphy was hurt, the bloodier and messier his clothes became until he was healed. The monsters in Downpour reminded me of monsters from past games. The classic Silent Hill nurses were present. There were new enemies as well. They were all very frightening and felt like they belonged in a Silent Hill game. A few monsters don’t fit in with previous Silent Hill games. There is the screamer, the prisoner minion, and the prisoner juggernaut. These three enemies were all too humanlike for my Silent Hill taste. The screamer looked like a homeless woman and the other two just looked like faceless men that just came out of prison. Although the nurse is humanlike, she has been in every single Silent Hill game, which makes me excuse it. Overall, the gameplay was good, but it could have had some improvements. The developers made the gameplay more realistic than the previous games. Murphy could either hold two firearms, two melee weapons, or one of each instead of being able to carry a multitude of weapons. Weapons had durability, so eventually they would break and you would have to find a new weapon. Some things the developers could have done better is more availability to firearms. The enemies were difficult enough when you were only carrying broken weapons. It would have been nice if the creators would have given us better access to pistols, shotguns, rifles, etc. The thing that they brought into Silent Hill: **** Memories, which is the only SH game I despise, was when in game where there were chase scenes. In Downpour, I thought the chase sequences was draining, annoying, and unnecessary. Just like Silent Hill: Homecoming, Murphy was able to make moral choices that decided the outcome of the ending. There was good and bad endings that you could get depending on the choices you made. Silent Hill has always had different endings, so I am glad they have always kept that in the game. This game stayed true to the whole series. The storyline was intriguing and suspenseful, the gameplay was decent, the characters were interesting and engaging, and most of the monsters were Silent Hill-like. Although there were some flaws in the game, it was an excellent addition to the whole franchise.

Everyone has a favorite videogame and I’m sure most people would want that videogame turned into a movie. That happened to my all-time favorite game: Final Fantasy VII. The game came out in 1997, so when I played the game I was only seven years old. Over the years I had played the three-disc game enough times to memorize it by heart. So when I found out in 2004 they were making a movie about it, my heart leapt with joy. When it came out on September 14, 2005 I had already ordered it so I could watch it as soon as possible. (It was only available in Japanese for a long time, so I had to get it from Japan). The first great thing that comes to my mind with this movie is the music. Nobuo Uematsu, the film’s composer, never fails to create magnificent music. The game music (which he also did) was already incredible, and he was able to recreate it again to give you an eargasm. You know game music is good when you have it on your iPod like I do. The movie was beautifully directed. Every scene was uniquely created with different types of shots that I had never seen before. The breathtaking graphics help reveal the creativeness that the director used. As someone who grew up loving most of the characters, it was quite thrilling to see them as if they were real. Although I can’t complain about the funny, stubby way the characters looked in the original game, I loved seeing them in a whole new light. The fight scenes in the movie were fantastic--especially the final fight with Sephiroth, the main villain of the series. When I watched this movie as a 15-year-old, I thought it was perfect. Oh, how I was naïve. Over the years, after seeing the movie many times, I’ve realized they could have done better with the movie. For one, everyone who grew up playing the game was able to experience all the characters thoroughly by using them in the party and being able to see their backstories. It is disappointing to not see all of these characters as much in the movie. Of course, we get to see a lot of Cloud (the main character) and Tifa (one of the playable characters). All the other playable characters such as Barret, Cid, Red XIII, etc., who we got to know intimately in the game, we don’t see at all. It would have been more enjoyable if all the other characters had more screen time. One thing I did like was the subtle, beautiful scenes we got to see with Aerith (Heroine of the game). The way Square Enix hides her face until the very end shows how important she is and how they knew we wanted to see her the most. Being of a lover of the summon Bahamut (a magical entity that you could use in battle), I thought they made him way too different from his game appearance. He looked artificial and not like a dragon at all. When one of the party members summons Bahamut in the game, he always looked evil, intimidating, and badass. When he was summoned in the movie, he looked like he was made of plastic. What the hell, Square Enix? One plot point that I didn’t understand was Cloud taking care of Marlene (even though her dad is Barret) and Denzel, an orphan. He went from mercenary-saving-the-world to a distraught, depressed man that, for some reason, needs to take care of kids that aren’t even his. The story makes it feel like Cloud is being forced to do things he doesn’t want to do. I’m not saying he doesn’t care about them. I know he does. But why does he have to do what everyone else is telling him to do? I really feel like the whole story could have been altered and been so much better. What happened to your skills, Enix? With every movie come good and bad things. As a diehard Final Fantasy VII fan, I can’t help but get touchy on the subject. I only wish I could go and talk to Square Enix and Tetsuya Nomura (one of the main creators). I shouldn’t complain too much though. They are the reason my favorite game and character exists, and those stories helped shape who I am as a child.