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!