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Silent Hill Homecoming
14 years ago
General
...or Silent Hill: The movie - The game as i use to call it :3
Finaly came around to play it at my friends place and, hooo boi, is it bad. True, not as bad as Silent Hill 4, which i still hold as the worst of the series (altho ya can ignore it, since it wasnt planed to be released under silent Hill name in the first place, but what the hell...), but SH Homecoming aint good either. Why? Let me start... also, there will be spoilers :3
Story
The core idea of the story sounds quite interresting, but the whole thing was just made boring as hell. I cant relate to the main character, cant relate to any other npcs and cant share their love and hatred or any other feelings they try to bring over. They are trying to make us feel sad about characters they didnt eaven took time to explain, but then again, the game is short enough to begin with. The KI of the two characters that follow ya, The Girl and The Black guy (yes, i refer to them as that, since they fulfill every known gender and racial stereotype) was actualy quite good, except the few moments where The Girl blocked me expecting the hugs. But then again, the endings are quite nice, making the Boogeyman the fav of the all 5 altho i could swear i can hear the fangirls squirt around the globe as three pyramid heads stood in a line. But i digress, the Story opens its cards quite soon and all the plottwists come out uninterresting and have that strange "Allready seen dat" sense to it.
World
Ah yes, the main reason i keep calling this Silent Hill: The movie - The Game. They actualy riped out quite a few chunks of the Movie, including the nightmare world, the Grand Hotel, the Abyss and Pyramid Head design. The broken off roads in Silent Hill one were in Place, since it gave the whole Story more Mystery, wishing you to find out what catacysm happened here. Silent Hill two went with the Roadblocks, Silent Hill 3 fucked the whole thing and 4th...lets not talk about it. But in Homecoming, the caved in Roads just give me headache - not in the Parts, where yer at Silent Hill, its a deserted Town and all, but in the Shepherds Glen...i mean, the whole road is missing and the main character never asks himself or others what happened and just makes an X on the map. Fuck that, i want an explanation!
Monsters
Ok, i have to adress the Trend of people Thinking every Monster in Silent Hill has to have meaning. This started with Silent Hill 2, where every Monster had either a Guilt or Sexual concept behind it. Silent Hill 1, xcept the kids with knives (or mumblers in Pal version), never went too far with backstory, xcept as horrified versions of Persons and Things Alessa knew. Silent Hill 3 jumped the shark and forgott the whole thing - or what the Heck does Tumor Monster represent? Does heather Smoke like a Dragon? But let me come Home (hurr hurr, Pun intended) and speak about those monsters - they are silly! I mean, theres a guy with Head where his ass has to be! A guy with his legs tied together and Fanged Vagina across his face and those fucking Nurses and Pyramid Head (or Boogeyman as they call him) - last two just Fan Service. Theres also the Cult Soldiers in Mining Uniforms (as seen in the movie) and Roaches, cleverly named Swarm, that can be found in every existing Silent Hill game. Boss Monsters (every three of em) are also as silly, altho the Puppet was quite terryfying to me, since i kinda get freaked out by Monsters with - wrong- anatomy. The the last Boss just made me go "Whaaa?", since nothing in the game leading to this point justfys this design - i guess that the whole art department stood behind the Artist and just tossed their ideas to him ("Add spider legs, thats icky" "Ooo, and four tits, thats awesum...") - the same way i imagine the "Meet the Spartans" was created.
Weapons and Combat
Where do i start...Combat in this game? It sucks. Weapons? They suck my balls too... You have yer Standard Gun, Shotgun and Rifle (Helooo Silent Hill 1 and 2) and also three Melee Weapons, Knife, Steel Pipe and Axe. Why does this make me so angry? Cuz sum Nimrod at Double Helix thought, it would be a Grrrrreat idea to limit the ammo capacity, leavin us with two spare Mags and a filled weapon. It would work, if the Melee was usefull, but eaven with the axe in his Hands, Alex cant bring down a Human Opponent with 5-6 Combos - the same ammount ya need with a Knife btw. This leads us to Combat which is, to put it nicely, a total disaster. Every monster has a HUGE ammount of health, still easely taken down by a gun, but since we dont have enough ammo all the time, ya need to bring it down with the Melee weapon...and by god, is it tedious. Adding to the frustration is the fucked up dodge button, which works when the game feels like it and is mostly useless, since monsters tend to hit ya with undodgable attacks or just pound at ya until ya cant dodge any more. Shisms and Order Soldiers with guns are these special cases - shism has this double slash attack, where ya can dodge only one and order soldiers with Rifles just kick yer teeth in with the rifle but if ya come to near and cant dodge yet, since it has sum internal cooldown or sumthing. Silent Hill series never had a great combat engine, but the Combat was just there for the lulz, since the true Horror awaited in the Story and the Surroundings - sumthing that fell flat in Homecoming. Game, eaven if you dont give me enough ammo and make combat engine annoying and broken, im still not afraid of yer Head-for-an-Ass guys in yer collorfull world with mundane story :/
Collectables, Puzzles and achievements
Ok, there are just Two Collectables in this game, Child Drawings and Photographs. Collecting all 11 Photos gives ya a an xtra Sequence after the credits have played and collecting 18 Child Drawings gives ya...nuthing. Ok, an achievement, but otherwise, the game just laughs in yer Face and shows ya the Bird before racing off on its Harley. Both arent essential to the story, dont give ya any more Puzzlepieces to the plot...they are just there, since every game has to have collectables guys. Since were talking about Puzzles, letts talk about them...or rather, lets talk about IT since there only freaking one in this whole game that comes thru as a puzzle. I talk about the Pilar in the "Other" prison, which comes with the ryhmes and making ya come up with the right symbols - just like the old silent hill puzzles. But thats the only one i remember in a good light, the rest is just - ehhhh... They are either too easy or just battshit insane. The game mostly solves them up for ya, by giving every hint it can, but there are two of em that are just...god. Theres a Puzzle thats really that - A Puzzle, slide one too. I read that most people stoped playing because of that, a sad thing that also happened to Silent Hill 1 with the Piano Puzzle. I hate Slidepuzzles, You hate Slide puzzles, the whole world hates Slidepuzzles...so double Helix added it, good work there guys. The other one is the last Puzzle which, to be honest, i still dont know how it works, i managed it by randomly spining the plates until the game told me its allright - no hints, no story, just spin the plates, it will work eventualy. But yeah, why would i speak of achievements? Well, if ya want quick 1000 GS, get this game - they give ya an achievement for killing a monster (yes, one monster of every kind) and getting a weapon. There are no inspiring achievements that make ya test new ideas (like, avoiding monsters or , i dont know, beating the game in certain time) - just mundane beat the level, collect the drawings, beat the game on hard yadde yadde yadde...If ya save at the right point ya can just play on from there and get all of the ending achievements and just beat the game on hard mode with the overpowered Alien Blaster - all three events that influence the ending are in the last part of the game, so i only had to play thru it twice...
My thoughts
Well, serves me right for wanting to play every silent Hill game - Silent Hill: The Movie - The game isnt worth its price...i payed 20 Bucks for it and in retrospective, it would've been better if i Invested that in two Blowjobs by Hookers. Its not a total dissaster as Silent Hill 4, not as useless as God of War 2 and Story aint annoying as Final Fantasy 8...its just a forgetable game that is doomed to be downloaded over torrents and laughed at. I had sum fun, lots of frustration, and playing Silent Hill 2 on the same day didnt helped the whole game either. I still give it a solid 5 and can only recomend it to GS hunters, since i cant remember playing a game that gave me the useless Points that fast. Avoid and Forget...
#
Alex Shepherd looks like a Douche, The Girl like a fish and his brother draws like a 4 year old :V
Finaly came around to play it at my friends place and, hooo boi, is it bad. True, not as bad as Silent Hill 4, which i still hold as the worst of the series (altho ya can ignore it, since it wasnt planed to be released under silent Hill name in the first place, but what the hell...), but SH Homecoming aint good either. Why? Let me start... also, there will be spoilers :3
Story
The core idea of the story sounds quite interresting, but the whole thing was just made boring as hell. I cant relate to the main character, cant relate to any other npcs and cant share their love and hatred or any other feelings they try to bring over. They are trying to make us feel sad about characters they didnt eaven took time to explain, but then again, the game is short enough to begin with. The KI of the two characters that follow ya, The Girl and The Black guy (yes, i refer to them as that, since they fulfill every known gender and racial stereotype) was actualy quite good, except the few moments where The Girl blocked me expecting the hugs. But then again, the endings are quite nice, making the Boogeyman the fav of the all 5 altho i could swear i can hear the fangirls squirt around the globe as three pyramid heads stood in a line. But i digress, the Story opens its cards quite soon and all the plottwists come out uninterresting and have that strange "Allready seen dat" sense to it.
World
Ah yes, the main reason i keep calling this Silent Hill: The movie - The Game. They actualy riped out quite a few chunks of the Movie, including the nightmare world, the Grand Hotel, the Abyss and Pyramid Head design. The broken off roads in Silent Hill one were in Place, since it gave the whole Story more Mystery, wishing you to find out what catacysm happened here. Silent Hill two went with the Roadblocks, Silent Hill 3 fucked the whole thing and 4th...lets not talk about it. But in Homecoming, the caved in Roads just give me headache - not in the Parts, where yer at Silent Hill, its a deserted Town and all, but in the Shepherds Glen...i mean, the whole road is missing and the main character never asks himself or others what happened and just makes an X on the map. Fuck that, i want an explanation!
Monsters
Ok, i have to adress the Trend of people Thinking every Monster in Silent Hill has to have meaning. This started with Silent Hill 2, where every Monster had either a Guilt or Sexual concept behind it. Silent Hill 1, xcept the kids with knives (or mumblers in Pal version), never went too far with backstory, xcept as horrified versions of Persons and Things Alessa knew. Silent Hill 3 jumped the shark and forgott the whole thing - or what the Heck does Tumor Monster represent? Does heather Smoke like a Dragon? But let me come Home (hurr hurr, Pun intended) and speak about those monsters - they are silly! I mean, theres a guy with Head where his ass has to be! A guy with his legs tied together and Fanged Vagina across his face and those fucking Nurses and Pyramid Head (or Boogeyman as they call him) - last two just Fan Service. Theres also the Cult Soldiers in Mining Uniforms (as seen in the movie) and Roaches, cleverly named Swarm, that can be found in every existing Silent Hill game. Boss Monsters (every three of em) are also as silly, altho the Puppet was quite terryfying to me, since i kinda get freaked out by Monsters with - wrong- anatomy. The the last Boss just made me go "Whaaa?", since nothing in the game leading to this point justfys this design - i guess that the whole art department stood behind the Artist and just tossed their ideas to him ("Add spider legs, thats icky" "Ooo, and four tits, thats awesum...") - the same way i imagine the "Meet the Spartans" was created.
Weapons and Combat
Where do i start...Combat in this game? It sucks. Weapons? They suck my balls too... You have yer Standard Gun, Shotgun and Rifle (Helooo Silent Hill 1 and 2) and also three Melee Weapons, Knife, Steel Pipe and Axe. Why does this make me so angry? Cuz sum Nimrod at Double Helix thought, it would be a Grrrrreat idea to limit the ammo capacity, leavin us with two spare Mags and a filled weapon. It would work, if the Melee was usefull, but eaven with the axe in his Hands, Alex cant bring down a Human Opponent with 5-6 Combos - the same ammount ya need with a Knife btw. This leads us to Combat which is, to put it nicely, a total disaster. Every monster has a HUGE ammount of health, still easely taken down by a gun, but since we dont have enough ammo all the time, ya need to bring it down with the Melee weapon...and by god, is it tedious. Adding to the frustration is the fucked up dodge button, which works when the game feels like it and is mostly useless, since monsters tend to hit ya with undodgable attacks or just pound at ya until ya cant dodge any more. Shisms and Order Soldiers with guns are these special cases - shism has this double slash attack, where ya can dodge only one and order soldiers with Rifles just kick yer teeth in with the rifle but if ya come to near and cant dodge yet, since it has sum internal cooldown or sumthing. Silent Hill series never had a great combat engine, but the Combat was just there for the lulz, since the true Horror awaited in the Story and the Surroundings - sumthing that fell flat in Homecoming. Game, eaven if you dont give me enough ammo and make combat engine annoying and broken, im still not afraid of yer Head-for-an-Ass guys in yer collorfull world with mundane story :/
Collectables, Puzzles and achievements
Ok, there are just Two Collectables in this game, Child Drawings and Photographs. Collecting all 11 Photos gives ya a an xtra Sequence after the credits have played and collecting 18 Child Drawings gives ya...nuthing. Ok, an achievement, but otherwise, the game just laughs in yer Face and shows ya the Bird before racing off on its Harley. Both arent essential to the story, dont give ya any more Puzzlepieces to the plot...they are just there, since every game has to have collectables guys. Since were talking about Puzzles, letts talk about them...or rather, lets talk about IT since there only freaking one in this whole game that comes thru as a puzzle. I talk about the Pilar in the "Other" prison, which comes with the ryhmes and making ya come up with the right symbols - just like the old silent hill puzzles. But thats the only one i remember in a good light, the rest is just - ehhhh... They are either too easy or just battshit insane. The game mostly solves them up for ya, by giving every hint it can, but there are two of em that are just...god. Theres a Puzzle thats really that - A Puzzle, slide one too. I read that most people stoped playing because of that, a sad thing that also happened to Silent Hill 1 with the Piano Puzzle. I hate Slidepuzzles, You hate Slide puzzles, the whole world hates Slidepuzzles...so double Helix added it, good work there guys. The other one is the last Puzzle which, to be honest, i still dont know how it works, i managed it by randomly spining the plates until the game told me its allright - no hints, no story, just spin the plates, it will work eventualy. But yeah, why would i speak of achievements? Well, if ya want quick 1000 GS, get this game - they give ya an achievement for killing a monster (yes, one monster of every kind) and getting a weapon. There are no inspiring achievements that make ya test new ideas (like, avoiding monsters or , i dont know, beating the game in certain time) - just mundane beat the level, collect the drawings, beat the game on hard yadde yadde yadde...If ya save at the right point ya can just play on from there and get all of the ending achievements and just beat the game on hard mode with the overpowered Alien Blaster - all three events that influence the ending are in the last part of the game, so i only had to play thru it twice...
My thoughts
Well, serves me right for wanting to play every silent Hill game - Silent Hill: The Movie - The game isnt worth its price...i payed 20 Bucks for it and in retrospective, it would've been better if i Invested that in two Blowjobs by Hookers. Its not a total dissaster as Silent Hill 4, not as useless as God of War 2 and Story aint annoying as Final Fantasy 8...its just a forgetable game that is doomed to be downloaded over torrents and laughed at. I had sum fun, lots of frustration, and playing Silent Hill 2 on the same day didnt helped the whole game either. I still give it a solid 5 and can only recomend it to GS hunters, since i cant remember playing a game that gave me the useless Points that fast. Avoid and Forget...
#
Alex Shepherd looks like a Douche, The Girl like a fish and his brother draws like a 4 year old :V
I agree that Silent Hill Homecoming is total shit.
I disagree that it is in any way better then SH4. SH4 is the total B-rated horror movie of the series of Silent Hill, but it isn't the total Americanized piece of steaming shit that Homecoming is :D
Homecoming took all that was Silent Hill and was like "Wait... let's scrap it. Just make a sequel to the movie. OH AND MAKE IT AN OVER THE SHOULDER SHOOTER! Those are scary, right?"
From what I remember, Silent Hill is supposed to have easy enough combat, and HARD AS HELL puzzles. I don't even remember a RIDDLE from Homecoming.
And to save you further heartache, forgo the remake of Silent Hill 1(Shattered Memories aka My Shattered Dreams*lol*) Shit is boring, more predictable than Homecoming, and without even slightly disturbing monsters. And the fact that you just run and can't fight back becomes more an annoying chore than a scary situation.
There's atleast one very good thing about Silent Hill: Homecoming and that's the music.
Akira Yamaoka.~
His music throughout the series is just awesome. Sad he left Konami. :c
Silent Hill 3 was just amazing, but the monsters do have a meaning, I'm sure Vincent gives you a hint on that near the end of the game. I find Silent Hill 4 a diamond in the rough, it was originally meant to be a stand alone title and got hijacked, I'm still amazed how the graphics in that game look better then some graphics in Homecoming.
Now homecoming isn't a bad game, it's just hits to many notes we have seen before, taking elements from various games and trying to blend them together, It fails at some points and succeeds in other, I love the fact the you can use your weapons to pry open locks, I hate having to smash my mouse button over and over again to make it happen.
Although the story is a bit cliché there were at times when I gave a genuine "Oh shit!" when I didn't see something coming, the voice acting is also highly improved over the over acting and under acting of previous titles, it was enough to keep me interested while I had the game. The combat needed a little more tweaking, it would be frustrating facing a common enemy only to die due to unresponsive controls, but as far as silent hill games go, that isn't all that uncommon.
I played Shattered Memories on the PS2 and I have to say, it's good. I never found the whole running away from monsters thing a bad thing, it made sense to me, they are fucking monsters, and I have a fairly good sense of direction so those parts never really bothered me. I love that you have branching pathways to the same goal, I love the sense of exploration, the story is fairly solid with a good voice cast, I think it worked, but I hear the wii version isn't as good as the ps2 version.
As for shattered memories, its a fun game with a great idea behind it and at least TRYING to be psycho horror - altho it falls flat cuz of its boredroom. Again, interresting story and reimagening that just didnt work cuz of few points that were done clumsy.
No matter what people say, i will allways loathe Silent Hill 4. The fact yer replaying first 4 levels with an added escort mission, uninterresting story and totaly unlikable characters made me never finish this game on my own, until i saw a lets play and guessed it was a good decission. It just prooved that the series ran out of ideas and made just one statement - that the series is dead.
Speaking as a fan, i really think that the plot of shattered memories IS the way how the series should go on. I liked the new way they handled the story, the interresting twist, eaven tho it was littered with probs i stated above. But i can imagine enjoying further titles with this idea, as long as they decide to explore the plot sum moar :3
One main reason for the change in Homecoming is the Developer: Double Helix Games. In everything until then it was Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. It's for that reason I don't have too much complaints with Homecoming. It's hard to live up to the standards of what has such high expectations. People are BOUND to be disappointed or upset. They might've done better just naming it Homecoming and not having Silent Hill in the name at all. Come up with their own stuff and everything. It's like if some random developer/director tried to make a Metal Gear Solid game that WASN'T Hideo Kojima, like with Portable Ops. yes there were people who hated it even if it was just a psp game, but there were also people that liked or even loved it.
I guess when it comes down to making video games in general, you gotta make something for yourself, otherwise it's like workin' at a job you hate.