So I started playing this game last night, Lone Survivor. It’s basically a 2D, side scrolling survival horror game. I’m about 20 minutes in, it’s pretty good. The one thing I’d say is that it cribs a bit too closely to Silent Hill.
The designer, Jasper Byrne, already parodied/homaged Silent Hill with this previous game, Soundless Mountain (which I have not played but I hear good things about). Yet here in Lone Survivor we’re still hewing closely to SH2. The monsters look the same, the music is reminiscent, and even the sound effect when you pick something up is similar.
You have good ideas, Jasper. You don’t need to couch them in Silent Hill language–you can do your own thing.
I found out about this game from a NeoGAF post claiming Lone Survivor was more SH than Downpour. This was a plus in the eyes of the forum, but I’m not really sure it should be.
None of this is to say it’s bad – I enjoyed what I played and can’t wait to get back to it, I am just not sure it’s going to surprise me (though hope I am wrong).
It seems like every new survival horror game tries to emulate SH2 at some point.
Oh dude, Manhunt 2 wasn’t even in the same genre of games and its story TOTALLY copied SH2.
I have talked to Jasper on Twitter and found out that he has yet to try Downpour but is currently trying SM; he doesn’t like it much but he’s clearly a big fan of the series and his games are like an homage.
I’ve been meaning to pick it up as soon as school is over. I like the art style a lot. Would love to see it on the Vita or something.
Having played further I’m a little surprised to hear he’s not a fan of my game where you put flares down to stop the skinless people from chasing you.
I checked out Lone Survivor and it seems really cool, kinda unique and yes quite similar to SH. But at least it’s not a direct copy like Soundless Mountain (Quiet Knoll is a better title imo). And isn’t plagiarizing games as illegal as plagiarizing books? Hmm…
Yeah, played it for while and seems like its a mix of a lot of things, SH2, Twin Peaks, and Premonition, but I have to laud Jasper Bryan for doing a fine job. If only this would end up on a console rather than the PC. I feel more comfortable with that.
Well, LS runs right so it does have that going for it at least.
Every time somebody sounds like they’re snarking at me I make a snark back and then they’re like “what? dude I was just saying…” so I’m not typing what I’m thinking.
I noticed that too, Tomm. But even if you don’t like me, you gotta respect me for the fact that when I snark you know I’m snarking. But I won’t snark anymore because I’ve decided that I don’t give a rats ass about Silent Hill Canon anymore. I simply want the feeling, ambiguity, and scariness of the first three games back. *pouts*
There’s no problem with a reasonable amount of snark (whether it’s coming from you or me). I also don’t really know why I posted that, you’ve obviously been put in a really bad position. People see you as someone they can actually reach and talk to, as opposed to a faceless corporate entity, and I feel like this is a view you encouraged until things went south and people started coming to you with their issues.
Do you have any input on the recently announced patches as unofficial-sometimes-community manager? I think the fear in the community is that if these devs couldn’t get things right the first time, why would we believe they even have the know-how to fix things? All the problems have been well-documented on youtube and places like that, but there’s a general feeling that a lot of them haven’t been officially acknowledged.
See, I never encouraged them to come to me with problems on my blog. It’s written pretty clearly at the bottom of every page, this is NOT an official Konami blog, and I shouldn’t be approached in an official Konami capacity via said blog.
As for “sometimes Community Manager” I don’t think that’s very fair either. I’m not here to manage the fanbase, or disseminate information, or even sell you on Konami products. I interact with fans because I want to know what they think about the games I work on. Also, since I can’t take part in discussion/speculation as a fan, I take what I can get by reading all your reactions, etc.
Wow dude, you’re worse than me. And it only took you one comment…
Wow dude, you’re worse than me. And it only took you one comment…