Horay a new Silent Hill game which is obviously inspired by P.T. and it has been leaked years ago and its free but it's not. Wait what? Yes, Sony marketed this as a F2P game but decided to hide it behind a PS+ subscription paywall, at least in Germany they did. It's like saying "You can watch Stranger Things for free on Netflix" without mentioning the fact that you need a subscription for it. Or saying the stuff in the game pass is free, no it's not. 'Cause you are paying for the subscription.

I have started playing the SH games just a few years simply because you can't just buy them on Steam or PS4/5. What I liked about Silent Hill The Short Message are the set pieces which we're very beautiful and interesting. The design of the Cherry Blossom Monster from Masahiro Ito was awesome and hearing the score from Akira Yamaoka in the background was also great. Good to have them both back. But that's about it tbh. The storytelling mostly through notes which I'm not a fan of because it's the laziest way of storytelling. Dubbing in the live action scenes was also not the best and why including them in the first place ? The gameplay is pretty much none existing, you walk through a building collect notes and there is a chase sequence after every 20-30ish minutes. These chase sequences are just trial and error until you find the right order in which you have to go through the doors. Sadly the Facial expressions are pretty bad and the performance is terrible.
Overall this game did absolutely nothing for me, the storytelling is too much into your face for a SH Game and on top of that the monster was more annonying than scary not. Also how is this set in Germany? This looks nothing like Germany, it's just America but not Germany. But I can see why some people like it. I'm still really excited for SH2 Remake.

Games I finished in 2024 ranked

I CLAPPED

THEY DID THE THING THAT GURREN LAGANN DID AT THE END OF THE MOVIE AND I CLAPPED

I CLAPPED WHEN JIN USED MISHIMA AND KAZAMA STYLE AND THEY PLAYED TEKKEN 3 MUSIC I CLAPPED

ALSO THEY GOT SAINT SEIYA SHIT IN THIS

IT WAS GAS

It's fine! It's okay. Far from the worst thing to come from the Silent Hill brand and, ultimately, a step in the right direction I think.

I'm pretty tired of the Outlast-style "run away from the monster(s)" style of survival horror gameplay as a whole and this doesn't exactly reinvent that particular wheel. The narrative is pretty undercooked and ends on a very unfulfilling note. Also, framerate drops and lipsync issues!

However, I do appreciate the attempt to tackle the themes of teen suicide, bullying, child abuse and isolation. It's handled a hell of a lot better than some contemporary works, even if it is very hamfisted and unsubtle. The fact that it has a good and comprehensive trigger warning (that it will show you often, for some reason) puts it above other games.

Also: This game looks great! It captures the look of a shitty fuckin' condemned apartment complex really well; it's got the perfect amount of dirt and broken glass and clutter. Characters are designed with intent, the monster design is genuinely pretty neato, and the graffiti all over the walls actually looks so good and authentic.

Akira Yamaoka's music goes hard as well but let's be honest, that's not a surprise.

Game fine, not bad, but not great. Not gonna play it again, but not complaining over its existence. The fact that it's a free 2-to-3 hour long game really softens the blow. If I had to charge money for this, I'd be a lot more sour.

fumbling in the dark

The bunker is a smaller, narratively unambitious left-turn for Frictional. While they tinker away with what I assume is a larger, SOMA-like project, here they've shed much of the weight they’ve accumulated over the years, weight that really dragged Rebirth down, and turned their attention back to the moment-to-moment mechanics. They’ve finally confronted the minimalistic hide-and-seek gameplay that has become increasingly tired, and re-embraced tools & limited weapons (last seen in their Penumbra series).

The immersive sim approach to puzzles allows for multiple solutions & is simple and direct: every tool is a key, a distraction or a temporary defense. Combined with the tight, claustrophobic map, the Bunker asks you to build a mental model of the spaces so that you may eventually navigate them with your eyes closed (& with the lights out). Much of the horror is suggested, a threat conjured in the dark.

Another strength of Frictional’s is their HPL engine and its tactile physics system (surprisingly uncommon in a post-half-life 2 world). Pulling at a loose board clumsily, the creaking drawing the creature, has a weight to it that a pre-canned animation couldn’t carry. Like many im-sims, it is the abysmal failures and inexplicable systemic outcomes that stay with you (especially if you survive them), rather than the authored story.

Some may find it a little too stripped-down (along with a rather abrupt, clumsy ending), but after Rebirth’s incessant narration, I’m happy they had the confidence to just leave you in a desolate space of worn concrete and tangled wire and simply ask you to escape alive.

Sorry if this becomes a rant, but i think this is a legitimately disastrous game. Maybe partially due to my complete exhaustion with the Ubisoft-ified open world genre, but on top of an open world game design I do not like, there are so many decisions that detract for no reason. Disclaimer: I did not finish this game; I played about 20-25 hours. Why do I need a high level skill in order to take mods off my gear? Is that not a reasonably basic expectation, that I be able to remove and replace modifiers, in a game featuring dozens of them? Why does fast travel require resources, but few enough that it essentially doesn’t even matter? Why not just make it free like most games released in the past 10 years? Why is the melee combat so fucking bad?? Why is the voice acting SO BAD for a first party Sony game? The world is cool and the visuals are nice, and the ranged combat is decently fun, but I really did not enjoy my time with this game and I don’t plan on ever returning.

Miles Morales is nothing mindblowing but it's simply good all around. The swinging feels like a big step up thanks to the animations, which are just stellar. Same thing goes for the combat, I can't get enough of those finishers. Unfortunately the story never reaches the highs of the first game: while the pacing is strong, the writing feels clunky and I never really got to care about any of the characters - plus I actually laughed during the final boss fight because of how terrible the dialogue was, so yeah...

Still, this was a good time and in many ways a perfect Christmas game.

Ascend through Valhalla to help Kratos fumkin' THINK.

An incredible free DLC for GoW Ragnarok, and a wonderful little love letter to the older fans of the series. I originally thought it was just a whatever-arena-thing to have a repeatable combat challenge for those who solely wanted more combat, but boy was I mostly wrong. In reality, it's a quaint and relatively short rogue-like story epilogue that takes advantage of the game's great combat and fun upgrades, in order to deliver a very competent take on the genre it replicates. Past the combat, it also constantly references back to Kratos' past in great, and sometimes humorous ways, to spruce things up for us story lovers. Without saying much else, this DLC concludes the character arc for Kratos following Ragnarok, and it's very worth playing. :)
I love this series.

IT'S FREE WITH THE GAME, LITERALLY JUST PLAY IT