[Music] Konami Silent Hill 2 is considered to be one of the best horror games of all time and for good reason the legendary status of the game can be attributed to its ability to get under the player skin with its ominous Vibe and constantly shifting story alongside gameplay elements that strongly resonate with the narrative's themes it's a very well-designed experience that has stayed with countless players over the years and blubber team has tried to recreate the same magic in a new light with Silent Hill 2 [Music] remake the team has done a commendable job of
taking what worked in the original and packaging it up for a modern audience with visuals that have been updated from the ground up Silent Hill 2 remake is built using Unreal Engine 5 and makes good use of the engine's toolkit to create stunning Vistas and technically sound environments things have obviously Changed by a significant margin but to what extent exactly with this feature we'll be delving into exactly that as we take a look at both versions of the game side by side and break down individual aspects of the presentation game engine as previously mentioned blubber
team has used epic Unreal Engine for this project and the team has certainly showed signs of maturity after working on the same tools with its previous layers of fear project silent Hil 2 remake makes good use of features like Lumen to create appropriately spooky Vistas that reflect how light behaves in a realistic fashion the rendering pipeline also consists of other visual effects including but not limited to volumetric light shafts dense smoke volumes and nanite for geometry among others let's start things off by taking a look at the character models since they seem to be the
biggest point of contention among fans leading up to the game's release speaking purely in technical terms the character models look great thanks to a high poly count resulting in greatl looking skin meshes we also get to see fine strands of hair with minimal artifacts coupled with appropriate physics movements for the same the clothes are comprised of physically based materials and they look great with proper texturing and attention to geometric detail the art Direction remains questionable though since cleaning up the facial model strips away some of the charm that existed in the original Konami had to
hide low levels of detail and crude textures had to be hidden through clever uses of Shadows on the PS2 resulting in a very fitting image given the psychological horror themes of the narrative the Remake makes certain changes to the models themselves and soft skin meshes can make certain characters look rather offputting at times the changes are more pronounced inside characters like Angela and Harry but again that's more to do with the art Direction itself than a technical inefficiency Switching gears over to the environments we get to see some nice use of nanite with d texture
meshes scattered throughout its Spooky World the global illumination solution does a good job of creating a convincing look throughout balancing direct and indirect lighting well across a bunch of challenging scenarios Ray tracing is being used for bounce lighting and Reflections and the ladder can be seen very clearly in various puddles and water bodies reflecting their surroundings with great Precision smoke volumes play a significant role in the atmosphere of Silent Hill 2 helping to establish a haunting Vibe reminiscent of the original game while these dense smoke effects are prominent throughout the animations that occur as players
move through the smoke feel somewhat rigid and could use some work but generally speaking Bluer team has done a good job of crafting a solid post-processing pipeline that embellishes the image presentation with effects like depth the field motion blur and highquality alpha particles in combat head-to-head comparison now let's take a look at some iconic scenes from the original game and the Remake to get a better understanding of the changes and graphical updates that have happened between the two versions the opening sequence Mary's letter the opening sequence of Silent Hill 2 sees our protagonist James Sunderland
receiving a mysterious letter from his dead wife Mary asking him to seek her out in this special place this is an iconic scene that does a great job of setting up the perfect tone for events to follow and the remake retreads A Familiar path and Broad strokes The Cinematic has been cleaned up by a significant margin and the visible grit in the original is replaced with a markedly more clean aesthetic this time around the shots are framed mostly the same and the differences between the environmental details is exponential the level of detail in distant objects
like trees and the lake is crisp and the generous smoke volumes help to set the right mood for the events to follow in my Restless dreams I see that town Silent Hill you promised you'd take me there again some day but you never did well I'm alone there now in our special place meeting Eddie in the apartment that baseball hat wearing Eddie is one of the major characters that James comes across during his adventures in the Twisted town of Silent Hill when you first meet Eddie he could be found puking in the toilet seat struggling
to exchange words with James about what really went down here this particular scene in the remake looks a lot darker in comparison to the original with gray and black being the dominant tones throughout the scene a major difference between the two versions is that we don't get to see Eddie up close during the conversation in the original while the Remake does give the player a clear view of his facial model during this instance unlike the original where the bathroom has faint lights that put Eddie in a clear view of the scene the majority of direct
light in the remake comes from James's flashlight light which works because of current generation GI implementation this scene also gives us a good view of the efforts that blubber team has put into recreating the environments with a consistently high level of detail and how that helps in achieving the desired look note how the tiles in the bathroom have a thick coating of dust layered across them which not only affects the material's ability to reflect light but helps contribute to the gritty aesthetic of the game meeting Angela in the apartment Angela is one of the more
important characters in the story and James meeting her in the apartment is a major story beat for the game's narrative she could be found lying in the corner of a room with a knife in her hand it's a rather impactful scene with strong dialogue and good use of cinematic Framing and it's safe to say that the Remake does Justice to this one as well the choreography of the two cut scenes is largely the same across both versions of the game and this scene acts as a great showcase for the impressive lighting and postprocessing effects in
the remake Unreal Engine 5's depth of field effect can be seen when the camera juts in close to Angela putting her in Focus while blurring James at the back without revealing any visible artifacts along the edges of her clothing and hair high quality Reflections can be prominently seen on the shiny edge of Angela's knife and the mirror itself and that enhances the visual flare of the scene indirect lighting is rather minimal thanks to mostly rough surfaces and quaint light sources but it appears that bluebery might be utilizing additional cinematic lightning techniques to better highlight the
action first Monster encounter Silent Hill 2 is a survival horror game at its core and it makes good use of elements like building tension and foreshadowing horror to unease the player from the very core and the first Monster encounter is emblematic of those very strengths we see James coming face to face with a creature that looks like an unimaginable nightmare with its malformed body and ugly textures the Remake delves further into these elements of foreshadowing horror and building tension as we initially get a glimpse of the monster while you're out and about exploring the deserted
town of Silent Hill the game takes you through a sequence of following blood trails and clues before you're finally confronted with the horror itself and then you're thrust right into the deep end with a combat encounter animations the original Silent Hill 2 operates on the same framework of tank style controls as most horror games of the time and the Remake changes that to a third-person perspective which is more suitable for modern audiences the combat has also been changed drastically from the original swapping the basic options for a more fleshed out system where you have to
preserve your ammo and properly line up head shot to ensure your chances of survival the change in perspective also meant that animations have been revamped by a significant margin unlike the Primitive animations of the original the Remake features smooth animations for both the player and enemies combat Works flawlessly as one animation seamlessly Blends into the other enemies also twitch restlessly and cover distances swiftly adding to the element of horror while also adding a lot more variety to the momentto moment gameplay conclusion in conclusion bler team has done a great job of putting a Fresh coat
of paint over this classic the team has made good use of Unreal Engine 5 Suite of visual features to create an appropriately chilling horror setting while there are definitely a few rough edges like changed Environmental Lighting and character models the Remake does a great job of creating its own identity without compromising on what made the original game so special in the first place [Music] hey did you know that we at gaming bolt upload new videos every day stick around drop a like subscribe and hit that Bell and let us know what kind of content you'd
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