Two high-profile remakes of beloved cinematic horror games are hitting the market this week, but the reactions to both have been quite different.
Konami and developer Bloober Team will release their “Silent Hill 2” remake on Tuesday, but critics reviews are already out and are very good – the game is pulling in an 87/100 on PC and an 86/100 on PC on Metacritic after nearly sixty reviews.
That’s the second-best score of the franchise, behind only the original “Silent Hill 2” (89). It is only a little behind the second and fourth “Resident Evil” remakes (91 & 93), but well above the third RE’s remake (79) and “Resident Evil Village” (84).
Compared to other games of late it’s on par with “Persona 3 Reload,” the “Riven” remake and “Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown”.
The consensus from reviews, none of which are negative and less than 10% of which are mixed, seems to be it is a successful remake, staying very true to the original whilst modernising it effectively.
The same doesn’t seem true of Sony’s “Until Dawn” remake for PS5 and PC going by responses (via The Gamer). Too few reviews are in so far for a Metacritic ranking, but audience reviews there and on Steam are decidedly mixed.
Though some Steam reviews are continued protests about the PSN requirement, many of the negative ones cite frequent crashes and freezes in regards to the PC version and optimization issues even on high-end hardware. Others are seeing 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 as well. There’s also debate about the creative choices made – the change of the game’s soundtrack in particular, especially the removal of “O Death,” has been met with an almost universally negative reception.
Graphics changes are more mixed – there’s appreciation for the higher res models, but the new lighting makes the game feel very different at points and removes the moody darkness along with the iconic blue-gray hue of the original.
New scenes have been added in, some of which reportedly hint at a sequel. So far one patch has already been done for the game, and from the sounds of it more will be needed.
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