Silent Hill: Homecoming Review (my first review)
Where do I begin, how about March of 2009, that seems good. I was a college boy at the time and lived in an apartment with 2 other dudes. There were also girls that lived upstairs, but I never talked to them. Anyway, I had just recently became interested in Silent Hill after playing Silent Hill 2 and 4. Lucky for me I had access to Xbox 360 at the time and with Silent Hill Homecoming just released I thought maybe I'll start there next. Boy, was I in for a surprise. First of all lets talk about the public atmosphere surrounding the franchise at the time. Team Silent was out of the picture and Konami wanted a western developer to take over the reins of horror. Prior to Homecoming Climax studios released Silent Hill Origins. Origins, which I would later play was a good example of a developer playing it safe. The game was released for ps2 and psp so the graphics were sub par, the fog was there, the cult was there and a man struggling with his past was also the protagonist. As a prequel Origins didn't really bring about any revelations or really fill in many blanks, it was just a sub par decent Silent Hill rendition. Expectations were pretty low, the fans wanted Japanese to bring back Team Silent, some wanted them to shut down Silent Hill forever. I wanted more.
In comes Silent Hill Homecoming. The next game that was current gen at the time was Silent Hill Homecoming. The developing team is Double Helix. Having no horror games under their belts they were up for a monumental task of carrying out the next batch of scare. But what happened? They produced a GREAT Silent Hill game. Let me digress. The graphics and atmosphere of SHH was top notch. The fog, the abandoned desolate town and horror in the daylight themes were nailed. The only drawback was that sometimes the flashlight wasn't bright enough (I didn't notice). Most of the common areas you explore in Shepards Glenn are churches, hotels, hospitals and demonic underworlds and of course the town. The visuals at the time were cutting edge, so good they were that critics of the series complained that some scenes looked just like the movie. That's actually a compliment. Scattered throughout the world are notes and writings that slowly reveal the plight of the town and residents who had resided there. Finding mysterious notes and knowing that somehow they existed in this place is a sereal feeling. It's a feeling you get that no other game can offer you. You feel that you are so close to the real world and the nightmare at the same time. Almost like your looking out the sunny window from deep inside a dark and empty building.
The game took place in the town of Sheperd's Glenn. People are going missing, the streets end and drop off to oblivion and strange monsters lurk about. You begin in a hospital and need to find your brother who eludes you at every crevice. But then you wake up for real in a tractor trailer. Eventually you learn that your parents were members of a cult. In order to appease the cult's God members had to sacrifice one child every generation. Somehow things went bad, as you will see (no spoilers). The town begins to fall apart as the cult loses control and its up to you to find your brother and escape Sheperd's Glenn while uncovering the story of horror. The protagonist Alex Shepard, a battle hardened war vet returns to town and must solve the puzzles and ultimately save his brother Josh.
One of the biggest complaints of SHH is the combat. A lot of fans of the series were satisfied with the bare bones shoot or swing mechanic and little else. However SHH brought a new combat system to the table. Now you can lock on to enemies, dock, dodge, roll, and strike with heavy or weak attacks. The combat was quite difficult for new players and many quit as a result and then complained about the game being generic and abused. But, as I just showed, they were wrong. You have a pretty standard selection of weapons to choose from, a knife, pistol, rifle, shotgun, pipe and axe. Once you understood enemy movements and routines it wasn't hard to end them quickly with taking little damage. Sometimes its better to use a quick knife than a slow axe.
There are multiple endings to the game depending on your decisions, which can give you outfits, guns etc for later replayability. This game is an underrated gem. As you see on Amazon it has 4/5 star reviews for the Xbox 360 and PS3. SHH was able to nail down the atmosphere with pin drop precision. You will feel lonely, scared, afraid and sometimes rejuvenated after overcoming your obstacles. I don't reccomend buying the Steam version as it is priced quite high, better yet get an Xbox 360 Elite Edition and play it on that. Make sure the tv you get to play it on is small as the graphics look sharper, also make sure the tv is in 720p as the game was made for 720p. Have fun and play it slow for optimal results.
Final Verdict: 9/10
