Silent Hill: Homecoming

"Things have changed since you've been gone"

There was a town called Silent Hill I used to visit every few years or so. It was a nice small town that had a quaint atmosphere and wasn't overrun with tourism. It was great. Over the years, however, there's been a lot of commercialization in and around the Hill. They added a lot of things they didn't need and took out a whole lot of what made it special in the first place. Then, this year when I went to visit my favorite little town, I found it felt, I don't know, a little soulless. Now, I don't hate it, I just miss the way it used to be. Small, quaint, you know, no Wal-Marts or Starbucks. I guess that's what happens when a new mayor gets elected, one who wasn't even born in the Hill to begin with and he starts getting some fancy new ideas about what he thinks the town needs. I'll definitely be back, don't get me wrong, things can't stay the same forever, and they always do change, but I sure do miss the good old days.

Now, I don't write reviews for games, but this particular game series hold a special place in my heart, and it meant a lot to me. From my opening monologue there, you can tell how I feel about this newest iteration of Silent Hill. It fulfilled my yearning for a SH game, but overall, there were tons of times I was left sucking my teeth, sighing and generally asking, “WHY?”. For those who love SH, like me, I think you will enjoy it, and those who liked the movie definitely will enjoy it, but I will just have to give ample reason as to why this latest SH isn't the best of the series.

The graphics: The transition effects to the other world are from the movie and despite what some are saying, they do look really cool. The character models are not that good looking, sometimes bordering on ugly. I think, sincerely, the models in SH3 looked better than the character models in this one, at least the textures. SH and Shepherd's Glen do share the same textures, but that's not horrible, a lot of games do that.

The story: The story itself is pretty run of the mill, SH type stuff, with only one real big twist at the end which is kind of interesting, but leaves you thinking that they could have thought of something else. I felt they just didn't leave enough mystery in it as previous games. I liked not knowing what the hell was going on and having to piece together the lore of the town.

The enemies: The bosses are the highlight of the game in terms of enemies, with none of the filler enemies sticking out for me except the redesign of the nurse which is inspired by the movie (unnecessary), and an enemy taken straight out of the movie which infuriated the hell out of me because they have no place in the SH game. You'll know who they are when you see them, and they probably will give you the same reaction I had which was WTF?! There are times where you have to kill certain enemies in order to progress, and I thought that was pretty corny considering SH is about survival and part of survival is knowing when to run the hell away, not standing your ground against 3 enemies at a time.

The combat: Some people liked the combat, some people hate it. I was a bit indifferent to it. There are some finishing moves, depending on what weapon you use to kill the enemies, and at times the effects for the finishing moves kind of take you out of the experience, because if you are at an odd angle when you finish the enemy off, the two characters will “float” into the proper place and the result is backward and ugly.

Overall, in terms of a numerical rating on this SH, I would, as a long time fan of the game series have to give it a 6/10. As someone coming into this as solely a movie fan who wants to play the game, or if this is your first SH game, your probably gonna love it, but I've seen the best (SH2) and the worst, and to me this was the worst in the series. It will give you fans your SH fix, but in the end, it just feels like more could've been done with it. Again, this is my first review, so, forgive me if its not up to par with the veteran reviewers.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/07/08

Game Release: Silent Hill: Homecoming (US, 09/30/08)