Silent Hill: Homecoming

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.

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.

The game itself is a huge leap as it changes the combat system entirely from 1 and 2 (I didn't play 3 or 4 I'm assuming they're the same). For starters the game is more combat oriented with the introduction of using various combos and finishing moves to kill your enemies, you can also aim the gun yourself giving you the freedom to place a few pellets in certain monsters critical zones which can be really handy when your conserving those last 4 bullets that you 'wasted' 2 minutes ago fighting another creature.

The horror factor stands up to the silent hill name, really gory, really twisted and leaves you feeling cold due to the attention paid to certain details. The characters are likable and are great to interact with due to the new speech system allowing you to take complete control over certain dialogues. It's also great how you can have a combat buddy fighting alongside you, blasting monsters back to back.

My only complaint is the fact that the game is really anti-climatic towards the end, in many cases it feels that the designers just got bored and didn't bother with some greater in depth story line unlike in SH2 where you get two bosses and a scene explaining more of the story.

Overall the game is good and I give it 8 stars for the reason that the ending wasn't as good as it could have been, but it is definitely worth the look.

Positives:

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

Negatives:

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

Oh my lord. I am possibly the biggest Silent Hill fan I know, I've managed to introduce several friends to the wonders of this series and many of them enjoy it too. I recently received an Xbox 360 for Christmas, and the main reason I wanted it was for this game. I waited months for this game to come out, and having adored all the previous titles (even 4!) I was eagerly anticipating this one's release. I always say that no matter how bad a Silent Hill game is I will always finish it. But I've decided not to finish this one. Honestly, this game is beyond terrible. The graphics were decent and the voice overs were pretty good but that's about all. Besides having a totally boring plot that hardly ties in with any of the previous games at all, the game is crawling with glitches. Just as I decided to give it another chance this morning I walked right into a glitch many others have been having problems with. Therefore I had to start over. Now I just can't be bothered to finish the game, having spent many frustrating hours screaming at the television screen because this game is so damn.. ugh, it basically takes the word frustration to a whole new goddamn level. What really sucks about this game is that they had the atmosphere just right; the town of Silent Hill, the fog, the whole atmosphere was pretty much perfect. Then they threw in the dumb ass combat and it all went to hell. What makes a Silent Hill game for me is not the constant fighting, but the wandering around in the fog, and that helpless feeling you get when you hear a strange noise in the distant. In this game they pretty much took out all of these things and threw in a bunch of extremely annoying enemies that take about fifty hits from the axe to actually kill, that is before they've already knocked you on your ass half a dozen times. Also, weapons and ammo are extremely limited. I'm not saying there was a bunch of ammo everywhere you looked in the previous games, but hell, this is like playing Resident Evil - only even goddamn harder, and you can imagine what that's like. I'm so disappointed at this game, it could have been amazing if the Japanese hadn't handed it to the Americans. That being said, Origins which was also made by the Americans was a lot better than this game, so maybe they just went wrong somewhere. It's a pity really, this could've been a really good game if they'd just fixed a few things. I'm sad that I wasted thirty eight pounds buying this game, but I don't really regret it. I would've bought it anyway at some point, so it's just bad luck really. I've never been so annoyed with a game in all my life, and this one is easily the most difficult SH game I've ever played. Anyone who enjoys action and combat should try this game, but if you're a true Silent Hill fan who still considers the second game the best of the bunch, I'd say rent it. It's certainly not worth wasting any of your hard earned money on. 1/5