Silent Hill: Homecoming

Positives:

• A few interesting ideas
• Some of the creatures designs
• Musical score

Negatives:

• Lack of horror
• Gameplay
• Graphics
• Story
• Poorly done psychological elements

As an avid fan of the Silent Hill series, I understandably, had this pre-ordered way back 2 months ago. I received it last week and completed it 2 days ago. That's a miserly 12 hours in all! So, how do I rate this in comparison to the others?? Quite frankly, I don't. It does not come anywhere near S.H 2, 3 and yes, even 4 (which I really enjoyed). All fans of Silent Hill know the formula -it's that oppressive, dark, dense, anxious build up. Claustrophobic and psychological right the way to the end. These elements are synonymous to Silent Hill and were severely lacking in this game. It borrows so heavily from the film and has a Resident Evil feel about it, that doesn't work. The plot, length, atmosphere, quality and overall feel of this game was quite frankly nothing more than an American travesty of something that was unique and brilliant. It is a passable RPG at best. A Silent Hill game? I think not.

Yes, I was excited when I found out Silent Hill would be coming to the next generation consoles and I bought it soon after its release. I have now finished it and have to say while overall I liked it, I was also a bit disappointed by it too. Let's just say I like Silent Hill 2, 3, and Origins more than this one. I liked it a bit more than Room and I have never played one so I can not really say if I thought it was better or worse than that game. Even though I thought it was overall better than Room, its story is not quite as good as that game either. It does boast the best graphics of the series to date, the monster look good, and the characters do too, the problem is the story is not up to par with the other Silent Hill entries I have played. Also, the combat is not as good as the last game of the series Origins, as in that one the character was a lot tougher than Alex in this game, beating enemies with his fists. Alex has the ability to dodge, but this becomes annoying as you have to dodge to hit certain enemies and if you screw up your timing you are, well screwed. The story has Alex returning to his hometown of Shepard's Glen after a dream sequence involving a hospital. He quickly discovers the town is not as he remembers as citizens are apparently going missing. He could care less though as his main goal is to find his younger brother Joshua in the town that is slowly going to hell. You meet many denizens of the town and at times are warped to a hellish world where monsters eat those who seem to have some piece of the puzzle. Of course, in the end it leads back to the town of Silent Hill. A couple of plot points just did not really work for me, the game featured members of the order like those seen in the movie, I am not sure if they appeared in the first game, but I know I never saw them in any of the other games I played. It seems this one focuses a bit on the religious cult more than previous games, but a lot of stuff presented here just did not add up. So for the best looking of the Silent Hills play this one, story wise though it is a bit weak.

After my game in Silent Hill 1999 at the age of 7, where I did not bother to go further than a dark alley, this part, about which I will write, is the first game in the series that I completed to the end already in my teens. I remember that my friend liked this game, and I only nodded in the hope of not losing him, so my opinion did not matter to me. It so happened that now all the previous games have been completed by me, and the gaming experience has disintegrated to give a personal opinion. And I would like to return those wonderful carefree youthful memories, long lost about those times, thereby finally understand for myself: "Was Silent Hill: Homecoming so good?" The developers are the American Double Helix Games, which, as I understand, has not played any part of Silent Hill. Not only do they use most of the monsters from previous parts, where they were projections of individual personalities created by their sick minds filled with grief and suffering, but also the main character in this game becomes a killing machine against enemies such as occultists. How does Alex Shepard react to the murder of several people? No way! The facial animation here is so lousy that sometimes you really cringe from what is happening, and those familiar with the series will be completely... The combat is clumsy and inconvenient. They wanted to follow in the footsteps of Resident Evil, providing third-person action, but ended up on the road to HELL! What I liked about this part is the bosses. Each of them has a story behind them, and each of them looks decent in design.

In general, the result is that I did not return the warm memories of my youth by replaying this game, but only spoiled my mood. There are games that you play as a child, and replay them as an adult, where this time you begin to see many interesting nuances that you are only able to understand as an adult. And these are called immortal classics, which will never bore you, but will only continue to expand your narrow horizons on many things that happen outside of our lives. And this, unfortunately, is not that game. It may be a good horror movie of the "B" category, but a pretty lousy Silent Hill.

The majority of Silent Hill: Homecoming is based in Shepards Glen which is a very risky idea. I found it was more interesting discovering how a second town was rapidly descending to the nightmarish underworld of Silent Hill...

I bought this on PC format for the purpose of my new laptop and I have to say I really enjoyed playing it. Despite some very long loading times between levels & scenes it was quite easy to control, although as much enability you are given to explore the town its too freaky to go of wandering. The monsters are freaky as ever, there are many ways to attack, dodge and tackle them and as you progress through the game its more clear how they behave.

I know most people compare this to Resident Evil but this is what makes your skin crawl...