A Beautiful Silent Hill: Downpour Video

For all those Silent Hill or even general horror gaming fans out there this is for you:

The game isn't out yet so this video doesn't show anything spoiler-ish in any way. Unless you're unaware that the town of Silent Hill has a propensity to cut you off from the rest of the world and be really foggy. I just had to share this in my downtime, haha. I'm hoping to be able to write a few game pieces this week too.

Pyramid Head Plushies

Pyramid Head is the iconic monster/being/character from Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Silent Hill: The Arcade, and the Silent Hill movie. Ever since I first played the 2nd game I was horribly intrigued by him. The being is truly disturbing but somehow awesome as well.

Between Silent Hill 2 from 2001 and the Silent Hill film in 2006 Pyramid Head got a redesign. Apparently it was due to his helmet being too awkward to translate into an actual prop. Obviously this is false because people (including myself) have done cosplay of him using the old helmet style. Anyway, they changed him up for the movie and ever since then that's been the way he is represented. The changes are basically to his helmet, musculature, and outfit.

The whole point of this Pyramid Head talk is so I can show you these two wonderful plush versions of Pyramid Head that I received from my girlfriend for past holidays. She got them via Etsy which is a pretty cool shop from time to time. I just had to share their cuteness with the web!

The one on the left is the SH2 styled Pyramid Head while the one on the right follows design principles from the later version. Both are insanely adorable especially in person. The one on the right has a special surprise underneath his helmet as well... A "face" with two big black buttons for eyes.

Heaven's Night: A Brief Analysis of Silent Hill Porn

Silent Hill has long since been my favorite video game series out there. While the stories of the later games have been really hit or miss for me, they're still close to my heart. But sometime recently when viewing this post about Animal Crossing porn I was struck with how unusual an idea it was. I wanted to try my hand at looking over and graphing scandalous fan art. When thinking which series I'd like to try first the answer was immediately obvious: Silent Hill.

I've done things a bit different than in the post, mostly, by searching for more than simply which characters were the most prolific. I set up six items I would check when viewing each image. First off, I would see which characters were in each image, but then go on to quantify whether they were in a "gay" or "straight" scene. It was also important to see whether the character(s) were "gender swapped" as it seemed some characters continued to show this pattern. If there were monsters aside from Pyramid Head, Valtiel, The Butcher, or Nurses then that went into the "Other Monsters" category. Then I had to make room for the "pictures" quantifier, which basically meant the character in the fanart was alone and simply posing. Lastly, there is a section for "crossover" which is for all the times characters from different fandom showed up in the predominantly Silent Hill art.

Continue reading to see the data I collected.

Dance Dance Revolution and Me

My entry for that Konami contest

I first played DDR sometime in 2000 at a miniature golf place. The second time I played DDR was in someone's garage (someone I didn't especially like either!). Then I played a version of Konamix in a demo kiosk. Every time I came across the game I knew it was something special and I wanted it in my home. Unfortunately for me, I never had a PS1 and not a PS2 until 4 years after the release. Once I did though, nothing stopped me from playing the hell out of each and every release as they appeared.

I mostly lost interest in playing around 2006 but continued to buy every new release. I still maintain this habit because it's amusing to me to know that I own every US released version of DDR. I recently fell out of this pattern with the newest releases of "DanceDanceRevolution" on PS3 and 360, but those will be coming into my collection soon enough. I must say though I don't like how Konami is so stingy with DLC and how much it costs. Why pay for it when I can play Stepmania or my hacked In The Groove with all the songs?

Anyway, even though I stopped playing in 2006 I still found myself playing from time to time. Whenever I come across DDR in an arcade I must play. I still manage to impress the unsuspecting with a few heavy songs, but honestly, after that I nearly pass out. I'm no longer a teen! It's the culmination of these events and renewed interest in the series that I figured it was time to start playing again. I can't play the hardest songs for more than 2 or 3 rounds now, but that's what playing it again will help. So I'm playing the game for 20 minute bursts (increasing weekly) on the medium difficulty. I'm hoping this'll increase my stamina enough to get back into proper DDR-ing form.

What am I doing this for? Me, basically. There are now official Konami-sponsored DDR competitions now, but they are soulless. Besides, anyone who was once big in the scene really has moved onto other things by now. If I really wanted to I'm pretty sure I could place in regional tourneys, but that's not what I seek. I'm playing to rekindle my relationship with the game and maybe get some exercise in the process.

40 - Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelist of the Roses (PS2)

Genre: Card battle
Rating: E
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Platform: PS2
Release Date: 2003

Here's something a lot of people don't know about me: I love Yu-Gi-Oh!. The card game is tremendously fun and the original series was pretty entertaining to watch as well. It had at least a little more going on in it than say Pokemon did. This game came out at the height of my interest in the series but at the time I had no PS2. In fact, I'm not even sure when and how this game came into my possession.

This game makes me wonder why they can't ever seem to be content making a literal translation of the card game for home consoles. They make their perfect replica games on handhelds, but never the home systems. For example, Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Falsebound Kingdom is some whacked out strategy RPG. This game is ever so slightly strategic as well, except it's super dumbed down. Really wish the game could have retained the same rules of the card one though instead of trying to teach a new style of play that isn't as fun.

Something really weird about this title is that it pulls from the Wars of the Roses for its story and characters. It just strikes me as really odd that a kid's game would pull out such an unusual story rather than crafting their own. I'm not complaining though, as it makes for an amusing diversion when sitting through story bits.

The game isn't entirely to hard to pick up but it does rely heavily on luck. I guess the card game does as well, but it seems much more strategic than this offering. I kind of want to see how far I can push into the story or if I can indeed beat it. Really though my luck is pretty terrible which seems it will keep me from achieving my goals. I'll try anyway.

Would I play again? Sure (to beat it).