So like I did last year, I decided that I would review all the games I played that release this year. But unlike last year the reviews will be posted as the games are released. Due to certain circumstance however, this first installment must cover the first three new releases I played this year. Starting with the eighth entry in the ever popular survival horror series, Silent Hill.
Silent Hill: Downpour
Silent Hill has always been a favorite series of mine. Unlike most horror games nowadays, it didn't rely on jump scares. It teased you with increasing paranoia that something will come out of the locker at you or make you feel incredibly uneasy at the sight of the most horrific, gruesome scenery. When you did encounter a monster it was always a intense moment of dread and anxiety that stayed with you far afterwords. By my definition, Silent Hill is a perfect horror game. It is one the best examples of how survival horror should work and for quite some time has heavily influenced the rest of the genre.
Silent Hill's first installment was definitely well received and Silent Hill 2 was given dozens of honors and awards. Silent Hill 3, while not as successful still managed to pull in the fans and satisfy them. Silent Hill 4: The Room on the other hand is where the wild success of the series started a downhill slide. Originally the game was suppose to be a test to see another direction the series could go. It was developed by half of Team Silent alongside Silent Hill 3 and was actually not called Silent Hill 4 at all, just Room 302 but was later changed to a Silent Hill game. The game was very poorly received and the last Silent Hill game Team Silent would be a part of.
The series still continued however on the PSP with Silent Hill: Origins which was received moderately amongst fans but it's been heavily criticized for it's inventory system and it's major contradictions to the established background of Silent Hill. A few years later would come the one of the worst Silent Hill games in my opinion. Silent Hill: Homecoming was released by Double Helix Studios in 2008 and was full of bugs, poor storytelling, and generally poor gameplay. Fans were not pleased with the new company's approach.
After the failure of Homecoming, Climax Studios took another crack at the series after the mild success of Origins and instead of making an entire new story, they decided to re-imagine the events of the first game and released Silent Hill: Shattered Memories on the Wii. The popular opinion is that this does not come close to capturing anything about Silent Hill. There's no combat with the weird ice monsters that chase you and the only thing it connects with the original is that they're in Silent Hill and the main cast of characters are present. Fans were even more upset but Shattered Memories and many still say that no one can stay true to the same game Team Silent had crafted all those years ago. Enter Silent Hill Downpour.
Vatra Games released Downpour in early March and being a huge Silent Hill fan I of course snatched it up. I had hope that this company would handle things differently than Climax or Double Helix. I had hope not another gaggle of morons had hold of a big name title.
Downpour stars convict Murphy Pendleton, serving time for a crime that is unknown to the player until later. The opening sequence has Murphy being led into the showers by a corrections officer by the name of George Sewell who has taken to calling Murphy "cupcake". Cupcake then goes inside the empty showers and is told to kill a sequestered prisoner, Patrick Napier, during his shower time. You're then given control and proceed to stab, bash, and punch the man to death. Sewell approves and you cut to what I assume is several weeks later when Murphy is set to transfer to another prison. The prison us of course comes across Silent Hill and, of course, crashes leaving Cupcake the only survivor.
Thus starts the game proper and our rugged frosted pastry tries to find a way back to the highway and eventually out of Silent Hill. But when has it ever been so simple? The town tries it's damnedest to kill Murph and generally makes his life miserable. It's primary way of doing so is monsters. Let me run down the list. Trust me, it's not long. First you the Screamers which are the most common type of enemy you'll encounter. Aside from sounding deadly. they are far from intimidating. They howl like dogs and run as you, arms swinging like a windmill after someone plays the Song Of Storms but they are from a pain. It really seems no effort was put into their design either as they just looked like drowning victims dredged back up from the waters they died in. That's not frightening or disturbing it's just...there. Next you have Weeping Bats which are tall, pale, muscular hulks that climb all over the walls. Again a very uninspired design and not very threatening. I also only remember seeing them twice in the entire game and each encounter only was about two or three of them. What's the point of having a monster introduced if you don't use it the whole game? Third in line are perhaps the most interesting enemy of the bunch, Dolls. Very bland name and an even blander appearance as a very dockside hooker looking store mannequin. But here's what's interesting about them, the don't move. Not to your eyes anyways. The standee just sits there while an invisible projection attacks and they only way to stop it is to destroy the standee. I really liked these enemies but there could've been more done to make them look better.
The last two are basically one in the same, the Prison Minion and the Prison Juggernaut. Again, big hulking meat bags with shanks as their method of attack. These things are the only monsters in the entire game I could come up with a connection to Murphy for. But only the connection of that they're an extension of his fear/anger of being in prison around dangerous people. All the others I could begin to imagine what they might represent in connection to Murph or his story. Apart from the monsters being very lame and few, the rest of the game held up well. The destructible weapon system didn't prove too much of an issue as I always had a fresh fire axe available and it's all I ever used. Guns aren't really necessary and trying to save ammo for bosses is a waste of time because there is only the end boss and you don't need to attack him by conventional means and during several point in the game, they empty your inventory and never give it back.
Side quests is the biggest addition to the series giving you some incentive for exploring different parts of the town rather than just going to point A to get the key from point B so you can go through point C to get to point D. Unfortunately I found these side quests to be a very little benefit. Most of the rewards consist of a first aid kit, ammo, a gun, and the satisfaction of an achievement or trophy. One quest had me battle legions of Screamers and Weeping Bats to return a man's heart to his corpse only to have them throw a single first aid kit at my feet as reward. Thanks, game. I can start the collection again after having to use three of them down in the hellhole you sent me down.
Here's where it will get spoilerific so skip down if you don't want SPOILERS!
WARNING SPOILERS!
THREE
TWO
ONE
You've been warned.
A few times in Cupcake's travels will he be faced with a moral dilemma. The very first being right after the bus crash where the woman guard who was on the bus, slips and dangles off of a cliff. Murph can choose to help her up or leave her to fall to her death. Another is shortly after that when an employee of the Devil's Pit tourist center is looking to jump off of the balcony. Murph can try to console him or taunt him into to doing it. Neither of these times does it really matter what you choose. Either way Anne falls and JP jumps. The difference is to establish Cupcake's moral compass for the ending. Which brings me to a very angry point I had. I always shoot for the morally correct ending, The goody two shoes ending. Unfortunately, one of the conditions that counts toward what ending you get is monster killing. Usually how many you kill or don't. In Downpour it's determined by how many incapacitated enemies you finish off while they are on the ground. Now if you are a seasoned horror gamer like myself, you aren't necessarily convinced a monster is no longer a threat just because it's writing around on the ground in pain. Being the safe man I am, I finished off every last monster I got on the the ground. That's apparently wrong in the game's eyes and they apparently wouldn't have been a threat had I just left them on the ground alive. But really, how am I suppose to know this? The game doesn't hint at it at all. Doesn't even mention incapacitation.
As for the story I thought it did well to live up to the stories of Silent Hill protagonists in the past. Our frosted friend has a dark secret that is slowly revealed over time. You find out about his past, why he was in prison, and eventually Anne extreme hatred of him. The one thing I disliked during the course of the story was the other characters. Namely JP, Howard Blackwood, Bobby Ricks, and the mystery nun and her two orphans. Most don't stick around for too long after Murph meets them. He has all of five minutes with DJ Ricks before he disappears without explanation and JP takes a swan dive after two sentences with Cupcake. Is Murph that bad a guy? The nun and her two orphans only serve as a convenient plot device to slow Murph down and are never detailed. Then there's Howard, the mailman that Murph meets on his way into Silent Hill. If I had to guess what his deal was, I'd say Howard is the physical manifestation of the town. Taunting Murph and keeping him on track. This would be a fantastic character to follow up til the end but he just vanishes a quarter way into the game and is never seen again. I know the protagonists are generally suppose to go it alone but at least give these characters some depth.
SPOILERS OVER
YOU ARE SAFE BEYOND THIS LINE
.So did it do well? Did Vatra fall short like Climax and Double Helix? Well, a little. Downpour walks a fine line. It does enough to make me believe this is a Silent Hill game and works to make me feel the same dread and paranoia Team Silent once produced but it has a lot of work to do before it makes it there completely. Namely the monsters need to be more creative than just a few generic looking demons. Horror wise, they could improve on with more sequences where I literally have to force myself to go on because I am so paranoid of what lie in that room and then when my expectations are not met and I let my guard down then twist my reality into something that'll make me shit my pants. I believe that Vatra can make a Silent Hill game that could live up to it's Team Silent predecessors but they need to really study them and try again. A solid game but just not totally good enough.
5/10
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