New patch for Silent Hill HD collection released

[darkangel]

So yeah, saw this on the official FB page.

Any thoughts?

The hotly-anticipated PlayStation 3 patch to Silent Hill HD Collection is now live! Log onto PSN now to download the patch containing:

? Improved Framerate
? Voice Synch is greatly improved
? Missing sounds have been fixed
? Missing music has been addressed
? Fog density issues are resolved
? Other minor visual/audio improvements

[nakamura]

Should they not have finished the product before releasing it?

[darkangel]

I think it's more a question of, should Konami not have given those games to a dev company with a decent rep? This team ruined it!

[MadMarc]

They didn't have the final version of the source code to deal with. :/

[Dogg Thang]

Well for a start, that sounds highly unlikely. And no matter what the reason, it shouldn't have been released in the state it was.

[sj33]

In fairness, I think in an interview the developers did say that Konami didn't have the final source code handy, and what the older source code they did have was messy and undocumented. This wasn't a problem for the team that ported the Metal Gear Solid games because they specialise in reverse-engineering compiled games rather than porting from the source code (apparently because of the above reason - Japanese developers have traditionally been completely useless at archiving the source code for games).

Not that I'm defending the quality of the retail product, mind.

[ETC]

In fairness, I think in an interview the developers did say that Konami didn't have the final source code handy, and what the older source code they did have was messy and undocumented. This wasn't a problem for the team that ported the Metal Gear Solid games because they specialise in reverse-engineering compiled games rather than porting from the source code (apparently because of the above reason - Japanese developers have traditionally been completely useless at archiving the source code for games).

Not that I'm defending the quality of the retail product, mind.

Or they coul have bought retail copies on ps2 just for a quality check when they had finished just to compare like, pretty sure they would have noticed that what they had done was ****

[Brad]

Well for a start, that sounds highly unlikely. And no matter what the reason, it shouldn't have been released in the state it was.

Sadly it's true. Missing art assets too so they had to rip them out the compiled game code. Konami are a bit of a mess generally.

[Dogg Thang]

I guess I'm a little less likely to take their word for it when a ****ty release comes out and an excuse follows. As I say, even if true the game shouldn't have been released as it was. As Evilthecat says, all they had to do was look at the originals to know something had gone horribly wrong. QC didn't seem to apply. Which is a shame given the beauty of the series and that it's really all built around its atmosphere.

I guess it's good now that the patch has come out. Can anyone confirm that it has all been fixed?

[Brad]

Oh I' not excusing them. They should have refused to do the work really.

[MrKirov]

Apparently it's still borked, but to lesser extent. Voice an lip syncing is sorted it seems as is crippling lag- hopefully SH3 is playable now.

I'll update later today and post what's changed.

There's such a long list of fixes needed, but I'm wishing for;

- increased fog density
- voice and lip syncing fixed
- colour saturation fixed
- black screen on initial load/ cut off cutscenes
- frame rate fix
- clean textures fixed
- missing sounds/music/ James razor voice
- missing bodies/art

The list goes on, but I at least want these from this patch.

[PaTaito]

nothing for 360.....gtfo konami.

[MrKirov]

To be fair the PS3 one was in quite a worse off condition, so needed it much more, but still no excuse - both versions are borked.

However, I'll be more forgiving if they fix the issues comprehensively- then at least they can announce a 360 patch to the same level.

I would hope the patch is significantly improved as I've been waiting 4 months for it- a hell of a long time to do nothing if it's not fixed!

[MrKirov]

Some early impressions on the new patch from
Neogaf... Sound like it certainly isn't perfect...

Here's what I've noticed so far in Silent Hill 3:

-The shadowing is horrible. I don't know if it was like this before, but I'm noticing it everywhere. Shadows are usually very jaggy and pixelated. Sometimes part of the shadow is missing such as the gun in the clothing store, or the shadow under Douglas' foot.

-The voice-synching is much better now. I've only reached the point where they drive to Silent Hill, but so far all dialogue seems to match their mouth movements.

-There seems to be more fog in the amusement park, but I haven't seen the streets of Silent Hill yet.

-There seem to be some audio glitches and missing sounds, though. For example, the UFO ending does not have music while Heather explains what happened. I also noticed the ambient noise in the amusement park cutting out after a while and did not return. During the rooftop cutscene, the Missionary did not make any noise until it approaches Heather just as it transitions into gameplay.

-The running animation slowdown seems to have been fixed, and the framerate appears to be more stable now. However, I have noticed some stuttering and the screen froze for about two seconds after getting hit by an enemy on the subway train.

-The "noise effect" is more noticeable now, but isn't nearly as apparent as the PS2 version.

[PaTaito]

Its the increased fog i long for....annoying to say the least. Still waiting until an adequete 360 patch arrives to play this game thouroughly.