Silent Hill: Homecoming

[mr_woo]

Is it Silent Hill 2 scary? I don't get scared by games or films. I'm too desensitised to that kind of thing, i appreciate these games for their atmosphere and art direction.

In Silent Hill 2 when you were in that Prison. You could feel the atmosphere pressed on you. The thing is imagine what its like if your a person who gets scared easily.I can't imagine what its like for them in that situation. I feel like i'm missing out most of the time. But i do feel the sense of pressure.

I wouldn't say there's been anything that oppressive yet though I did think the start was ace and was VERY creepy and atmospheric, this is really down to the surround sound which had noises, grunts, screams etc coming through it creeping me out. But I know what you mean, a real sense of certain foreboding dread etc which I wouldn't say I've felt too much yet. I have read there's apparently a few parts later on which really are like that but of course I didn't read what they were exactly so looking forward to finding out if they do effect me like that or not. I'm a bit like you, too desensitised to a lot of that stuff these days

[johnno15]

Ah ok, thing is the TV im on is a 10 year old TV so I don't think it has seperate RGB sockets, I'll see what this converter can do, hopefully it should be all ok.

Mate cancel you order for that converter asap they are ****e they dont work well at all. Your best bet would be and rgb cable cheap as chips

[ezee ryder]

I wouldn't say there's been anything that oppressive yet though I did think the start was ace and was VERY creepy and atmospheric, this is really down to the surround sound which had noises, grunts, screams etc coming through it creeping me out.

100% correct!

I just started the game and am just walking around the

->Open Spoiler<-

hospital

, it is bloody creepy. The sound of the

->Open Spoiler<-

baby crying

had me totally creeped out! Then when the

->Open Spoiler<-

corpse dropped from the ceiling

, I jumped big time!

It definitely has the feel of a Silent Hill game so far, so for anyone fearing that it might have moved along from the standard Silent Hill way.....you have no need to worry.

Graphically it is nothing special, decent character models and environments but nothing that stands out as "wow". Everything has that Silent Hill feel about it though which is great.

Only thing I am contemplating now is, do I continue playing this at 3:08am in the dark?!

[Family Fry]

Oh hell yeah go for it it, only gets better.
Always play after midnight lights out sound up (or headphones) HAS to be done, puts you to the test. In saying that though one night I did play Condemned late and had to goto my local spar about 10pm, this was in a village with no lights at all. Taking my torch was actually a BAD idea, felt like I was still playing the game and at any moment a crazy junkie was gonna try and headbutt my face off

[ezee ryder]

I always get creeped out by these horror games yet I keep coming back to them, don't ask me why! I think actually stopped playing Condemned after a certain point as it was too much for me! I keep telling myself that I will finish it one day (or night)

Just finished the first chapter of this an I think that will do me for now as I don't want to have nightmares!

Positive impressions so far from me, atmosphere, tension and asthetic are all spot on so far. Seems like the main character is more adept at combat than previous protaganists from the Silent Hill games but that doesn't really seem to effect the general tone of the game at all.....it is still scary (well for me anyway, yup I'm a big wuss!). Bottom line is if you liked the previous games in the series then you will lap this one up.

[PrayforMojo]

Oh, please stop with all the positive reviews because me wantz this so badly and me is skinty poos.

[SuperBeatBoy]

The graphics are preety piss poor in places, the cemetry being a major highlight and why does everyone have fisherprice hair? How Konami allow this is beyond me as there are some ps2 like character interaction animations in this. The sort of thing they would do on a ps2 game, like ffx for example where they would use a low poly model to deliver some minor dialogue. The thing is it looks worse than anything you would see in Silent hill 2 and 3, its definetly something that shouldn't be seen in a next gen game. Let alone a Silent Hill 1.

Faults aside, it still has the Silent Hill feel and i'm enjoying the story of what i played so far. It definetly follows the movie more than the acual games, which isn't a bad thing. Monsters reacting to light and sound etc.

[Johnny]

First thing I noticed when I booted Silent Hill into my JPN PS3 it didnt map X and O properly, getting me into an almighty mess when I started the game. Infact the game would'nt let me go back from examining a panel. So I had to quit. You can map the X and O buttons manually when using a JPN PS3 in the options menu and this will need to be done before you start the game proper.

I'm playing a US copy on a JPN PS3 and had this exact problem at the same place you mentioned. Just out of interest, what did you reconfigure the button layout to be? I'm finding that when certain enemies attack me and it flashes up O on screen to mash, I need to press X which is annoying as it doesn't seem to change to correspond to my custom button layout

Aside from that though this game is fantastic! All the "developed by an American team oh noes!" rubbish before release just doesn't come into play as for me, this retains the same terror as the previous games, especially another great soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka!

This is strictly a 'play at night with the sound up and lights off' game for me so making slow but enjoyable progress

[Johnny]

In Silent Hill 2 when you were in that Prison. You could feel the atmosphere pressed on you. The thing is imagine what its like if your a person who gets scared easily.I can't imagine what its like for them in that situation. I feel like i'm missing out most of the time. But i do feel the sense of pressure.

I know exactly what you mean and yes, in my opinion, having played 1-4 and Origins, there is the same opressive feeling here, mainly down to the soundtrack which doesn't let you relax at all!

[SuperBeatBoy]

The audio is absolutly fantastic in it. Which i forgot to mention in my previous post, i'm listening to it through my Dolby Digital 5.1 Headphones. So its that much closer, hearing the scrapes, the growls and whatnot coming from all different kinds of directions.

[Shozuki]

I'm playing a US copy on a JPN PS3 and had this exact problem at the same place you mentioned. Just out of interest, what did you reconfigure the button layout to be? I'm finding that when certain enemies attack me and it flashes up O on screen to mash, I need to press X which is annoying as it doesn't seem to change to correspond to my custom button layout

Aside from that though this game is fantastic! All the "developed by an American team oh noes!" rubbish before release just doesn't come into play as for me, this retains the same terror as the previous games, especially another great soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka!

This is strictly a 'play at night with the sound up and lights off' game for me so making slow but enjoyable progress

Initially I set the game to default settings which solved the problem, until I hit another loading screen, at which point I went back into options and set to default again. after the first 10 or so times I got a bit fed up. In the end I remapped O to be fast attack/interact and X to dodge.

That works a treat, dont have to keep fraffing about changing to default after every load screen!

[mr_woo]

Finished this tonight and overall I had a great time with it. I wouldn't say it was as good as the first 2 (simply because of the effect they both had on me at the time) but it's easily on par with 3 if not better.

My favourite section of all being

->Open Spoiler<-

Hells Descent where you are going down to obviously something very nasty

Just the way it leads up with the atmosphere and the music is great. I wouldn't say the game scared me that much but then the first two games didn't scare me either so I don't know how it will effect yourselves.

The sound though, ooooh my the sound. The sound is VERY aggressive at times, you really can hear the creaks/squeals/shouts

Puzzles are of course the standard Silent Hill fare, 'oh look i need to find 4 plates for the 4 spaces to open a door' etc but it's exactly what a Silent Hill fan would expect.

Combat was more fun though at times I just ran past beasties to conserve ammo and save it. I really didn't feel like you got ammo here and there anytime you wanted. I had to purposefully save up ammo for the bigger encounters. The combat is all about timing basically, in the dodging and striking.

I thought it was pretty cool that they referenced/used the movie too with

->Open Spoiler<-

mentioning about the police officer going missing and having the order/church in it

Then again I really like the movie (****e script but still love it) so that was pure fansservice to me.

Overall if you're a silent hill fan you definitely should give it a go to at least see what you think. I certainly don't think it turned out as bad as it looked like it might. I wouldn't even mind if they gave Double Helix another shot at the next game.

As for the endings

->Open Spoiler<-

I got the good ending of Alex escaping with Elle but I'm actually quite certain that the Bad ending is the one that's the games real ending, just things throughout the game point to the bad ending more

[RobDimmock]

So I got this converter, and it's a pile of ****!! Seriously, it does color but it gives the TV a blue screen with the other colors on top, it looks like to me its replaced the black with blue. Any ideas on how I can get this to work?

[Matt]

So I got this converter, and it's a pile of ****!! Seriously, it does color but it gives the TV a blue screen with the other colors on top, it looks like to me its replaced the black with blue. Any ideas on how I can get this to work?

Get a new TV mate! Seriously. Not much help I know, but you'll end up spending a tidy sum of money getting a decent NTSC->PAL converter, you may as well but a cheapy PC LCD and connect through VGA or something. Have you seen the prices of small LCD TVs these days? You know you want to

[Myth]

Buy a cheap rgb CRT TV? It's criminal running any console let alone a PS3 through composite.

If that's not an option send the game my way Rob