Silent Hill: Homecoming

[112]

I had a quick blast of this for 30 mins before bed last night lol, let me tell you i felt so not at ease when tryna get some shut eye!

I managed to get to the 'other' world and encounter a few set pieces. Oh my word you guys are right about the audio! I had it cranked up a bit and you can hear everything! From stumbling on furniture to creepy noises of stuff falling and moving in the back ground! SO creepy............

I hafta agree with everyone here that the button mapping thing did my pecks right in! At default i entered a screen where you had to input a code, about 3 minutes in and i couldn't get back out cos the back button was the same as the input button. I had to restart and watch the intro all over again! I have a feeling this button mapping thing is gonna grate.

Anyways, i remapped the buttons and it now works although not perfectly. This must be whats holding up the release in Europe, the region coders must be confused

Anyways, i now understand where Zero9X was coming from interms of textures. But its not bad enough to ruin the experience for me. Although i now see where you guys were coming from about the refferences to the film.

Im contemplating playing this with full on audio in a room by myself, but i really dont have the guts at the moment. I dunno........... but some of teh set pieces really had me going and i did an typical 'fight or flight' instinctive manouvre and the hell on out of there lol.........

One other thing which seems annoying is the opening of doors, its a nice touch to be able to barge through when yah in a rush, but more often than not you have to face the door head on, and i miss this at times (even if it tells you to press X to open the door) when I don't face it accuratley.

Loving the physical damage on the enemies, although not exactly accurate, the ability to see damage adds more realism to the combat.

I instantly recognised the sounds and themes in the game, being a long time Silent Hill fan, you get a sense of nostalgia with this game in a way, the Homecoming subtitle is quite fitting for this game.

Can't wait to go home to play more tonight!

112

[Shozuki]

take the game slowly if you can. Its not long, but bloody brilliant. Enjoy it.

[112]

take the game slowly if you can. Its not long, but bloody brilliant. Enjoy it.

Will do man............ bloody hell you got all the alternate endings? Either the game is really short like you say or you are living and breathing it all since it was released lol.........

there is something about silent hill and toilets where in EVERY game, the fear is still there!

112

[MikeF]

Re - The control issue - Is an Asian version on a UK system likley to suffer the problem too?

[112]

Re - The control issue - Is an Asian version on a UK system likley to suffer the problem too?

You will find out tommorow when the game arrives in yah lap

We can play together, as ive barley scratched the surface lol............ bounce experiences off each other and all that.......... look forward to yah impressions!

112

[MikeF]

Well got this today . Kept the controls on the deafult settings and no trouble at all with them.

Playing with headphones on for the time being but depending on how scared I get that may change

Have only played upto the save point in the graveyard but really enjoying it so far.

The hospital was well creepy though, the sound of babies crying in my ears etc etc

Can't say I have noticed the graphics too much as I am too worried about watching out for the nasties attacking me.

Will be back on this tomorrow evening to progress the story some more and probably jump a few more times

[MikeF]

Just finished tonights session. Currently up to the

->Open Spoiler<-

Hotel, after using the lift

Have to say I really like the grain effect, it really adds to the atmosphere.

Once the radio noise starts up I am on tenterhooks until I see what is coming and can prepare myself for the attack. Currently carrying around the

->Open Spoiler<-

Fire Axe

as my main nastier killer

The puzzles so far have been rather easy to solve and I haven't encountered any boss style fights yet although I suspect that I am still in the early stages of the game

Enjoying playing this so far and as a result Dead Space hasn't even been turned on :O

[MikeF]

Looks like I am discussing this with myself

Another session over and done with (can't play this in the daylight as it just wouldn't be right)

Finished the

->Open Spoiler<-

Hotel

section and looks like I spoke to soon in my earlier post as the nasties intensified in numbers and difficulty (for me anyway) but I thought that 1 type in particular felt out of place

->Open Spoiler<-

Nurse's

A new type of creature has now appeared in the

->Open Spoiler<-

Police Station

and so far I haven't managed to take one down although I didn't really try that hard as I was getting to turn it off

Playing this totally fresh to the series as I never really got on with any of the previous games but this may make me go back and play some of them

Come on 112, I want to hear where you are upto and what you think of it

[Family Fry]

I got to graveyard and stopped playing, just been caught up with other stuff, gonna give it full attention though before Fable 2 kills me next week.

Just read this though...

http://sexyvideogameland.blogspot.com/2008/09/coming-home.html

A blog from the lass who reviewd (http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117...goryid=31&cs=1) the game for Variety online, she speaks fan to fan in the blog about the issues of what people may have with the game and makes some very good points.
She pulled some choice quotes from sites about Silent Hill 2, what many people consider the best Silent Hill game.

"Silent Hill 2 doesn't break any molds or revolutionize the survival-horror genre in any particular way..." -- IGN

"Instead of the brain-bending adventure with scares and gore that I had so desperately hoped for, it turned out to be a sloppy, monotonous bore that nearly put me to sleep." -- Game Informer

[112]

Well, i had an evenings session with this on Friday and a full days bash on Saturday. Im purposely progressing very slowly through this by walking in an weapon ready pose in case of any nastys that wanna piece of me. Kinda builds up the suspense lol.

Got to say it is tiring playing this game, in a good sense of course. What i mean is im literally in an uneasy state and at the edge of my seat in fear of what is about to happen. So after about an hour or so i hafta take a quick break to get my mind around whats going on.

Anyways, ive noticed a change in difficulty, as enemies are different and take more to stop. Those new types of enemies i encountered at the Sheriffs station that MikeF mentioned in particular are a pain to get rid of with a melee weapon. Although 2 shotun shells later is a different matter.

Ive encountered a few of bosses now and i must say the last one i jus encountered was kinda tricky and i got VERY pissed off for a number of reasons but one in particular!

->Open Spoiler<-

Im talking about my descent into hell, which was terrifying i must say, but nicely done in a sort of 'Jacobs Ladder' type of affair.

1 I was running out of health and ammo.

2 Fighting with the melee weapon is hard when yah enemy moved ridiculously faster than you.

3 I had to sit through a lengthy conversation everytime i had to try again!

4 the Bloody BUTTON MAPPING again! Im sure its broken or something, cos sometimes when i assign the button to something it doesnt work! and if i assign it wrongly it messes up and i get a button assigned to both back and select, meaning a need to restart the game! Grrrr......... if this isnt the reason why the game is delayed i dunno what is! But its strange this is happening to me cos im playing on a jap machine with an Asian game, which is more or less jap anyways, as everyone in Asia uses a Jap machine id presume, with jus a change in power supply. Anyways.........

Asside from that, i am still really enjoying this, although i must say i kinda find the boss encounters after a while to be ridiculously hard as at one point. Also sometimes after a boss fight there is no save point and you are forced to trapse around fighting MORE enemies before you get to a save point! Which is highly vexxing cos i id hafta do whole sections again, which is likley as health is scarce the more you progress!

But even though its frustrating at time, i still luv the little thinngs in the game like the help sheets you see when the game is loading. Some might say it kills the mood as you are given hints on how to dispatch enemies, but its something to read in the load sections.

I like how you can have a choice in teh conversations, although i dont know if it affects the outcome at the end, as in typical Silent hill fashion, im expecting multiple endings.

Im hoping im not too close to the end. yet as im still really enjoying this game and have not felt this good about teh game since Silent hill 2, where i couldnt put the game down!

112

[Shozuki]

so pleased to hear the love. Its a brilliant, brilliant game.

[MikeF]

I haven't had any problems with the controls at all on my PAL PS3 using the Asian version. I just kept them to the defaults and they work fine for me

I haven't tried killing the enemies that I mentioned with a shotgun yet as I only have 4 shells for it atm and don't want to run out in case I need it to take down something nastier

Hopefully get chance to play again tonight when it's dark. Have to admit I jumped a few times last night

[112]

Is it me or do other peeps think the nurses look hot in a twisted way? I mean, damn have you seen the rack on them? lol......... ahem.........

i must say though that the straithing in combat mode has given the game a different perspective. An in my mind for the better!

Im gonna get some Silent hill action in tonight so will post more reactions soon.

112

[saturn-gamer]

I don't really understand why this game gets such low ratings, it might be my favourite SH in the series (well, maybe thats saved for SH2). It certainly has the best gameplay. I also like the atmosphere, its really strong.

The only problem I have with this game is that Savepoints seem to be really scarce. After an hour of playing I simply had to quit but I had absolutely no chance to save my progress. I have to restart a good chunk the next time I fire it up. The game demands you to play for long sessions.

[MikeF]

To be honest I can't say that I have had a problem with the save points myself. I play for around an hour a time and I always manage to save a couple of times each session.