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

Review of the PC version. When Alex comes out of a military hospital and returns to where he grew up(after having been gone for years), he finds his mother catatonic, his younger brother missing(is there going to be a creepy kid in every installment of this series?) and his father(John Locke) seemingly having gone in search of the aforementioned sibling. You can never return home, a theme explored in this. Of course, usually that's done without Hellraiser going on. The characters aren't bad(if everyone looks the age of 30 tops, including the ones who have adult offspring), and the voice acting is above average, and yet this does not have the impact of the others(it is around the same as The Room in that area). Yes, the plot is going to let some people down, if the twist is pretty good. I don't think that's it... no, it's that there are hardly any puzzles in this. Well, they're there... I just wouldn't dignify them by referring to them as that. I'd call them "tasks". Go into a room, find an object, place it in another one, that's it. There are two or three that take in excess of a minute or two and aren't your first guess, the rest, you're almost going through the motions. You don't have trouble finding your way, either. This is as linear(and the levels as nicely done, with an infested hotel and a police station under attack; you go back to some of the same spots as earlier on in this) as the rest, and tense enough for you to not notice. The challenge all comes from the more action-oriented tone of this. It does still build atmosphere, effectively with the excellent sound-side, the grotesque creature designs(there's a four-legged man-sized spider with blades for legs, a tight-clothes-wearing psychotic nurse with bouncy cleavage(...why?) and a knife with your name on it, and the second-hand-smoker's worst nightmare that you'll want to keep away from you; then again, this does have the worst dogs(it's the only bad case, really), they're essentially skinless with a head that's the cross of a newt and a leopard... no, really, I swear, this makes them seem superior to how they actually are), the Hellish Otherworld and the abandoned, fog-covered(and it's done better than any of the earlier ones, and you can "lose yourself" in it and suddenly be running in the direction you came from... you know, like Neo trapped in Limbo early in The Matrix Revolutions; that's not a spoiler), should be quaint yet *isn't*, isolated suburbia. You have environment interaction(in addition to the realistic Havok physics engine, as also seen in Max Payne 2), where you can squeeze yourself through, duck under or hop over if there's a partial entrance to another place(note that some of your foes can follow you, including opening doors! And you'll want to sometimes up and run away from them), as the guy is a soldier... and this does make the tough fights seem greater(how nasty must these things be if a trained army guy has trouble?). When you enter combat, you can do fast attacks(and combo) or powerful ones, and dodge/block(the enemies will do that as well; AI is marvelous, except for when the bugs hit it... there are a bunch in this, that can really frustrate you, though I never had to start this over), and you have to learn their style to get past them. It works fine enough, if the timing can really be bothersome, and it is highly exciting. You get a knife(that can also cut through fabric), a pipe(that can pry open doors), an axe(that can hack through boards), a pistol and a shotgun. Ammo is extremely sparse similar to #4, so make the bullets count. You can do a short-range blow with any firearm in this, if they get too close(and aiming is first-person... thank you, Konami). There is a lot of inspiration drawn from the lousy movie... they do kinda pull it off. This requires fast-clicking(and in general it's fairly immersive) in certain situations, like in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. It's quite cinematic. The cut-scenes are all in-engine or pre-rendered. Graphics are nice, with a real dynamic look to some of the things where it makes sense(you see a sort of vein running across the metal-plated floor, and it seems to be flowing, or like something fluid is running through it) and fantastic filters, like "old film", creating a genuinely unsettling mood. It's like the first in ways, but when you reach somewhere where the road is gone, it looks like it slid down. There are fancy features that you don't need, like the ability to turn around items(it's not like you can catch subtle details on them that help you... it's already giving you too many hints). I do love that we get complete control over a 360 degree camera when we want... you gotta stand still, that's all. The light even follows it. That really should have made it into these sooner. Faces and hands look "off", I can't put my finger on why... it's not unlike Robert Zemeckis' CGI flicks, his A Christmas Carol(the one with Jim Carrey), Beowulf and the rest, you know, soulless eyes, they're like really close to human yet *not*... the movements are strange at times, and they seem incapable of displaying three emotions... also, our protagonist always looks confounded, as well as like he doesn't know what that word means. Animation is excellent. If we define Silent Hill as what we got in the original three and what the fourth was a different artist's take on(not the same, yet interesting in its own right), then this, well, ain't it. That's not to say that it isn't a cool and fun game. The psychology holds up, and it makes you think, like the rest of them. There is bloody, gory, brutal violence, sensuality and disturbing content in this. I recommend this to fans of survival horror, and not to purists. 8/10

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

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...

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.