Etsy Treasures: Silent Hill

Sometimes, companies drop the ball when it comes to truly cool merchandise for our favorite things. Luckily, that’s why people on Etsy exist – to fill the gaps and create the things fans want that the original creators didn’t think of.

Hey guys, I’ve got a special treat for you. To celebrate the end of our Silent Hill week, I’m starting a new series of articles all about the really cool and unique things I find on probably my favorite shopping site, Etsy.com. If you haven’t heard of it, Etsy is a site for artists and crafters to sell their handmade wares. It’s great for shopping for fan merchandise, because most of the time, the people making the items are just as big of fans as you are, plus your proceeds go directly to the crafters, helping to support their small business. So let’s start things off with a selection of Silent Hill items, shall we?

And you might want to read all the way through this article – there’s a surprise waiting for you at the end.

Productive Procrastination: Let’s Plays

Maybe these articles are about fun ways to get stuff done without feeling like you have to work. Maybe these articles are about new ways to be productive that you might not have considered before. Or maybe these articles are my way of excusing my own procrastination habit. I’ll figure it out later.

It’s so hard to be a video game player today. There’s just not enough time to play all the awesome games and get anything done in the real world. The average video game can probably take 10-20 hours to complete, and that doesn’t include sidequests or games with massively extensive main storylines like the Kingdom Hearts series. And don’t get me started on what video games do to your wallet. A new game is what, $40? $50? And you have to buy a $400 system to play it on? Ouch. My wallet is crying just from thinking about it.

What if I told you there was a way to get the experience of playing a video game without actually playing it? A way to enjoy the plot and characters and cutscenes of a game while your hands are free to get work done? And it’s completely free? Oh yes, there is such a thing, and they’re on Youtube under the title of “Let’s Plays.”

Across the Mediums: Silent Hill and Silent Hill Revelations

Novels and movies exchange stories all the time, whether it is a film adaptation of a book or novelization of a blockbuster. These aren’t the only mediums to share with each other however. Video games, comics, and TV shows like to get in on the action at times as well. What stories do it best, and how do you transfer a story across the mediums effectively? That’s what we’ll be looking at here.

I can see where the movie studio got the idea from. The Resident Evil series got their own movies, and Silent Hill was just as popular as the first Resident Evil, so clearly we can make a Silent Hill movie too! Well…sure, Silent Hill is certainly a kind of horror that lends itself well to film, but you gotta learn from the Resident Evil movies and stick to the source material since that’s what the fans liked. What’s that? You’re going to make the main character a woman? And change the demon-worshipping cult to crazy witch-burning Catholics? Well I guess that could work, but…why is Pyramid Head in this? He wasn’t in the first game…and you’ve made Dahlia a good mother… Hoo boy. Alright, we’ve got some work to do.

The Under-Appreciated: Silent Hill: Downpour

Many good stories and characters have been lost in the rush of media in past years and haven’t gotten the attention they deserve. Whether they’ve gotten negative attention or no attention at all, I’m here to show them to the world and plead their case.

I always have trouble picking my favorite Silent Hill game. I try not to pick Silent Hill or Silent Hill 2, because those are the easy ones and everyone’s favorite. Silent Hill 3 has my favorite protagonist, but its lack of alternate endings on your first playthrough is a major downfall to me. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories was next on the list for nostalgia reasons, since it was the first Silent Hill game that I played myself instead of watching someone else play. It was my first choice for The Under-Appreciated’s Silent Hill game, but my friend beat me to reviewing it, and then I remembered another Silent Hill game that I have no problem calling one of my favorites due to plot twists in the story that even I couldn’t predict – Silent Hill: Downpour.

Keep Them Coming: Silent Hill

The start of a story is what decides whether you keep coming back for more or drop the series entirely. In ‘Keep Them Coming’, we look at the beginning of stories, whether it be the pilot episode of a show, tutorial level of a video game, or first chapter of a novel, and figure out what makes it effective or a dud. There will be spoilers, but only if you consider a plot twist within the intro to be a spoiler.

That’s always a good sign.

I’ve mentioned before that I LOVE the Silent Hill series, right? The Silent Hill series was my gateway into the horror genre, and it was because Linkara reviewed some really bad Silent Hill comics that I heard about it at all. The original Silent Hill came out for the Playstation about three years after the original Resident Evil was released for the same console, and since they’re both the same genre, survival horror, it means they’re also the same in many other areas as well. Along with both being considered the classic survival horror games, Silent Hill and Resident Evil have similar graphics, similar low-quality and at times goofy dialogue, and similar difficult controls. So why is it that Silent Hill is considered the scariest game of its time, not Resident Evil? Well, you only need to look at the beginning of the game to get an idea of the answer.

Productive Procrastination: DIY Costumes

Maybe these articles are about fun ways to get stuff done without feeling like you have to work. Maybe these articles are about new ways to be productive that you might not have considered before. Or maybe these articles are my way of excusing my own procrastination habit. I’ll figure it out later.

Guess what guys…

It’s HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!

Yes, it’s the month of Halloween, and you can’t tell me otherwise. So, let’s celebrate this holiday with a month of articles about zombies, demons, and other frights!

Wait, wait, wait. Wait a minute. No. What are you wearing? NORMAL clothes? What the heck are you doing? You can’t go into Halloween wearing NORMAL clothes! Alright, looks like before we get into the scary stuff, we’re going to have to get you prepared first. I mean, I suppose you could just go to a Halloween store and buy your costume, but that’s not a very fun way to do things. What if they don’t have your size, or what if you want to be a character that’s not going to be done by everyone else? Guess you’re gonna have to follow my guide to costumes.

Every single one of these costumes was made from scratch using the methods in this article.