As an avid fan of the survival horror genre, I want to go ahead and make it known that if there are zombies in a videogame.. I've played it. If there is some evil cult taking over the minds and bodies of villagers? I played the fuck out of it. If psychopathic serial killers are running rampant through the streets, seeking out an innocent young girl named Alyssa? Yeah, been there. Done the shit out of it.
With this said, Silent Hill should not surprise me. The first one was good, the second was yawn-worthy, the third might as well have not happened and the fourth.. quite honestly, was a masterpiece. I hold the fourth installment of the Silent Hill series to be a benchmark as into where the bar is and how it needs to be raised to go further. The music, the emotion, the depth in which they brought you into Henry's life.. it was just beautiful. Scary as fuck, but still had a soul and I liked that.
I was the first person whom was hesitant to be excited over another game in the series because another game meant that it was possible to fuck it up. My beautiful memories of "The Room" would be tainted and while my friends came into the hotel room after the Konami press event.. I just stared as they told me how pretty it was. How scary it looked. I didn't want to believe it because, quite honestly, I didn't want to be let down.
Tonight, I played the first quarter of 'Silent Hill: Homecoming' and I have to say.. I was pretty fucking scared. I wouldn't even say it's a visual experience that has caught me this go around so far, but the audio. I don't know what they did differently, but the game sounds fucking TERRIFYING. There were times where even the sound of him shuffling his feet was making me shout at the screen.. "Shut the FUCK up!? Why in the hell did you wear TAP shoes to a goddamn ghost town!?". When an enemy bounces up on the screen, it's not a surprise because the aural intensity has you so ready for it that you're nearly jumping to shoot something or whack it with a pipe. I was going out of my skin from the sound alone.. and that's definitely new to me.
As far as gameplay goes, I'm noticing they didn't really reinvent the wheel with it but they did seem to borrow the "PRESS A! PRESS A! NO, THIS AIN'T NO CUTSCENE!" aspect of Resident Evil 4. At times, the hero is tapping buttons furiously to get away from enemies, to get doors open or to just thwart a general fear - I wondered about this part. The action can seem kind of clunky in some areas, but the over the shoulder gun-firing was a nice aspect that also seemed borrowed from RE:4. I could go on for days, but it appears that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.
At this point, I don't even care that Silent Hill borrowed from another fantastic achievement in gaming.. because that's what SHOULD happen. Take some good and solid hints from the good titles and give your own flavor to it, you know? I'm only a quarter of a way through it and I have a feeling Homecoming might just be worth sticking around for. However, I've been surprised before by the first half of a game, only to see it fall into shit (Rule of Rose, Siren, Condemned.) and I'll eat my words if I'm not further impressed.
Here's to hoping the sound of some disgusting vagina-toothed monster doesn't haunt my dreams tonight. Yes, vagina-toothed. Lots of vagina doors and monsters in this game, totally weird.
Night!
|
CandiceHatesYou's blog
follow this blog
subscribe via RSS
send message
invite to meetup+play
you speak of silent hills 1-4 and then homecoming
but what about origins, you didnt even mention it
what about ORIGINS!
DX
Interesting.
Silent Hill shouldn't be Resident Evil. This is not a good thing.
You sound like Sadie G.
What about the lack of invert controls?
Wow, someone actually thinks the fourth game is great? Seriously though, that game really disappointed me. The first three games were great, but then I played The Room and thought it should have stayed a stand-alone game instead of incorporating Silent Hill into it.
People keep saying that but why? Honestly, did you play through 3? Three was such a huge disappointment to me because the main character was so WEAK. Drove me nuts. Hated it.
Timmeh, Silent Hill shouldn't be Resident Evil but you have to learn when to grab onto some good features when you see them. Counter-intuition is a great idea, no matter what format.
Holy, I'm one of those sick and sadistic people that can pick up on controls easily. That didn't hinder me. Haha.
The Room was stupid because of the "portal" system. I liked the atmosphere, and it was disturbing as any other SH game, but some gameplay mechanics ruined the experience. I thought SH 3 was the most (maybe second most) disturbing title in the series, but it's certainly not my personal favorite SH game.
I loved 4, i thought it was pretty good, it was different but i still had fun playing it. 1 was my favorite and 2 and 3 i thought were some of the better ones of the series. Right now i'd say 3 was my favorite. I haven't played Homecoming yet but i will be getting it next weekend> I'm pretty excited.
That's what made 3 awesome. Who wants to be a power house? It doesn't belong in Silent Hill. Then everything is easy to kill.
In all honesty, the entire Silent Hill series just didn't do it for me. I also love horror games --- Resident Evil, Fatal Frame, and I'm more exited for Dead Space than anything else right now. But Silent Hill just didn't affect me at all. I wasn't scared even once, and no, I'm not trying to brag. It just didn't work.
Maybe I'll play this new one and see if my opinion of the series can be changed.
I just realized those people up there mentioned Origins. And I, personally, didn't feel Origins was on the same level as 1-5. To me, it felt like it was just a blending of 1-4 and the movie. Does that make sense?
Origins wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination (especially considering the tripe that normally ends up on the PSP), but I see what you mean about Origins. It feels tacked on to the Universe and doesn't feel like it has a proper place. It has a helluva soundtrack though.
Like I've said, I haven't played Homecoming but I hate the fact that it borrows some things from the movie. I thought the movie was spiffy, but the game needs to stay with its own innovations.