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Ahh this is going to be so much fun! I love Silent Hill 2 and all the symbolism and strange things behind it but all I know is from the games, and all the fan theories are very...insular I guess is the best word? To find out what one person is talking about in their theory I have to look up words and phrases and injokes that other fans used in their theories to understand what on earth is going on, and that's not getting into how people expect you to have perfect recall of the games to begin with. What I'm trying to say is, it's awesome to have a place where all this kinda centralised and I don't need to cross-reference a million things to get what you nerds are talking about. Thanks, Voidburger! 
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Feb 6, 2015 12:41
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Haerc posted:It's been dying for a long time, they built a highway that goes around it, and the logging industry died out. It used to be kind of a touristy place to stop in and eat/get gas/whatever on your way up the mountains, but another route has become popular. There's really no reason to go there at all anymore. Actually that sounds a lot more like a certain other small town we all know and love. Tell me, has your town ever had any problems with red trees?
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Feb 6, 2015 13:40
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Regarding the marys body in the car thing. Is there any evidence for it or is just some guys opinion (who worked on the game)
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Feb 6, 2015 14:54
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I'm honestly disappointed if they intended Mary to be in the backseat all along and didn't model her. Like, I think adding a slumped over, indistinct figure would be easily overlooked by first time players but it'd blow people's minds when they replayed it. Any way, I really enjoy two people who know what they're talking about discuss the game. Even if I think a few of the theories are shaky, they're super interesting to hear.
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Feb 6, 2015 14:56
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Also re: James' reaction to the first enemy: "What was that. It's definitely not human." Looks like another of them woman things. Shame I didn't get here before it killed that dude. At least she wont strike again. VoidBurger posted:
Well, in theory Oogie's revenge was meant to be sorta fun and whimsical, and well... So there's a kind of symmetry I guess!
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Feb 6, 2015 15:01
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Little_wh0re posted:Regarding the marys body in the car thing. Is there any evidence for it or is just some guys opinion (who worked on the game) From the SH2 novel: Sorry, it’s probably pretty cramped in there…” He opened the trunk of his parked car. He lifted Mary’s curled up body and set her in the passenger’s seat. As he climbed into the driver’s seat, he spoke to her. She was silent, resting inside a sleep from which she would never awaken. And one of the developer's response regarding the subject https://twitter.com/adsk4/status/196478423932219393 https://twitter.com/adsk4/status/196965567574441987 As far as I know, there's nothing in the game directly that supports the theory but we can reasonably assume it's the common consensus among the staff that James did indeed take Mary's body with him.
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Feb 6, 2015 15:06
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VoidBurger posted:Though it makes sense that it's in Maine, since the majority of Stephen King's novels seem to take place there, and King was a major influencer of the series. The movies shove it in West Virginia because they based it off the real abandoned town of Centralia for no decent reason, imo. Which is odd considering Centralia is in Pennsylvania, not West Virginia. Another note: I live in Maine, and we do indeed have mile signs for Boston on our major freeway. So I guess it *kind of* makes sense for Brahms to have a marker, but only if Brahms is a major city on the same scale as Boston.
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Feb 6, 2015 15:07
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Little_wh0re posted:Regarding the marys body in the car thing. Is there any evidence for it or is just some guys opinion (who worked on the game) Pre-Rebirth ending. Nothing at all in the boat, it's totally empty.  Rebirth ending. In the PS2 days, that just looked like some white thing, but with the emulator you can make out a woman's face.  100Dachshunds posted:Which is odd considering Centralia is in Pennsylvania, not West Virginia.
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Feb 6, 2015 18:52
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Maybe silent hill is only haunted during the off-season. supernatural horrors got bills to pay.
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Feb 6, 2015 19:02
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Everyone should watch TRSHE. They address a load of the myths that have circulated about SH. Plus it's just generally really interesting. (Mary isn't in the car.)
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Feb 6, 2015 19:48
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Aren't the TRSHE/Twin Perfect videos known for being kinda incendiary?
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Feb 6, 2015 20:36
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geist hirsche posted:Aren't the TRSHE/Twin Perfect videos known for being kinda incendiary? They argue their points pretty aggressively, but at least they back up their points with sources, so it's pretty hard to dispute.
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Feb 6, 2015 20:39
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Hijo Del Helmsley posted:Everyone should watch TRSHE. No. No they shouldn't.
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Feb 6, 2015 20:42
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Hijo Del Helmsley posted:They argue their points pretty aggressively, but at least they back up their points with sources, so it's pretty hard to dispute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN_VL22tjyo
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Feb 6, 2015 20:43
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ThatPazuzu posted:I'm honestly disappointed if they intended Mary to be in the backseat all along and didn't model her. Like, I think adding a slumped over, indistinct figure would be easily overlooked by first time players but it'd blow people's minds when they replayed it. They kind of did that with the Radio. The fact that on a second playthrough you realize the person on the Radio is Mary saying "James, why did you kill me." gave me a whole new appreciation for the foreshadowing.
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Feb 6, 2015 21:07
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So, with regards to James having Mary's body in the car or on the boat, did I miss some timeline shenanigans, or did Mary NOT die 3 years ago like James says in the opening? Or has he just been toting around a rotting corpse for three years?
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Feb 6, 2015 21:28
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Rich Uncle Chet posted:They kind of did that with the Radio. The fact that on a second playthrough you realize the person on the Radio is Mary saying "James, why did you kill me." gave me a whole new appreciation for the foreshadowing. I can't express enough how embarrassing it was for me to not pick up on that until I was playing though with my then girlfriend who heard it immediately.
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Feb 6, 2015 21:31
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100Dachshunds posted:Which is odd considering Centralia is in Pennsylvania, not West Virginia. IIRC, they based the look of the town on what they "imagined" Centralia would be like (and since Alessa goes through the whole fire thing, they thought it would make more sense to have it raining ash than switching between rain, fog, and snow). But since West Virginia is known as "coal country" and Pennsylvania is more known for...uhm...well, I guess steel even though that's not so much of a thing here anymore. So the producers thought West Virginia would make more sense. The movie was actually shot in Brantford, Ontario, which happens to be the hometown of a very good friend of mine. When the film was in post-production, she went around and took photos of all the places shown in the film (and yes, they do have tons of weird, windy little alleys like the one Harry/Rose runs down near the beginning, and apparently it's true that the set crew didn't have to do much to make many of the buildings look Silent-Hill-esque. Which is kind of weird because apparently much of the city and its surrounding area are quite affluent). The mile sign seems to be a legit fuckup in SH 2, since in SH 1 Cybil was from Brahms, "the next town over" and in Origins, Travis mentions wanting to stop at Brahms for coffee once he gets through Silent Hill. I guess SH 2's mile sign is its version of Twin Peaks' population sign. Ars Arcanum fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Feb 19, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 21:33
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Wa11y posted:So, with regards to James having Mary's body in the car or on the boat, did I miss some timeline shenanigans, or did Mary NOT die 3 years ago like James says in the opening? Or has he just been toting around a rotting corpse for three years? He's delusional and convinced himself she died years ago. He really just killed her shortly before he came to Silent HIll. This is established when he sees the letter Mary gave to Laura for Laura's birthday--he asks Laura when her birthday was, and she says "last week" (or something like that).
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Feb 6, 2015 21:36
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Laura also mentions meeting Mary "last year" when you run into her at the hospital.
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Feb 6, 2015 21:43
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Edit: ^^^ That was one of the things that didn't line up. But it's Silent Hill so you can never be sure about when it's the town loving with you, or if the player character is hosed up in the head.Ars Arcanum posted:He's delusional and convinced himself she died years ago. He really just killed her shortly before he came to Silent HIll. This is established when he sees the letter Mary gave to Laura for Laura's birthday--he asks Laura when her birthday was, and she says "last week" (or something like that). Okay, thanks. I remember there being some things that didn't line up with Mary having died 3 years ago, but I don't recall any LPs that I've watched specifically pointing it out that James is wrong about the timeline and everyone else is right (or I might have glossed over it and missed it). And I never made it past the hotel on my on play through.
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Feb 6, 2015 21:47
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Hijo Del Helmsley posted:(Mary isn't in the car.) WaltherFeng posted:From the SH2 novel: VoidBurger posted:In addition to what WaltherFeng said, you also can see what I believe is Mary's body in the boat during the Rebirth ending, which also implies that James brought her body with him to town in the first place. Additionally, in the In Water ending, James picks up Mary's body, carries her out of the room, then there's car door noises that happen before he drives his car into a lake, presumed to be Toluca Lake. @Hijo Del Helmsley: There is no conclusive evidence in Silent Hill 2 that says 100% for certain "Mary is in the car". However, James had to have Mary's body to resurrect her using the ritual he wants to perform in the Rebirth ending, and as VoidBurger already pointed out, there is a body in the boat during that ending.  I also asked Masahiro Ito, the creature designer for SH2, if the body in the boat during Rebirth was Mary's:  Because of this, it can be assumed that James had Mary's body nearby during the events of SH2 to perform this ritual. I don't think he ran home (possibly Ashfield, which is 168 miles away if you believe Downpour), got her body, then ran back to Toluca Lake. If you choose not to believe the evidence I and others have provided, that's fine. This is Silent Hill after all - the town may have conjured Mary's body like it conjured Maria or something. It's just kinda silly to take something as subjective as this and claim it's wrong simply because "Twin Perfect said so". Twin Perfect did not create Silent Hill 2, and a person who did actually have a hand in making the game says "Mary is in the car".
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Feb 6, 2015 22:02
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Since we never see the results of that ending, I like to think James flubbed the spell and resurrected Mary as an apartment room.
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Feb 6, 2015 22:11
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Wa11y posted:Edit: ^^^ That was one of the things that didn't line up. But it's Silent Hill so you can never be sure about when it's the town loving with you, or if the player character is hosed up in the head. Yeah, it's implied that Mary was sick for a pretty long time, and befriended Laura (who was either also sick for a long time or was hanging out with the nuns/nurses who were treating Mary because she was an orphan). Mary had hoped that if she got well, she and James could adopt Laura. But in her last letter, Mary indicates that she knows she's going to die--the doctors only sent home so she could have a last few days alone with her husband/so she could die at home instead of the hospital. James' motivations for...expediting the process vary slightly depending on the ending you get (the "canon" ending is a combination of misery at seeing her suffer so terribly + frustration at being hitched to a dying woman instead of living a normal late-twenties life). The way he talks to her in most of the endings heavily suggests that her body is in fact in their car (and the boat in "Rebirth"). edit: And as we can now see there is in fact a body in the boat during that ending. 
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Feb 6, 2015 22:13
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Oh, I mentioned in the video that I messed with the art assets in the PC port of SH2 to see if anything was in James' car. Here's the result of that: Also, here's what that Toluca Lake background image looks like on the PC port:  ps the pc port is weird 
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Feb 6, 2015 22:20
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Can't loving wait to tell you all about my dumb and longwinded Silent Hill theories. I love this game.
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Feb 6, 2015 22:31
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Peter Pan reboot confirmed.
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Feb 6, 2015 22:57
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Ars Arcanum posted:He's delusional and convinced himself she died years ago. He really just killed her shortly before he came to Silent HIll. This is established when he sees the letter Mary gave to Laura for Laura's birthday--he asks Laura when her birthday was, and she says "last week" (or something like that). I might be completely making this up, but isn't it 3 years ago when Mary first got sick? So he kind of thinks that's when she "died" as everything changed since then? He only actually killed her recently though before going fully crazy and ending up in back in Silent Hill for some psychological punishment. Or it could just be a straight up red herring, I dunno. 
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Feb 6, 2015 23:02
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Hijo Del Helmsley posted:They argue their points pretty aggressively, but at least they back up their points with sources, so it's pretty hard to dispute. The cool & fun thing about fictional stories is that there doesn't have to be One Definitive Real Answer that gives the Real True Really Really Silent Hill Experience. Two people can have wildly different opinions and still be in the right. "Sources" and "evidence" can be interpreted in different ways. For instance: you could argue a dog did it, and have plenty of evidence. There's an ending for it and everything! That's always why TRSHE has seemed sort of silly to me -- it's not that their ideas are necessarily totally without merit, it's just that they promote this idea that there's only the Right Way and the Wrong Way to interpret something that's as intentionally vague as Silent Hill often is. Ars Arcanum posted:He's delusional and convinced himself she died years ago. He really just killed her shortly before he came to Silent HIll. This is established when he sees the letter Mary gave to Laura for Laura's birthday--he asks Laura when her birthday was, and she says "last week" (or something like that). See, okay, I didn't know that until just now reading this thread (which sort of makes James coming to SH now of all times make a lot more sense), but one way to read that could be that she "died" to him, in a ~symbolic~ way as soon as she got sick/stopped being desirable to him. The Mary he knows is dead, and there's this new Mary who's sick. His delusion exacerbates that idea and makes the symbolic death seem real to him . (Though I don't know how long ago she's supposed to have gotten sick -- I always felt like she'd been sick for a long while). So there's two Marys, the Mary James knows and the Mary Laura remembers. Fake edit: Spalec posted:I might be completely making this up, but isn't it 3 years ago when Mary first got sick? So he kind of thinks that's when she "died" as everything changed since then? He only actually killed her recently though before going fully crazy and ending up in back in Silent Hill for some psychological punishment. Beaten to the punch, dang.
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Feb 6, 2015 23:18
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Spalec posted:I might be completely making this up, but isn't it 3 years ago when Mary first got sick? So he kind of thinks that's when she "died" as everything changed since then? He only actually killed her recently though before going fully crazy and ending up in back in Silent Hill for some psychological punishment. That's how I took it. She got sick 3 years ago and changed drastically due to illness so the Mary he knew "died" soon after the diagnosis. Then right before the events of the game James smothered her, had a psychotic break, put her in his car (since he had her body in the rebirth ending) and drove to Silent Hill.
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Feb 6, 2015 23:23
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Ars Arcanum posted:Yeah, it's implied that Mary was sick for a pretty long time, and befriended Laura (who was either also sick for a long time or was hanging out with the nuns/nurses who were treating Mary because she was an orphan). Mary had hoped that if she got well, she and James could adopt Laura. But in her last letter, Mary indicates that she knows she's going to die--the doctors only sent home so she could have a last few days alone with her husband/so she could die at home instead of the hospital. I'm going to out myself as an idiot and say my first playthrough of the game I thought Laura was a creation of the town. I thought she represented a 'side' of Mary (the part that wanted to be a mother, based on the 'real' Laura Mary met in the hospital), the same way Maria represented a 'side' of Mary.
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Feb 7, 2015 00:06
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dijon du jour posted:Actually that sounds a lot more like a certain other small town we all know and love. Actually, everyone has these plum trees with dark red leaves that drop these disgusting plums everywhere in the summer... No one picks them up and they stick to and stain everything. Not very spooky, sorry.
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Feb 7, 2015 00:09
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Spalec posted:I might be completely making this up, but isn't it 3 years ago when Mary first got sick? So he kind of thinks that's when she "died" as everything changed since then? He only actually killed her recently though before going fully crazy and ending up in back in Silent Hill for some psychological punishment. I don't remember if they ever actually specify the year she got ill, though based on the tape James finds in the hotel, her illness began/was already in progress but not yet serious when they first visited Silent Hill (she begins coughing near the end of the recording). That would make sense though, as it's implied that her disease has had a long course and Silent Hill has gone from the lovely tourist town he and Mary visited to the decrepit abandoned mess it is when James arrives at the beginning of the game (though we can't really tell how much of the Silent Hill we see through his eyes is real or "his" version of the town, since Angela, Eddie, and Laura all apparently see different versions). marsattacks posted:
Sounds like a valid theory to me, especially since we see different versions of James--the grief-stricken guy who wants his wife to be alive/hated seeing her suffer for so long, the somewhat resentful horn-dog who has conjured up Maria (yet feels guilty for his resentment/killing her and wants to be punished for it), the one Mary describes in her letters to Laura, and even the dead savaged corpse Jameses you find all over town. He does seem honestly shocked when he realizes that he did literally kill Mary, and recently. Rich Uncle Chet posted:I'm going to out myself as an idiot and say my first playthrough of the game I thought Laura was a creation of the town. I thought she represented a 'side' of Mary (the part that wanted to be a mother, based on the 'real' Laura Mary met in the hospital), the same way Maria represented a 'side' of Mary. I wouldn't sweat it, Team Silent loves to gently caress with the players so much that it's nearly impossible to catch everything on the first run-through. The multiple endings can also be confusing at first--if you don't get the "Leave" ending where James runs away with Laura, it would be pretty plausible to think Laura (and possibly even Eddie and Angela) are just the town's doing. Ars Arcanum fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Feb 7, 2015 |
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Feb 7, 2015 01:05
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Although TRSHE appears to be well-researched, I assure you, friends, it is not. TwinPerfect are biased in their research, presenting things out of context AND omitting facts when it's convenient for pushing their own theories. In addition to being extremely intellectually dishonest, they're all-around unsavory people who are toxic to the fandom, they treat everyone who doesn't lick their boots like scum. Bob and I are adamant about them being a terrible influence on the Silent Hill fandom, not only encouraging harassment of developers that they have seen fit to scapegoat (while not doing any research beyond scoping out interviews from years ago, applying the answers to questions that were not asked, presenting them out of context, and jumping to biased conclusions), but also shutting down tons of beautiful debate about alternate theories while declaring that everyone who doesn't think like them isn't a "Real Silent Hill Fan." They research all backwards, starting with a conclusion and working back towards evidence to support the conclusion, while ignoring all contradictory proof. Here's the ad hominem part. Also, according to TwinPerfect: If you like Shattered Memories and the things in it, you're a "retard," Cybil is a "butch dyke," and it's also a very wholesome pastime to follow around a mentally ill homeless man and record him without consent while giggling at him. It's totally cool to then go home, put your cool watermark on it, and post it on youtube with tags like "Public" "Mental" "Illness" and "Homeless." And oh, don't forget to include a link to your website in the description, that's a perfectly non-evil behavior to take part in, too. God, gently caress those guys. lol. That's all I really want to say about them. Don't take their theories as 100% truth. Not everything they say is garbage (even they cannot warp every piece of proof into something else), but a surprising percentage of it is. If you do your own research, there are plenty of gigantic holes and inconvenient truths they've sidestepped to seem authoritative when they are not. However, you don't have to do your own research to see that their attitudes are despicable and their influence has been overwhelmingly negative.
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Feb 7, 2015 01:21
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VoidBurger posted:not only encouraging harassment of developers that they have seen fit to scapegoat (while not doing any research beyond scoping out interviews from years ago, applying the answers to questions that were not asked, presenting them out of context, and jumping to biased conclusions) Poor Tomm Hulett hasn't worked on the series for years and still sometimes gets nasty messages.
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Feb 7, 2015 01:25
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You mentioned the audio funtimes with Silent Hill (Amazing as they are), and I'm pretty sure they're using Binaural audio for the game. The wiki page has two good demos of it, but basically, it's recorded using a dummy head to simulate how our ears actually listen to stuff, with the result of... Well, listen to that first audio demo (with headphones specifically), it's pretty darn amazing. There is a science book I have that claims that binaural tones can cause an instinctive panic reaction if listened to for more than a minute or two, buuuuut... I've not found any evidence of this, so I think we can stick that one in the Myth category. JamieTheD fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Feb 7, 2015 |
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Feb 7, 2015 02:39
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Kamoc posted:
Looks like the Truman show there. That backdrop is so funny at higher res.
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Feb 7, 2015 02:57
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I totally dig this spoilers/no-spoilers split as a dual-run gimmick. I'm pre-spoiled on the game, but I look forward to following both sets of vids!
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Feb 7, 2015 04:08
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NineWheels posted:I totally dig this spoilers/no-spoilers split as a dual-run gimmick. I'm pre-spoiled on the game, but I look forward to following both sets of vids! Same here. I made the mistake of reading about all of the Silent Hills after watching the movie, but never playing the games. So I get to hear cool theories and notice details in the spoiler videos, and appreciate the amazing music and sound work in the subtitled run.
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Feb 7, 2015 04:14
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I keep meaning to but I've never played any of the games. I'm probably gonna be spending more time watching the spoilers version because spoilers don't bother me and also because I like hearing people discuss stuff even if I'm next to clueless going in.
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Feb 7, 2015 04:18
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