Konami has announced that the Silent Hill 2 HD collection will contain the original voice acting.
The announcement, which proves that some things are indeed sacred, confirms that players will have the option to play with the original voice performances as opposed to the new recordings.
The Producer of the game, Tom Hulett, spoke about the addition to the game on the Silent Hill Facebook page. "Producer Devin Shatsky and I have been striving to make this a reality for some time, and it's exciting to have created the definitive SH2 experience,” He told fans. "We would like to thank all of the original voice cast as well as [Japanese translator] Jeremy Blaustein, who were all instrumental in making this happen."
Silent Hill 2 was praised for it’s voice acting performances, atmosphere and dialogue when it was released in 2001. While Guy Cihi, the original voice and motion actor for James Sunderland, was highly commended for his performance, it seems he may be the reason for the re-record in the first place. According to Tom Baker, the new voice of Sunderland, Cihi demanded residual payments from Konami in exchange for help with the HD remake.
"I'm sure that if Silent Hill was my big game and I did it 10 years ago and I saw how successful it was, I would want more money too," Baker said in an interview with The Gaming Liberty. "Actually, I don't know if I would be that way because I'd just be happy that I was a part of a successful franchise. The thing that I have learned, especially with the Japanese companies, is that you never ever speak out. You never bash your employers. You never bash the people who gave you a huge leg up no matter what they've done or what you feel that they've done.
"But the fact that he's talking about residuals being in video games shows you just how out of the loop he is because residuals don't happen. They don't exist.”
[Source: The Gaming Liberty, Eurogamer.]
