Silent Hill: Homecoming

If you are a survival horror fan or just a Silent Hill fan you will enjoy this game and it would be worth the buy, but it is not a scary game, at least for me. If you are new to the Silent Hill franchise, just rent this one as it is not a good starter for the series. If you want to be scared, Dead Space is your best bet or Siren on the PS3.

It never hits its stride, never find that sweet spot that makes for that great edge-of-your-seat survival horror experience.

While it does change a lot as far as combat is concerned it feels more like a traditional Silent Hill title than the last few efforts.

Guaranteed to make you jump at least once. [Issue#40, p.78]

Despite these impressive production values, Homecoming ultimately fails to achieve greatness.

Scary it mightn’t be, but it’s compelling, unsettling and engaging in its own familiar, anachronistic way.

Workable horror, but missing some charm. [Mar 2009, p.86]

Yeah, it’s alright, especially if you’re new to the series or just want to play something that spreads on your bread like ‘I-Can’t Believe-It’s-Not-Silent-Hill-2.’ The monsters are great, the combat is workable and the mystery is intriguing. But if you’ve ever played a survival horror game then chances are you’ve already played this, down to the last ‘put strange object in bizarre vaginal slot’ puzzle. As with Hollywood’s trend for remaking J-horror movies, fans may well prefer to fondly remember the original instead.

Silent Hill: Homecoming is without doubt a good game, but it is let down by little problems here and there. The plot twists are generally quite easy to see coming but at least keep you interested, although the deviation from the original Silent Hill games will annoy a lot of people.

For pure chilling atmosphere, Silent Hill still succeeds with strong plotting and disturbing art direction. Few games can creep you out and leave you thinking about their story after the credits have rolled as much as Silent Hill can and the latest title is no exception. It’s a good game, there’s no doubt, but you just feel this Homecoming is perhaps a few years too late.

The lack of horror in the game does not technically make it bad; it just makes it not what is typically expected from a game marked with the Survival horror genre tag.

An okay-looking action game. [Apr 2009, p.90]

A good compromise between modern survival-horror trends and the genre's classical elements, with consequent pros and cons. We mainly recommend it to Silent Hill fans, but it's also enjoyable as a stand-alone good psycho-thriller story, granted that you are willing to close an eye on the visual aspect and the tricky shooting.

The game feels like a bit of a letdown. The gameplay has been reduced from a tense psychological experience fraught with spine tingling jumps and scares to a generic, predictable action title set in the location with good graphics and a great soundtrack.

While it doesn't top Silent Hill 2 or 3, I'll still be proud to add it to my collection. [Nov 2008, p.72]

It was the game's storyline and characters that captured me versus the suspense this time around, but that didn't make the game any less enjoyable for me.

From its leaden, cheap-shots-aplenty combat to its wild-goose chase through gray, same-y hallways filled with useless, placebo doorways to a story that takes much too long to get off the ground, its entire first half feels like a death march through a clunky hot mess. [Nov 2008, p.73]

Fans will probably dig the game’s cool set pieces and the story, but the save points are placed too far apart, many puzzles require too much random experimentation, and the dialogue system seems like an afterthought.

Eye-catching visuals and creepy atmosphere aren't enough to make up for this game's poor pacing, cheap tricks, and muddled story.

Ultimately, I enjoyed Silent Hill: Homecoming a great deal. Probably more than the game itself deserved. Its main problems are not related to any initial suspicions that the series would be weaker due to its westernization, and whilst its approach is clearly more striking and shocking than the tense subtleties of its forebears, its engaging storyline and well thought out settings help allay any frustrations towards games shortcomings.

In the end Silent Hill Homecoming is as mad as a bag of spiders, the look and feel alone will chill you, but just like most scary games and films the story falls flat.

Sticks to the Silent Hill formula like glue. But Homecoming feels clunky and looks old compared to today's horror games.

If survival horror is your bread and butter, then Homecoming is right up your alley; otherwise, you might be better served waiting for Resident Evil 5.

It’s decent survival horror, but Silent Hill fans will be disappointed.

The resolutely linear nature of the gameplay, as well, is a throwback. There are so many possibilities for a Silent Hill game set in a more expansive environment with multiple threads running concurrently, with a more fleshed-out cast, but that's never the case here.

Not so much Silent Hill returning home as Silent Hill rooting through its own garbage. A polished but utterly complacent slab of survival horror.

Homecoming is an assured and welcome entry into the series that will be appreciated by fans of survival horror, though to gamers unfamiliar with the ways of Silent Hill, it may come across as slightly anachronistic in the face of such efficiently tooled thrill-rides as Dead Space.

It’s a game whose flaws consistently work against its plusses. The atmosphere is brilliant as always, the scoring and sound effects magnificent (better than ever, perhaps) – but with this latest effort, which definitely falls short, I wonder if it isn’t time for Konami to consider an overhaul of Resident Evil 4 proportions.