Konami Gamer's Night: Silent Hill: Homecoming
Another lovely surprise given to us by Konami at the Gamer's Night event was an enlightening presentation and hands-on demo of the next sequel in the Silent Hill saga, Silent Hill: Homecoming. Homecoming marks the fifth (sixth if you count the prequel, Origins) original Silent Hill game come to the franchise, but is a first for the series in a few ways. First off, this will be the first Silent Hill game released on the Xbox 360 and on the PS3, and so it will be the first one to be carrying those updated graphics that come with the new systems. At the same time this will be the first Silent Hill game, other than Origins, to be developed primarily in the U.S.; however, the U.S. developer who gave the presentation assured us that the series would maintain its Japanese horror story roots that make the game so creepy and enjoyable. Now let's get down to the details . . .
As for the story, this time around the main character is a war vet, Alex Shepherd, whose just come back from overseas to be with his family again only to find the town eerily deserted and his younger brother missing (hmmm... sounds familiar). The nice thing with Alex being a war vet, and with the game being on the new consoles, the developers decided to make an active effort to make the combat system a little less clunky than it has been in the past. They readily admit that the clunky combat of the first game added well to the suspense since all the characters were rather untrained in the weapons they wielded; however, with Alex, they picked up the combat a bit while still keeping the sense of horror and suspense. They've also added the abilities to dodge incoming blows, activate finishing moves, and use quicktime events to help escape special enemy attacks. All of these elements add together for a much more fluid and involved combat system in the new game.
As for the visuals, the developers really seem to be taking full advantage of the graphics engine for both systems. In fact, the characters, enviroments, shadows, and lighting where so crisp and sharp that the developers had to put in a grain texture filter in order for the game to keep its gritty horror look. The game still seems to be in development, so there were a few graphical issues, but overall the game looked excellent and the cinematic that is shown whenever the city morphs from 'normal' to 'silent hill' was just fantastic. They also showed a video with a slew of enemy battles, one of which was with a floppy ax-head shark monster another with an appearance made by Pyramid Head. From my hands-on time with a game, I can honestly say that the new combat system felt great and the graphics were superb and it definitely retained its suspenseful and creepy feel.
Along with all of the above, there is the wonderfully eerie music present that always fills the series and die-hard fans will be happy to hear that composer Akira Yamaoka is composing the music for this game as well. He's basically the one person in Japan even working on this iteration of the game. Overall the game looks like it will continue the long legacy that Silent Hill has built for itself in the past decade. Make sure to get some extra clean undies ready for September, since that's when the latest Silent Hill will be making its way into your preferred system's insides.
PixelPoet
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 15 May 2008
Other stuff like this: double helix, homecoming, konami, playstation 3, silent hill, xbox 360
