This week on Semi-Ramblomatic, Yahtzee provides additional thoughts on the Silent Hill 2 Remake.
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In the wake of the Silent Hill 2 remake release, Masashi Tsuboyama, the director of the original game, posted some tweets praising the switch to over-the-shoulder camera, stating that he had never been satisfied with the loosey goosey chase camera of the original because it wasn't as immersive or realistic. Well, first of all, piss off, Masashi Tsuboyama! I'm a great believer in "Death of the Author" philosophy, which states that the original creator of a work isn't necessarily the highest authority on it. Sure, he directed the O.G. Silent Hill 2, but has he played through it 90 billion times? Cause I have, and I like the old camera. Maybe I like there to be at least some horror games in the world that *don't* resemble Resident Evil 4. Maybe I have better things to do than look at the main character's bum all bloody day. I have no doubt that if Masashi Tsuboyama was making Silent Hill 2 for the first time today with modern tech and standard AAA budgets, it probably would have had a standard pin-to-the-bum third-person camera to closely follow the protagonist's movements. It would probably also have had more professionally done voice acting and a few less obviously cut corners, and it wouldn't have been the same game. Would it have been as good? Who can say? Who can say how many factors would change in 20 years, what changes in attitudes to game design would be reflected?
What I do know is that the original Silent Hill series was the poster boy for finding creative ways to work around its limitations. Most famously, the iconic fog came about as a way to get around the PlayStation's graphical limits. Resident Evil on the PS1 had to make do with 2D backdrops, but the first Silent Hill could manage full 3D environments by cutting the visibility back to about 10 feet and handwaving it as the weather being really bad, and what was a cause for mockery in Superman 64 became the signature of one of the best horror franchises of its time. Turns out low visibility is a good way to foster fear of the unknown, but that's not all. Silent Hill 2 is full of happy little accidents that might never have happened without its limiting factors. The dude who played James Sunderland, Guy Cihi, wasn't a professional actor. He was only at the studio cause his daughter was auditioning for the part of Laura. She didn't get it, but he ended up landing the lead role, and boy that must have been a fucking awkward drive home! The point is, the voice acting in the original Silent Hill 2 *was* a bit weird and stilted, but I, and many others, take the view that that unintentionally enhances the otherworldly tone of the game. I mean, James isn't supposed to be mentally all there, and that could manifest as weird vocal inflection as well as a tendency to shove his hand down toilets.
This is sort of why I'm philosophically opposed to ground-up remakes as a concept. A creative work is a story of a creative process as well as a story in itself, and these fun anecdotes from the time of the original game's crystallization are entirely lost in a remake. Because the story of that creative process is just "we copied the existing blueprint," and that's not a fun story at all. The Silent Hill 2 remake didn't have to find creative ways to bypass its limitations, because there aren't any anymore, really, with modern graphics tech and AAA budgets, but the irony is a lack of parameters can be stifling to creativity. Everything starts to become homogenous. Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2 were, in their original forms, extremely distinct games, all with very different art styles and camera angles and general vibes. You can easily tell them apart from a single screenshot. Meanwhile, their respective remakes all look exactly the bloody same! Right down to the floppy hairdos, and I can't be the only one who feels something has been lost.
It was the camera I wanted to "focus" on, (lol). Masashi Tsuboyama is absolutely right, a third-person bum-mounted camera is a lot more immersive than...whatever the fuck you'd call what the original Silent Hill had. It wasn't a fixed camera most of the time, and it wasn't a direct chase camera either, it was more like we were ashamed of our relationship with the camera and had instructed it to walk at least 10 feet behind us so no one got the wrong idea. The RE4-style over-the-shoulder camera is much better by giving us that sense of 1-to-1 control of the protagonist and makes it easier to line up your shots and melee swings and examine the details of the environment. I dispute none of this, but here's the big question: do you always *want* a game to be as immersive as possible? "Oh, we're looking forward to hearing you clarify this one, Yahtz. Aren't you the one who's always complaining about immersion breakage in games? Isn't that why you've been angrily shaking your walking stick at controller speakers and motion controls for 20 years?" Okay, hear me out.
Silent Hill 2 is my favorite horror game of all time, right? And what I admire is the way it creates a nightmarish sense of detachment from reality. Wandering the foggy streets as strange groans fill the air is like trying to walk home from wisdom tooth surgery late at night with a wet towel wrapped around your head, and the camera, being slightly unsure of where it's supposed to be, *enhances* that. Maybe unintentionally, like the voice acting thing, but enhances nonetheless, and it's only in the context of a surreal psychological horror experience where that kind of thing *can* be a boon. In any other context, it's obviously better to give the player as much chance as possible to read the situation and act with efficiency. The bum-mounted chase camera suits Resident Evil 4 very well because it's a high octane campy action splatfest with an emphasis on skill-based back-against-the-wall combat. We, the player, essentially *are* the wall that Leon has his back against. We're right there in the thick of it with him, and because it's a splatfest, the camera's ability to let us get right up in the gory details lets us appreciate the spectacle of exploding a Spanish villager's head.
As for Silent Hill 2, the combat being a little awkward and suboptimal creates a better sense of vulnerability in a game about a hapless everyman who's out of his depth. As for appreciating the details, again, not being able to get a good look at things does a lot for fear of the unknown. The monsters are all twisted, confusing, vaguely human forms, and the original camera made it hard to make out the fine details. Is that thing's face covered in cloth or skin or a black plastic bin liner dipped in phlegm? The enigma fuels intrigue, and some of that mystique is lost when you can shove the camera right up their leathery cracks. Also, psychological horror in video games is often about exploring the separation between the player and the main character. Can we really trust what they're seeing or their version of the story as initially presented? Spoiler warning: in James' case, absolutely fucking not, and the loosey goosey camera helped with that too. I love the bit in the initial walk through the forest in the original game where camera switches to a fixed pan with a line of trees between it and James, making us, for a moment, feel like a creature of the forest watching him as he unwittingly blunders into danger. The sense of distance makes James feel much more like an entity independent from us, and considering what we eventually learn about him that was deliberately kept hidden, that's completely on theme.
I'm not saying it's inherently worse for a psychological horror game to have a third-person over-the-shoulder camera. Spec Ops: The Line pulls it off pretty well, but the switch to it in the Silent Hill 2 remake was not, to my mind, a change for the better. James feels, somehow, more lacking in personality, partly because he feels more like a puppet of which we're in direct control, partly because he spends 90% of his time pointing his bum at us, which is, if nothing else, very rude. I suppose my point is a game's choice of camera style can make a huge difference in tone and general feel. First-person's pretty good for horror too, Amnesia, Resident Evil 7, to name but two. This is because the first-person view in games actually gives you a slightly *smaller* visual range than you have in real life. Ironically, third-person over-the-shoulder perspective is closer to the field of view you get with real human eyeballs, so first-person is putting you at a disadvantage, reducing your situational awareness and peripheral vision and thrusting you right into the middle of things, creating a more intense experience. Wouldn't have been the best option for Silent Hill 2 and anything else where the main character is supposed to have a distinct presence and not just a cipher for the player, but on reflection, the over-the-shoulder Resident Evil 4 bum camera might well, of all the options discussed, be the *worst* for psychological horror. Again, I'm not saying you couldn't pull it off, but why give yourself an unnecessary handicap? It's like riding a bike without touching the handlebars. Yes, it's kind of impressive, but you're at more risk of crashing, and I'd rather you stopped pissing about and deliver me my fucking newspaper!