Sounds of Nostalgia: Silent Hill
Do we need an excuse to play old games? Hell no! But sometimes music from OSTs can inspire us to try new ones or revisit past loves like dirty, secret affairs.
There’s nothing quite like Silent Hill. The survival horror series stands on its own, and while the games aren’t quite what they used to be, they’re still as screwed up as ever. Even the not-so-great Silent Hill movie succeeds as one of the better adaptations, especially since it manages to retain the spirit of Silent Hill with so many nods to the fans—not to mention my favorite scene, where Pyramid Head rips the skin off Anna.
Anyway, few fans can forget the first installment of the series—the game that redefined “what the fuck” moments. Who can mistake the classic alley scene at the beginning? Or the first time you were thrown headfirst into the dreaded otherworld—which I’m pretty sure is what hell really looks like. From static radios to monsters in the fog, exploring hospitals and cursing at the sudden lack of road before you, Silent Hill truly grasped the raw notion of horror and made you stare at it mercilessly before shoving you blindly into hell. The combat system might be worse for wear, but we loved the game for its ability to scare the shit out of us with psychological, weird stories that don’t make a shred of sense but horror scenes that completely do. And the puzzles were always annoyingly fun, like they should be.
While “Promise (Reprise)” ranks high as one of the best Silent Hill songs, it’s hard to scrub the eerie beginning of the “Opening Theme” out of your psyche. And isn’t that just perfect?
What are some of your favorite Sounds of Nostalgia?
First, let’s recap the information in the CBR article. Basically, Longbox Digital Comics would launch of wider net to lure in new readers; while people are more black-and-white when it comes to whether or not the idea of reading about superheroes in paneled form appeals to them, independent comics encapsulate a much vaster range of stories and interests. Comics from the Longbox could be downloaded at a proposed ninety-nine cent price, with the possibility of block and subscription pricing, too. There are dozens of outlets the software could potentially run on, including Xbox Live or Kindle—not just your computer. And best of all, that’s less storage/shelving space for your comics and trades, which really comes in handy.
Piracy.
Enter piracy—the quick solution for all a comic reader’s problems. A fan can dive in and browse as many titles as they want in order to determine what titles they should stick with, and that simple effort of sampling the bottomless buffet saves them unbelievable mountains of cash. Because writers and artists are never constant in comics, neither is—most of the time, anyway—the quality of a title’s issues. If someone can save three bucks by simply downloading a pirated comic, well—frustration averted. Fans can stay up-to-date with their favorite characters, teams, and universes without it costing them a fortune. So with all of this in mind, and considering that comics are constantly ongoing and frequent—which accounts for their soap opera-irresistible appeal—is it any wonder so many fans rely on piracy each week? Can we honestly blame them? Music has the radio; movies and TV series have cable, OnDemand, and local channels; what do comics have? Free Comic Book Day, once a year, with a very limited offering of titles that aren’t even real issues—most of the time they’re just previews.
