Together Retro: ZAMN / Silent Hill 2

[CFFJR]

I played a bit of the Genesis version of Zombies Ate My Neighbors tonight. I made it to level 25 before I bit the dust. Too bad, I had tons of ammo, but I was starting to lose victims and rushing through levels and taking damage, and that was that.

I've had this game since I was a kid and I've always loved it. Felt good to play it tonight, relaxing, and its been quite a while since the last time I gave it a go.

I can only recall beating it once though, co-op with a friend of mine back in what must have been middle school. If I ever beat the game alone I sure don't remember.

[AppleQueso]

SH2:

The clunky combat controls are supposed to encourage you to avoid combat actually. Running away is almost always a better option, frankly you shouldn't be trying to kill things unless they're blocking your way or you need to clear a room or something.

I usually play the games with action level on "hard", which bumps up the enemy count and makes them tougher to kill, so I obviously don't mind the combat.

[TEKTORO]

CFFJR do you remember what level you were at when finishing the game ZAMN?
Only because I remember playing and the levels going to 100+, maybe I beat it without realizing and continued to play bonus levels or something but I can't recall exactly. I just know the levels get up there but every time I mentioned it no one ever seems to comment if they made it this far before.

[jay_red]

SH2:

The clunky combat controls are supposed to encourage you to avoid combat actually. Running away is almost always a better option, frankly you shouldn't be trying to kill things unless they're blocking your way or you need to clear a room or something.

I usually play the games with action level on "hard", which bumps up the enemy count and makes them tougher to kill, so I obviously don't mind the combat.

Well this could make it a little more tolerable, I thought the enemies would chase you if you just passed them.

[CFFJR]

CFFJR do you remember what level you were at when finishing the game ZAMN?
Only because I remember playing and the levels going to 100+, maybe I beat it without realizing and continued to play bonus levels or something but I can't recall exactly. I just know the levels get up there but every time I mentioned it no one ever seems to comment if they made it this far before.

I do. The final level is 48.

Even if you count the secret levels, it goes up to 52 total I believe. Maybe 54.

[ExedExes]

I started SH2. If you have the PC port and have Vista/7/8, as noise pointed out, you need to do 2 things to ensure it works correctly.

1) Get the patch that fixes (most) looping music issues; not all of them, but enough to make it less annoying here.

2) The game also has an issue with muti-core processors, so you'll have to open Notepad and enter this into it --

cmd.exe /c start /affinity 1 sh2pc.exe

Save it as sh2.bat, and make sure the file is located where the game is installed. After that, make it your starting icon in place of sh2pc.exe. This will force the game to only use 1 CPU core and will solve any additional slowdown or stuttering gameplay issues.

Once I did that, I was good to go. I love how the main weapon is a board.... with a NAIL IN IT! Also, DAT FOG. I'm at the apartments now, and it's been pretty good.

I will be starting ZAMN this week. The game does say 55 levels, but that includes the bonus levels. The final level is the "Credits Level", and you can see who made the game as you play this level like any other level in the game, saving the victims and shooting anything that gets in your way.

[Opa Opa]

Exed, does that patch fix the save bug?

I know on Vista (not sure about XP, 7, or 8) you have to right click->Run As Administrator every time to make the game save correctly.

edit: disable smilies... freakin' sunglasses.

[TEKTORO]

CFFJR do you remember what level you were at when finishing the game ZAMN?
Only because I remember playing and the levels going to 100+, maybe I beat it without realizing and continued to play bonus levels or something but I can't recall exactly. I just know the levels get up there but every time I mentioned it no one ever seems to comment if they made it this far before.

I do. The final level is 48.

Even if you count the secret levels, it goes up to 52 total I believe. Maybe 54.

Yeah man, I have to get started on this not sure why I'm remembering so many more levels. I swore there were tons more than advertised.

[ExedExes]

Exed, does that patch fix the save bug?

I know on Vista (not sure about XP, 7, or you have to right click->Run As Administrator every time to make the game save correctly.

edit: disable smilies... freakin' sunglasses.

The patch only fixes the looping sound issues.

I just looked up the save game bug, and running it as an administrator does seem to solve it. The fastest way to do that is to find your sh2pc.exe file, right click on it, select Properties, go to the Compatibility tab and check the "Always run as an administrator" box. Even when your sh2.bat file is in place of the original icon, the User Account Control window will pop up. That seems to solve anyone suffering from the save bug. Thanks for bringing that up. Gotta love old PC games that were only designed for XP and earlier

[Xeogred]

Maybe this should be its own thread, but I'm curious to hear a rundown on the Silent Hill games from some fans. It's one of those series I've somehow just not gotten into over the years. I dabbled into 2 years back and liked it, but that's about as deep as my exposure to the whole franchise ever got. I've always heard a lot and gathered opinions on them all over the years though.

Finally think I'll try to play 2 again sometime this month.