Silent Hill: Homecoming

[MikeF]

Thats the

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Police Station

done, although I was suprised by how short it actually was (hope it is not a sign of things to come). You were right 112 about the shotgun and those enemies, 2 blast kills them quite easily or 1 blast and then a whack with the axe finished them off

Just hope I don't run into many of the end of level nasties although I suspect that I won't be so lucky

Currently running back to the start of the

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Sewers

area so that I can reunite with

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Elle

It is good to see that ammo seems to be intensify in amounts at the moment although I suspect that it is not really a good thing if you see what I mean

[Shozuki]

Mike, you've still got some great bits to come I envy you, wish I could have the first experience all over again

[112]

Well....... had a couple of more hours bash on this last night and boy is it getting tense!

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I going back to the house now! I screamed on three seperate occaisions! This section has the be the scariest yet! I thought the descent into hell was bad!

Shozuki, without giving anything away, am i near the end now?

I have a feeling there are more scares to come.......... still having a bit of trouble with the button mapping malark, but its still not enough to deter me away.

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I was up in the attic and i have come across probably the hardest puzzle yet lol unfortunatly it was more of a jigsaw type puzzle than an propoer gaming puzzle.

Can't wait to get back to this, i was up till midnight playing this, then had to stop and play abit of Initial D otherwise i wouldnt have been able to get to sleep with all them nightmarish Clive Barker esque imagery in my mind! The game is SO unpleasant in certain places!

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Weakest section has to be the Sewer, Strongest part has to be where i am right now! Goin through the house! And i think i am going back to Silent hill soon if my thoughts are correct Boy was there a scary moment in the house in the cut scene when Alex talks with his Moms and you sea a face in the background! Brrr........ sent chills down my spine!

Its interesting how weapons upgrade in this, when you pick up a better model of a weapon, the game automatically discards the older weapon.

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after going into the underground passage in the Town Hall, i was stumped for while as i didnt knwo where to go, untill i finally found the key hole in the wall, pfft......... i hate it when i miss stuff in games and trundle around like a lemon for hours overthinking things. When the answer was staring at me all along!

Certain sections actually feels like its from Hellraiser! I luv how there are sections which provoke thoughts like something is about to happen, but nothiing really does! Its like you are scaring yourself!

Shozuki, feelin the luv here!

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[MikeF]

Finished tonights session and progressed quite far. I take back what I said about ammo now as I have 4 bullets for each weapon. Can never find it when you really need it

Well I have finished the

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Sewers, Hells Descent and the Town Hall

sections. Currently heading back towards

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Alex's House

You were right 112 about the weakest part, it was also rather dull apart from one section (I am sure you will know which one I mean)

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Hell's Descent

had me on tenterhooks the whole way due to the settings and background noises. The lack of ammo didn't really help me much either. Quite liked the Boss fight here though

I wish that the game allowed you to have more save slots though as I would like a save slot per section but it appears that I have to overwrite the older saves now as I go along.

How are you getting along 112?

[dcmk]

yeah had to it every time, works fine in my UK PS3 system mind. Still love the game got all endings now too. I really wish I could play another new SH now. C'mon team announce SH6, please?

How does it honestly compare to the 2 best ones in the series IMO 1 & 2?

Heard some real negative things about this

[112]

I think a lot of peeps were building themselves for something the game would never be able to achieve thats why teh negativity is there. Bottom line for me is, if you liked 1 and 2 then you will like this. Go get it anyways........ you wanna play it regardless of how good or bad it is cos your a SH fan, play it dude...........

As for me, ima get back to this this evening as ive been mad busy latley to put in any more time. Mike F, you are catching up to me!

Will give you a better report this weekend!

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[PrayforMojo]

Started playing this last night and so far I'm finding it a bit so-so.

I was slightly concerned about there being more emphasis on the combat this time around, but to be fair it is in keeping with the character you play, and ammo seems to be fairly low on the ground, so it hasn't bothered me a great deal. Not as much as I thought it would, anyhow.

I spent most of my time running for my life in Silent Hill 3, avoiding encounters with monsters as much as possible, but in this I've had to engage in combat on every occasion. Otherwise the feckers just won't leave you alone. Even when you're engaged in a puzzle you are vulnerable to attack. The monsters look fearsome enough but so far they've been fairly easy to take out. Maybe I should have gone with a harder difficulty than normal, because the monsters aren't really giving me the fear. They've been more of an irritant than anything.

The story seems ok, but I am getting a distinct

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Jacob's Ladder

vibe about it. Hopefully the game isn't that predictable and there will be a few surprises in store for me later in the game.

Not feeling a great deal of love for the younger brother, either. What an irritating little bastard.

[abigsmurf]

I've been playing it and the combat is a bit too focused. as PFM said, you can't run away from the majority of monsters because they'll follow you into most rooms.

The monsters require good timing and dodging. As I discovered, if you let a nurse attack you with your back to a wall, they will endlessly attack you and it's incredibly hard to get out of that situation. In fact because of those nurses (and the fact that continueing will take you back to the last load screen, which can be up to an hour of gameplay back thanks to the seemless rooms), I had to use 3 health drinks and a first aid kit. I've no got no healing items and the supply of them has dried up, you only get just enough drinks to counter damage you've received.

It does feel like a silent hill game but one of the problems with it is that there are no huge 'wtf?!?!' moments like every previous game has managed. The monster designs are good but other than that, there's not a huge amount of imagination behind it.

That said, I'm relatively enjoying it but it feels the weakest of the series so far.

[112]

Id stick with it guys, there are a number of WTF moments further in trust me!

As for the running away bit, yeah, its very hard to run away from some of them when you are out side. Infact its kinda suicide as you can never outrun em! Jus taken em out!

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[Shozuki]

Guys, its brilliant as 112 says, keep the faith!

[abigsmurf]

Finished it now. Was ok but definitely the weakest of the series. Aside from some painful looking moments I was pretty disappointed with the wtf factor. Felt more Saw than Jacobs Ladder (despite the homage at the start).

Got the bad ending which is irritating

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guessing the good endings involve the gems and shooting the mother but can't really be arsed to play through again. I'll youtube the other ending. Sucks there was no rating screen like most silent hills (that also told you which ending you got)

Making most of the enemies human towards the end was stupid, they weren't menacing and they were easy as hell to beat using combos with the knife (they dodge but you turn to face them mid combo). Human centipede boss was the only really interesting boss from a design pov. They all seemed to used almost the exact same tactics to beat

[PrayforMojo]

This has got its hooks into me now. Spent a good three or four hours on it last night when everyone had gone to bed. It is far too combat heavy for my liking, though. The game throws all manner of beasties at you too often, so the psychological aspect has been diluted. Or maybe the Silent Hill universe has just become too familiar, so it doesn't quite hold the same power over me as it once did.

I have had some really enjoyable edge of the seat moments, though. Like being pursued by a beastie while low on health and trying to reach the safety of a room, only to find that the door was locked or jammed. At times like that it's like being stuck in really dumb horror movie.

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I mean, I had to laugh when a supporting character advised that we should retreat to the sewers because, get this, it would be safer down there. Yeah, right!

Yet despite my nitpicking (and there is a lot to nitpick about; the constantly locked doors, respawning monsters, the dodgy camera, being stuck in a corridor with a nasty with no room to manoeuvre), I am enjoying it a helluva lot. Can't wait for it to get dark so I can get back to it.

[112]

It gets dark quite early these days so you should have no problem. Liking yah impressions, im sure more peeps will enjoy this more when it is released over here and when the sudden influx of decent games slows down lol........

Im yet to complete this, but i will go back to it when ive fully enjoyed dead space

There are so many refferences to the film, which is good and sad, although im not 100&#37; convinced that the use of them guys in the radioactive suits and masks was a convincing move, as it made the game appear tame in my mind. If im expecting deformed nasties in a world, why suddenly go back to cliche lookin guys?

Oh and how useless is the torch? It really doesnt help illuminate anything further than 2 yards lol.......... creepiness allround.

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[PrayforMojo]

Finished it last night, and I got the so called "good ending", but after watching the alternative endings on YouTube, they're all a little unsatisfying, I think. Relieved I never got the the

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UFO

ending, though. That really would have pissed me off.

I did enjoy the game, but I don't remember quite so much blood and gore in previous games. It's like the developers asked Eli Roth what makes a scary game, and the predictable answer was medieval torture devices and death by power drill. Sure, I had a mini heart attack when a dude in a gas mask suddenly lunged at me from the darkness, but those kind of scares are really cheap.

The game never really messed with my head in the way previous games did. For instance, the sound of a siren, or the radio suddenly crackling into life used to fill me with dread, but in this it never did. Not once. In that respect, Homecoming is a bit like watching John Carpenter's Halloween with all the boring bits cut out. Sounds great, until you realise you need those boring bits to build up the anticipation and create anxiety. I mean, in previous games you could spend ages traipsing through the fog before running into something nasty. In this, it feels like there is something lurking around every corner, just waiting to bite you on the bum. And when you are constantly on high alert, you don't have time to think, so you don't really have time to be scared.

Which brings me onto the combat. Dodge is your friend in most situations. I found if I got into a rhythm of dodge, fast attack, dodge, heavy attack, then the fights were fairly easy. I had a preference for the fire axe, but the knife worked well on minor nasties like the nurses and gas mask dudes. In fact, the knife worked too well on them. No challenge at all.

The puzzles were fairly straightforward, too. Nothing particularly taxing. Except for the

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clock

puzzle, which was a complete swine, and I had to resort to Google to find the answer. Only to find the answer

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206

didn't work for me. A glitch perhaps?

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I had to spend ages randomly turning the hands before I could move on.

Anyone else have a problem with that?

All in all, I really liked it. Wouldn't even mind if Double Helix had another stab at the franchise. Just a little more emphasis on the atmosphere, and a little less of the torture porn would be welcome next time.

[112]

Lol....... at the torture porn bit, its true it was kinda gruesome, probably wanted to follow on from hostel or saw movies. As for the puzzle regarding the

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clock, well if you remember the discussusion with teh guy in the shed who 'fixes stuff, he gives you a hint as to why all the clocks have stopped at a certain time. But the way i figured the puzzle out was by accident and the usual cliche in games, where if you see random numbers or words, then it has to be the answer to something lol, it did get me for about 5 mins till my brother walked into the room and was talking to me whilst i read the document at teh corner of teh room, and he said try room 206, so i did and hey presto! Hardest puzzle for me so far still has to be the jigsaw puzzle in the attic, as i totally fuxxored it up......... although the medal puzzle had me going for about 10 mins till i noticed the box on the table with the depressions of the medals inside it, which told me the order of the medals.

As for some of the puzzles not working, i think the game needs you toview or do certain things before you can solve a puzzle, for example if i had to enter a code for a door, id need to view a piece of paper with the code on it, otherwise it wont work. Guess its done to stop peeps from cheating on Gamefaqs and rinsing it without doing things in a logical order. Sounds stupid, but i guess it maintains the games integrity somewhat, if that makes sense.

It seems like everyone other than shozuki and myself seemed to not enjoyed it as much as previous efforts........... guess it doesnt help how there is so many other games out at the mo' more deserving of our limited time

Glad yah stuck with it mojo!

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