After sitting through from start to finish the entire game of Silent Hill 2 I have had a real repect for the Silent Hill Series. I was familiar with the genre of Survival Horror just never witnessed a master piece that Silent Hill 2 is. (Grant it Fatal Frame is a very close contender) Well I skipped the PSP version after seeing it played. When I heard about Silent Hill Homecoming I became very excited. I saw the graphical limitations the game faced and felt with the Next Gen Consoles it could do no wrong.

Let’s start with the gameplay. Much like most survival horrors it takes place in a third person view. Which I found works quite well for the series. Yet the combat system was changed. I was kind of intrigued by it but felt it took away from the Survival Part considering how easy it was to waste most creatures. Essentially during combat you can use the B button to dodge if you add the thumbstick in there then you have directions where you can dodge. You have a light and a hard attack if you do a combo and end with a hard attack it stuns your opponent. It sounds good but it just makes the game a little easy. Most of the monsters can be taken out with the knife. There were sometimes where the dodge didn’t work out to well but largely it felt like you had most of the advantage. Now the second thing about this series that seemed to kinda fall by the side was the story. Silent Hill 2 kept you pretty involved with the story. This game doesn’t really give you a story but more like mission objectives. Which then took away from the whole exploration. I always felt Silent Hill was a personal journey into the psychosis of the character and solving the mystery of what’s going on. In Homecoming it feels more like going from Point A to B and finding the boss Key to get through a Big Door. Later on in the game there are some puzzles that relate to the story but they largely felt out of place.

The graphics are where this game really shines. The creatures looked disgusting and the backgrounds just had such great atmosphere to them. One of the things with the environment is it always seemed to have something new to look at. It wasn’t just creepy buildings there was enough deversaty that it never felt repetitive. The transitions to Silent Hill were largely based on the movie but it still looked great. The Creatures all looked pretty fantastic. They all had great effects to them and they all seemed to fit with the environment really well. The bosses stand out the most with this graphical update. The Final boss really stood out. I don’t want to spoil the fun of seeing it but jeebus it was creepy! The only downside in the graphic department was the lip moving. It didn’t really seem to sync to well with the dialogue. Often times the character wouldn’t really open their mouths while talking. It was a bit odd but the details on the character models made up for it.

The sound was also an area where this game really shows it’s power. The original composer of the series is back and the music was great. It set a very strange tone to the game which really added to atmosphere. The Creatures sounds were solid and just nasty sounding at times. They used the Surround Sound element really well to really make you feel like your in the game. From just all the little noises from the levels. To the big Air Raid Siren. It really pulled you in. At Times the dialogue was a bit off however nothing terribly bad.

Overall the game is pretty good. It has some downsides to the game but overall it was done pretty well. It’s no Silent Hill 2 but I don’t think that game will ever be topped in the Silent Hill Series. If your looking for a little Survival Horror this might be a game you want to check out.