Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff what dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. My name is Jonathan Strickland, and sitting across
Speaker 1: from me is my brand new co host. Introduce yourself. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren voc Obam. I am the social media editor
Speaker 1: here at how Stuff Works, and I'm also your new
Speaker 1: co host. That's awesome. Lauren's going to be giving us
Speaker 1: her perspective on technology, and we thought that for her
Speaker 1: first episode we should really tackle something she's really interested in.
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, we already did an episode
Speaker 1: on Halo. Yeah. Fortunately, there is at least one other
Speaker 1: video game that I do play. I I cannot admit
Speaker 1: to being a huge crazy gamer, but but I do
Speaker 1: enjoy some things like, for example, Silent Hill. Yes, now,
Speaker 1: Silent Hill a famous example of a game that's in
Speaker 1: the survival horror genre. And I have to be perfectly
Speaker 1: honest here, I have only ever played one Silent Hill game.
Speaker 1: And I had to ask Lauren which one it was
Speaker 1: because I couldn't remember, and she immediately identified it as
Speaker 1: Silent Hill too, And which is which is a good one?
Speaker 1: It's it's one of the better ones. I hear, I
Speaker 1: hear the story is really good, but I never got
Speaker 1: into it far enough for the story to really unfold
Speaker 1: for me because, frankly, because at the time, the the
Speaker 1: gameplay was so different from everything else I was used
Speaker 1: to that that I got frustrated because my brain is
Speaker 1: primal and cannot grasp things like that. So it was
Speaker 1: still a little bit tank like at the time. Right.
Speaker 1: But but first, I guess we need to talk about
Speaker 1: what survival horror is now. It's a term that really
Speaker 1: was introduced by Capcom when they released the first Resident
Speaker 1: Evil game back in nine. But it's not the first
Speaker 1: horror based game. There's plenty, There are plenty of examples
Speaker 1: of horror games, but it was the first. It was
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, you're always going to have
Speaker 1: that first time someone uses a term, and as far
Speaker 1: as I can tell, that was the first time people
Speaker 1: had actually used that to define a genre of games.
Speaker 1: And really it's kind of a sub genre. It tends
Speaker 1: to fit underneath the action adventure genres, and uh, I
Speaker 1: always think of adventure games like things like A Monkey
Speaker 1: Island or even older games like King's Quest or Space Quest,
Speaker 1: where you're it's it's more about solving puzzles and working
Speaker 1: your way through a story than it is about something
Speaker 1: like killing all the things. So it's not a shooter,
Speaker 1: it's not, but it's also not purely a puzzle game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and there's certain things that that are that
Speaker 1: tend to be in a survival horror game, for example,
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all horror horror. Yes, so there's
Speaker 1: usually some sort of supernatural, nasty icky thing that's trying
Speaker 1: to eat your knee cap or multiple nasty icky things
Speaker 1: trying to eat your kneecaps um. Usually there's a sense
Speaker 1: of isolation, so you're playing a character that doesn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of contact with other people who can help
Speaker 1: him or her. You're you're dealing with that with a
Speaker 1: limited inventory. Oh yes, that's a big deal, right, the
Speaker 1: whole the whole idea. You have to conserve that ammunition,
Speaker 1: or you have to conserve whatever items you have because
Speaker 1: there's a limited numbers. So once you use it, it's
Speaker 1: it's gone and you are really script Yeah, it's that's it.
Speaker 1: The game. The game should essentially be over because it's
Speaker 1: so hard to get through it without the resources, so
Speaker 1: you can't just you know, go in blast and it's
Speaker 1: not a running gun. You know. It's not only Borderlands too,
Speaker 1: where where Ammo literally falls out of the sky at times.
Speaker 1: Uh not no slide against Borderlins two. Love that game,
Speaker 1: but it's a totally different style of game. And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: so the whole idea is to create the sense of horror. So,
Speaker 1: so Lauren, why don't you tell me a little bit about, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, how you got into this game? All right? Well, um,
Speaker 1: I was. I was in college at the time. Um
Speaker 1: and que aneurism from Jonathan usually whenever I start talking
Speaker 1: about how old I am, and oh it was, it
Speaker 1: was about it was about one Silent until two came
Speaker 1: out that I actually started playing Silent Hill one. Um,
Speaker 1: Silent Hill, Uh one came out in and so I
Speaker 1: was a few years behind the curve, but I had
Speaker 1: I had a couple of friends who would invite me
Speaker 1: over to their house and we would have these all
Speaker 1: night marathons of playing Silent Hill and scaring ourselves absolutely silly.
Speaker 1: Um and you know, I mean we would turn all
Speaker 1: the lights out and and uh and yeah just just
Speaker 1: just just go yeah, until all of us were too
Speaker 1: nerve racked to pick up the controller. Nice. Yeah, that.
Speaker 1: One of the things that struck me about the Silent
Speaker 1: Hill series is that they took a different take on
Speaker 1: survival horror than Resident Evil did well. Resident Evil was
Speaker 1: still very um for for not for not being a shooter,
Speaker 1: for not being a running gun there was a lot
Speaker 1: of running and a lot of gunning. Um, it was
Speaker 1: more action based. Um. The story was not extremely rich.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know it was. It was a story,
Speaker 1: but yeah, and it used a lot more jump scares,
Speaker 1: that kind of scares, whereas Silent Hill was the sort
Speaker 1: of creeping psychological terror, very psychological, very Freudian, very odd
Speaker 1: and uh. And a lot of the influences that the
Speaker 1: designers have talked about are are people like, um, Stephen
Speaker 1: King's The Mist, Um, the terrific movie Jacob's Ladder, directed
Speaker 1: by Adrian Lynn. It's a documentary, as were terrific documentary
Speaker 1: about Tim Robbins in the nineteen seventies. Um, and that
Speaker 1: you're already heavy terrified um and uh, David Lynch, Um,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so things that are
Speaker 1: truly unsettling. That was the The approach was to make
Speaker 1: a game that that puts you out of It takes
Speaker 1: you out of your your comfortable place. You know, It's
Speaker 1: not just that, oh, something jumped out in me. It's
Speaker 1: that something is wrong, something is seriously creepingly and it's
Speaker 1: it's more akin to sort of Japanese horror in that way,
Speaker 1: this idea of creating uh and a an environment in
Speaker 1: a situation that increases the level of tension without necessarily
Speaker 1: relying on jump scares. It's one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed when Japanese horror movies started to make
Speaker 1: their way into American culture, The ring and Juan Ringo. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: the problem with that, of course, was that it went
Speaker 1: a little bonkers, because that's the way Hollywood is, right.
Speaker 1: They find something that people identify with, and then they
Speaker 1: throw everything at it, and then that then you're just
Speaker 1: flooded with it. Yeah, and we can get into that
Speaker 1: a little bit later too, because there are some criticisms
Speaker 1: about the survival horror genre that it can get a
Speaker 1: little formulaic. But that's that's a little early in our conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and we are talking. I mean Silent Hill at
Speaker 1: this point has put out nine games. Nine games. That
Speaker 1: is so many games. That's a lot of games for
Speaker 1: any game series for any series, I can't. I can't
Speaker 1: what else, like Final Fantasy, how can we? Street Fighter
Speaker 1: three alone has had like seventy three games just Street
Speaker 1: Fighter three. Okay, that is that is to be fair.
Speaker 1: But they don't have well okay, I don't want to
Speaker 1: say they don't have a plot line, because thenbody would
Speaker 1: send me a very angry email. But the plot line
Speaker 1: is not what you played the game for in Street
Speaker 1: Fight or three. That is extraordinarily true. So yeah, there
Speaker 1: is definitely a plot. I mean, plot is everything. Story
Speaker 1: is everything in the Silent Hill games. I mean really
Speaker 1: in Silent Hill that it's all about a tail unfolding, right,
Speaker 1: and there are there are a couple jump scares here
Speaker 1: and there, and they are and they are delightful because
Speaker 1: they're so few and far between, so they do genuinely
Speaker 1: scare you. In Resident Evil, time to jump zombie jumps
Speaker 1: out from around a corner. I'm like, yeah, you you've
Speaker 1: conditioned yourself to okay, well, all right, there's a corner. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: The door. Oh gosh, I wonder what wonder which version
Speaker 1: of the zombie is gonna jump at me when I
Speaker 1: opened up this door? As opposed to sitting there with
Speaker 1: a bunch of your friends in a completely safe environment
Speaker 1: and and looking at a digital door on a digital
Speaker 1: screen in Silent Hill, I'm thinking, I don't want to
Speaker 1: open it. Yeah, I need, I need to open it
Speaker 1: to progress in this game, and I don't want to.
Speaker 1: That's pretty phenomenal. And uh, one other little bit of
Speaker 1: trivia I wanted to touch upon was something that you
Speaker 1: mentioned to me that I found interesting. So one of
Speaker 1: the reasons Silent Hill was so scary was that you
Speaker 1: couldn't see a lot. It was it was a real
Speaker 1: time rendering engine that was a three D engine, and
Speaker 1: this was for the PlayStation, right, for the original PlayStation,
Speaker 1: and it was and it could be very scary because
Speaker 1: you out of even though you're having a real time
Speaker 1: three D engine, you couldn't see very far. And that's
Speaker 1: because they put in a lot of fog and darkness
Speaker 1: into the game to make up for the fact that
Speaker 1: the engine was not very powerful. Right, the hardware the
Speaker 1: game was running on could not render the graphics needed
Speaker 1: to have an extensive view, So by the limitations of
Speaker 1: the technology, it actually became a scarier game because you
Speaker 1: couldn't see I mean leaving a lot up to your imagination. Now,
Speaker 1: I could think of one documentary that benefited from a
Speaker 1: similar failure of technology. We did a full episode about
Speaker 1: this on an Old Tech Stuff episode. Uh. The technology
Speaker 1: was named Bruce and the documentary was called Jaws. But again,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where you take something that
Speaker 1: to most people you would immediately say, well, that's a limitation,
Speaker 1: that's that's a drawback, and then you turn it into
Speaker 1: something that is a core element of the game, and
Speaker 1: it suddenly becomes an important part of how the game
Speaker 1: affects the player. Yeah, by the time that they had
Speaker 1: a Betterer graphics engines with all of the rest of them,
Speaker 1: I mean essentially starting with Silent Hill, to which which
Speaker 1: came up for the PS two, they had they had
Speaker 1: the capacity to to render a whole lunch. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, not out into infinity like they do today.
Speaker 1: But but you know it's it's you could they could
Speaker 1: have let you see more than in front of your face.
Speaker 1: And they said, and the this is an element that
Speaker 1: we see added into games today that kind of sort
Speaker 1: of fit into the survival horror genre. Like for example,
Speaker 1: I brought up the example of Left for Dead, which
Speaker 1: does not truly fit into survival horror. First of all,
Speaker 1: it's more of a first person shooter than an action
Speaker 1: adventure game. Second, it is a collaborative game. You can
Speaker 1: play with up to three other people, so you're not
Speaker 1: not as isolated. Yeah, now, now as a as a
Speaker 1: small group, you're isolated because there are there are very
Speaker 1: few other people that you encounter in that game, still, right,
Speaker 1: And there are levels specifically in Left for Dead too.
Speaker 1: There's a level where you are making your way through
Speaker 1: a sugar sugarcane field or or or actually might be
Speaker 1: a corn field. I can't remember, but I do remember.
Speaker 1: It's like tall stalks and there's a hurricane moving through,
Speaker 1: so your view is completely obscured by rain and vegetation,
Speaker 1: and you can't tell when something in front of you
Speaker 1: as a zombie or just another stalk of a vegetation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's terrifying. It's also it's also evil that they
Speaker 1: put in an achievement. Talking to you guys out there,
Speaker 1: you developers evil to put in an achievement where one
Speaker 1: of the achievements is to make it through that level
Speaker 1: without alerting a witch. When you can't see the witch,
Speaker 1: you can't see them because everything's in your gun, I'm
Speaker 1: never going to get the achievement. That was a tan,
Speaker 1: that was a tangent. I have no idea what we
Speaker 1: were talking about. Well, we're talking about we were I
Speaker 1: don't think I I think I think I've heard of
Speaker 1: that one. Let's talk a little bit about, uh, the
Speaker 1: company that brought us Silent Hill, which is Konami and Konami.
Speaker 1: It started out way back in nineteen sixty nine Japanese company. Originally,
Speaker 1: Konami was a company that specialized in jukebox rental and repair. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it was based in Osaka, and that was the
Speaker 1: main purpose of the business. But by nineteen seventy three
Speaker 1: or so, they start are looking at the possibility of
Speaker 1: developing games in By v eight, they started getting into
Speaker 1: the video game market for micro computers, sort of a
Speaker 1: predecessor to PCs. By nineteen seventy nine, they started to
Speaker 1: export games to the United States and they started making
Speaker 1: arcade games as well. Uh, and then we're gonna jump
Speaker 1: ahead in they started developing games for a system, a
Speaker 1: computer system called Amiga. That's a shout out to Chris,
Speaker 1: you know who loves his Amiga. They began making games
Speaker 1: for something called the Genesis, I don't know. Ninety three,
Speaker 1: their headquarters moved to Tokyo. By ninety four they start
Speaker 1: making video games for the PlayStation. They started making games
Speaker 1: for a system that did not do so well, the
Speaker 1: three D O, but they also made games for other
Speaker 1: systems and as well. I gave kind of like a
Speaker 1: compressed timeline, just a few general things, just giving an
Speaker 1: idea of what they were into. Uh. Their corporate structure
Speaker 1: is absolutely confusing because it's a big company with lots
Speaker 1: of divisions, some of which are their own company, so
Speaker 1: they's spun off operations into their own company. Almost all
Speaker 1: of them have Konami in the name. So you've got
Speaker 1: you've got Konami Industry Company Limited. Uh, you've got Konami
Speaker 1: of America Incorporated, which eventually became Konami Digital Entertainment Incorporated.
Speaker 1: You've got Konami Limited, not Konomity Konami Industry Company Limited,
Speaker 1: but Konami Limited completely the UK. Uh, you've got Konami
Speaker 1: g M. B H. I'm sure there's an actual word
Speaker 1: for that. It's in German, so uh sutsch Um we've
Speaker 1: got But now that's Konami Digital Entertainment g M. B H.
Speaker 1: You've got Konami Kasan Company Limited, which is now Konami
Speaker 1: Real Estate Limited, so real estate. They've also got financing,
Speaker 1: Konami Technology Development Center. So what you're saying is they're big.
Speaker 1: They're big. They are not just a game company. They've
Speaker 1: got a lot of other things going on. So it's
Speaker 1: it's a huge, complicated company, and it's got a lot
Speaker 1: of different divisions, some of which have you know, blossomed
Speaker 1: and then later folded over heres because the video game
Speaker 1: industry in particular has had some rough cycles occasionally here
Speaker 1: there have been some times where the arcade industry, for example,
Speaker 1: has really suffered. I mean, you know, it's just there's
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of money in developing arcade games anymore,
Speaker 1: although Konami did create one of the most popular arcade
Speaker 1: games of all time. I am talking, of course, of
Speaker 1: Dance Dance Revolution. Actually actually that ties into one of
Speaker 1: my random notes about Silent Hill, because one of the
Speaker 1: best parts I think about Silent Hill, and this is
Speaker 1: going back to our conversation about the atmosphere of the games,
Speaker 1: is the music. Um the sound designer and composer for
Speaker 1: most of the series has been u A. Gentleman named
Speaker 1: Akira Yamaka, and he does just really gorgeous, melodic, creepy
Speaker 1: work for it um and one of those tracks was
Speaker 1: featured on a version of D D R. Well, Lauren,
Speaker 1: one of the things I really wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: you about was kind of the emotional impact, and you
Speaker 1: were sort of alluding to that with the music and
Speaker 1: creating this creepy vibe and and also the graphics creating
Speaker 1: the creepy vibe. But you said that there were some
Speaker 1: other things you wanted to chat about as far as
Speaker 1: the feel of the games, and uh, it seemed to
Speaker 1: me like you had a lot to say about these games.
Speaker 1: And because again I've only played one and only just
Speaker 1: the beginning of it, I really don't have that experience.
Speaker 1: But I'm really curious to hear your input and why
Speaker 1: you picked this as the topic. Yeah, okay, well, so
Speaker 1: let me let me fill you in a little bit
Speaker 1: on what Silent Hill is about. For for all of
Speaker 1: you who have never played any Silent Hill games, um
Speaker 1: n G. Spoiler alert. Um. For those of you who have,
Speaker 1: you're going to be very bored for about three minutes.
Speaker 1: So where it's something for everyone, and what you're saying, yes,
Speaker 1: we've got negative points for everybody here at except that's
Speaker 1: pretty much how we roll perfectly. You're fitting in well
Speaker 1: so far. But um, now, the Silent Hill series is
Speaker 1: is set in a town called Silent Hill, and and
Speaker 1: and a small American town. Um that looks strangely like
Speaker 1: a small Japanese town most of the time. Um and
Speaker 1: it's uh. In the first game, you are, your player
Speaker 1: character is a man named Harry Mason who is searching
Speaker 1: for his daughter who he has lost. Adopted daughter, his
Speaker 1: adopted daughter. Yes, this this comes in. This is extremely
Speaker 1: important later on. Then her name is like Cheryl or
Speaker 1: something like that. Her name is Cheryl. Yes that that that,
Speaker 1: by the way, literally the extent of my knowledge of
Speaker 1: Silent Hill excellence. It's all me from here on out.
Speaker 1: And um ah, sorry, I'm literally leaning back from the microphone,
Speaker 1: which Lauren is laughing about because I never do, because
Speaker 1: he has literally never done that, I think in the
Speaker 1: entire history of podcast. Pretty much like usually I have
Speaker 1: to have fright to get a word and at edgewise. Um,
Speaker 1: that's okay, I'll still make jokes. No, So, so you're
Speaker 1: you're you're playing, you're playing this father named Harry Mason,
Speaker 1: who is desperately searching for his daughter who's lost in
Speaker 1: this terrifying, creepy town that just seems wrong. Um uh,
Speaker 1: it's filled with fog, it seems to be abandoned. Um
Speaker 1: other than one or two people, some skinless dogs and uh,
Speaker 1: undead babies, you know, the usual. Um and and so
Speaker 1: he and he is he is perhaps understandably upset. But
Speaker 1: I when I was first playing the Games, I was
Speaker 1: first of all struck by the fact that it was
Speaker 1: a father looking for his daughter. I thought, in comparison,
Speaker 1: especially to American storytelling, it was really kind of revolutionary
Speaker 1: to watch a a father being upset about the loss
Speaker 1: of his child. I thought that if it had been
Speaker 1: done in America, it probably would have been a mother instead.
Speaker 1: And in fact, when the Silent Hill movie came out
Speaker 1: in whenever it came out, it was, they did change
Speaker 1: it to a mother. And you know, and not that
Speaker 1: you know, not not that women have no place in
Speaker 1: the media, certainly that I just thought that it was
Speaker 1: a more interesting choice to have it be a father, right,
Speaker 1: And you said you liked the first thirty five minutes
Speaker 1: of that movie, and then you didn't like it. I
Speaker 1: get very angry at that movie. But that's that is
Speaker 1: an entire that actually fits in more with our more
Speaker 1: with some of the discussion later because because because I
Speaker 1: have to admit that I've only played the first three
Speaker 1: and a half Silent Hill games, um or or I've
Speaker 1: probably played about four total. But but but the first
Speaker 1: three to completion and then Silent Hill four The Room
Speaker 1: and Silent Hill Homecoming are the only two titles that
Speaker 1: I've picked up, and I didn't enjoy those nearly as much.
Speaker 1: Um But but we can, we can get into all
Speaker 1: of that later. So so so the story follows Harry Mason.
Speaker 1: It turns out, like you do, that his daughter Cheryl
Speaker 1: is the uh soul divided reincarnation of a little girl
Speaker 1: whose mother used her to read is a demon that
Speaker 1: I almost follow that, Okay, okay, alright, So so she
Speaker 1: was the focal point for of truly evil summoning evil summoning. Well,
Speaker 1: to be fair, the purpose of the summoning was supposed
Speaker 1: to bring um piece piece and goodwill, right, because another
Speaker 1: thing we should point out is that Asian mythology and
Speaker 1: the idea of demons and ghosts can differ quite a
Speaker 1: bit from the Western versions of these things as well. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and actually strangely, some of the mythology in these games
Speaker 1: seems to have been based on Judh Kabala. Oh interesting
Speaker 1: ye so, but but with also those those pop culture
Speaker 1: references to Stephen King and other stuff, I mean, and
Speaker 1: and some of those references are very clear throughout the games.
Speaker 1: You've got the street name streets are named after Richard
Speaker 1: Matheson and Richard Bachman, which is Stephen King's early pen
Speaker 1: name is alter Ego, the one who wrote things like
Speaker 1: in her Yes, um there's there's a reference to the
Speaker 1: Midwich Cuckoos, which of course became Village of the Damned
Speaker 1: in film Ray Bradbury stuff like that. Um so so
Speaker 1: there's there's there's a lot of great history inserted into
Speaker 1: those games. And you know, that's that's the that's the
Speaker 1: nutshell um of of the first game. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get too detailed about it because then I'm just
Speaker 1: going to be explaining how he runs through various different
Speaker 1: creepy scenarios and that they're creepy. Well to me, what's
Speaker 1: also interesting, Like you were saying, it's a father searching
Speaker 1: for a daughter, and we've seen other games since then
Speaker 1: kind of tap into that same thing I'm thinking of.
Speaker 1: Like the Dead Rising To game has a very has
Speaker 1: a very solar which again not so much a survival
Speaker 1: horror it is in the sense that some of the
Speaker 1: themes are very similar. But again, he it's a father
Speaker 1: who's trying to protect his daughter by getting her medicine
Speaker 1: to keep her from transforming into a zombie. Um spoiler
Speaker 1: alert if you've never played Dead Rising Too. But that
Speaker 1: game is old, so come on, um, but I mean,
Speaker 1: but that happens at the very beginning of the game.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not like a spoiler at the end
Speaker 1: or anything. That's the very beginning. It's it's established that
Speaker 1: you your purpose is to keep getting mess and until
Speaker 1: you guys get rescued, so that way it keeps your
Speaker 1: daughter alive. Also, the recent Walking Dead episodic games have
Speaker 1: a character who acts at like a father figure to
Speaker 1: a little girl. He's not the girl's father. He's actually
Speaker 1: uh escaped con is probably the wrong term. He was.
Speaker 1: He was a man being escorted to prison when the
Speaker 1: zombies happened, and then a car crash later, he's no
Speaker 1: longer in the cop car and he's trying to survive,
Speaker 1: so it's not like he's an escape con but he
Speaker 1: ends up being the protector of this girl, and the
Speaker 1: storyline unfolds with him really taking on that role. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting to me because it seems to me like
Speaker 1: this first Silent Hill game kind of created that that model,
Speaker 1: and other games have sort of followed saying, this is
Speaker 1: an interesting dynamic and it's one worth exploring, and it's
Speaker 1: rich for its storytelling potential. Sure, And also I think
Speaker 1: it's a little bit less insulting to have if you're
Speaker 1: going to have to go rescue someone in a game.
Speaker 1: I think it's a little bit less insulting for it
Speaker 1: to be a child as opposed to a full grown woman. Yes.
Speaker 1: In Resident Evil, for yeah, it's one of the most
Speaker 1: useless characters to follow you around, and you you never
Speaker 1: you never have someone intelligent or useful following you or
Speaker 1: well that's usually other than like the arbiter, but that's
Speaker 1: but that's a separate issue. It's usually the fault of
Speaker 1: the AI. Yes, necessarily the fault of the character, but
Speaker 1: Resident eval for it's both. It turns out spoiler alert
Speaker 1: for that too. I once played No, I'm sorry it
Speaker 1: was Resident Eval five. I got to play on the
Speaker 1: side of the hard rock casino and ces that's interesting
Speaker 1: to play survival horror when it's projected seventy seven stories high. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how I feel about that. It was awesome.
Speaker 1: It's a little chilly, but it was awesome. It was
Speaker 1: a capcom thing at c S and I had a
Speaker 1: great time, and I'm not gonna brooke any discussion on
Speaker 1: the matter. Good good for you, but no, the Silent
Speaker 1: Hill really started to set some interesting trends, and that
Speaker 1: that the survival horror games that came before we're not
Speaker 1: as necessarily as deeply story driven as Silent Hill was
Speaker 1: and so right, or or as atmospheric. That's another good point.
Speaker 1: And in fact, before we really get into the deep
Speaker 1: level of you know, discussion kind of where you're deconstructing
Speaker 1: things and getting angry because I can't wait to see
Speaker 1: Lauren angry because I'm usually the angry one on this show.
Speaker 1: And guess what, guys, I'm not always going to be
Speaker 1: the angry one now, isn't it awesome? Someone else is
Speaker 1: gonna be angry too. Sometimes I'm going to be the
Speaker 1: one hiding super party. Uh So, Yeah, here, here's some
Speaker 1: other games that came out, just to kind of give
Speaker 1: you a comparison, uh with this this sort of revolutionary story.
Speaker 1: So in ninety nine, that was also when we got
Speaker 1: things like Ashron's Call, which was an online role playing game.
Speaker 1: One of the early ones, Balter's Gate. Tales of the
Speaker 1: Sword Coast came out that year. Uh. Cabella's big game
Speaker 1: Hunter three, Cricket Cricket. The Cabella series has kind of
Speaker 1: an interesting reputation online if you're not familiar with it.
Speaker 1: Kesslvania for Ninteno sixty four, it came out that year.
Speaker 1: Crazy Taxi. I have that for my Dreamcast. I still
Speaker 1: have a Dreamcast Dead or Alive two. Classy, classy game
Speaker 1: Donkey Kong sixty four Grand Theft Auto two that was
Speaker 1: back when it was a top down game. It's not
Speaker 1: a first person view or third person view. I think
Speaker 1: the first person because it's when you're in the car,
Speaker 1: but yeah, third person and you don't know, you can
Speaker 1: also do a third person in the car too, right,
Speaker 1: Not everyone plays first person like I do. Um India
Speaker 1: Jones The Infernal Machine, which is a good example of
Speaker 1: an adventure game that does not have a horror theme,
Speaker 1: but it also had that sort of puzzle solving mechanic
Speaker 1: that is very important in survival horror. UH, Planescape Torment,
Speaker 1: which was a D and D game that got a
Speaker 1: lot of fans. UM Quake three Arena if you want
Speaker 1: that first person shooter experience, Residentval three Nemesis came out
Speaker 1: that year. UH, SimCity three thousand came out that year.
Speaker 1: Ultima nine Ascension, the only ultimate game I have never played,
Speaker 1: UH came out that year, and UH, the greatest video
Speaker 1: game to ever come out on the N sixty four
Speaker 1: came out that year, and it is not Golden I
Speaker 1: what what is it? Jonathan w w F WrestleMania two
Speaker 1: thousand and I am not joking, Jonathan. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: you guys noticed, but Jonathan might be a little bit
Speaker 1: excited sometimes about wrestling. WWF. Wrestle Mania two thousand is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite video games of all time, bar none.
Speaker 1: I even think it's better than No Mercy, which came
Speaker 1: out the following year. Strong words, strong words, indeed, I've
Speaker 1: never played. I'll bring it in excellent, and you're going
Speaker 1: to create your own wrestler and it's gonna look like
Speaker 1: you because I've already got one that looks like me.
Speaker 1: I'm not not sure if that's actually a true in
Speaker 1: the game, but that's because it's based on a character
Speaker 1: I played on stage. It's not the way I normally dress.
Speaker 1: I mean, today's an exception. Anyway. That's an example of
Speaker 1: the type of games that were coming out the same
Speaker 1: year that Silent Hill did. So Silent Hill really was
Speaker 1: very different because all the very different and that's the
Speaker 1: main reason why I had I kind of assembled that list,
Speaker 1: and that, of course is just a tiny, tiny sample
Speaker 1: of all the hundreds of games that came out. Gaming
Speaker 1: industry was a thing. It turns out, you know, there
Speaker 1: were quite a few consoles on the market, and then
Speaker 1: more we're coming out shortly thereafter. Because let's remember this
Speaker 1: is the PlayStation one era, this is before Xbox. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it was only in two thousand one, September of
Speaker 1: two thousand one that Silent Hill two came out for
Speaker 1: the PS two and um uh and yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: that game. That game built up off of the Silent
Speaker 1: Hill one story in a way that was not necessarily
Speaker 1: connected to the first story. None of the same characters
Speaker 1: showed up aside from some of the some of the
Speaker 1: villain monsters. Um But but what what they did with
Speaker 1: the story is what I really find fascinating about the
Speaker 1: Silent Hill series, and I think why it has endured
Speaker 1: as much as it has because what they did is, um,
Speaker 1: they took they took this concept of this town that
Speaker 1: has been that has been psychically messed around really hard,
Speaker 1: and and they extended that so that any other any
Speaker 1: other person who has had dealings with this town, the
Speaker 1: town feeds off of any any psychic badness going on
Speaker 1: with them. So damaged characters feed this thing. Damaged characters
Speaker 1: feed this thing, and and it draws them in and
Speaker 1: by their presence they changed the town, or they change
Speaker 1: their own perception of the reality in the town. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit it's a little bit shaky about how
Speaker 1: that works, um but but no, it's fascinating because because
Speaker 1: it means that that anyone who has had any kind
Speaker 1: of contact with Silent Hill and then done something completely
Speaker 1: terrible like people do, winds up being drawn back into
Speaker 1: this town and going through their own extremely personal version
Speaker 1: of hell, and and that that's awful. I don't want
Speaker 1: that to happen to me, but I sure do you
Speaker 1: want to play a video game about that that that
Speaker 1: is emotionally fascinating. It's a it's a it's a definitely
Speaker 1: interesting take on a story. Now there were things that
Speaker 1: made you angry, there were there There ended up being
Speaker 1: things that made me angry in this video game series. UM.
Speaker 1: Eventually UM. A group of Konami employees called Team Silent
Speaker 1: worked on the first four games. This was an internal
Speaker 1: development team working directly underneath Konami. So Konami is developing
Speaker 1: and publishing a game that was completely made in house, right.
Speaker 1: It was kind of a pet project, especially after the
Speaker 1: enormous success of the first game game UM. They had
Speaker 1: an entire fifty people working on the second one, UM.
Speaker 1: I think it dropped down to maybe forty for the
Speaker 1: for the third and fourth ones. The third and fourth
Speaker 1: ones were actually developed nearly simultaneously within Konami. UM. Silent
Speaker 1: Hill three was a direct sequel to Silent Hill. Actually
Speaker 1: it picked up again with Harry Mason's character or his
Speaker 1: daughter actually spoiler alert UM. But as Silent Hill for
Speaker 1: the room was built to be more of a shooter,
Speaker 1: more of an action oriented game with still some of
Speaker 1: the puzzle aspects and still set with the creepy atmosphere,
Speaker 1: but it was intended to be more action packed, and
Speaker 1: for me, honestly, that's why it failed. Um, which is
Speaker 1: interesting because the Resident Evil series took a very similar approach,
Speaker 1: like it changed to be a little bit, it got
Speaker 1: increasingly more action oriented. But I think it actually managed
Speaker 1: to find an audience, like a larger audience that way,
Speaker 1: like people who had never thought of playing the other
Speaker 1: games because because the play style didn't appeal to them.
Speaker 1: But I can see how the elements that truly defined
Speaker 1: the series early on, by getting away from that could
Speaker 1: could potentially lose fans, all right, And it's not I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll admit I'm the kind of person who
Speaker 1: enjoys Missed, but I'm also the kind of person who
Speaker 1: enjoys Halo. So it's not, you know, it's it's not
Speaker 1: that I was just looking for a puzzle experience and
Speaker 1: then I was upset that I had to shoot things.
Speaker 1: So you people who have never played the game Missed
Speaker 1: because there may be a few of you young guns
Speaker 1: out there, Oh dear, I had never even thought of about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm getting the inneurism vain that John hits me all
Speaker 1: the time. But No Missed. Missed was a a a
Speaker 1: puzzle game essentially, but it was done and there was
Speaker 1: an over arching story that the puzzles all fit into.
Speaker 1: You could argue whether or not the story made any sense,
Speaker 1: or if the narrative was worth the effort of solving
Speaker 1: these puzzles, some of which were seemed to have no
Speaker 1: sense of logic to them. It was just one of
Speaker 1: those things where click things until off happens. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know there was there were logical underpinnings to most,
Speaker 1: if not all, the puzzles. Sometimes that was just just
Speaker 1: hidden enough from the player to not be obvious. But
Speaker 1: that was that was a That was all you did
Speaker 1: in that game was solve puzzles. So I was just
Speaker 1: saying that so that way you could our listeners who
Speaker 1: are unfamiliar with it, but probably no Halo would be
Speaker 1: to have some kind of frame of reference. Yes, thank you, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: That's the only reason I'm here. After after Silent Hillford
Speaker 1: came out, UM they started, Konami started UH shipping the
Speaker 1: title out to various other studios. UM Climax Studios has
Speaker 1: worked on it, um other stuff. Double Helix Vatter Games
Speaker 1: did the most recent one I think and uh so yeah,
Speaker 1: these these these are all American and I think batter's
Speaker 1: at check company. Actually, Okay, so you've got you've got
Speaker 1: companies that are not that are trying to preserve the
Speaker 1: feeling of Silent Hill, but are not necessarily as invested
Speaker 1: in it as the team that originally developed it. It's hard.
Speaker 1: It's hard when it's not your baby to take quite
Speaker 1: as good care of it. I think it can be
Speaker 1: a challenge. I mean, I'm sure that three four three
Speaker 1: Studios has that same sort of the burden of responsibility
Speaker 1: to be good stewards of the Halo franchise. But it's
Speaker 1: still not it's still not yours, and you're going to
Speaker 1: want to do slightly different things with it. Um you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's like Willy Wonka wanting to recruit Charlie
Speaker 1: and not a grown up because he can mold Charlie
Speaker 1: to do his will. Another excellent documentary, yes, the first
Speaker 1: one in name, starring Gene Wilder. But but yeah, and
Speaker 1: and so so they and and and these people have
Speaker 1: all loved the series of games. I've read a lot
Speaker 1: of interviews with all of the creators, and and they
Speaker 1: are so passionate about it, and I love hearing that.
Speaker 1: Except for the part where I feel like they took
Speaker 1: more after held for the Room, most of the sequels
Speaker 1: have been more actionally and um less puzzly. I get
Speaker 1: a little bit frustrated when I just want to get
Speaker 1: to the next point in the story and there are
Speaker 1: so many things to shoot and I can't just run
Speaker 1: away from them. Um uh. And and also there they
Speaker 1: increased the level of violence. Um. Partially it was just
Speaker 1: a graphics rendering issue, I think, because as graphics have improved,
Speaker 1: you can you can really see the knife strokes and wow,
Speaker 1: you can really see how the bone brew. No, but
Speaker 1: you can and and I'm kind of and I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not necessarily squeamish. Some of my favorite
Speaker 1: horror films are things like hell Raiser or Slither. I
Speaker 1: I loved not known for going easy on the gore.
Speaker 1: I love a good schlock flick, but that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: what I'm looking for Silent Hill. And and like like
Speaker 1: many nerds, I do get a little bit protective about
Speaker 1: the media that I consume. And I'm sorry, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say it very much reminds me
Speaker 1: of how Boris Karloff used to criticize the horror movie
Speaker 1: industry because he said that the movies he made, he
Speaker 1: liked to think of them as terror pictures, like the
Speaker 1: idea was that they inspire terror, the sense of any
Speaker 1: and fear, whereas horror movies were more about shocking you
Speaker 1: and grossing you out. And it's two different things. It's
Speaker 1: the same reason why again, I really like the Japanese
Speaker 1: horror because it was something that could increase that tension
Speaker 1: and terror, same way that I like some nineties seventies
Speaker 1: and early eighties horror movies that were that because of
Speaker 1: a lack of budget, they had to use other tricks
Speaker 1: in order to really get you uneasy, And to me,
Speaker 1: those are really effective. And if you have like a
Speaker 1: huge budget and it's all about people exploding into it's
Speaker 1: a blood, then after how can fit After like the
Speaker 1: third or fourth time, you're like, okay, you know it's
Speaker 1: I mean, I hate to bring up I love Samuraimi's work,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, but but evil dead, I mean
Speaker 1: evil dead. You eventually are like, all right, how many
Speaker 1: times am I going to see them? Have to try
Speaker 1: and chop up this possessed person, you know, before it
Speaker 1: gets a little bit, a little bit old, We're just funny,
Speaker 1: it becomes not terrifying, right, which is why Evil Dead too.
Speaker 1: And and then Army of Darkness took a more comedic
Speaker 1: approach to the material because people were finding a movie
Speaker 1: that was not intended to be comedic, in fact extremely funny. Yes,
Speaker 1: sorry anyway, Uh yeah, so so the style of the
Speaker 1: game changed. Yeah, the style of the game changed. And um,
Speaker 1: and and there was the point at which I really
Speaker 1: stopped playing Silent Hill. Was was at the end of
Speaker 1: Silent Hill Homecoming. Um, your your final boss fight against
Speaker 1: spoilers everywhere, apologies guides. Um, your final boss fight is
Speaker 1: against this Freudian monsters representation of your pregnant mother, um
Speaker 1: as a spider and you have to slash her pregnant
Speaker 1: belly and she vomits on you. And that that is
Speaker 1: the point at which I was like, I'm out, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm basically done with this. I'm not okay with this anymore.
Speaker 1: And I and yes, that horrifying, that is completely horrifying,
Speaker 1: But it's so horrifying that I don't want to look
Speaker 1: at it anymore. It's not it's not fun. It's no
Speaker 1: longer entertainment or fun. It's just it's just it's just wrong.
Speaker 1: It's actually unsettling. It's not fun, unsettling, and so and
Speaker 1: so that's the point at which I kind of gave
Speaker 1: up on the series. That's that's kind of my feeling
Speaker 1: about certain grindhouse horror movies, right where the grindhouse horror
Speaker 1: was all about the taking exploitation to the furthest limits,
Speaker 1: to the point where it's just truly uncomfortable to watch it.
Speaker 1: And if you are, if you are at all entertained,
Speaker 1: you then feel a sense of shame for feeling entertained
Speaker 1: by what's unfolding on the streaming in front of you.
Speaker 1: Some of the Catching me Gay's films do the same
Speaker 1: thing for you, and um actually all of them audition audition,
Speaker 1: and technically the Silent Hill Kids have called out the
Speaker 1: author of the original novel of addition, um Riamrakhani, as
Speaker 1: one of their u one of their unches. But but
Speaker 1: at the same time, I mean, you know so so,
Speaker 1: so that's that's all part of that, that's all in there.
Speaker 1: And I think that the Freudian, the psychological and I
Speaker 1: keep I do keep using the word Freudian, and that's
Speaker 1: only because that's all I can really call it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's you know, I hate to go to Victorian about
Speaker 1: things or two to armchair psychology about things, but but
Speaker 1: it is. I mean, the themes in this game are
Speaker 1: full of full of doppelgangers and full of uh, all
Speaker 1: of the representations of things that have come back to
Speaker 1: haunt you. Literally coming back to haunt you except with
Speaker 1: knives and coming back to haunt you except with nives
Speaker 1: reminds me of a girl I used to date. Not
Speaker 1: a different show, not tech stuff. But Silent Hill definitely
Speaker 1: was a very influential game. I mean we could we
Speaker 1: can see its influences in other games that came out,
Speaker 1: things like even games that got super wacky, like Eternal
Speaker 1: Darkness that was the in sixty four game goes in
Speaker 1: sixty four, right, yeah, I think it's in sixty four
Speaker 1: where it was the game would would would mess with you,
Speaker 1: would mess with you, like it would like it looks
Speaker 1: like it's suddenly turned itself off, or just the volume,
Speaker 1: just the volume it would or you'd walk into a
Speaker 1: room and everything's upside down, or you'd walk into a
Speaker 1: room and suddenly you are one of the monsters. You're
Speaker 1: not you anymore. And the whole idea was that it's
Speaker 1: it's messing with your sanity, and as your character's sanity decreases,
Speaker 1: it began to mess with you in a meta way
Speaker 1: so that you're like, why is my volume going on
Speaker 1: the way down? And then you turn the volume and
Speaker 1: then when the volume comes back to normal, it's like
Speaker 1: ten times as loud because you've been turning the volume
Speaker 1: and your television up and it's just been faking that
Speaker 1: the volume has been going down. Um. But but you
Speaker 1: could see elements of Silent Hill informing these later entries
Speaker 1: into the survival horror genre, including ones you know, like
Speaker 1: I said that the definition of survival horror has changed
Speaker 1: over the years to the point now where it's kind
Speaker 1: of just a broad, uh label that would slap on
Speaker 1: anything that happens to fall within the horror genre. Right,
Speaker 1: But but that's not really what the what the genre
Speaker 1: is is about. I'm going to go ahead and say
Speaker 1: that that's not that's not what my survival horror genre
Speaker 1: is about. That's fine, Lauren, you just go ahead and
Speaker 1: define it, and we're sticking with your definition. That's what
Speaker 1: we do here at tech Stuff too. We make sweeping
Speaker 1: generalizations and then we stand by them. But now, I mean,
Speaker 1: even even things like BioShock, I think you can see
Speaker 1: the influence of something like silent heilen Um just because
Speaker 1: they're they're they're creepy, and and that is that is
Speaker 1: their point. Yeah. So, I mean I think that gives
Speaker 1: us a lot of insight into who you are. You like,
Speaker 1: you like creepy things. Uh, you get irritated when they change? Yes? Um, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I think that's it. I'm pretty sure that's all we
Speaker 1: need to know. But no, this, ladies and gentlemen, Uh
Speaker 1: this She is our new co host. Lauren is going
Speaker 1: to be joining us on this journey that we call
Speaker 1: text Stuff, and I'm very much looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: She and I have had multiple extensive conversations in the
Speaker 1: office about just about everything, and it becomes pretty clear
Speaker 1: that her snarky sense of humor and my snarky sense
Speaker 1: of humor complement each other really well. So I'm really
Speaker 1: looking forward to this experience of of recording podcasts with you.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what else we come up with.
Speaker 1: I've already got lists of Stuff listeners are sending in
Speaker 1: or the topics that we should tackle, and uh, and
Speaker 1: so I don't think we're gonna be hurting for topics
Speaker 1: anytime soon. Excellent. And yeah, So guys, if you have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, or you
Speaker 1: just want to say hi to Lauren and welcome her
Speaker 1: to the tech stuff family, I highly recommend you let
Speaker 1: us know. Send us an email. Our address is tech
Speaker 1: stuff at Discovery dot com, or drop us a line
Speaker 1: on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled. There is text stuff
Speaker 1: hs W and Lauren and I will talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, it has to works dot com