Image from Legendary HackersDespite all the negative things I've said about Silent Hill: Homecoming over these last few posts, I was ready to let all that slide. I was already over half way done the game, and I thought I could put up with the game's faults for a few more hours for the sake of completing it. That will never happen now. Or ever.
In my last Silent Hill post, I said I would continue playing it until the game committed a heinous act against fun. It just did.
I played the game for about half an hour just now, and I got to the puzzle pictured above. The only picture I could find was of the completed puzzle. When you start out, the pieces are all scrambled and you have to slide them around the space to create that emblem. No big deal, right? These types of puzzles have been in thousands of video games before, and can usually be beaten if you slide the pieces around enough. Not this time. I tried it over and over again, but there was one piece in particular that would be stuck on the opposite end of the board. I normally don't have the patience for these types of puzzles in games, so the moment I get stuck, I hit a guide.
To my horror, the very first step in every guide I found said to move the double block in the top right hand corner one space to the left. I looked at my screen and realized that my screen didn't have a double block in that position. I watched video solutions on YouTube and realized that my blocks were laid out completely differently from what everybody else got.
Dude, what?
So in fact, the puzzle the game gave me really was impossible to beat. I did more research on this, and apparently I'm not alone. This IGN forum user ran into the exact same problem as me. The only solution for her? Restart the game from the last save point. In this GameSpot thread, user peetowser said he wasted 3 hours of his life trying to solve this glitched puzzle until he realized it was broken. When he reloaded it, it worked fine. For those forum users, maybe their tolerance towards the game's deficiencies are higher than mine. But for me, this game ends right here. I've been force-feeding this experience to myself since the beginning, and if the game requires me to go back 30 minutes into the game just so the puzzle pieces can reset, it can go to hell. I am not giving that game any more of my time.
Even if I pass that, there's a chance that the game's next set of puzzles might glitch out for them too, just like it did for these people. Just like with Fight Night Round 4, I refuse to support games that are broken to the point that they actually prevent you from finishing them. I don't have any immediate plans on checking out any of the other entries in the Silent Hill series, but if they're as janky as this, I'll dedicate my gaming time towards other things.
In my last Silent Hill post, I said I would continue playing it until the game committed a heinous act against fun. It just did.
I played the game for about half an hour just now, and I got to the puzzle pictured above. The only picture I could find was of the completed puzzle. When you start out, the pieces are all scrambled and you have to slide them around the space to create that emblem. No big deal, right? These types of puzzles have been in thousands of video games before, and can usually be beaten if you slide the pieces around enough. Not this time. I tried it over and over again, but there was one piece in particular that would be stuck on the opposite end of the board. I normally don't have the patience for these types of puzzles in games, so the moment I get stuck, I hit a guide.
To my horror, the very first step in every guide I found said to move the double block in the top right hand corner one space to the left. I looked at my screen and realized that my screen didn't have a double block in that position. I watched video solutions on YouTube and realized that my blocks were laid out completely differently from what everybody else got.
Dude, what?
So in fact, the puzzle the game gave me really was impossible to beat. I did more research on this, and apparently I'm not alone. This IGN forum user ran into the exact same problem as me. The only solution for her? Restart the game from the last save point. In this GameSpot thread, user peetowser said he wasted 3 hours of his life trying to solve this glitched puzzle until he realized it was broken. When he reloaded it, it worked fine. For those forum users, maybe their tolerance towards the game's deficiencies are higher than mine. But for me, this game ends right here. I've been force-feeding this experience to myself since the beginning, and if the game requires me to go back 30 minutes into the game just so the puzzle pieces can reset, it can go to hell. I am not giving that game any more of my time.
Even if I pass that, there's a chance that the game's next set of puzzles might glitch out for them too, just like it did for these people. Just like with Fight Night Round 4, I refuse to support games that are broken to the point that they actually prevent you from finishing them. I don't have any immediate plans on checking out any of the other entries in the Silent Hill series, but if they're as janky as this, I'll dedicate my gaming time towards other things.