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James has jumped down so many huge holes, it's difficult to imagine Angela's room is anywhere near any sort of conventional reality. Also, I do wonder how much sexual symbolism there is in James just hopping feet-first into every strange hole he finds...
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Dec 5, 2014 00:25
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Episode 10 - Justice and Revenge   The Story So Far: ============== The real heavy stuff started last episode. Through our search through the dank corridors of the Toluca Prison, we find Pyramid Head's big knife, and the person he ran it through, except to our surprise, Maria was decidedly not actually run through with a giant knife! Even stranger, she's acting weird, and somehow knows a bunch of stuff that only Mary knew. Following our strange encounter with Mary/ia, Angela introduces us to her father, who had previously been run through multiple times by a knife...which we've been making a big point to examine every episode... After we kill Maria's father (he deserved it), she runs off disgusted with James and his obvious (?) attempts at taking her to bed, so now we continue our search and wonder where the heck Eddie has gone. ============== The Hanging Puzzle: ============== Quick Note: I was commenting on how I don't remember this part, and completely skipped past a message, which didn't reappear, so that little blip of a message is the following: "His face is covered with a piece of paper. There's something written on it" Kind of useless for us at this point, but I figured I'd mention it here, sorry about that! I wanted to give you guys a quick reference for solving this puzzle on normal mode, so here goes. You have to follow the rhyme and pull the nooses which correspond to the men hanging in the other room. To explain the order better, I'm going to use the following system: The front row (row closest to the camera) from left to right: -1-Swindling -2-Thievery -3-Murder The back row (row farthest from the camera) from left to right: -4-Arson -5-Kidnapping -6-Counterfeiting So, with our rhyme, the order you want to pull the nooses is as follows: -3- front row, right -5- back row, middle -2- front row, middle -6- back row, right -1- front row, left -4- back row, left ============== Locations: ============== The Graveyard: -- There are a couple of interesting points here, namely, the three open graves. One is for James, another for Angela, and the last for Eddie. We missed it in this playthrough, but a super-searcher might also find the gravestone of one Walter Sullivan in this room (told ya we'd find him). -- Toluca Lake: -- Nothing major story-wise here, I just wanted to point out that the game actually tracks how long you take to cross the lake in the rowboat. As far as I know, this is completely useless, but if you manage to get across the lake in 80 seconds or less on the 360/PS3 remakes, you'll unlock the "Don't Keep Her Waiting" achievement. On easy and normal difficulty, all you have to do is face the light and hold up on the left analog stick. On hard mode, you have to use both analog sticks and mimic a rowing motion up and down to move the boat. -- ============== Characters: ============== Maria: -- Maria is dead again! This time, James seems upset she's dead, but again, immediately thinks about Mary rather than Maria. There's nothing here we haven't already gone over, this is just a quick scene to drive the point home. -- Eddie: -- We find a freaked out Eddie surrounded by dead bodies (all of whom are wearing the same clothes as James), and we now learn the full story about our touchy friend. See, Eddie had it rough growing up. He was constantly teased in school for his weight, and one bully in particular, a player on the high school football team, just wouldn't let up. The football player teased Eddie even after graduation, so one day, Eddie snapped and shot the football player's dog with his father's gun for "making fun of him with his eyes". He then shot the football player in the leg when he tried to retaliate. Realizing what he'd done, Eddie flees to Silent Hill to avoid the police, and unknowingly walks straight into his own personal hell. When we found Eddie, he was vomiting in a toilet in an apartment with a dead body. There are a couple of theories here. One theory is that he's finally realizing the severity of killing the football player's dog etc. and is vomiting because of the remorse and fear taking the place of the adrenaline rush. I like this theory, but it doesn't explain the body in the fridge. I like to note here that Eddie doesn't know about Pyramid Head, but has seen some strange monsters in town. Remember, what Eddie is seeing is not what James is seeing, so we don't get his perspective. It could be that when Eddie entered the apartment, the man there appeared as a monster to Eddie. Eddie killed the monster who was either attacking him or making fun of him, and after it died, Eddie realizes it was a person, and frantically tries to stuff the body in the fridge to hide it. The overwhelming fear and realization that he's taken a human life at this point is what makes Eddie throw up. Fast forward to when we first enter the prison. While we've been running around the hospital and elsewhere, Eddie has been running around other parts of Silent Hill, and has been encountering his own monsters and demons, and he can't take it. When we find Eddie in the cafeteria, he's snapped. Again, we find him with a dead body, and Eddie says he shot him because the man was making fun of him with his eyes, just like the football player's dog. Lastly, we come to our boss fight. Eddie has gone full shazbot and has made a conscious determination to kill anyone who makes fun of him. James says something smart in the dumbest way possible, and Eddie turns on him. In the second phase of the boss fight, Eddie mentions that he and James are the same. I want to point this out because it's the same thing Angela said to him. James again doesn't believe this, but this time it's more important because at the end of the boss fight, James realizes Eddie was right. James just killed Eddie, and James feels true remorse for this. He can't believe he just killed a human being. Thank god there wasn't a toilet around, or we'd probably have to hear James vomit while talking to the next poor soul who wanders through the town. The boss fight: - The boss fight happens in two stages. The first stage, in the room with the bodies, is straightforward. Make sure your shotgun or rifle is equipped, and just trade shots with Eddie. He'll recoil when he shoots, and you'll recoil when you shoot. There's nowhere to run in here, so just focus on doing more damage to him than he does to you. Next, you'll chase Eddie into a room with a bunch of hanging meat. After some dialogue, the second phase of the fight starts. There is a little more room here, so between shots, try to use the hanging meat for cover. Keep your distance from Eddie, because his punches also pack a bit of a punch. Use your shotgun or rifle and take some shots in between Eddie's rounds. Keep count of the number of times Eddie shoots, because when his gun is dry, he'll spend a small amount of time trying to reload, which gives you an opportunity to take a couple of shots at him. - -- Mary: -- After the fight with Eddie, James laments that he killed a human being, then wonders if Mary really did die three years ago. Why would he wonder about that now of all times? -- ==============
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Dec 6, 2014 06:12
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Ceraph posted:Snip
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Dec 6, 2014 07:07
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So it's horseshoes and melted wax dolls now, is it? If you need to disguise yourself as a bigfoot later I wouldn't be surprised. (making a joke because that last update was so drat brutal) EDIT - wow, I was a whole update behind. I can't see the latest one either. Megillah Gorilla fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Dec 6, 2014 |
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Dec 6, 2014 15:15
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Sonel posted:It's telling me that the uploader has not made this video available for episode 10 Yep same here, has anyone else been able to watch the latest part yet?
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Dec 6, 2014 15:23
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Cynda posted:Yep same here, has anyone else been able to watch the latest part yet? Same problem here. 
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Dec 6, 2014 19:15
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Sonel posted:It's telling me that the uploader has not made this video available for episode 10 Sorry about that! YouTube is telling me that it's been published, but sure enough if I try to view it from another account I get the same message. I'm trying to figure out why this is happening, but worst case I can re-upload the video. Shouldn't take much longer than an hour. EDIT: Alright, I think I fixed the problem. It's working from other accounts for me now, let me know if anybody still can't see it. Ceraph fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Dec 7, 2014 |
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Dec 7, 2014 01:08
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Ceraph posted:Sorry about that! YouTube is telling me that it's been published, but sure enough if I try to view it from another account I get the same message. I'm trying to figure out why this is happening, but worst case I can re-upload the video. Shouldn't take much longer than an hour. All working now, thanks for fixing it.
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Dec 7, 2014 10:30
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So let's see if I've got this straight. James has blindly jumped into a dozen holes, walked down stairs and ramps, climbed down ladders, gone down in an elevator and even jumped down into his own grave. But when he walks out the door he's at the same level as the lake? Never mind all the skin wearing rape demons, this has to be the most bizarre thing in Silent Hill by far.
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Dec 7, 2014 14:54
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Gorilla Salad posted:So let's see if I've got this straight. James has blindly jumped into a dozen holes, walked down stairs and ramps, climbed down ladders, gone down in an elevator and even jumped down into his own grave. Yeah, that was exactly what I was thinking. He's somehow gone from about a half-mile underground back to the surface in the space of one cold-room filled with carcasses. I assume that there are other ways forward from many areas that don't involve leaping down holes, so the game is kinda glossing over the whole "Could have got here from the bottomless abyss" thing. But honestly, if I were James, I'd be looking for morlocks, dinosaurs, Arne Saknussemm, and Raquel Welch.
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Dec 7, 2014 15:21
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Gorilla Salad posted:So let's see if I've got this straight. James has blindly jumped into a dozen holes, walked down stairs and ramps, climbed down ladders, gone down in an elevator and even jumped down into his own grave. Yeah, this is why I assume at least part of the prison is under the lake itself, because it would have to be at this point. The pretty much general accepted location for the prison is that it's just under the historical society, which makes sense considering we see the entrance to the boat launch just outside of the historical society building. Outdoor places like the graveyard and the gallows would be on the one side of the building that is on land, while all of those wet caves and junk would be in the part under the lake. We actually do go up a couple ladders, which is how I guess they're trying to justify the 6 holes. Another theory here is that the Otherworld version of the prison is all spacetimey. I know that's kind of weak but hear me out. After you get out of that creepy bug room after busting out of the well, you go down another hole, which is one of the prison hallways turned so that it's a big ol' shaft. Who would build a hallway like that? The doorway you're entering doesn't really have signs of being a cave-in or anything, so I'm not inclined to think the building crumbled and fell on it's side or something, it looks specifically designed to be an up-down hallway. Next, let's address the fact that there are even 6 consecutive holes here. James jumps down 2 to get to the prison proper, then 3 more to get to that underground apartment looking place where Angela is, then 1 more (which btw is James grave) to get to the Meat-locker area where Eddie is. This might be just me, but I don't think any sane minded architect would build this many chutes in order to get from point a to point b. Ladder or elevator, sure, but these are all legit just shafts. The one hole is for dead bodies, but again, the fact that there is stuff on the other side of that hole makes me think that someone had to be on that side of the hole, which means someone would have had to go down it at some point. The theory here is that this building, or at least, the assumed Otherworld building, was not designed entirely with euclidean geometry in mind.
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Dec 7, 2014 15:53
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My interpretation was always sort of along those lines too; like an awful lot of things in Silent Hill (the games and the place), the physical layout of the environment is not strictly literal. I've been playing catch-up, so I just got to episode 9 of the LP today. That conversation with James and Maria, with the bars between them, is hugely important. I remember seeing a 'Making Of Silent Hill 2' video ages ago, and one of the Team Silent guys said the same thing; that it's a pivotal scene in the game. Now it always makes me think of this video though (also by Kamoc I believe, who did the Silent Hill Homecoming LP): Some people really didn't like the new voices for Silent Hill HD. I've never actually heard the new voices, but they can't be worse than the originals, surely? I've always considered the performances to be the weakest part of SH2.
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Dec 8, 2014 05:41
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You guys messed up the puzzle. You aren't supposed to pull the nooses in order of what the story says. You're supposed to pull the noose of the guy who was innocent of the crime he was hung for. In this case, the arsonist, because the story says that the sheriff had to use him as a scapegoat to calm the townsfolk. It only worked the way you did it because you happened to pull his noose last, which is how the game reads the puzzle solution. Also, the pistons in the Abstract Daddy boss fight, not only mechanical allusions, but sexual as well (think thrusting). I've been playing catch-up with your videos is why I'm only getting to say this now. And I'm pretty sure that she did not kill her brother, considering that she's actively looking for him and her mother. Oh, and I forgot to mention, once you take the Great Knife from the Labyrinth, then Pyramid Head will no long wield it for the rest of the game. And you can use that same weapon to cheese the fight with Eddie, as it turns out. Just use a heavy attack with it and he'll be down to his last legs, if not dead outright (it will finish his first form instantly). And Maria's death is consistent with a form of asphyxiation where the victim is suffocated with something that greatly reduces airflow to the lungs. Yeah, blood really does get everywhere when that happens, your lungs are literally bursting trying to get sufficient oxygen into itself. bman in 2288 fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Dec 9, 2014 |
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Dec 9, 2014 19:02
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An additional note with the Great Knife: equip it in an area with enemies, then turn off the flashlight. The enemies actually start running from the noise.. Nice little touch that a lot of people don't seem to know about.
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Dec 9, 2014 21:37
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Kaboom Dragoon posted:An additional note with the Great Knife: equip it in an area with enemies, then turn off the flashlight. I forgot about that one, actually.
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Dec 9, 2014 21:57
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Antistar01 posted:My interpretation was always sort of along those lines too; like an awful lot of things in Silent Hill (the games and the place), the physical layout of the environment is not strictly literal. Alden and I played through Silent Hill 2 a couple more times over this past weekend to showcase the alternate endings and in the process we decided to listen to the new voices. I have to say I completely agree with Alden's earlier assessment: 99% of the time the new voices are better, but the delivery in the end cutscene was better in the original. We'll go into more detail on that when we get there. I do think that some of the new voices were more improved than others, though. I have to say in the original voice of Angela can be heavy handed at times, especially with lines like "Are you afraid?" in her second cutscene. I also think Laura was greatly improved, as the original voice sounds very much like a kid they got to do the voice because she was a kid and not necessarily a good actor. bman in 2288 posted:You guys messed up the puzzle. You aren't supposed to pull the nooses in order of what the story says. You're supposed to pull the noose of the guy who was innocent of the crime he was hung for. In this case, the arsonist, because the story says that the sheriff had to use him as a scapegoat to calm the townsfolk. It only worked the way you did it because you happened to pull his noose last, which is how the game reads the puzzle solution. Oh crap, that actually makes a lot more sense. I was wondering why in the story of the arsonist he didn't actually commit the crime. Also the key always shows up on his spot. Sorry about the mixup, I'll add a note to the video! Kaboom Dragoon posted:An additional note with the Great Knife: equip it in an area with enemies, then turn off the flashlight. That is really cool and I in fact did not know about that.
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Dec 10, 2014 03:25
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Ceraph posted:I do think that some of the new voices were more improved than others, though. I have to say in the original voice of Angela can be heavy handed at times, especially with lines like "Are you afraid?" in her second cutscene. I also think Laura was greatly improved, as the original voice sounds very much like a kid they got to do the voice because she was a kid and not necessarily a good actor. I've heard that the truth is... close. I don't know how professional or whatever Laura's original voice actor was, but James' original voice actor was apparently brought in almost on a whim, it sounds like, as he's the father of Laura's voice actor. He's not a professional voice actor and that's his only role. Sort of explains some things. 
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Dec 10, 2014 05:05
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Hey guys, sorry this one took so long! Alden and I have been really busy with the holidays these past few weeks, but here we have a brand new update! Episode 11 - Wall of Tide  The Story So Far: ============= We're getting towards the end of the line here. Last time, we found out the horrific backstory which led Angela to search for her mother in Silent Hill. We also push Eddie over the edge, and after learning about his motivation for running to Silent Hill, we kill him, and James laments having taken a human life. ============= Locations: ============= Lakview Hotel: -- We have finally reached James' and Mary's special place. The Lakeview Hotel is a resort overlooking Toluca Lake (duh). Before Mary fell ill, she and James would vacation here, and after Mary's death, she sends him a letter letting him know that she is here waiting for him. We know from our prior conversation with Maria that James accidentally forgot a tape here last time they visited, so that's what we're going to spend our time looking for. When we pick up the map of the area, we see "Waiting for you" written on room 312. Had we looked at the letter in this run, we would have seen that the handwriting on the map is the same as Mary's handwriting in the letter, as the words "Waiting for you" are clearly visible in the picture of the letter itself. -- ============= Characters: ============= Laura: -- We get more info on Laura in the hotel. She's a lot less hostile towards him at first. We find out that Laura was friends with Mary when they were both in the hospital. Mary had hoped to adopt Laura had she survived the illness. The most interesting thing we learn about Laura in this episode is her age. In the letter, Mary wishes Laura a happy 8th birthday, and Laura states that she turned 8 last week. This blows what we know about Mary's death completely out of the water. If Mary had really died 3 years ago, why did she wish Laura a happy 8th birthday? Laura would have been turning 5 when Mary died, so that wouldn't make sense. We don't get a good estimate as to when Mary actually died, as she could have written that letter not expecting to survive until Laura's birthday, then may or may not have (my speculation is that she actually did live to see Laura turn 8, but more on that later). So there should be a huge question rattling around in everyone's head right now: why does James think Mary died 3 years ago when she very clearly did not? How could you confuse the date of death for your wife, arguably the most important person in your life? Yeah, James isn't all there, but seriously, he took care of his wife while she was ill, and we've established already that it took a heavy toll on him, so he clearly was aware of her status throughout her illness, so he should know exactly when she died. Think this will get a payoff? You bet your patootie it will! -- ============= Enemies: ============= Abstract Daddy -- We've gone over this enemy already, but I wanted to re-mention it because now we see the mini versions in the Hotel. You could argue that these are either representative of Angela's brother, or these are more directly related to James's oppressive sexuality. We're getting really close to explaining this one bit of speculation in full detail, so hang tight. -- =============
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Jan 2, 2015 16:32
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Given that Maria seemed to come back from the dead at least once -- and all the other utterly batshit stuff that's going on -- I think it's safe to assume that either Laura (and everything else) is a ghost/haunting/unreality of some sort, or James has had a colossal psychotic break and is actually locked in a very small padded room, wearing a very tight jacket. Either way, Laura's age just feels like yet another confirmation of Weirdness(tm), rather than any unusually odd or weird thing in itself. So, uh, payoff? Sure, why not. I guess if her age does prove to be a particularly stand-out factor, I'll be impressed.
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Jan 2, 2015 21:12
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This is the thing that stopped me from ever being able to play these games myself - endless backtracking fetch quests. Then you end up stumped forever because you missed the three pixel high key hiding under a potplant somewhere.
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Jan 3, 2015 16:14
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Gorilla Salad posted:This is the thing that stopped me from ever being able to play these games myself - endless backtracking fetch quests. Silent Hill 2 was the first Silent Hill game I played. I'd been reading about for a while beforehand, and thought it sounded amazing. I got it when it came out on PC (I've never owned a PS2), and was a little disappointed when I discovered what its core gameplay is like. If you strip away everything else and just consider its pure mechanics, yeah... it's not very good. Very clunky, very old-fashioned early Resident Evil style nonsensical puzzle-solving. That's not what's good about SH2 though, of course. (Or the other Silent Hill games - the Team Silent ones, at least.)
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Jan 4, 2015 01:12
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Certainly. That's why I love watching someone else playing it 
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Jan 4, 2015 03:55
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Hopefully Ceraph hasn't fallen down a hole himself... 
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Jan 24, 2015 13:27
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Antistar01 posted:I've heard that the truth is... close. I don't know how professional or whatever Laura's original voice actor was, but James' original voice actor was apparently brought in almost on a whim, it sounds like, as he's the father of Laura's voice actor. He's not a professional voice actor and that's his only role. Actually, his kid did audition for the role, but it went to another child. Guy Chihi dropped his child off for the Laura auditions, but then he decided to audition for one of the roles on a whim. He got the job as James, but he still asked his daughter for permission to take the role.
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Jan 27, 2015 00:18
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Ghostwoods posted:Hopefully Ceraph hasn't fallen down a hole himself... I swear I'm not dead! Work and other RL things have been keeping Alden and I super busy, but we should have the next episode write up done soon. Sorry these last few updates have been so spaced out, I feel bad 'cause we are SO CLOSE to the end!
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Jan 27, 2015 07:22
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