Silent Hill: Homecoming (Xbox 360)

Because home is where the horror is.
9/30/2008 7:29 PM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 2

The characters still spout corny, unbelievable dialogue -- example: "It seems as if the whole town has gone mad" -- when a more believable response would be to go insane on the spot at the sight of ground-pounding, mannequin/soiled-pillows thing.

Which brings me to another gripe: Giving these creatures cutesy nicknames diminishes whatever terror value they might inherently have. Being attacked by a shambling, no-armed zombie with a glowing, pulsating chest? That's scary. But after learning that the game refers to these creatures as "Smogs," it's significantly less scary. These nicknames make these creatures quaint and relatable, when instead they should be "things" that must be dealt with.

Yet the game's biggest flaw, aside from a couple of terribly obscure puzzles, is that it's a tedious and overly familiar experience. Look at what Quantic Dream is doing with Heavy Rain, and Homecoming's traditional save points/hoard your First-Aid kits/defeat-the-boss structure seems borderline primitive. Beyond that, I trekked backward and forward through the same old hotels, through the same old sewer systems and churches, using what must be weakest flashlight in history. I spent hours walking around in the near-dark trying door after door only to be told time and again that "THIS DOOR IS JAMMED AND CANNOT BE OPENED." It's in these moments -- beyond the been-there-haunted-that feel of the game -- that I wondered what kind of masochist would bother putting himself or herself through all of this misery. Put simply, I shouldn't have to work so hard for a halfway decent creep-out.

This review was based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.