Customer Reviews

Silent Hill: Homecoming

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Waking up in a Gurney.. being wheeled down a dark and delapitated hall by what appears to be a doctor. Turning to your right and your left, only to witness viscious acts of mutilation. Where are you? Is is any of this real? You are wheeled to a stop, you unfasten your straps and proceed to step forward. You open the door, and see a trail of blood. Creaks and echos can be heard all around you, and your truly scared. You take the first step into the darkness... Welcome to Silent Hill.

That, is how you start an intro. Apparently Bon Jovi was right, who says you can't go home?
First of all, dont listen to those Nay-Sayers (I.e. IGN) who say this game is bad (IGN obviously played the game for about 5 minutes, and remmembered that to get even more of a bad reputation, they would have to make up a bunch of fake facts.) This game is NOT as good as Silent Hill 2 (Although it certainly is VERY good). It never will be, but if you go into this game with lowered expectations, you will have a magnificent good time.
One thing Double Helix (American Developers) did manage to keep is the moody feel, and the constant psychological dread that all gamers have come to know, love, hate, and get sick from. This game is chock full of it, Which is a great thing!
Now, its time to de-bunk some lies that IGN may have told you: (NOTE: You may skip this if you want to hear about the story, this is just to clear the air of incesant lies that IGN tells oh so well)
1. "The game is not scary" Straight off the bat, that is total BS.
Within the first 5 minutes of the game, I already jumped back in my seat.
2. "Alex is to well Handled" Well, this may be true, but he is a soldier after all...
3. "The Flashlight is basically impossible to use" Wrong, The Flashlight is very realistic. True, it is a little weak, but it works best when its pointed at the mid-waist to ground level. Again, just like a real flashlight.
Now then: The story. (Note: Contains some minimal spoilers, nothing big) You are Alex Shepard. The war has taken a toll on your psyche, and you begin to have some very strange dreams about your brother. This is when you return to Sheppards Glen (Via A Silent Hill Origins reference) and learn that he has gone missing. Its Suprisingly Very good. In Typical Silent Hill fashion, nobody seems to right. You will begin to see what tore The Shepards apart. It draws the player in and never lets go. I felt utter disgust as I listened to a tape recorder of Adam Shepard Bad-mouthing Alex to his own brother! I felt Dread as I saw Joshua flee from Alex for no apparent reason. And I felt agony as I gazed upon a deformed remain of something un-human slither toward me, the image will stay burned in everyone's mind forever.
Many imporvements have been added such as an aiming system, Full control camera angle, and an upgraded fighting system. This doesent hinder the game in any way, it only makes it more enjoyable.

However, this game does have some faults to it. The way they ration Ammo and in particular, Health Drinks, needs some work. Allow me to elaborate. In typical "End Game" fashion, you expect a final boss and very limited supplies to make it more challenging, and thus, more rewarding. But this happens more towards the middle of the game, and by the time you reach the end, you're already crammed to the max with Health Drinks and Ammo, well you get the idea..
But in short: This is a must buy for a newcomer of the series, or someone who has been with it since SH1. It will give you that same gut-wrenching feeling the series does so well. Akira Yamaoka's moody beats help play the mood out all to well. With some work and some patience, this can be a very easy game to love. It won't take you long to become immersed in the fog. Man! It feels great to be home!

Homecoming is only the third Silent Hill game I've sampled. I know a lot of people hated "the room," but I fell in love with that one immediately. To me, it was as creepy as it was curious; every time I returned to the room, I'd scour it from top to bottom, looking for further clues to help me unravel the story. I really felt a serious need to get out, but then again, I wasn't sure if I'd still want out once I had escaped... Hate it or love it, you have to give props to the room for being original.

And then there's Homecoming. It's a bit of an odd dog, honestly. It incorporates enough atmosphere from the previous titles to make it feel 'silent hilly,' but it fails to add anything new. There's nothing novel about it. Sure, it looks good, and combat controls received a serious face-lift, but overall, it feels soulless compared to previous Silent Hill titles.

I may just be getting jaded in my old age, but the bad-guys don't seem all that creepy. The dogs don't have any skin on them. That's pretty standard survival-horror fare, anymore. There are big shambling guys that have blades where their head should be. Not sure how they can see me, but they always know exactly where I am. Then there's the weird smoker zombie that is impossible to land a full combo on because there's no way to avoid the constant stream of smoke that's pouring out of him. Oh, and then there are four-legged spider guys that have blades for feet. After you get to know them they aren't too bad, really. They're actually quite civil when fighting; they each patiently wait their turn to be bludgeoned to death with your lead pipe.

The truly disappointing aspect of Homecoming is the fact that Silent Hill's no longer an emotional/psychological thriller. It's digressed into more of a "boo! scared you!" experience. And even the cheap scares get to be predictable after a fashion. Oh...I'm entering knee-deep water...I wonder what on earth is going to happen next/again?

I remember the first time I ever saw pyramid head. The game switched to a cut-scene and he was... doing weird things to/with a zombie nurse. It was perverse, grotesque, and...disturbing. Yeah! That's exactly what it was. Disturbing! What the hell is that guy? What the hell is it doing? Somehow I knew to run away. I didn't want to fight it, I just wanted to be away from it!

You don't get that in Homecoming. You get dogs with no skin that never stop spawning and a dumb brother you're willing to chase straight through the gates of hell. Look, I have a brother in real life. I love him and all, but if I ever saw him run into a haunted hospital with crazy zombie nurses wielding knives, I'd probably consider heading back home and catching jeopardy. Maybe that's just me.

Homecoming relies heavily on darkness to build tension. I've seen this work well in other scary games, but unfortunately, there's *so much* dark in homecoming that it stops being scary and just gets irritating. When you realize there's no light to run toward, you just kinda stop running, you know? The same goes for combat in the game. When you realize there's no way to escape it, it loses its frantic edge and just turns into a chore.

Lastly, there were several times were I got stuck in the game because I couldn't figure out how or where to proceed. Most times this happened it was due to my own lack of attention to detail. However, at one particular section of the game the only way to further the storyline is by opening a door that looks just like the walls surrounding it. Because I didn't realize the wall was a door, I went back outside and died about ten times fighting endless hordes of re-spawning skinless zombie dogs. I was only able to get back on track with the help from an online game walkthru.

Looking back at my review, it doesn't seem like I have much good to say about Homecoming. As frustrating as the game is, I have to admit I do want to play through it. I think it's because I'm genuinely interested in the storyline and would like to know how it ends up. If you're a longtime Silent Hill fan, you really do need to play through Homecoming to get one of the more cohesive narratives in the series. It takes its sweet time unfolding, but the whole time you really find yourself wondering why everyone always treated Alex like garbage, why his mom's a lunatic, and why he's constantly chasing his stupid brother into certain death.

I bought Homecoming because I was in the mood for a good, scary game and yes, it has it's moments. I nearly came out of my seat a couple times to be honest. However, outside those "BOO!" scare moments, its pretty much devoid of emotional tension that was always characteristic in previous Silent Hill titles.


Complaints:

1. New / American development team relies on standard Hollywood horror staples -- to the detriment of the series.
2. The new combat mechanics, while improved, are irritating. Especially in cramped quarters or when facing off with more than one enemy at a time. If you miss one dodge, certain enemies can pummel half your life away.
3. There's no way to skip past some cut-scenes. If you have trouble beating a certain boss, be prepared to listen to the same lead-in schpiel over and over (and over).
4. Too much dark! When sound is your only indication that your face is being eaten by a bug, something's wrong.
5. Zombie Nurses. Again. And now with visible ass cheeks! What I'd like to know is who let them out of the hospital? Now they can turn up just about anywhere...

On the brighter side:
1. Graphics, music, and sound effects are all great.
2. The story is interesting if you don't mind dodging enough skinless dogs to actually get to it.
3. Locals are well done and apart from being too dark, they are very atmospheric, forlorn, and grotesque.
4. The puzzles are great, albeit a bit on the scarce side.
5. Boss battles are more challenging and, for the most part, fun.


As a game, I readily give Homecoming a 3/5. As a followup to the Silent Hill series, I'm afraid I'd only be able to award Homecoming with a 2/5... it has a lot to live up to and doesn't quite make the cut.

It's hard discussing homecoming. It is a game that has come with its' fair share of controversy. The reviewers who supported the game said "If you are a SH fan you should enjoy homecoming". How premature and short sighted that statement actually was. Sadly many of the most "hardcore" thus "jaded" Silent-Hill-Heads didn't like Homecoming. You could say many of them decided to hate it even before the game came out. However I'm a bit proud to say while I love SH I never took the franchise too seriously. I enjoyed every title for different reasons and I own every game but the very first one. (I even have the port of origins for the PS2)

Moving on I'm going to address the main complaints people had with the game and debunk them one by one.

Complaint # 1 The game burrowed too much from the movie.

Homecoming burrowed aesthetics from the SH film. However before the whining crested to the highest wave of angst many people actually said the film was one of the best game to movie adaptations + the costume designs and creature models were actually very faithful to the games. In lu of that the same can be said of homecoming....the creatures capture the spooky haunted atmosphere of SH perfectly. In truth the only few nods to the film are the shift to the otherworld, nurses, order cultists, and Pyramid Head. The rest of the creatures are 100% original and the story line has nothing to do with Alessa's alternate self Sharon or any of the main protagonists and antagonists from the film. If you are expecting to see Rose and Cybil Bennet running around you are in for a shocker because they are NOT in Homecoming.

The plot concerns itself with Alex Shepherd and his desperate search for his younger brother Josh. On the surface this may seem like a repeat of the Cheryl/Harry dynamic but as we've grown to expect the story takes a turn for the weird later on. In many ways the revelations are more akin to SH 2 than SH 1. While The Order is present the big chunk of the story centers around Alex's troubled home-life and the mystery of what is going on with his younger sibling. It is hinted Alex was the "black sheep" of Shepherd's Glen and both of his parents always put Josh first. There is a disturbing and sickening reason behind all that but I'm not going to spoil it for you here.

The supporting cast are all original characters. (Except a cameo appearance from Travis Grady) Judge Holloway is the mother of Alex's child hood friend Elle and she's eerily calm despite everything going on. Deputy Wheeler worked with Alex's father who was the sheriff and is a bit suspicious of Alex's motifs. Alex's mother is in a dream like state and sways in her rocking chair while mumbling about being left all alone. There is also the Mayor and the repair man Curtis who are abrasive and paranoid to say the least. Of all the faces Alex encounters Elle seems the most helpful. She is putting up posters in the town about disappearances but is a little wistful Alex left Shepherd's Glen without telling her. Homecoming finally addressed adding more people to interact with and furthermore how you respond to them has a direct impact on the game. While it can be argued this has been done before in other mediums of digital entertainment it is a welcome change and very befitting of a SH experience.

From all this it's easy to debunk SH homecoming is a complete rip off of the movie. It tells its' own tale.

Complaint #2 Alex is too combat capable!

Fans have argued being a helpless average person is the big appeal of a Silent Hill game. However in truth none of the protagonists have been powerless. In each game there were weapons to find. Heather's trade marks are the uzi and katana and event scrawny James got his mits on a chainsaw. SH 4 the room introduced a way to charge attacks so they did more damage per swing and Travis could throw televisions and toasters at oncoming beasties.

Alex is not far removed from his past cohorts. He can roll or dodge out of harms way and much like Henry Townsend he has fast yet weak attacks and strong yet slow attacks. Alex can get guns but as is tradition with SH his first few tools of pain are a simple combat knife and a lead pipe. Beyond that I have not seen anything super-human about Alex. In the beginning he takes out weak enemies easily but later on as more disturbing, grotesque, and lethal monstrosities are encountered he has to struggle to gain the advantage and as has always been the case sometimes it is better to run than it is to fight.

One nice nuance is every weapon has a use to aid Alex is exploring. An axe can cut down boards, the knife can slash apart paintings or other obstructions, and the pipe can pry things open.

Homecoming suggests Alex has military training but even that aspect of his past is a little questionable. Bottom line is Alex is no Chris Redfield. Verdict? Complaint debunked.

Complaint # 3 Homecoming Americanized Silent Hill!

Considering Team Silent was motivated by Lost Highway, Jacob's ladder, and even The shining there was a western influence to the series from the very beginning. It is true there were Japanese themes that slipped in. For example Alessa's story is about reincarnation. However beyond that even the deities in silent hill have similarities to western spirituality. Valtiel is based on the angel Valet. James' wife is hauntingly similar to the virgin Mary. Alessa is metaphorical of being akin to a female Christ. The Order sect had rites which were a cross between Native American shamanism and Catholicism.

Fans have often argued SH favored symbolism over gore. But honestly SH has always been about symbolism through the use of gore. Heather rejected God by coughing up a dead bloody baby fetus. Pyramid Head raped mannequins and slaughtered Maria many times over. Walter Sullivan murdered people to enact rites to bring his mother back to him. Vincent suggested the "things" Heather was beating to death were actually people. Silent Hill was always a twisted, maddening, sick, graphic, and disgusting carnival of flesh and blood. This did not begin with Homecoming though the latest installment is guilty of continuing to flaunt unsettling imagery.

My only critique is Homecoming's blatant use of dead corpses. There are some places you find bodies where it is unnecessary and their presence does not do much to make the game scarier.

Overall despite the occasional poorly executed shock tactic Homecoming still has many layers of depth. There is less of a difference between western horror and eastern horror than the elitists care to acknowledge. Both parts of the world have their deep and profound scary movies and their shallow bloody titillation torture flicks. Occasionally a chilling endeavor will have a little of both of those aspects woven together but because no one really gets hurt I don't see what the big deal is. "Fear" is universal to us all and no place on the earth capitalizes on "doing it better" than everyone else.

End Verdict? If you think all western horror is like Saw or Hostel I strongly suggest seeing stir of echoes, Stephen King's It, 6th sense, or any David Lynch offerings. It was the meaningful western horror Team Silent was inspired by. Double Helix is an American group but they continued team silent's proud tradition. Homecoming is not all Boo scares or slasher stupidity. It's merits should be considered as much as its' fleeting flaws.

Complaint # 4: The creatures play on kinky innuendo or are plain meaningless

Pyramid Head does have a meaning in homecoming. It actually ties a bit into the "executioners of the past" story line but he is referred to as the boogie man. Certain SH buffs were angry over this description though his title as "red pyramid thing" wasn't much more eloquent. This was a fan service everyone clamored for after SH 2 but they seemed pretty damned disappointed once they finally received it. As the proverb says "careful what you wish for...you just might get it!". Frankly this version of Pyramid head is not as deeply metaphorical as the one that was James' personal tormentor. Yet if you pay attention to much of silent hill's lore that is open to interpretation there is no denying "creatures" or "men" whom looked like Pyramid Head did exist before James' variation of him came into being. Because PH was also present in the SH arcade shooter it is doubtful he was meant to be a one hit wonder.

The second huge beef of the bestiary are the nurses. Yes, they are the movie variants. However those versions were in fact inspired by SH2. End result? We get SH 2 nurses with bigger breasts. Yet for those protesting too much "sexy nurse monsters" were in SH 3 too. SH 1 featured red clad barely legal nurse intern Lisa Garland. Lest we forget The Room even had a kinky nurse costume un-lockable for Eileen. "Nurses" have constantly been a symbol of sexual tension and hidden murderous intent for the series so blaming double helix for exploiting them is ludicrous. SH 2 was entirely about James hidden naughty fantasies and denial issues. Eroticism always snuck into Silent Hill through the back door so we should come to terms with it already!

Luckily there are many "original" monsters too. The lurkers have worm like lower bodies, human torsos, and clawed fingers. Smogs writhe in agony as their organs glow menacingly while they attack by spewing toxic fog. There are also "dog beasts" referred to cryptically as "Eddie's legacy". The biggest complaint people have brought up is the monsters do not spawn from Alex's own psyche. This is an instant comparison of SH 2 but the creatures in other games were not the result of the protagonist either. In SH 1 the creatures were from Alessa's imagination instead of Harry's thoughts. In SH 3 Heather was fighting monsters who were either twisted members of the order or manifestations of her other self whom wanted to prevent the god from being reborn. In SH 4 the denizens reflected victims of the cult as well as the people murdered by Walter Sullivan. The only other game that spawned terrors from the mind of the hero was "Origins" but some of them were Alessa's too.

By comparison the creatures in Homecoming represent the twisted mythos of silent hill in general and many of them are the legacies left over by other characters in the past who found themselves trapped in the town. That's right. There is reason to the rhyme.

Why do other people see the monsters?

One complaint was because every main character in SH can see the monsters it is not as personal of a journey to the main protagonist. However I think fans have forgotten more than one individual saw the monsters in other games too. Dr. Kaufman saw the monsters in SH 1 and was even dragged off by Lisa who was becoming a type of "damned denizen" herself. In SH 2 James finds a bloodied letter on the ground of a victim's diary chronicling the sightings of monstrosities. Douglas mentions seeing creatures in SH 3 when talking to Heather. In SH4 the room Henry had to lead Eileen around by the hand and protect her from the things lurching towards them. Bottom line is it's a weak argument to claim Silent Hill can only effect one person in any given story arch. The opposite is actually proven to be the case.

The game is too hard!

There is some logic behind this argument. SH homecoming is not a forgiving survival horror game. Both the bosses and standard creatures are tough and you will die many times even on the normal setting. Every monster has patterns and weak spots but exploiting them takes practice.

Do not fret! With perseverance you will get further into the game. The good thing about this game's difficulty is it is not hard because the odds are unfair.....rather it is hard because it demands you think hard about your combat strategies. Going into a fight haphazardly swinging is not the way to survive. Every monster is strong and weak versus different weapons and their movement patterns have to be observed meticulously if you want to hit them in the proverbial soft spot or weave around their attacks.

I actually agree with other gamers on this one. Homecoming is very frustrating on certain occasions even though thankfully it is not impossible. Personally for me this challenge is what makes it a more genuine survival horror experience.

The characters don't act in accordance with what is going on

It is true some of the characters in homecoming act odd. Judge Holloway carries on normal routines as if nothing is out of place. Curtis sits in his shop idly fixing things. However as the story rolls on we learn this menagerie of "Cool façades" are gradually cracking and by the time Alex gets to the Mayor the man has completely lost it. Even in psychology studies show people occasionally handle shock and trauma by either ignoring their circumstances or continuing tasks which make them comfortable. These are all adults living in a nightmare who were forced to give up something very precious to them. Why would they want to admit their beloved town has become the maw of hell itself? I thought Deputy Wheeler and Alex's mother acted very genuine to the situation right from the start. Wheeler opts to find answers and survive while Alex's mother is so messed up she is practically comatose. Homecoming expresses everyone copes with circumstances in their own special way and that is very accurate to real life.

Do not forget what they said about SH 2 back in the day...you will be shocked !

Instead of the brain-bending adventure with scares and gore that I had so desperately hoped for, it turned out to be a sloppy, monotonous bore that nearly put me to sleep." -- ~Game Informer

"Silent Hill 2's gameplay mechanics are no different than those of any other game ever slapped with the 'survival-horror' tag. You'll whack legions of the same four or so enemy types, using the same familiar array of blunt objects, pistols, and shotguns; get Medallions A, B, and C; put them in Statue D, which opens Door E; walk through Door E; repeat until numb. You'll fight awkward camera angles as much as freaky bad things... fans of the original will be disappointed that not much is new." -- GamePro

"The action, though, is simply repetitive, as even the most common creatures must be bludgeoned repeatedly to 'kill' them (and there are a lot of creatures)." -- Next Generation

"The pacing can be a little languid at times, and the combat and movement controls could use some tweaking. Also, this game feels a little linear and lacking in extras when compared to the original." -- GameCritics

"Flawed, frustrating and contrived, but as an experience it's one of the most emotionally engaging games in existence." -- GamesRadar UK

"Silent Hill 2 doesn't break any molds or revolutionize the survival-horror genre in any particular way..." -- IGN

"Silent Hill 2 is a much prettier, somewhat smarter but less-compelling game than the original... The game's storyline makes more sense in the end of this sequel than it did in the original, but unlike in that game, it never creates the pressing need to understand it in the first place." -- GameSpot

My point? You can pick apart even a master piece if you want to be over critical but why do that when it is more fun to actually enjoy a game despite its faults?



Overall impression/ judgment: Normally I list pros and cons but I've taken up a lot of text already. The bottom line Homecoming IS Silent Hill worthy. Akira is still doing awesome music scores. The locales are still spooky and brimming with small details and obscure references to other games. The monsters are still terrifying. The story is solid. The voice acting is great. The game mechanics are improved. To put it bluntly if double helix lied and said team-silent made the game I bet more than half of the people slamming it would have sung of its' praises instead.

Overall grade: 5 out of 5 stars or a solid A

Criticisms (and they are trite): My only complaints are too many random corpses and the faces were expressive yet at the same time a bit animatronic. (Aka the eye movements and lip animations seemed stiff at times)

Granted, I haven't played through the game completely, but there are some serious weaknesses that should've been addressed. Balancing this are also some vast, vast improvements over previous incarnations.

SH 5 follows Alex Shepard, as he traverses Sheperds Hill, his hometown, and then Silent Hill, searching for his little brother, who seemed to be in trouble in a dream he had. His father has also vanished and his mother is a near catatonic wreck. The story actually bears quite a few similarities to the movie, in the way the main character keeps chasing his brother, only to lose him at the last moment. Sheperds Hill tries to appear normal, but is overrun with smoke breathing zombies and skinless hounds, not to mention the canonical roads that vanish.

The character attempts to be intelligent, planning to find his brother and get the hell out of town, rather than "figure this out," but is bogged down by the limitations of a classical adventure game. He has to break through boarded doors with a fire ax, rather than a hammer that has to be found somewhere among the 436 tool boxes scattered throughout town. The few other players in town taht retain their wits can't bring themselves to flee the godforsaken place, and I hope sincerly that its explained at least to some degree.

Significant Improvements: The combat system is a lot more fluid and beliavable. You can dodge and duck out of the way, and you now have a targeting cursor. Enemies has identifiable weakness and strength to certain weapons, and you can use the terrain to somewhat of an advantage, though most veterans still use the time honored tradition of run the heck away.

Enemies no longer respawn, or spawn far less frequently, and there are fewer corridors of death where you can get boxed in and not be able to fight your way out.

God bless them, but pick up items now glow with a glossy sheen, not a flare in the darkness, but you can now see interactive items, rather than relying on your character turning his head.

Same Ol, Same Ol: Searching for that one piece of inventory, and being unable to kick open or shoulder through a door. One of the few things Condemned nailed perfectly.

Drawbacks: Not enough scary. There are quite a few jumps, and some creepy points, but not enough punch like there was in SH 1 and 2. The writers seem to think that darker=scarier. WRONG. However, they've applied lessons learned, so I can forgive them this.

Overall: Decent though not impressive graphics, a significantly improved h2h combat system, good voice acting, attempts at intelligent main character behavior, and a above average story thats been fleshed out more make this a rent-to-own, though I would rent initially unless you're an achivement or ending hound like myself. Definitely turn the brightness all the way up though, else you'll be walking into walls and corners constantly.

I never thought I would say this, as I am a huge fan of the series. Hell, even when most people were saying that Silent Hill 4: The Room was dissapointing...I was impressed with the direction it was going. The first-person view within the apartment was perfect and the transition from that to regular third-person Silent Hill was flawless. But...I am actually pretty dissapointed with Silent Hill: Homecoming. I will tell you why.

First off...those rumors that IGN spread, they are true. They are not BS. This game is NOT scary, at all. It is in fact, more action-oriented now, as opposed to the other ones where it was more about engaging in the creepy atmosphere itself and less about dealing with the demons themselves. However, Silent Hill: Homecoming, while it does have those creepy locales and certain points where you say "What the hell was that noise?" The way you deal with the demons turns it into less of taking in the creepy atmosphere and more of dealing with an enemies highly cheap attacks. Even if you dodge at the right time, prepare to be completely frustrated when the demon you thought you would be able to take care of slices you down completely. If that was not bad enough, the game forces you to go through it all over again...if you downed the other demons before that one, and you barely made it past them, and were glad to be rid of them, well, you will have to deal with them again.

In short, the cheap combat takes away from the atmosphere altogether, which is a damn shame because when you are not dealing with these creatures, the game is at its best. Whomever the programmers were that thought the new combat scheme was a good idea, I hope he/she were removed from any future Silent Hill games. And all this "Well, the main character is a former soldier so it only makes sense that the combat has been changed" stuff just will not cut it. If you want a former soldier doing some combat like this, stick it in a Resident Evil game, it makes more sense there. The characters that have been in past Silent Hill games were more like ordinary people that did not know how to use the weapons presented to them, thus making the games a bit more nail-biting than they were already.

And yes, even with the flashlight...the game is too dark still. You will have to turn your brightness level up on your tv all the way, along with the brightness level on the game itself. Realistic flashlight you say? Yeah, that's just an excuse. I don't know who in the blue hell wants that realistic of a flashlight in a Silent Hill game anyways...because when I play Silent Hill, I don't know about you but the last thing I worry about is how realistic the flashlight is...I am more concerned about seeing my way through a corridor.

So...I guess you are wondering now, why with all these things I have said, why I have not given this game a lower rating. Well, for one thing...the graphics are not too bad, there are times in fact where they really shine. However, there are also times where it looks more like a high-end PS2 game, and there are also times where the framerate dips for no reason. This is a freekin Silent Hill game, on the 360, there is no reason at all why either of those things should exist. But like I said, the times where the graphics are really at their best, it is great to look at and yet...it's a bummer because it reminds you of how much better this game could have been if the graphics were like that all the time and the combat was less cheap.

The sound of course...as usual, is spectacular. In fact it is the best part of the game. The music and the little bumps and thumps that come out of nowhere...crying babies in a room where there is no baby to be found, glass shattering from a room a couple of rooms down, all of it complements the atmosphere. Once again..when the combat is not ruining it.

In short, this is not the game I was looking forward to a long time ago. When I saw trailers for it I was pumped and could not wait. Now I have it, been playing it, and I kind of regret it. I already know whats going to happen before the end of the game itself. That is another thing by the way. This game is completely straight forward, the story in it is not like the other ones at all. The other ones, you could gleam so many things from the stories within them because they were that twisted. You could analyze everything, from the demons, to the characters, to how the demons relate to the characters, and vice versa. This game, no. And not to sound racist or anything but this game was made by a Western developer, whereas the other ones were created by a Japanese developer. And we all know Japanese developers have a habit of creating very out-of-this-world storylines, I mean the list could go on for days. So perhaps that's the answer right there.

Anyways, if you are huge fan of the series, and want to play this game...do not let my review stop you. Like I said, it has its good moments. But all the pros and cons of this game are pretty much what all the other major game review sites have said about it. And I read those reviews before I picked this game up, but I considered the fact they might be wrong, because no way in hell could my beloved Silent Hill series be taking a bit of a nose dive, right? Wrong. Oh well, apparently the new one that came out for the Wii is pretty good...:)

I really enjoyed the first 2 Silent Hill games back in the day. This silent hill certainly has raised the graphics bar considerably, but graphics don't make a silent hill game good. This game was kind of hit and miss for me. It started off good then started to taper off. I'd read the combat was better and i suppose i agree to some extent, but overall its still frustrating. They have added a dodge feature, but the timing is really tricky and i found myself getting hit more than i dodged, which pissed me off...alot. I like my silent hill games to be stressful to some extent, but not because the combat controls stink something awful. The fog still looks fantastic, but i found myself missing the dark grey grainy look from the older games. Most of the puzzles were very simple, but i came across one in attic of your parents house that is so fracking annoying i almost quit playing right there, i had to get online to find the solution. Overall i can't really recommend it unless you are a die-hard silent hill fan.

I am a die hard fan of the silent hill series, i wish they wld come out with the first one again with better graphics, it was such an amazing game. the thing about homecoming is the plot is too straight forward, not the typical silent hill way. and why the hell does the game feel a little like Eli Roths HOSTEL and other movies like SAW. too much of an influence there, stick with the jacobs latter guys. next the combat was a clever addition to the game but it was very frustrating at first, needs to be tweaked for silent hill 6. the graphics were very well done, the fog was good as ever, next they shld re-visit the school from the original silent hill, that was one of my fav. locations and the ghost children were creepy as hell. and it was nice to see pyramid head but it was a shame that he was only a guest appearance, why not fight him or have some more interaction with him, over all for a western company to make the game it was like seeing a B rated horror movie had its moments but in the end keeps you waiting to the next great thing comes, that being Dead Space.

I love the Silent Hill games, always have and probably always will. I have enjoyed the creepy atmosphere in this current game, and am interested in finding out what ending I will get. I like how you can change the game by responding to conversations in different ways.

My complaint is that they have made the game a little too hard for the casual, impatient gamer. I hate that you can no longer save up ammo for the hard creatures - you are limited to a certain amount per gun. Yes, that makes it more realistic, but it makes it very hard as well. Without the extra ammo I find myself running out and dying far more often, which frustrates me and makes me want to stop playing. I was so frustrated the last time I played I haven't played again for almost 2 weeks, when I used to get so into the game I played every day until I finished it.

Overall, I would recommend the game, but would warn the buyer that they will need a lot of patience as they play.

The atmosphere and asthetics of Silent Hill have been preserved in Homecoming. My real problem with it is the unforgiveable combat system. It's painfully clunky and unresponsive. It can be difficult enough to unravel the mystery of what the designers intended for combat, but while you're doing that you're getting hacked to pieces. After a while you start getting the hang of it in spite of the system. God help you if you get more than one enemy on you at a time. You'll just have to hope they get in line. It seems like the combat system was centered around the ability to dodge and defend, but if you get cornered you're pretty much out of luck. I've killed about five needlers, but got chopped up by a freakin' nurse! Faithful fans of the series will probably still have a good time if you can just overlook this one glaring flaw. Fortunately the game is more exploring and puzzle-solving than it is a run and gun.

I have always loved the silent hill games and I have also played every single one of them. The last couple of games where very disappointing (the room etc..), but this game brings you back to the original feel of the first and second silent hill games. It has new enemies and all the same scary elements, even Pyramid head returns for a visit. So if you are a fan of the first couple of silent hill games you will love this one and the welcome back to originality.