Far from being instant classic but still pretty satisfying.
Years in the making and another several months for PAL regions availability, the fifth game in the main series of Silent Hill is finally out on the 360. There were many concerns about this one being developed by not only some other studio than Team Silent but also a western developer. Fortunately it turns out that this American take on Japanese take on American horror is better than expected.
Game is heavily inspired by the 2006 movie adaptation of the series so it's a bit like game to movie and back again to game but for the most part it's a good translation. The plot is written from ground up not really connecting to what was on the big screen except the notorious Order. Difference is that it's not really about the Order and the whole evil God thing. It's entirely Alex's story and there is no mention about Alessa whatsoever but as "Origins" are all about her I guess Konami wanted to do something more close to "Silent Hill 2".
However, "Homecoming" bears a striking resemblance to Christophe Gans' movie in its visual presentation. Not only it maintains the same feel but some things are taken right from the cinema. Just like design of iconic Pyramid Head making its second appearance in games or nurses being another hallmark of the series. This time around I really like what's behind design of this particular enemy. Apart from great animation (again moves borrowed from movie) nurses look much more feminine than any of its previous iterations. They have sexy silhouettes with boobs right in your face but "melted" faces with no expression and rotten, pale skin, dressed in decaying outfit. It's like a twisted reflection through a broken mirror of men's stereotypical fantasy. This fits well to some of the main themes of "Silent Hill" in general and makes a good contrast with the main protagonist who's finally some tough guy, but I'll write more about Alex in a moment.
Shifting into the Otherworld is also very movie-like. Thanks to the superior technology of current-gen systems it is finally presented in real-time and it looks awesome. Everything around us suddenly turns to the dark world, environments get all rusty and fleshy and corrupted, and there we are in this sort of industrial hell. There's also nice little vintage filter making things look like an old 35mm. The whole visual design from top to bottom stays faithful to very characteristic style of Silent Hill games. Here and there you can also see influences from such modern American horror flicks as "SAW" series, like at the very end of "normal" prison area where there is this kind of torture device pretty much taken from "SAW III" if I remember well. Level of violence is one more element that brings back memories from films as "Hostel" or above mentioned "SAW". It's very, very graphic to put it simple. So overall graphics are very good both technically and artistically. Sure, it could look better and have a LOT better lip sync for God's sake but still it's pretty satisfying.
I don't even have to mention about music other than that it's still master Yamaoka gracing us with another set of creepy, eerie compositions and a few superbly written songs featuring everyone's favourite Mary Elizabeth McGlynn.
On the storyline side it's not bad however, it's nothing near as good as "SH2". There are multiple endings but it's a bit different than in other games in the series. Let's stick to "SH2" comparison. Every ending showed us a different outcome to the whole situation. In "Homecoming" every ending doesn't show us what will happen next to Alex and other characters, it rather shows what the hell was that all about we've been experiencing in last five hours. It's a strange move from the writers because to some extent it changes the meaning of the whole game. On the other hand, every gamer gets a different experience depending on his choices so maybe that's the case. Writing is not bad but I doubt you'll gonna remember every line of dialogue just because it's so awesome (yeah, another "SH2" comparison).
Double Helix did their homework and they created their own combat system from scratch. Nothings really revolutionary here but it gets the job done. You could say it's the best in the series and that's something you would expect from a soldier character to have some skills. Alex is by the way a pretty likable one. I don't love him but I appreciate he has some shades of grey. He makes a good protagonist, and with nice supporting cast it's pretty solid group of characters. It doesn't matter that by the end of the game you will hate most of them, but in a good way. There are some plot twists and turns, notably in the second part of the game, and many things are not as they seem to be. The only pain is that it's not backed up with great puzzle solving. For the most part it's too obvious and simplistic. There are locked doors, go find a key and that's it. The only really great ones are finding a way out of Otherworld home halfway through the game or retrieving an item from something that looks like a fleshy column and maybe couple of others. That way the game is a bit disappointing but you can't expect "SH2" every year especially that it's not Team Silent.
But is this game full of crap? By any means it is not. It's a genuine Silent Hill which still scares pretty good despite its flaws... and the fact that it's pitch black everywhere ;) I can easily recommend it to every fan of SH or horror genre, especially that there is practically no competition now that Resident Evil turned into Gears of War in Africa.
