WEBVTT - The Silent Hill Story 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:05.400 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:13.640 stuff what dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.720 tech Stuff. My name is Jonathan Strickland, and sitting across 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.720 from me is my brand new co host. Introduce yourself. Hi, 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.280 I'm Lauren voc Obam. I am the social media editor 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.120 here at how Stuff Works, and I'm also your new 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.400 co host. That's awesome. Lauren's going to be giving us 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:31.640 her perspective on technology, and we thought that for her 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:35.120 first episode we should really tackle something she's really interested in. 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.320 But as it turns out, we already did an episode 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.639 on Halo. Yeah. Fortunately, there is at least one other 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:44.360 video game that I do play. I I cannot admit 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.360 to being a huge crazy gamer, but but I do 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:51.320 enjoy some things like, for example, Silent Hill. Yes, now, 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:55.360 Silent Hill a famous example of a game that's in 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.279 the survival horror genre. And I have to be perfectly 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.960 honest here, I have only ever played one Silent Hill game. 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:05.360 And I had to ask Lauren which one it was 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.680 because I couldn't remember, and she immediately identified it as 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:11.720 Silent Hill too, And which is which is a good one? 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:13.640 It's it's one of the better ones. I hear, I 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:15.560 hear the story is really good, but I never got 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.200 into it far enough for the story to really unfold 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:22.319 for me because, frankly, because at the time, the the 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.240 gameplay was so different from everything else I was used 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:29.039 to that that I got frustrated because my brain is 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:32.640 primal and cannot grasp things like that. So it was 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:34.560 still a little bit tank like at the time. Right. 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:36.680 But but first, I guess we need to talk about 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.759 what survival horror is now. It's a term that really 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:46.000 was introduced by Capcom when they released the first Resident 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.320 Evil game back in nine. But it's not the first 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:53.480 horror based game. There's plenty, There are plenty of examples 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:55.800 of horror games, but it was the first. It was 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:57.520 kind of like, you know, you're always going to have 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.280 that first time someone uses a term, and as far 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:02.400 as I can tell, that was the first time people 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.240 had actually used that to define a genre of games. 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:07.880 And really it's kind of a sub genre. It tends 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:13.519 to fit underneath the action adventure genres, and uh, I 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.440 always think of adventure games like things like A Monkey 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.760 Island or even older games like King's Quest or Space Quest, 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.720 where you're it's it's more about solving puzzles and working 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.639 your way through a story than it is about something 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:31.960 like killing all the things. So it's not a shooter, 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.120 it's not, but it's also not purely a puzzle game. Yeah, 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:37.880 and and and there's certain things that that are that 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.840 tend to be in a survival horror game, for example, 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:44.040 I mean, first of all horror horror. Yes, so there's 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:48.360 usually some sort of supernatural, nasty icky thing that's trying 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.200 to eat your knee cap or multiple nasty icky things 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:53.880 trying to eat your kneecaps um. Usually there's a sense 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.120 of isolation, so you're playing a character that doesn't have 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.840 a lot of contact with other people who can help 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.400 him or her. You're you're dealing with that with a 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.840 limited inventory. Oh yes, that's a big deal, right, the 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.880 whole the whole idea. You have to conserve that ammunition, 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.679 or you have to conserve whatever items you have because 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.720 there's a limited numbers. So once you use it, it's 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:19.160 it's gone and you are really script Yeah, it's that's it. 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.440 The game. The game should essentially be over because it's 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:24.400 so hard to get through it without the resources, so 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:27.400 you can't just you know, go in blast and it's 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.919 not a running gun. You know. It's not only Borderlands too, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.840 where where Ammo literally falls out of the sky at times. 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:38.800 Uh not no slide against Borderlins two. Love that game, 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.160 but it's a totally different style of game. And uh yeah, 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:46.280 so the whole idea is to create the sense of horror. So, 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.720 so Lauren, why don't you tell me a little bit about, uh, 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.280 you know, how you got into this game? All right? Well, um, 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.200 I was. I was in college at the time. Um 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.160 and que aneurism from Jonathan usually whenever I start talking 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:05.600 about how old I am, and oh it was, it 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:07.760 was about it was about one Silent until two came 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.320 out that I actually started playing Silent Hill one. Um, 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:16.159 Silent Hill, Uh one came out in and so I 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:18.080 was a few years behind the curve, but I had 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.279 I had a couple of friends who would invite me 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:21.880 over to their house and we would have these all 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.400 night marathons of playing Silent Hill and scaring ourselves absolutely silly. 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.160 Um and you know, I mean we would turn all 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:33.880 the lights out and and uh and yeah just just 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:37.719 just just go yeah, until all of us were too 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.000 nerve racked to pick up the controller. Nice. Yeah, that. 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.080 One of the things that struck me about the Silent 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.200 Hill series is that they took a different take on 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.240 survival horror than Resident Evil did well. Resident Evil was 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.640 still very um for for not for not being a shooter, 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:54.280 for not being a running gun there was a lot 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:56.080 of running and a lot of gunning. Um, it was 0:04:56.120 --> 0:05:00.279 more action based. Um. The story was not extremely rich. 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.720 I mean, you know it was. It was a story, 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:05.160 but yeah, and it used a lot more jump scares, 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.880 that kind of scares, whereas Silent Hill was the sort 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:14.040 of creeping psychological terror, very psychological, very Freudian, very odd 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.400 and uh. And a lot of the influences that the 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.520 designers have talked about are are people like, um, Stephen 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.680 King's The Mist, Um, the terrific movie Jacob's Ladder, directed 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:31.080 by Adrian Lynn. It's a documentary, as were terrific documentary 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.279 about Tim Robbins in the nineteen seventies. Um, and that 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:41.760 you're already heavy terrified um and uh, David Lynch, Um, 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:45.039 stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so things that are 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.280 truly unsettling. That was the The approach was to make 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:52.039 a game that that puts you out of It takes 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.400 you out of your your comfortable place. You know, It's 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:56.600 not just that, oh, something jumped out in me. It's 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:01.120 that something is wrong, something is seriously creepingly and it's 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.920 it's more akin to sort of Japanese horror in that way, 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:08.080 this idea of creating uh and a an environment in 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:12.720 a situation that increases the level of tension without necessarily 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.280 relying on jump scares. It's one of the reasons why 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.640 I really enjoyed when Japanese horror movies started to make 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:25.360 their way into American culture, The ring and Juan Ringo. Yeah. Now, 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.400 the problem with that, of course, was that it went 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.080 a little bonkers, because that's the way Hollywood is, right. 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.200 They find something that people identify with, and then they 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.479 throw everything at it, and then that then you're just 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.720 flooded with it. Yeah, and we can get into that 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.720 a little bit later too, because there are some criticisms 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:47.599 about the survival horror genre that it can get a 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:52.040 little formulaic. But that's that's a little early in our conversation. Yeah, 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:53.840 and and we are talking. I mean Silent Hill at 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.320 this point has put out nine games. Nine games. That 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.000 is so many games. That's a lot of games for 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:00.560 any game series for any series, I can't. I can't 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.640 what else, like Final Fantasy, how can we? Street Fighter 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.960 three alone has had like seventy three games just Street 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.960 Fighter three. Okay, that is that is to be fair. 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:11.840 But they don't have well okay, I don't want to 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:13.920 say they don't have a plot line, because thenbody would 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.280 send me a very angry email. But the plot line 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.080 is not what you played the game for in Street 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:24.080 Fight or three. That is extraordinarily true. So yeah, there 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.520 is definitely a plot. I mean, plot is everything. Story 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.200 is everything in the Silent Hill games. I mean really 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.360 in Silent Hill that it's all about a tail unfolding, right, 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:36.160 and there are there are a couple jump scares here 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.520 and there, and they are and they are delightful because 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.440 they're so few and far between, so they do genuinely 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:45.800 scare you. In Resident Evil, time to jump zombie jumps 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.640 out from around a corner. I'm like, yeah, you you've 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.840 conditioned yourself to okay, well, all right, there's a corner. Yeah, yeah, exactly. 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.280 The door. Oh gosh, I wonder what wonder which version 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:57.880 of the zombie is gonna jump at me when I 0:07:57.880 --> 0:07:59.840 opened up this door? As opposed to sitting there with 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.640 a bunch of your friends in a completely safe environment 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:05.200 and and looking at a digital door on a digital 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:07.880 screen in Silent Hill, I'm thinking, I don't want to 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:10.480 open it. Yeah, I need, I need to open it 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:12.480 to progress in this game, and I don't want to. 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.080 That's pretty phenomenal. And uh, one other little bit of 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:18.880 trivia I wanted to touch upon was something that you 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.400 mentioned to me that I found interesting. So one of 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.160 the reasons Silent Hill was so scary was that you 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.520 couldn't see a lot. It was it was a real 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.640 time rendering engine that was a three D engine, and 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:33.640 this was for the PlayStation, right, for the original PlayStation, 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.320 and it was and it could be very scary because 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:39.320 you out of even though you're having a real time 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.920 three D engine, you couldn't see very far. And that's 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.560 because they put in a lot of fog and darkness 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:47.240 into the game to make up for the fact that 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.800 the engine was not very powerful. Right, the hardware the 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.680 game was running on could not render the graphics needed 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:59.280 to have an extensive view, So by the limitations of 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.960 the technology, it actually became a scarier game because you 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.360 couldn't see I mean leaving a lot up to your imagination. Now, 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:10.400 I could think of one documentary that benefited from a 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:14.040 similar failure of technology. We did a full episode about 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:17.920 this on an Old Tech Stuff episode. Uh. The technology 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:22.880 was named Bruce and the documentary was called Jaws. But again, 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:25.480 it's one of those things where you take something that 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.520 to most people you would immediately say, well, that's a limitation, 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:32.240 that's that's a drawback, and then you turn it into 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.760 something that is a core element of the game, and 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.280 it suddenly becomes an important part of how the game 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:40.360 affects the player. Yeah, by the time that they had 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:42.760 a Betterer graphics engines with all of the rest of them, 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.080 I mean essentially starting with Silent Hill, to which which 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:47.400 came up for the PS two, they had they had 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.240 the capacity to to render a whole lunch. I mean, 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:52.280 you know, not out into infinity like they do today. 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.760 But but you know it's it's you could they could 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.000 have let you see more than in front of your face. 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.760 And they said, and the this is an element that 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:05.240 we see added into games today that kind of sort 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.400 of fit into the survival horror genre. Like for example, 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:10.680 I brought up the example of Left for Dead, which 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:13.240 does not truly fit into survival horror. First of all, 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:15.600 it's more of a first person shooter than an action 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.880 adventure game. Second, it is a collaborative game. You can 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:21.160 play with up to three other people, so you're not 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:25.000 not as isolated. Yeah, now, now as a as a 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.360 small group, you're isolated because there are there are very 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:31.360 few other people that you encounter in that game, still, right, 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.840 And there are levels specifically in Left for Dead too. 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.079 There's a level where you are making your way through 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:41.839 a sugar sugarcane field or or or actually might be 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:43.640 a corn field. I can't remember, but I do remember. 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:47.040 It's like tall stalks and there's a hurricane moving through, 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:52.040 so your view is completely obscured by rain and vegetation, 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:54.800 and you can't tell when something in front of you 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.720 as a zombie or just another stalk of a vegetation. Yeah, 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:03.199 and it's terrifying. It's also it's also evil that they 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.760 put in an achievement. Talking to you guys out there, 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.839 you developers evil to put in an achievement where one 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:11.920 of the achievements is to make it through that level 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.000 without alerting a witch. When you can't see the witch, 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:20.839 you can't see them because everything's in your gun, I'm 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.640 never going to get the achievement. That was a tan, 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.000 that was a tangent. I have no idea what we 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:32.199 were talking about. Well, we're talking about we were I 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:34.520 don't think I I think I think I've heard of 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.320 that one. Let's talk a little bit about, uh, the 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.240 company that brought us Silent Hill, which is Konami and Konami. 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:46.680 It started out way back in nineteen sixty nine Japanese company. Originally, 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:52.439 Konami was a company that specialized in jukebox rental and repair. Yeah, 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.120 so it was based in Osaka, and that was the 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.040 main purpose of the business. But by nineteen seventy three 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.160 or so, they start are looking at the possibility of 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:03.880 developing games in By v eight, they started getting into 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:08.080 the video game market for micro computers, sort of a 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:12.360 predecessor to PCs. By nineteen seventy nine, they started to 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:16.360 export games to the United States and they started making 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.240 arcade games as well. Uh, and then we're gonna jump 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.719 ahead in they started developing games for a system, a 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.760 computer system called Amiga. That's a shout out to Chris, 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:30.880 you know who loves his Amiga. They began making games 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:37.080 for something called the Genesis, I don't know. Ninety three, 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.080 their headquarters moved to Tokyo. By ninety four they start 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:44.160 making video games for the PlayStation. They started making games 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:47.800 for a system that did not do so well, the 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.319 three D O, but they also made games for other 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.040 systems and as well. I gave kind of like a 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:56.720 compressed timeline, just a few general things, just giving an 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.319 idea of what they were into. Uh. Their corporate structure 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:04.480 is absolutely confusing because it's a big company with lots 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.600 of divisions, some of which are their own company, so 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.840 they's spun off operations into their own company. Almost all 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.800 of them have Konami in the name. So you've got 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:18.960 you've got Konami Industry Company Limited. Uh, you've got Konami 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:23.240 of America Incorporated, which eventually became Konami Digital Entertainment Incorporated. 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:29.120 You've got Konami Limited, not Konomity Konami Industry Company Limited, 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:34.360 but Konami Limited completely the UK. Uh, you've got Konami 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.160 g M. B H. I'm sure there's an actual word 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:44.040 for that. It's in German, so uh sutsch Um we've 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.079 got But now that's Konami Digital Entertainment g M. B H. 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.640 You've got Konami Kasan Company Limited, which is now Konami 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:56.120 Real Estate Limited, so real estate. They've also got financing, 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:00.440 Konami Technology Development Center. So what you're saying is they're big. 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.320 They're big. They are not just a game company. They've 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:06.840 got a lot of other things going on. So it's 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.520 it's a huge, complicated company, and it's got a lot 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.120 of different divisions, some of which have you know, blossomed 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.920 and then later folded over heres because the video game 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:22.720 industry in particular has had some rough cycles occasionally here 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.560 there have been some times where the arcade industry, for example, 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:29.760 has really suffered. I mean, you know, it's just there's 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:32.480 not a whole lot of money in developing arcade games anymore, 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.800 although Konami did create one of the most popular arcade 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.840 games of all time. I am talking, of course, of 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:44.320 Dance Dance Revolution. Actually actually that ties into one of 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.440 my random notes about Silent Hill, because one of the 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.360 best parts I think about Silent Hill, and this is 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.280 going back to our conversation about the atmosphere of the games, 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:56.600 is the music. Um the sound designer and composer for 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.800 most of the series has been u A. Gentleman named 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:06.200 Akira Yamaka, and he does just really gorgeous, melodic, creepy 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.120 work for it um and one of those tracks was 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.680 featured on a version of D D R. Well, Lauren, 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:13.080 one of the things I really wanted to talk to 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.160 you about was kind of the emotional impact, and you 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:17.520 were sort of alluding to that with the music and 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.800 creating this creepy vibe and and also the graphics creating 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:22.640 the creepy vibe. But you said that there were some 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:24.160 other things you wanted to chat about as far as 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.880 the feel of the games, and uh, it seemed to 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.000 me like you had a lot to say about these games. 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.240 And because again I've only played one and only just 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.040 the beginning of it, I really don't have that experience. 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.200 But I'm really curious to hear your input and why 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:40.680 you picked this as the topic. Yeah, okay, well, so 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:42.360 let me let me fill you in a little bit 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:44.680 on what Silent Hill is about. For for all of 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.640 you who have never played any Silent Hill games, um 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.600 n G. Spoiler alert. Um. For those of you who have, 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:52.560 you're going to be very bored for about three minutes. 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.840 So where it's something for everyone, and what you're saying, yes, 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.640 we've got negative points for everybody here at except that's 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.280 pretty much how we roll perfectly. You're fitting in well 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:09.160 so far. But um, now, the Silent Hill series is 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:11.680 is set in a town called Silent Hill, and and 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.720 and a small American town. Um that looks strangely like 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.840 a small Japanese town most of the time. Um and 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:21.400 it's uh. In the first game, you are, your player 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:24.720 character is a man named Harry Mason who is searching 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.440 for his daughter who he has lost. Adopted daughter, his 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.359 adopted daughter. Yes, this this comes in. This is extremely 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:37.480 important later on. Then her name is like Cheryl or 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.440 something like that. Her name is Cheryl. Yes that that that, 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.280 by the way, literally the extent of my knowledge of 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:47.120 Silent Hill excellence. It's all me from here on out. 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:53.280 And um ah, sorry, I'm literally leaning back from the microphone, 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:56.240 which Lauren is laughing about because I never do, because 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.120 he has literally never done that, I think in the 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:03.760 entire history of podcast. Pretty much like usually I have 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.639 to have fright to get a word and at edgewise. Um, 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.680 that's okay, I'll still make jokes. No, So, so you're 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:13.879 you're you're playing, you're playing this father named Harry Mason, 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.199 who is desperately searching for his daughter who's lost in 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:21.200 this terrifying, creepy town that just seems wrong. Um uh, 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.919 it's filled with fog, it seems to be abandoned. Um 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:29.880 other than one or two people, some skinless dogs and uh, 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:34.159 undead babies, you know, the usual. Um and and so 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:36.639 he and he is he is perhaps understandably upset. But 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:38.240 I when I was first playing the Games, I was 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:39.760 first of all struck by the fact that it was 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.959 a father looking for his daughter. I thought, in comparison, 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:47.480 especially to American storytelling, it was really kind of revolutionary 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.320 to watch a a father being upset about the loss 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:52.080 of his child. I thought that if it had been 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.160 done in America, it probably would have been a mother instead. 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:57.640 And in fact, when the Silent Hill movie came out 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:02.120 in whenever it came out, it was, they did change 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.439 it to a mother. And you know, and not that 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.439 you know, not not that women have no place in 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:09.480 the media, certainly that I just thought that it was 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:11.320 a more interesting choice to have it be a father, right, 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:14.160 And you said you liked the first thirty five minutes 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:16.280 of that movie, and then you didn't like it. I 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:18.520 get very angry at that movie. But that's that is 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.400 an entire that actually fits in more with our more 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.159 with some of the discussion later because because because I 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.080 have to admit that I've only played the first three 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:32.320 and a half Silent Hill games, um or or I've 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.720 probably played about four total. But but but the first 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:38.720 three to completion and then Silent Hill four The Room 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:41.399 and Silent Hill Homecoming are the only two titles that 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.400 I've picked up, and I didn't enjoy those nearly as much. 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:45.719 Um But but we can, we can get into all 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.480 of that later. So so so the story follows Harry Mason. 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.800 It turns out, like you do, that his daughter Cheryl 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:57.399 is the uh soul divided reincarnation of a little girl 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:02.240 whose mother used her to read is a demon that 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:08.000 I almost follow that, Okay, okay, alright, So so she 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:13.360 was the focal point for of truly evil summoning evil summoning. Well, 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:17.639 to be fair, the purpose of the summoning was supposed 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:22.920 to bring um piece piece and goodwill, right, because another 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.760 thing we should point out is that Asian mythology and 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.359 the idea of demons and ghosts can differ quite a 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:33.919 bit from the Western versions of these things as well. Absolutely, 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.600 and actually strangely, some of the mythology in these games 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:40.359 seems to have been based on Judh Kabala. Oh interesting 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:44.200 ye so, but but with also those those pop culture 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.160 references to Stephen King and other stuff, I mean, and 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:49.360 and some of those references are very clear throughout the games. 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.040 You've got the street name streets are named after Richard 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:55.159 Matheson and Richard Bachman, which is Stephen King's early pen 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:59.840 name is alter Ego, the one who wrote things like 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:04.000 in her Yes, um there's there's a reference to the 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.439 Midwich Cuckoos, which of course became Village of the Damned 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:10.480 in film Ray Bradbury stuff like that. Um so so 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:13.640 there's there's there's a lot of great history inserted into 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.000 those games. And you know, that's that's the that's the 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:20.560 nutshell um of of the first game. I don't want 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:23.119 to get too detailed about it because then I'm just 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:26.199 going to be explaining how he runs through various different 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.440 creepy scenarios and that they're creepy. Well to me, what's 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:31.640 also interesting, Like you were saying, it's a father searching 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.919 for a daughter, and we've seen other games since then 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.040 kind of tap into that same thing I'm thinking of. 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.080 Like the Dead Rising To game has a very has 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.200 a very solar which again not so much a survival 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.199 horror it is in the sense that some of the 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.240 themes are very similar. But again, he it's a father 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.360 who's trying to protect his daughter by getting her medicine 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:54.479 to keep her from transforming into a zombie. Um spoiler 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:56.320 alert if you've never played Dead Rising Too. But that 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.640 game is old, so come on, um, but I mean, 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:01.960 but that happens at the very beginning of the game. 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:03.679 It's not it's not like a spoiler at the end 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:05.920 or anything. That's the very beginning. It's it's established that 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.160 you your purpose is to keep getting mess and until 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:11.639 you guys get rescued, so that way it keeps your 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:17.359 daughter alive. Also, the recent Walking Dead episodic games have 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:22.480 a character who acts at like a father figure to 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.520 a little girl. He's not the girl's father. He's actually 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.919 uh escaped con is probably the wrong term. He was. 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.359 He was a man being escorted to prison when the 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.840 zombies happened, and then a car crash later, he's no 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:40.320 longer in the cop car and he's trying to survive, 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:42.879 so it's not like he's an escape con but he 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.520 ends up being the protector of this girl, and the 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:49.639 storyline unfolds with him really taking on that role. So 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.399 it's interesting to me because it seems to me like 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:57.240 this first Silent Hill game kind of created that that model, 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.639 and other games have sort of followed saying, this is 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.240 an interesting dynamic and it's one worth exploring, and it's 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:08.520 rich for its storytelling potential. Sure, And also I think 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.760 it's a little bit less insulting to have if you're 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:14.520