Well, if by “queen” you mean “zombie nurses”, and if by “gun”, you mean Pyramidhead and
his giant sword, then yes. Silent Hill is back, and everything old and creepy is new and
creepy again. This time your protagonist is Alex Shepherd, a young solider returning from
war to the psychotic battlefield of his hometown of Shepherd’s Glen. The sleepy little town
is, of course, overrun by the Silent Hill cult and overrun with the kind of creatures that
would squick out H.P. Lovecraft.


Homecoming marks a change in guard for the series. Instead of being made in Japan,
Silent Hill: Homecoming was to be the first in the series produced by a Western developer
called The Collective. That was almost the case, except that The Collective had merged with
Backbone Entertainment in 2005 to form Foundation 9 Entertainment, and Foundation 9
then merged The Collective with Shiny Entertainment to create Double Helix Games. Silent
Hill: Homecoming is a Double Helix production.


Double Helix draws heavily on Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 for this outing. Most of your classic
terrors are there (i.e. Pyramidhead and his sexually abused nurses). In a twist that usually
doesn’t work, however, Double Helix adapted some things from the Silent Hill movie. For
example, the “tearing” sound when you slip between worlds is straight out of the film, as is
the nurses’ reaction to light.


With all of these homages, it should come as no surprise that Silent Hill:Homecoming plays
more like a Greatest Hits disc than a new game in the series. The visuals are sharp, the
voice acting is reasonable, and the controls are a big improvement from Silent Hill IV: The
Room. Silent Hill fans may find themselves playing through looking for a twist that never
comes, however. The interactions with classic series antagonists are creepy, but don’t get
under your skin the way they did the first time you saw them. And forget about save points.
The save system is a ruthless checkpoint system married to a “find the glyph” save point.
Prepare to lose time and effort here.


Silent Hill: Homecoming is a darn sight better than Silent Hill IV, and is a welcome addition
to series fans who have ben waiting to get their Hill on for so long. It’s also not a bad entry
point into the series for someone who has heard about Silent Hill, but never played. Just
don’t expect anything revolutionary.

For pictures and my final score for the game feel free to visit
PlayingWithMyWeiner.com.