I’m Looking For My Brother? About This Tall, Brown Hair…
Not unlike last year’s Silent Hill: Origins, the announcement and release of Silent Hill: Homecoming (hereby referred to as SH5 because I’m lazy) has been shrouded in a lot of dread. Not the good kind of dread you got from playing the original game, but the bad kind of dread you get from being very afraid that something you love is going to get reamed.
The news releases all seemed to indicate that it would fix some of the problems fans had with previous entries in the series (clumsy controls, no UFO endings) and still retain what made Silent Hill its own niche (bad voice acting, players pissing themselves.) Regardless, lots of people still complained that they were making it too similar to the movie, or to Silent Hill 2, or that because Silent Hill: Origins wasn’t an A+ game no American developer could do Silent Hill right.
So after a year and some odd of speculation, reviews have been trickling in, and they’re mostly average to positive. But forget that! I’m the one writing this, so this is all about my impressions.
Right from its start, SH5 takes a note from the original game and decides that it’s still cool to rip from Jacob’s Ladder; the game opens with Alex Shepherd, our Nicholas Cage-lookalike protagonist, being rolled into a hospital. Upon seeing subtitles like “(NOISE) air raid sirens” and “(NOISE) screaming” at the bottom of his screen, Alex realizes all is not well and he’s forced to mash X (or I suppose A, if you’re playing the Xbox 360 version) to escape from his leather-bound doom. (Interesting sidenote: if you enable subtitles in SH5, any sounds important to the story will be subtitled. This is fantastic for the hard of hearing and more game developers need to do it, but it doesn’t matter because in all other game dialogue they have no written indicators to tell the player who is speaking.) Once you’re free from your gurney you’re allowed to fumble about with the controls and bump into objects all you want, because nobody is going to come back for you.
Coincidentally, Wicker Man starring Nicholas Cage is also about a man who goes to a remote town with pagan roots in order to find a young girl, destined to be burned alive. Unsurprisingly, the movie is awful.
Since your objective is clearly at this point “GET OUT” you might find yourself wanting to rotate the left analog stick in order to guide Alex from his deathbed to the lobby. But slow down, partner, it doesn’t work that way anymore! Nope, in an effort to combat the eight-directional plague of Silent Hill past, Double Helix decided that a 3D camera system and FPS-style controls were the way to go. If you rotate the left analog, it will make Alex strafe; to actually turn him requires you to rotate the camera via the right analog stick. As well, the inventory is now mapped to two shoulder buttons instead of being in a menu, and there are three different buttons that allow you to attack (plus one to dodge) once you’re in combat stance. I found myself struggling with the new control scheme at first, but if you’re not ham handed like me (or have plenty of practice with console FPSs) you shouldn’t have a problem. Eventually I got used to the new control scheme, and while it does run smoothly once you have the hang of it, I still wish the developers had included an option to use 2D controls.
Beyond the remapping of the controller and the changes to the camera/control scheme, SH5 also loves making you mash buttons to pry open doors, or shake enemies off. While this sounds like a pain in the ass, it doesn’t come up frequently enough to feel like a gimmick. Combat, besides the introduction of dodging and different levels of melee attacks, has also been changed drastically. Unlike in other Silent Hill games, where they swore up and down that having your flashlight off would attract less enemies, SH5 actually sticks to it. Like the 2006 movie, nurses will only move if there is a light source nearby. Objects can be knocked over if you run into them, which will create noise and supposedly attract enemies to you, though I’ve never tested this. Because of the varying levels of attacks (and thankfully, the reintroduction of non-breakable weapons), different weapons and attack patterns will work better on different enemies. On the whole, combat and exploration feel a little more involved than they previously did.
The story I’ve seen so far, while minimal, has been reasonably interesting. Once you get home following your nightmare tutorial, some backstory is revealed through flashbacks and other small findings around the house. While Silent Hill has always been a series and a place where things are just plain wrong, SH5 gives off the feel that something you haven’t learned about yet is very, very wrong. Double Helix’s choice of imagery helps the story along as well; if they’re not intending for symbolism then I am a big snob. Although SH5’s visual direction isn’t very original, it’s still as creepy as ever, especially with the addition of real-time transitions to the otherworld. And if you find the art direction to be too cliche to be scary, hey, at least the nurses might give you a boner. On the other side of the artistic spectrum there’s the work of long-time series composer Akira Yamaoka, which from what I’ve listened to is potentially some of the best work of the series.
Other than the slight learning curve at the beginning for me, the game does have a few other problems. Your option for difficulty level is now a choice between “normal” and “hard”, and considering some of the complaints about having to chug back healing items at times, it would’ve been nice to see an easier mode for pussies like me. Difficulty level for puzzles is still absent and the puzzles I’ve seen so far been very easy. The infrequency of save points is another thing: while there are three save points in the starting area, once I left I went 30 minutes without finding another. Considering I may be finding myself on death’s door at any time, I’d like to have the option to save in case I die or I want to go hide under the covers.
Beyond those things, however, Double Helix seems to have done an alright job at providing an decent entry to the series. If you’re willing to grapple with new controls it’s at least worth a shot. Maybe by the time I’m done it won’t be anything new or particularly exciting, but it’s still an interesting experience.
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“…seems to have done an alright job at providing an decent entry to the series”? Now that’s an endorsement! But seriously, me spending $60 on this game, yay or nay.
Unless you’re rolling in cash or are as nutty about Silent Hill as I am, nay. It’s fun but I don’t know if it’s really $60 fun.
Also, “decent entry” == it’s not The Room. Although it might turn out as bad, who knows.
60 bucks? There is only one survival horror game that I will blindly throw that kind of money at- - Resident Evil 5. I’ll probably look into SH5 when the price drops, but with RE5 coming out in March, I think I am going to hold onto that reasonable wad of cash.