"Silent Hill 2 is a rare example of an HD remaster that is actually less satisfying to play than the original PlayStation 2 version of the game."Īt a basic level, conversion-smith Hijinx has opened out the field of view to accommodate a 16:9 presentation, and used original PS2 artwork assets in their entirety - little or no work appears to have been carried out to ensure they look good when rendered in HD. A PS3 mirror of the video is also available, as well as a head-to-head of the two HD remasters - not that there's actually much to tell them apart in terms of image quality. To illustrate the complaints levelled at the work, here's how the Xbox 360 version of the game compares up against the original PlayStation 2 version running on a PS3 via full backwards-compatibility.
It's almost as though complete layers of fog are now omitted from the overall presentation, meaning that the sense of real volume to the effect is now fundamentally lacking. Thin, wispy and insubstantial as opposed to thick and cloying, the look of the outdoor scenes is fundamentally transformed, with far-off detail that should never have been seen now painfully visible. Just as bad - if not worse - is the way in which the game's fog effects have been handled in both Xbox 360 and PlayStation versions of the HD Collection. Elsewhere, other effects (such as water) look fundamentally broken. The original artists at Konami would have built their artwork around this presentation, and the net result is that the HD version is unintentionally compromised as a result - the lack of texture detail in some areas becomes over-exposed in a way that was never intended by Konami's artists, and the game has a pin-sharp, pristine look entirely at odds with the ambience generated by the original release. This is a game that is defined by its lo-fi visuals, where detail that isn't obscured by the thick, murky darkness is blended away to certain extent by an intentionally aggressive grain filter. There's actually an argument that the first game in the collection - Silent Hill 2 - has its unique atmosphere diminished in the transition to high definition. There's no reason why the Silent Hill HD Collection couldn't have joined the ranks of those highly acclaimed titles, but unfortunately it's a deeply disappointing release - and the game's fanbase is not happy at all.
In an era where backwards compatibility has either been completely abandoned or stripped away via revised hardware, HD remasters make for an excellent alternative: why not take the games of yesteryear, port them over to current-generation consoles and make the most of precision high-definition visuals, higher frame-rates, cleaner artwork and improved texture filtering? In titles such as the God of War and Metal Gear Solid HD remasters, we've seen how, with careful nurturing, original PS2-era artwork can shine when rendered in high definition.
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