Among the various survival horror franchises that have surfaced in the last decade, the Silent Hill series is one of the best. The last two installments, Silent Hill 4: The Room and Silent Hill: Origins, attempted to change the franchise’s basic formula, resulting in games that had intriguing stories but sub-par gameplay. The latest in the series, Silent Hill Homecoming, has high expectations to live up to among fans who want to see the franchise return to its roots.
The good news is that Homecoming is leaps and bounds above both The Room and Origins in terms of overall gameplay; even the combat, long the Achilles heel of the series, is competent this time around. The graphics and atmosphere are beautifully creepy as well, living up to the high standards set by its predecessors.
The bad news, unfortunately, is that the story is possibly the worst in the series and the characters and enemies (with the exception of the bosses) aren’t nearly as compelling.
Trouble in Shepherd's Glen
Much of Homecoming is set in Shepherd’s Glen, a small town just across the lake from Silent Hill. The protagonist is a young soldier named Alex Shepherd who has returned from combat to find his hometown strangely altered; a heavy fog obscures the streets and the buildings seem to have been abandoned. Worse still, his little brother Josh has gone missing. His father has left to find the boy while his mother, nearly catatonic, sits in a rocking chair in the living room and stares into space.
Alex must find his missing brother and solve the mystery of what has afflicted his hometown, both of which seem connected with the strange history of Silent Hill.
Alex’s search for a missing loved one harks back to the first two SH games. It also attempts to probe the same dark psychological depths as Silent Hill 2, arguably the best game in the series, by featuring a disturbed protagonist with a mysterious past.
But where SH2 was vague and enigmatic, Homecoming has all the subtlety of a chainsaw murderer. One of the great features of this series that made it stand out above other survival horror franchises like Resident Evil and Manhunt was the slow, steady way it built the tension. Where other games rely on blood, gore and shock, Silent Hill usually lets the story, atmosphere, and underlying themes speak for themselves. This time, not so much.
Pyramid Head Returns
There are times where Homecoming’s atmosphere works; of particular note is a level called “Hell Descent” that is heavily reminiscent of the first game. The bosses are also creepy and fun to battle; unlike the other enemies, which seem like carbon copies of monsters from earlier SH games, the developers have taken care to give the bosses special significance to the story.
But mostly, in the hands of a new American developer (Double Helix Games), Homecoming tries way too hard to be scary. The best—or maybe worst—example of this is the developers’ decision to bring back Pyramid Head, the antagonist from SH2.
Although Pyramid Head is extremely popular among fans and was featured in the Silent Hill movie, he isn’t a recurring antagonist like Resident Evil’s Albert Wesker. He was created specifically for SH2 and has special relevance to that story and those characters. In Homecoming, his very brief appearances seem forced and pandering.
Really, that seems to be the overall problem with this game—it feels like it was written and designed by fans, not developers. It’s clear that Double Helix loves the series and wants to be part of it, but Homecoming plays like a hollow imitation of the first three installments, complete with the obligatory hospital level with the usual disfigured, busty nurses.
It isn’t a bad game and it’s far better than the two immediately preceding it, but it still doesn’t live up to Silent Hill standards.
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