Silent Hill: Homecoming Product Details

Released on 27/02/2009

• Silent Hill: Homecoming Review

  Home is… where the heartless demons are

  It's funny, but earlier this week I reviewed Resident Evil 5, and criticised it for not really feeling like the old Resi games any more, such has been the series' drastic change in direction. Silent Hill: Homecoming on the other hand is so similar to previous Silent Hills that it feels like something of a by-the-numbers re-run of the formula. So what's the happy middle ground between the two? Whatever it is, Survival Horror games need to find it in the next few years.

  Foggy

  Not that Silent Hill: Homecoming is a bad game, mind. In fact, if what you're after is a familiar-feeling, traditional Survival Horror adventure full of slow-paced exploration, psychological scares aplenty, puzzles galore and ridiculous layers of fog, then you've come to the right place.

  Silent Hill: Homecoming puts you in the shoes of discharged soldier Alex Shepherd as he returns home (hence the subtitle) from war to find his hometown shrouded in a thick mist, his Mom gone a bit bonkers, and his Dad and little brother Joshua missing. Except, by the time you've gotten to this point about half an hour in, you've already met young Josh – in a warped, rusted hospital populated with shuffling zombie nurses and scuttling oversized flying beetles.

  A traditional Survival Horror adventure full of slow-paced exploration, psychological scares aplenty, puzzles galore and ridiculous layers of fog.

  This is Silent Hill: Homecoming's dream sequence intro; an intro which does few of the things an introduction should. To be fair, it does help you with the opening salvos of hand-to-hand combat, but doesn't hint at the fact that you have a flashlight, and fails to guide you through the first puzzle you encounter, which involves discovering an access code spread across two X-ray sheets and putting them together. It won't take Silent Hill veterans very long to figure it out, but series newcomers unused to old-style Survival Horror games might find themselves wandering around for quite some time getting frustrated.

  Stick with it, though, because Silent Hill: Homecoming is a grower. Like other Silent Hill games, it features a dual world system – Alex's creepy home town seems like any other visibility-challenged American Midwestern town, until a siren sounds and turns it into an oppressive, blood-splattered hell dimension strewn with the undead. It's a well-worked concept, and gives you the chance to get to grips with some of the nastiest enemies in modern gaming.

  If you enjoy being truly unnerved, then these monsters really are one of the highlights of Silent Hill: Homecoming. There are some seriously hideous creatures, which you'll mostly be battling with a similar combat system to that in PSP's Silent Hill: Origins – the left trigger locks on, and various weights of attack are on the fascia buttons. New for Homecoming is a dodging manoeuvre which adds an extra element of depth, but fans of recent Resi games should be warned – while there are firearms in Silent Hill: Homecoming, their ammo is so limited that shooting is basically removed from the majority of the gameplay.

  Anti-Resi

  In that respect, Silent Hill: Homecoming is the anti-Resi, and speaks volumes about the divide taking place within the genre. Where Capcom have made many strides to streamlining its design, Konami's game does no such thing – there's still some really obscure puzzles; you still save at checkpoints; and the story is as darkly supernatural as ever.

  When you consider that this wasn't made by the original Team Silent, that actually becomes something of a compliment. Put together instead by Double Helix, Silent Hill: Homecoming feels every inch the Silent Hill experience. Sure it's re-treading old ground, and it's hardly imaginative, but Homecoming is at least another solid addition to one of the gaming medium's more surreal series.

  GAME's Verdict

  

  • Another solid instalment in the Silent Hill series.
  • Truly unnerving for those that like that sort of thing.
  • The dodge move gives the close quarters combat some added depth.

  

  • Formulaic traditional Survival Horror that lacks any real innovation or imagination.
  • The lack of an autosave makes it a bit of a labour finding a checkpoint.
  • Why can you invert the aiming, but NOT the third-person camera!?

  Review by: Mark 'Supernatural' Scott
  Version Texted: PS3
  Review Published: 13.03.09

  Published: 13/03/2009

• New Silent Hill game on the way

  New Silent Hill game on the way

  It seems like only a few years back that we first pulled off the highway and started listening to those creepy radio signals, but Silent Hill's been around for over a decade now and if you're a fan of the smart survival horror series, you'll like this: Konami has announced that an eighth game in the franchise will be released next year on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

  The new game was revealed at this year's E3 but is only now starting to take shape. The Czech developer Vatra Games will be handling the design, and it looks like Konami is going back to basics. Shinji Hirano, a big cheese at the company, suggested that the new game will "stay true to the franchise's roots" and deliver, "a next generation horror game that the fans truly deserve".

  Opting for a third-person presentation, the new game's murky story involves Murphy Pendleton, a prisoner who finds himself stuck in the horrible town of Silent Hill when his transport vehicle crashes. D'oh!

  Pendleton can expect to face off against some nasty monsters, alongside devious puzzles and atmospheric locations. Side quests will also feature, which suggests you'll have no trouble getting your money's worth out of this one.

  We'll get you more info on this one as soon as we have it.

• Eighth Silent Hill receives new title Downpour

  Konami has revealed that the forthcoming eighth instalment in its renowned Silent Hill horror series will be called Silent Hill: Downpour.
  
  The publisher confirmed to US publication Game Informer that the new Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 title will feature water as a prominent theme, with rain-soaked environments and spooky effects that cause liquids to run into buildings and across ceilings.
  
  However, there will be more to the upcoming Silent Hill - which is being worked on by new developer Vatra Games - than just unsettling water effects.
  
  The team has promised that the town of Silent Hill itself will be bigger than ever and offers some locations familiar to long-term fans, while the series' classic fixed camera perspective also returns.
  
  Downpour will also introduce a system that sees weapons degrade and break the more they are used, adding an extra element of tension to the combat.
  
  This will be the first new game in the series to hit the high-definition consoles since Silent Hill: Homecoming was released back in 2009.

  Published: 11/01/2011

• Return to Silent Hill this autumn

  Uh-oh. According to Eurogamer, this autumn about to get spooky, with Silent Hill: Downpour, the eighth game in the survival horror series, hitting the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

  With the Czech developer Vatra in charge, Downpour story centres on convict Murphy Pendleton, whose prison transport coach crashes in some spooky woods, landing him in a whole load of trouble.

  "Other games have touched upon normal people who have done bad things, or innocent people stumbling on events much bigger than themselves," said associate producer Tomm Hulett. "But a prisoner is a person you would expect to have a lot of baggage for Silent Hill to exploit. We felt this was an interesting premise that fans could speculate on as they awaited the game. I wouldn't say it was a deliberate attempt to 'play a bad guy' necessarily, but we did have discussions around whether or not people would/could relate to such a character."

  Like 2009 Shattered Memories, Downpour will be ditching weapons to ramp up the scares. "Fear is a tricky thing to get a handle on," Hulett suggested. "Shattered Memories provided a very important experience in a genre currently dominated by the ability to stand your ground and gun down monsters: helplessness. Our goal with Downpour is to then take what we learned, and fold it back seamlessly into a 'core' Silent Hill experience./p>

• Silent Hill: Downpour to receive score album release

  Konami has announced that the forthcoming Silent Hill: Downpour will receive a soundtrack album release in March 2012.

  Milan Records is set to bring out a collection of music from composer Daniel Licht's atmospheric score to the new Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 survival horror title, which is due out the same month.

  Licht is best known for his acclaimed work on the popular TV series Dexter and has created a haunting, eerie musical accompaniment to prisoner Murphy Pendleton's unsettling journey through the eponymous cursed town.

  The composer said: "I came up with a sound world that I feel amplifies and augments the player's experience. I incorporated numerous instruments including piano, mandolin and industrial sounds."

  Silent Hill: Downpour also features a theme tune by Jonathan Davis, frontman of nu-metal band Korn, which is included on the album release.

  March 2012 is set to be a huge month for Silent Hill fans, with the Silent Hill HD Collection and Silent Hill: Book of Memories for PlayStation Vita also due for release.

  Published: 06/02/2012

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