Silent Hill: Homecoming -- Review (3 of 5 Stars)

[High Priest Mikhal]

I'll say this: for diehard Silent Hill fans like myself, the game is worth the cost. For more casual players I'd say rent the damn thing and save your money. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's a small list of the good and the bad.

Good
True Silent Hill gameplay and story
More information on Silent Hill, the Order, and their gods
Creepy atmosphere

Bad
Awkward controls
Difficult gun combat (thanks to controls)
Poor flashlight (should be much, much brighter)
So-so warning system

SH: HC is definitely an SH game. But it suffers from horribly awkward controls that make Alone In the Dark seem simple. The left stick controls the character and the right controls the camera. It would have been easier if they kept an over-the-shoulder POV a la RE4 or stayed with the old view scheme of prior titles. Unless you're ambidextrous expect frustrations. Further the combat is very, very difficult until you learn the controls and even then it's hard to use guns (melee weapons will be your best friend, since ammo is also scarce; yes, the alien blaster returns and has unlimited ammo but it's still awkward). Perhaps the worst part is the iconic flashlight--what happened? There are times it's helpful, yes, but most of the time it doesn't matter if you have it on or off. The beam is too short and too dim to be of much help throughout 85% of the game. Finally the radio suffers the same problem it did in Origins: it's hard to tell the radio from the in-game music at times.

The story itself is a masterpiece and helps explain much of the mystery never explored in previous titles. The game manual also gives us a very general area of the game's location (New England). As you play the truth of the Order begins to make horrific sense and many lingering questions from the prior games are given answers. But then it raises even more and that would entail a sequel. If not for the controls and the flashlight I would have rated this title 4.5. But as is the downsides are simply too much.

Hopefully next time they'll take the best of this game and return the simple controls of the previous four games, and clear radio and helpful flashlight of the first three, to create something truly worthy of its pedigree.