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Two high-profile remakes of beloved cinematic horror games hit the market this week, but the reactions to each have been very different.
Konami and developer Bloober Team will release their “Silent Hill 2” remake on Tuesday, but the critic reviews are already out and are very good – the game gets an 87/100 on PC and an 86/100 on PC on Metacritic after almost sixty reviews.
That’s the second-best score of the franchise, behind only the original “Silent Hill 2” (89). It is only slightly behind the second and fourth remakes of “Resident Evil” (91 and 93), but well above the remakes of the third RE (79) and “Resident Evil Village” (84).
Compared to other games of late, it is comparable to “Persona 3 Reload”, the “Riven” remake and “Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown”.
The consensus from the reviews, none of which are negative and less than 10% of which are mixed, seems to be that it is a successful remake, staying very faithful to the original while effectively modernizing it.
The same doesn’t seem to be true for Sony’s ‘Until Dawn’ remake for PS5 and PC, according to the comments (via The Gamer). There aren’t enough reviews in so far for a Metacritic ranking, but reviews from audiences there and on Steam are decidedly mixed.
While some Steam reviews are persistent protests about the PSN requirement, many of the negative reviews mention frequent crashes and freezes related to the PC version and optimization issues, even on high-end hardware. Others see stuttering, screen tearing, and random bugs – all signs of poor optimization.
The few PS5 reviews so far have complained about poor frame rates and crashes. There is also discussion about the creative choices that were made. In particular, the change to the game’s soundtrack, and especially the removal of “O Death”, was almost universally negative.
Graphical changes are more mixed – there’s an appreciation for the higher resolution models, but the new lighting makes the game feel very different in places and removes the moody darkness along with the original’s iconic blue-gray hue.
New scenes have been added, some of which reportedly hint at a sequel. So far, the game has already received one patch, and from the sounds of it, more will be needed.
