An Americanized letdown
I'm not saying the game didn't have its strong suits; the graphics, for one, are very impressive. The fog-shrouded streets of Silent Hill couldn't be more convincing, and the expressions on each of the characters' faces are more emotional and believable than any other game in the series. There is also one demon in particular that I absolutely loved; it had blades for hands and legs, the torso of what must have once been human and walks like a spider. But unfortunately, a clean coat of polish and a handful of new concepts and characters isn't enough to hide the utter lack of aesthetic value in this game.
I remember my first time playing through the first three Silent Hill games. Each one was poetry in its own way... each one was like peering into the nightmarish psyches of the protagonists. Not only that, when you researched the characters and locations in the games, everything had some kind of bizarre relevance. For example, in Silent Hill 2, Pyramid Head's demon represents the anonymity of the executioners from Toluca Prison. But, much like in the Silent Hill movie, Pyramid Head's appearance in Silent Hill: Homecoming is a superficial attempt at pleasing fans. It's almost as bad as the pointless abundance of big-breasted nurses that pop up everywhere you go for no reason whatsoever. Their place in the previous games was in the hospital, which requires no explanation.
But all inconsistencies aside, the game simply isn't scary. Instead of only being able to see 10 feet in front of your face as you tread down the hallways of some Clive Barker-esque nightmare, your vision is most impaired when you're walking down the streets of the disappointly small and unexciting depictions of Silent Hill and Shepherd's Glen. When you finally make it to the alternate versions of various locales, instead of being thrown into a world of sepia and red color palates, where the walls are caked with blood and rust and the floors are a thin sheet of chain link peering down into an endless pit of darkness, you're presented with the cliche' orange glow of fire below you and steam venting from massive, silly looking pipes. Lame.
And is it just me, or does Alex Shepherd's dad look like the old guy from 'Lost?'
The one saving grace for me was Akira Yamaoka's outstanding soundtrack; the talented producer continues to rape the senses with his mixture of Nine Inch Nails' "Downward Spiral"-style industrial sounds and Massive Attack-esque downtempo vibes. I can only hope he starts to see work outside of the videogame industry, especially considering Konami has abandoned their Japanese roots and given the series to a bunch of unqualified American cream puffs.
Maybe I set my expectations too high. Maybe it was wrong of me to expect Silent Hill: Homecoming to incite insomnia and paranoia like every single other game did. But then again, if something has a lot to live up to and it falls short, people aren't going to just "like it for what it is."