Welcome to Silent Hill. The Welcome Center is located at the next exit. Oh wait, that road just ends and casts you off into a firey pit of oblivion. NEVERMIND.
So last weekend, we here at Ms. Game and Watch had the...experience...of playing through Silent Hill: Homecoming. I'd like to just present a few (hopefully) non-spoilerish things about the game. LT is here, offering her own insights as well. Her comments are in green.
-Silent Hill has finally gotten another POC. Did it really have to take putting this game into the hands of an American developer to get a black man in Silent Hill? Guess so. You're right. For a game series that clearly takes place in somewhat-present America, colored folks were conspicuously missing in this series. However, I would posit that out of all survival horror games you can think of, how many franchises can boast multiple plots inextricably tied to themes of motherhood and feminine protective forces (i.e. the town's "God" and that whole ball of crazy).
-Without giving too much away, I'll say that the bosses were a disappointment. If you don't read up on the boss analysis online or become a meticulous clue-hunter in the game it will be really hard for you to see the connections between the bosses and the things they are supposed to represent-- and even then some things about the bosses will still just not make sense. In some cases it seemed the developers were going for "what looks cool" or "WWSD (What would Saw do?)". I agree, the bosses looked "cool" but fed into my main criticism of this game, and that is relying too much on a 'monster hunter' angle (rargh! rust, dried blood and pointy shear-things!) instead of the deliciously addictive eerieness (why is there no sound? who keeps leaving these pages from a diary? why is that doll sitting on the steps with its hands fol--) that pervades the best survival horror games and --for me-- the best horror films.
-Silent Hill: Homecoming has too many characters. I'm not saying that the cast can't expand, but the game has to expand to fit the cast. How many characters have there been in the previous installments? Usually the cast is kept small for a reason. SH:H just can't accommodate the cast that it has--about double that of the usual number in Silent Hill titles and the game is only 8-9 hours long. If you haven't played it yet, expect to be confused at some points and uninformed at most points. The supporting characters tend to be a let down. You will learn more about the supporting characters from the manual in the game case than you will from the game itself. It was kind of like a creepier version of "Our Town", except with more murder and occult activity.
-This game is not scary. At the very least it is not scary in the same way as other Silent Hill titles. At all. I actually think that it lost some of the aesthetic in the transfer to an American Developer. And again, I'd like to rehash what I said earlier about what really scares us--what can make a game 'pull it off' well: everyone's different and is scared by different things but there will always be those most primal of fears that exists in all of us. Until now, I've thought the series did a sometimes so-so and sometimes spectacular job of toeing the line-- of putting a player inside the game. That is to say, few have experienced the shame and self-hatred of spousal murder and certainly very few of us know what it's like to be the "good" half of a particularly unlucky girl with a crazy mother, drawn back to an evil place for evil purposes. I'll even argue the game doesn't want to bring you right there, at the line. The game wants to pull you in like an invisible hand but drop you at the very edge of where you as a player end and where the mindset and emotions of the protagonist begin. And there you are, with a letter from a dead (maybe she isn't?) wife in a depressing town or on the rooftop fighting something that doesn't even look human, under the control of who you think is just an evil bitch with no eyebrows, your father's corpse still bleeding on your bed, since you didn't have the time to bury him properly. I'll ask: is it really so unfair to compare Homecoming to games past? Partially yes, partially no. Silent Hill 3 shouldn't have been compared to Silent Hill 2; Silent Hill 4 shouldn't be compared to any other game since blah blah blah. It's part of a franchise, Konami signed off on it and considers it canon. Of course I'll compare it to its predecessors. On the other hand, so many things changed when developers changed that it borders on an Apples/Oranges comparison, in which case it's best to quarantine this game and rate it as its own island of a game. What to do, what to do. I'll try to do both, but when I do, I can't help but feel like A) I'm lying to myself and B) There really was something lost in the change of hands.
-The transformation effects are awesome and I'm glad that they carried over the transformation styles from the movie.
-Pyramid Head looks fantastic! However, PH wasn't utilized very well in the main game. Agreed, and this was one of the most disappointing things in the game. This is also a move that I promised myself I wouldn't compare to the "orginial" apperance, that of SH2. I had read comments on forums saying things like 'don't worry there's a reason for PH to be in this game and it fits' so I contented myself with knowing the designers and writers would not stray too far in PH's role, appearance or meaning. That being said, I wish now for a "new" Pyramid Head that isn't Pyramid Head. It's hard to wish for abstracts to materialize in games, I know but the original reaction we all had to PH in the game... that's something that can be re-created, folks! Whatever he symbolizes, whatever he did and whatever was controlling him... this can be replicated! I'm not saying it's as easy a formula as pulling one of humanity's more negative emotions and personifying it in a weird-looking mask with a humanoid appearance but that same response is something I think is an endless, blank book. Pyramid Head is the first page.
-The plot was safe. It was solid enough to make sense, but not solid enough to be satisfying to the die hard fans of Silent Hill. There isn't much there to analyze and what is there to analyze doesn't take much thought or research (and some of it will never make sense no matter how much you try). The first three games have much more interesting things going on, but SH:H will slightly satiate SH fans. It's like a SH snack. It's like a SH fruit roll-up instead of an SH submarine sandwich (with all its yummy layers, smothered in secret sauces, and pressed between two slices of pure mindfuck). This was like Silent Hill Bros. canned coffee, compared to the unique and not-for-everyone tastes of earlier Silent Hill Premium Roasted Spewing Twitching Blood in a Cup. It did the job, but wasn't as engaging and left a huge something-to-be-desired taste in the mouth. I despise number ratings, except for things like olympic events and earthquakes. Letter grades are the way to go, and I give this game a B. It didn't outright suck, but it didn't dazzle like I was hoping it would.
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Uh. That's all I have for now. I might come back with some boss analysis or some plot questions later. Chao. Goodnight my droogs. Sorry this wasn't the HORRORshow you were all after!
10.10.2008
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