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The remake stays true to the original game's plot. It's still a thought-provoking story about personal sins and redemption, a psychological horror about hidden fears, and a gripping tale of a purgatory-like town. As James moves towards his meeting with Mary, he undergoes severe trials and transforms as a person.

The new version retains the complex themes of the classic Silent Hill 2. The creators explore mental anguish due to guilt, bullying, domestic violence, and suppressed desires. The underlying meanings and fan interpretations can still be discussed for hours.

In the original, you needed to wander through linear locations, occasionally engaging in fights and shootouts. In the remake, much more time is spent on exploration and resource gathering. Previously, health kits and ammo were in plain sight, but in the new version, they are carefully hidden in cabinets, tables, and safes. This encourages you to enter every room and search them thoroughly.

In the original Silent Hill 2, the town served more as a backdrop, an empty space between the buildings where the plot unfolded. Now, Silent Hill feels tangible. You can explore some residential buildings, break windows in shops and go inside, look at tourist brochures, and study the environment for a long time.

Immersion is easier thanks to the camera position. Previously, it was fixed from above, allowing you to see only what the developers intended. In the remake, there's an over-the-shoulder view, making it even more interesting to explore this peculiar world. Especially when James enters the alternate version of Silent Hill—with rust and soot on the walls, dried bloodstains on the floors, and a constant unsettling hum.

Each main instalment of this series has been received fondly by players worldwide and, in its time, was an exemplar among game developers. However, there's one GTA that's rarely spoken of these days, "Grand Theft Auto IV". Despite the fact that GTA 4 is seldom remembered, it would be wrong to think it was a failure. Like other GTA titles, it made a significant impact globally, having sold over 25 million copies by 2013 (the year of the fifth instalment's release), and the numbers have only grown since. When mentioning the various "Grand Theft Auto" versions, most people would recall "Vice City", "San Andreas", the third release, or the prevailing 'GTA V'. So, did the fourth instalment deserve its neglect, or is there a misunderstanding?

The plot of "Grand Theft Auto IV", like all other parts, unfolds in a vast and intricately designed city. This time, Liberty City, the game's prototype, was based on a real city, New York. Despite some obvious game constraints, the city was incredibly well recreated. The developers put in remarkable efforts to achieve high-level immersion and the tale told in this game, though not extraordinary, executed excellently in revealing the city, its whereabouts, and the citizens. The fact that the main office of "Rockstar Games" is located in New York could explain the attention to detail.

The gameplay in general epitomises the distinctive traits of all games in this series - a large open-world and almost complete freedom of action. Moreover, "GTA IV" sets itself apart by having the most sophisticated physics among its peers. Neither "GTA V" nor prior releases can offer players a game interaction level as GTA IV does. Everything from vehicle physics to ballistics in "GTA IV" is top-tier.

It's also worth noting that "GTA IV" was the first in the series to feature a full-fledged official multiplayer mode. Of course, both "San Andreas" and even "Vice City" had multiplayer servers, but these were merely modifications meant for a specific role-play. There was also a local cooperative. However, GTA 4 was the first in the series with a genuine online mode. Despite the online game designed for just 16 people, the gameplay was pretty broad and accommodated several modes. Perhaps this way of playing paved for future multiplayer modes, like in "Red Dead Redemption". Most likely "GTA IV's" multiplayer also laid the groundwork for the incredibly popular modern-day "Grand Theft Auto Online".

Dear friends, I wish you a Happy New Year!

I'm glad that all of you are here to listen to my old farts about old games, to hear the opinion of one oldfag about new games. Thank you - I know that sometimes I am boring, that I have a strange way of looking at things - but I write everything from the heart and from the bottom of my heart, without changing the truth in order to please everyone.

In my gaming life there was one of the New Year holidays, which for some reason I remember for a long time - I celebrated these holidays in different ways, but almost never played games during them, but that year was special.

Unreal Tournament III came out and it was incredibly cool for me - I played all the previous games in the local computer club, where different people gathered, from cyberathletes to ordinary users and everyone played games, talked, and drank beer and vodka, smoked directly in the hall - at that time it was still allowed by the laws of our country. These were amazing, absolutely insane places, located in basements, with dirty walls, with the smell of tobacco that could be smelled from a kilometer away. They were nasty looking hangouts, but it was very, very cool - people loved games, talked about games, played games there. The gaming culture of Russia at that time was not developed - if an adult said that he loves games, they would look at him like a madman, because "only children play games" - these places were not like that. Everyone there understood each other. And it was in such a club that I managed to meet the new year in 2007, playing Unreal III - and it was just amazing. I gathered friends, there were still the same crazy gamers in the club, for whom the onset of the new year did not become an obstacle to visiting the club - we just played all night, had fun, smoked there.

I was introduced to the Silent Hill series in 2000 by playing the first part of the game on PS One in a computer club (yes, I remember that I promised to write about them - but this is such an amazing echo of the past that you need a separate mood for this).

You know, it's hard to explain today, but at the time, any game that was some endowed with a storyline, or characters, atmosphere, or just made you feel immersed and involved in what was happening on the screen, could already be considered a masterpiece.

Silent Hill wasn't some endowed with all that. Its was a whole fog of mystery and obsessively climbed into your head, not letting you leave it.

Each new installment after that has become an absolute phenomenon for the time it came out - they pushed the boundaries of immersion, each time becoming the most intriguing and unpredictable games of our time. While playing them, you never understood the whole picture of what was happening until the very end, when the developers revealed their cards - but even after that, as soon as you thought about what you saw, you began to torment yourself with missed details and think that everything could be not so easy. Just discovered just a few years ago about James' reflection in the mirror in the Silent Hill 2 opening cutscene. I won't spoil it, but those who played Silent Hill 2 might google it.

Even 19 years after the release of the game, there is still something in the game that can scare you.

These games were a phenomenon until Homecoming came out - this game was handed over to the development of an American team based in California, with the goal of Americanizing the series, making it marketable and popular in the American market, and adapting it to the modern needs of the developed market. The prerequisites for such a decision arose after the best game in the series - Silent Hill 2 (the most anticipated and invested in the development of the series the greatest contribution) - caused an incredible response, but subsequent parts (3 and 4) began to make players feel secondary. Apparently, based on this, konami decided that the series should be adapted to modern trends in the gaming industry.

Today I showed a friend of mine who rarely and not so long ago plays games, the reaction of the audience to the announcement of God of War 2018 at e3 2016 and tried to explain to him why it was such a cult event - why at all e3 2016 was probably the best e3 ever and why it's unlikely to happen again. And I felt very sad, very sad in my heart.

I remember all these emotions for all the announcements of all games for 15 years. I played all of them, waited for them all, I will always remember how I jumped from the announcement of the god of war of the same, or how I cried from the credits of mass effect in 2007. I will always know how I watched the GT6 intro a hundred times, or restarted GTA IV a thousand times to watch the intro. I know why Last of Us is not just a good game - but it was at least 5 years ahead of its time, and therefore will always remain a masterpiece.

And people really don't give a shit. People either saw it too - then they were not interested, or they didn’t see it - then they simply won’t understand WHY it was so and WHY it was significant, why we cried or screamed with delight. Why games that now seem like just good games have become legends.

To understand this, one had to live then - at a time that preceded the appearance of these legends, before they changed the world. And it's sad - that I and many others can only live with the emotions experienced then - without any chance to fully transfer them to the present.

That's probably why I've always wanted to blog - that's why I'm blogging now. To leave an imprint of those very emotions from the old games for those who did not watch all this when it was relevant. Although I know that I am unlikely to succeed - but I really, really want to believe in something, I can at least tell something interesting.

Don't waste today, please. Keep in your soul the emotions that you get from the games now.