Kotaku article - "Turn 'Em Off" (New Voice Samples)

[Silent Evil]

More samples of the new voice actors, from the beginning portion of SH2.

Hear what Angela sounds like!

http://kotaku.com/5884110/hate-the-new-silent-hill-2-audio-tracks-turn-em-off

Is it me, or does she now sound like one of those flitty GOSSIP GIRL dames?

Also, they replaced some of the 'acoustic' guitar tracks, with 'electric'???

[Whitney]

She sounds her actual age which I like a lot.

[NarooN]

Came here just to post this, you beat me to it.

edit: Finished watching it, I actually like the new voices better than the old. Angela actually sounds like a 19-yr. old young lady now. James voice is pretty deep, but it puts a new spin on his character, which I'm digging. Too bad they didn't have more footage of Eddie or Laura.

One thing that I *did* notice was how the lip-synch seems to be a bit jacked up with the new voices. I dunno if they've improved it for the final release or not, nor do I know which build Kotaku was given access to, but damn. I wonder if SH3 suffers from this as well? Honestly to me, it's not that big of a deal since I've seen worse, and it's not like you can't use the old voices anyway, for SH2 at least... And seeing as how I'm mainly getting this for 3, bah.

Also that one track at the beginning seems to have been re-recorded entirely, but it still sounds great. I think Akira recorded that (the original) with an electric acoustic or just an electric which was made to sound like an acoustic via amp or effects anyway, so yeah. Likewise, you only hear it if you have the new tracks enabled, so anyone who doesn't like that can just go back to 100% original.

[Floodclaw]

Oh god, Angela actually sounds her age now. I'm liking these new voices. James has emphasis on his words. He says it like he's really thinking about it. Like someone who's actually struggling with the issue of getting a letter from dead waifu.

[ÆNEMA]

Can't unhear Angela as Rebecca Chambers.

Wish they had picked people that could speak normally for James & Mary, though. The deep voices aren't working for me. Probably because they're way fucking deeper than the originals for no reason.

[NarooN]

Troy *can* do a higher voice, but Mary's the one doing the voice directing, so... Even Vincent in Catherine didn't sound this low. Still, doesn't really bother me much.

[Waverer]

The new voice-overs for Angela and Heather are my favorites so far. I liked Mary/Maria at first, but she and James both sound too breathy and dramatic for me. Still looking forward to hearing the new actress voice Claudia for SH3.

[ÆNEMA]

Oh man, I can put up with all the other voices, but Heather's really irks me. She sound like a bad anime dub actress from the 90's. While the others are just weird for sounding way different, hers is an actual step backwards in quality.

[Floodclaw]

The new voice-overs for Angela and Heather are my favorites so far. I liked Mary/Maria at first, but she and James both sound too breathy and dramatic for me. Still looking forward to hearing the new actress voice Claudia for SH3.

I noticed that too, upon subsequent views. You can hear every breath they take in that introduction and all of the words are wading in breath. It's not bad, just weird.

[NarooN]

LOL I noticed it too. At one point when he says "Mary...can you really be in this town?", it's more like "Maryyy*siggghhhhhh*..." I kinda laughed my balls off when I first heard it. Like he's genuinely concerned, but at the same time tired as hell or something.

[HalfTransition]

I love angela's new voice.

[Mr.E.Nygma]

Love it

[Floodclaw]

LOL I noticed it too. At one point when he says "Mary...can you really be in this town?", it's more like "Maryyy*siggghhhhhh*..." I kinda laughed my balls off when I first heard it. Like he's genuinely concerned, but at the same time tired as hell or something.

I agree. What would have been awesome is if he started off active and somewhat energetic and as the game goes on he gets progressively more tired and breathy resulting in being completely off his rocker from the Hotel onwards.

[nur_ein_tier]

I laughed out loud at the new voices. But they're out of context, so we'll see...

Also, from:
http://alchemillahospital.net/sh2-texture-comparisons/


No sure what kind of build Kotaku had access to, but there are some apparent differences in the textures in the HD collection. I’m not talking about the blurriness; obviously, that’s a product of compression and the crappy Kotaku player. I made some screencaps from the regular SH2 PC version of the same scenes in the video with the voice comparisons. I messed with the contrast to make them look a bit more similar here, but again, Kotaku video player..

shhd

sh2pc
Here, there are two obvious differences: the parking lot, and the lake. The parking lot in the PC version (and PS2, but I took screenshots of the PC version) is a lot grimier. The lake in the original version is just a sprite, a flat image of a lake and the town across it put behind the trees. I imagine they did something a bit more 3D for the HD collection. However, it does look like the other side of the lake is much closer now due to the perspective.

When Silent Evil asked Ito about this, he said the other shore seemed unnaturally close. He also noticed how clean everything looked. (Also the darkness, but I’m pretty sure that’s the video, not the game.) That’s mainly what worries me, the lack of dirt. You shouldn’t take the dirt out of Silent Hill. ^_^ I’m interested in seeing how the view of the lake looks while actually playing the game, though.

shhd

sh2pc


Looking at the gravestone behind James, you can see that there isn’t writing on the one in the HD Collection. (Darkness and blurriness is due to video compression. I’m sure the actual game will look bright and shiny.)

[ÆNEMA]

They said they had to redo some ( maybe a lot ) of the textures, so maybe they just got a little lazy with that. Hopefully the fog is adjustable as someone mentioned ( at HD, I think ).
It's good for what it is, but it really can't replace the originals and all the ~*feelings*~ contained therein. I'd much rather go dig out my PS2 and just play that than spend $40 on this.

[nur_ein_tier]

I thought they said one reason for the delay was so they could redo them well, not redo them lazily, but yeah.. It's just that a lot of people have wondered if new details will be added, but if we go by these screens, it looks like a lot of little details may actually have been removed... If a lot of the dirt and details are gone, I'll have to echo Ito's sentiment. It's terrible so much...

But it's good for those who don't have a copy of 2 and 3, I guess. I'll play it through once just to see.

[NarooN]

I'll end up buying this just because I enjoy collecting things from things I love, so I hope they didn't remove a lot of the dirt and griminess from the games. That would be blasphemy. SH environments (at least the fog/otherworlds and such) aren't supposed to be clean!

[nur_ein_tier]

I'll end up buying this just because I enjoy collecting things from things I love, so I hope they didn't remove a lot of the dirt and griminess from the games. That would be blasphemy. SH environments (at least the fog/otherworlds and such) aren't supposed to be clean!

I'm sure there's an explanation. Laura just went through and scrubbed the parking lot, or something.

[captain crowbar]

I do NOT care for James' new voice :/

[NarooN]

I'll end up buying this just because I enjoy collecting things from things I love, so I hope they didn't remove a lot of the dirt and griminess from the games. That would be blasphemy. SH environments (at least the fog/otherworlds and such) aren't supposed to be clean!

I'm sure there's an explanation. Laura just went through and scrubbed the parking lot, or something.

That opens up a possible mini-game, see if you can rank high on the leaderboards by scrubbing the most filth away with the highest efficiency.