A fun Halloween RENTAL
User Rating: 7 | Silent Hill: Homecoming X360
I played all the silent hill games since the second one on ps2. I liked the 2nd one and this one the best, while I did not like 'the room', the 4th one. Homecoming is really long on atmosphere when you are exploring Shepard's Glen, but most of the other locales do not draw you in so much. I liked Silent Hill 2 because of the emphasis on town exploration, and the very best parts of Homecoming are in the town streets and building(s). Surprisingly, the sequences where everything turns red and industrial (the 'hell' sequences) were the weakest in my opinion, with everything looking the same and really not a lot of graphical depth or variety. In silent Hill 2, a good point of comparison, you were engaged with truly scary NPCs that would surprise you with both their words and actions, but in this game, there are only a few twists that were very predictable, and also almost no NPC character development. Disappointing. Combat is a lot better than in previous SH games, and I found it pretty engaging, not too easy (unless you use a gun, but some enemies can block gunshots) like a lot of reviews say. Just make sure you play on the 'hard' setting in order to get a better sense of the horror aspect of the game. Anything less would make encounters boring. There are a few sequences where running past enemies is really your best option, while in past SH games, often you would run by the nurses/etc. in hallways while searching buildings on a regular basis in order to conserve health and ammo. The flashlight criticisms miss the point that the light you are using is supposed to be weak (look where Alex got it from) and it greatly adds to the great atmosphere and makes combat much more challenging. I played on a Plasma TV only at night, and I loved this game, a true Halloween treat. I also like the Silent Hill subject matter and setting more than, say Resident evil's newer sequels and sci fi stuff like Dead Space (a great action game, but not scary). I hope the mediocre reviews of Homecoming don't discourage Konami from making more survival horror (a genre that is disappearing in favor of action-oriented games: I even read on a game website how they thought "gears of War" was a horror game! Its not, its action, unless you are easily scared by anything that growls!)
BOTTOM LINE: A GREAT HALLOWEEN RENTAL YOU WILL PLAY TO THE END, and even if you don't like how the story turns out, you will enjoy the game very much. Just make sure you rent, not buy. I wish there were more games out in this genre, how bout a Fatal Frame or an entirely new Horror game (RE5 is NOT horror) 
