Ones I'm Waiting For

Alan Wake

Remedy Entertainment have been very secretive about this game and have hardly released anything about it. Alan Wake was even announced before the PS3 and Xbox 360 came out but it's only now that eager fans are getting what they want.
Alan Wake was to be released on both consoles until Microsoft bought the rights for it, therefore making it a PC and Xbox game only.
Screenshots were released in 2006 when the game was first announced but two years have passed so the game probably looks much different now.

The game is based around Alan Wake, a famous mystery writer. Suffering from a major case of writers block, his wife has brought him to Bright Falls to help him get his creative flow back.
Things go wrong when his wife disappears and the events of his last book, which he doesn't remember writing, start to occur to make things worse.

What we know:

- The storyline is all we know really. Remedy doesn't like to give things away it seems.

- The trailer shows a guy in a red coat, a Jon Lovitz type, who Alan calls Harry. We don't know why he's there and who he is but I'm sure I heard somewhere that he said he was Alan's manager, I could be wrong.

- In the trailer Harry mentions a Dr Hartman. "Dr Hartman was right. You are crazy". This leads you to believe that he must be a shrink.

Unfortunately, we don't yet know anything about the game play. Will there be monsters like in Silent Hill? What kind of weapons will there be?
The video section of the website shows a further two videos are going to be revealed - hopefully these will be game play videos, let's hope.

Remedy are saying that a release date won't be given until the game is finished so we don't have one yet. It seems they don't want to make the same mistake as other developers who give a release date before knowing when the game will be completed.

The official website can be found HERE

Official Trailer

Silent Hill Homecoming

This game has already been released in The USA and Japan but the UK has to wait until February '09 to get this game. Konami never gave us an official reason but it could be a matter of reasons.

1) Censorship - Germany in particular have expressed concern over the violence contained in the game. News of the German release delay came out before the news that the UK would also have to wait...Are the whole of Europe having to wait until Germany are satisfied? Will we have to make do with the censored version as well? News of the German delay can be found on this LINK

2) Translation - Europe speaks a lot of languages, that's a given so the game has to be translated to over 20 different languages. It seems the UK, who speaks English and in fact came up with the language have to wait with the rest of them. Sure, we could import since the PS3 and XBOX 360 are region free, but why should we have to pay for the delivery charges?

3) Sods Law - We had to wait for Origins and now we have to wait longer for Homecoming. Maybe Konami just doesn't think much into pleasing it's European Market. It's not all bad I suppose. The game has been banned entirely from Australia apparently due to a specific scene within the game.

Homecoming is going to be the fifth instalment of the game (Origins not counting as it's a prequel). It's based around Alex Shepherd who has gone back home, after leaving the Army, to Shepherds Glen after news came about of his younger brothers disappearance. When he returns home he finds the whole town in a mess and his Mother in a catatonic state. She went crazy after Joshua, her younger son's disappearance so Alex goes about finding him. His investigation around Shepherds Glen leads him to a nearby town called Silent Hill where he intends to find out what has been happening.

Konami were quite generous in the information they gave out regarding this game. Trailers and screenshots were released, giving us a chance to look what the game is going to look like.

What we know:

- We know that the cast of Monsters includes new as well as old - Siam (Right) is one of the most impressive, and the monster that got my attention. The Nurses return (it wouldn't be Silent Hill without them would it?) and they've been busy advertising the game, modelling on the popular Play Magazine front cover.

- Pyramid Head is going to be in this game. He was spotted walking around the town in one of the trailers released but how does he fit into this game when he was a manifestation of James Sunderland’s character in Silent Hill 2?

- We know that a female character is in the game, Elle, an old friend of Alex's who can be found on the official website. The official trailer (below) shows a truck driver, Travis Grady from Origins and screenshots so some kind of police officer, who remains nameless to us lot that haven't played it.

- The games has also taken on the appearance of the movie. In the previous games, we never actually saw the real world turn into the nightmare world but in this game, we will. The two realms will merge in real time, wall paper melting off of the walls and such.

Since this game has been released in the US, we know that the game has proven successful with Silent Hill fans but the critic’s reviews have been mixed. Metacritic gives the scores received from various magazines and websites, then giving a critics average. The worst score given was 60% from GamePro and the most promising score was 90% from the Official Playstation Magazine (US). The average however was 7.2/10, the sites users giving it 8.1/10 proving the game has been quite well received generally.

The official website can bee seen HERE

Official Trailer (YouTube)

Fatal Frame IV: The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse

Fatal Frame IV was announced, to the UK at least, earlier this year (2008). The game has been developed by Japanese developer, Grasshopper Manufacture. The news was both good and bad for fans because even though a new game is coming, it's coming on the Nintendo Wii. Previous games have been released on the Xbox and the Playstation 2, PS2 being the only console to have all of the first three games.
The game was released earlier in July over in Japan but for a while there was no news on a release over in the west. However, news came out earlier in December of a European release due early 2009. America is still to find out whether they will get the game or not.

Ten years ago, five young girls were kidnapped and held hostage in a mysterious mansion in Japan. They were all saved by a detective on the hunt for the criminal who had taken them. Several years later, two of the girls died under mysterious circumstances but the remaining three, now 17 years old have returned in order to find out more about what happened all those years ago.

What we know:

- There are four main characters in this game: Ruka Minazuki(F), Misaki Asō(F), Madoka Tsukimori(F) and Chōshiro Kirishima(M).

- The Wii remote and nunchuck will be used to aim the Camera Obscura and the torch that the character holds. How the camera will work however, remains to be seen.

- Ghosts include what looks like a female nurse and little boy, who is especially creepy - reminds me of the boy in the film, The Grudge.

We know nothing else regarding this game but news on game play and characters should be released soon if a European release is going to be the rumoured February '09. The official website and the official trailer are in Japanese but they shed some light into what the game will look like.
The game actually looks really good for the Wii and the ghost especially look really realistic, even more so than the ones in The Tormented.
Hopefully an English version of the website will be released real soon.

The official website, in Japanese, can be found HERE.

Trailer (Subtitled)

I'm really looking forward to all of these games. Silent Hill and Fatal Frame are two of my favourite Survival Horror games and both look like a good edition to each series.
Alan Wake is the one I'm looking forward to the most. However, it's a new addition to the genre and could be a huge sucess based on how it looks. People are getting restless waiting for it but good things come to those who wait.
I'm a geek, and I know this Why? I bought my Wii and Xbox 360 especially for Fatal Frame IV and Alan Wake so they better be really, really good.