Оригинальные саундтрекиSilent Hill: Downpour Original Soundtrack (OST) Композитор: Daniel Licht Show Полные саундтрекиSilent Hill: Downpour Xbox 360 RipРиппер: CONSTANT EGO Complete Score: Licensed Music: Horror and Atmosphere FX: Weather FX: Bonus: The survival horror genre owes a lot to Silent Hill. While many will point to Resident Evil for naming the genre, and to Sweet Home for inventing it, Silent Hill, particularly Silent Hill 2, perfected it. The game was the first that you could point to and say "Yeah, that game, I can't play that game in the dark." Even the original Resident Evil hinted at its inclination toward action. But Silent Hill is known for pulling no punches when it comes to trying to get inside your head, not through the use of gross-out imagery, but through well-executed psychological torture. After changing developmental hands with each new release for a few years now, newcomer Vatra Games was handed keys to the franchise. Did they open the door for a revival of the series' greatness or should we keep that door locked away for good?Story The narrative of Silent Hill: Downpour begins, rather ominously, in a prison. We're introduced to Murphy Pendleton, our newest unfortunate tourist of the foggy, twisted town. Immediately, we're shown a duality of Murphy. An early sequence allows us to play out a violent murder in the prison at the hands of Murphy, yet we still feel like he is out of place in the facility alongside more legitimate psychos and crazies. He seems soft-spoken and quiet, and something certainly weighs heavy on his heart. After the murder he commits, he is sent packing to a higher security jail on an island not far from his current residence along with some of the prison's top criminals. On the way there, however, as it always seem to be the case in a horror scenario, the bus crashes. Murphy is shaken but luckily alive, where it seems no one else was as lucky. He takes the opportunity to liberate himself, but he'll have to go through Silent Hill to get away. What we already know, and what Murphy learns, is that is a task easier said than done. As he encounters mysterious people and malevolent, demented creatures, he realizes he is living a nightmare he couldn't have anticipated. As we progress through the story, much of Murphy's history is told through flashbacks while we limp our way through the town in search of an exit. Morbid allusions to a death in Murphy's family are made, but much of the story remains in the shadows until the second half of the game. One of the issues every Silent Hill game has is trying to top the second game. In SH2, you play James, who returns to Silent Hill after his wife sends him a letter to find her there. The only problem is his wife has been dead for years. Sounds awesome right? Yes, and it is. The story in Downpour, then, is a bit too derivative of the horror gaming and movie genre to stand toe-to-toe with SH2. Having said that, few games keep you guessing like this series can do, and I didn't know where the story would end up until I got there, which is a staple of the series. And speaking of where the story ends up, the game, like all others in the series, has multiple endings. They range from happy endings to torturous ones to things in between and there is even a joke ending (though not the customary UFO ending like previous iterations). The ending you arrive at is based on moral choices you make throughout the story. There are only a small number of actual choices, but whether you choose the "good" or "bad" options for these, as well as how many side quests you do, will determine which ending you'll get. The two endings I saw were both very satisfying for me, as a huge fan of the series. They spoke to the nature of the ghost town and what it really means to find yourself in Silent Hill (HINT: It's never a coincidence). Gameplay One thing the series has always lacked is a bit of polish in the controls. Often times, if not everytime, your character's movement feels clunky and heavy. In the earlier games, it was sort of an accidental attribute as you felt powerless and weak in the face of spooky enemies, which is terrific if you're trying to scare the hell out of the player. Now in 2012, it's a judgement call to whether or not the controls should be improving. It's still clunky in Downpour, as it was in Homecoming, as well. However, I still don't mind it. Your character moves slowly and the combat system is basic and problematic at times, but you never feel like you're comfortable, which is the sign of a good survival horror. That's the thing you have to understand about this genre and this series, specifically. You can get away with a lack of polish because it creates an environment conducive to fear. It seems counter-intuitive for a video game to be praised for its lack of polish, but in this case, it works well enough and lacks only enough polish to not become frustrating. New to this game are side quests and weapon degradation. Both are welcome additions because they add a layer to the series that would have made past iterations better, and this one is certainly better off for it, too. There is a huge range of weapons to choose from, from rocks and vases to shotguns and shovels. The feeling that you knew your weapon would break any moment as you fight off a group of creatures was unnerving. You also can't just hold down the block button to defend yourself. While none of the five or six monster varieties can break down your blocking ability to inflict damage, each successful block degrades your weapon further, so if you want to survive, you'll have to fight back eventually, unless you can run away. The side quests felt a bit RPGish. There are 12-15 of them and each one adds to the story, either directly by revealing more of Murphy's thoughts or memories, or through elaborating on the town we are trapped in. There are some fetch quests that reward you with weapons and health packs, and there is one that will give you underground shortcuts around town. Most of them, though, are there for fans of the series to enjoy as supplements to the main story. This is new and it worked well. At times, I felt it messed up the pacing, but that was because we can do nearly any of them all at once, so I was running around doing just that. If they split up the side quests so the player doesn't feel like he or she has a million things to do, it would have worked better. Another thing Vatra did well was capture the feeling of what the town and levels of the game should look like. They definitely had some creative guys on their team for level design, and you can see they know what it means to make a Silent Hill game. Some sequences take place upside down and fixed camera angles return like classic Silent Hill or Resident Evil, though they weren't used enough, admittedly. The environments, especially near the end of the game were always deranged. Like Silent Hill: Origins, the Otherworld sequences are made up entirely of labyrinthine chase sequences where you're running from an orb of malevolent, red light that, in true Silent Hill fashion, is left for us to interpret. These were fun breaks in the usual gameplay, but I still prefer the classic moments of silent tension through dilapidated alleys and apartments. If you stopped reading here and skipped ahead to the end to see the score, you'd probably wonder why I gave it what I did. I'm getting to that. For starters, the monster design is really lacking. Past games have all been applauded for the unique, and varied monsters. (except for Homecoming which fan-service'd the use of prior monsters). In Downpour, all the creatures take on some bipedal humanoid form and most of the time you'll only be dealing with a combination of two of the earlier types. Their behavior was a bit confusing too. When indoors, they often wouldn't cross thresholds into other rooms, instead choosing to wait outside for when I inevitably returned. It might sound creepy, but it more so just pointed to poor AI. The absolute worst things about this game, and you may have heard about them by now, are the bugs. I don't mean insect monsters, I mean glitches. Most of the time, these are found when the game autosaves (which by the way it does like every 40-100 seconds). During some, not all, autosaves, the game's frame rate would halt completely if you were moving the camera or your character. This is where a lack of polish doesn't backwardly benefit the game. Most of the one second freeze-ups occurred during the free-roaming periods of the game, when you'll be given the chance to do some side missions. These were far too frequent to be forgivable and it's a sure sign that the game could have used another delay, despite the few it had to fix these things already. Another weird glitch is when you're outside roaming the town and the weather system, which can call upon flash rain storms (and with them, a higher frequency of monsters), also brings with it some flashing blue lights. At first I thought it was meant to look like lightning, but then I remembered a gameplay video I covered as part of the news here on TA in which the developer was asked about those lights and he admitted it was a bug they were working on getting out. I'd hate to think they decided to just pretend it was lightning and now act as if they were intentional, but it seems that is what they did. Luckily, it does sort of look like lightning, just poorly animated lightning, so it isn't that distracting. I also encountered a bug early on in the game where the padlock I needed to break off the door had been broken off, but the door still didn't open. After wandering aimlessly, I looked up the sequence online to realize my game's version of the door was glitched, where it was supposed to have opened. A quick reload of the saved game fixed that, but still, it shouldn't have happened in a game that was delayed half a year. Graphics and Sound The Silent Hill series will never be known for its stunning graphics, and again, I think it helps the series that this is the case. The rusted, torn town looks better as an average-graphics game. The voice acting was really well done despite the mediocre lip-synching, and I particularly liked the actor who portrayed Murphy. I felt like he really allowed for me to care about the character due to the good sound design and acting ability. The music of this game was a big topic of discussion for two reasons. For one, Korn's Jonathan Davis wrote and sang a song for the soundtrack , and it wasn't well-received. Despite this, the song isn't unbearable, even if you think Korn is. It fits pretty well with the aesthetics of this game. The second, and bigger story behind the music is that this would be the first game without famed composer Akira Yamaoka. His work on the series' first seven games was legendary and left behind some humongous shoes to fill. Luckily, Daniel Licht, who may have been the best candidate for the job, was chosen to replace him. Licht is famous for his work on Showtime's Dexter and shares Yamaoka's affinity for the mandolin. As you'll hear in tracks like Intro Perp Walk and The Downpour, Licht introduced his own sound to the series without sacrificing the classic twang of previous Silent Hill games. While much of the music is left to just ambient noise or atmospheric sounds, when Licht does get melodic it's nearly as good as anything Yamaoka has put out for the games. Achievements The list for this game is very time consuming. Given that it's only a single player game, there won't ever be any unobtainables or anything like that, but you'll need multiple, full playthroughs. The game doesn't allow manual saves, so after you beat it once, you can replay your last save and get one other ending by changing your last moral decision. However, after that, you'll need to play it from the start to get the other secret ending achievements. You get a few for progressing through the story and you get 5G for every sidequest you finished. A lot of the higher scoring achievements require really hard things, like beating the game on hard puzzle difficulty, hard combat difficulty, and never killing any monster in the game. Those are creative, but are sure going to be hair-pulling playthroughs, I'd imagine. I played through the whole game, playing about 2/3 of the sidequests and then going back for one alternate ending by changing my last choice and I got 27/41 achievements for only 385G in about 12 hours. Conclusion At the end of the day night, Downpour is a step in the right direction and a notch above Homecoming, but the series still can't find its way back to the stature of the earlier games. While the bugs were annoying, and the game wasn't scary enough for my liking, Vatra did a lot of things right with this addition to Konami's long-running series. I still think this series is the best survival horror has to offer, but I'd recommend series first-timers start instead with the HD Collection. If you're a frequent visitor to the town, however, this is certainly a trip worth taking. The protagonist is interesting, the music is great, the story is twisty and twisted and the environments are some of the best in the history of the series. If you can survive a few bugs that are often scarier than the game itself, you'll enjoy your stay in Silent Hill: Downpour. 3.5 Silent Hill Downpour, Is it a Hit or a Miss?This being the First Silent hill game that I've played i thought it would be unfair for this review to have no background knowledge whatsoever. So i hauled my ass over to my friends who played Silent Hill Since the Beginning and we took a crack at the game together. Now This game is most like traditional silent hill games where it's based off of more survival and horror aspects instead of the popular current Resident Evil Run and Gun Technique of game play. Being the first game that i have played i was a little skeptic to see what the fuss was about, and Thanks to Bestbuy for a "Undesired discount" of $40 I took this game from the shelf and ran all the way home to pop this bad boy in. At first i was drawn in at the whole Story; Murphy Pendleton is the maincharacter that you play as is in a high security prison for what seems like the most minor of offences. The reason why he was thrown in jail was for GTA of a Police cruiser and leading on a 10hr chase down a blue root The offence seems extremely minimal to what the other inmates were in for. When the game starts you are talking to a guard in the beginning, which really threw me off since he was helping you murder specific inmates during the incarceration. Now without a doubt the story does seem very confusing since They are hinting towards Murphy's early release due to good behavior, when suddenly he is transferred over to another high stakes prison. The Female police Officer at the first sight of her has the urge to break in Murphy's Face with all that she has, but the reason was still unknown. After he gets on the bus, they drive around for a while and a cliquish event happens where the bus drives into the guard rail and all the prisoners escape As Murphy finally starts to Run through out the game you discover that the game is based off of Moral choice systems in which the options you choose effect how the game is played. Personally I like that because when you're drawn into a game and it gives you choice on what you want to see them do gives the player much more feeling for the main character. It's a good way to control the story but as my friend said "Previous silent hill games haven't had the ability to let you choose how you did an ending with a system of morality, it was based on a system of what you did" So i said, "Well you know what "X" This is just another way to make us feel for the guy" after our squabble he shut up and we continued to go on. They do have the 3 classic areas "The Prison, the Church, and the library" Which is a classic thing for all of the horror settings. I want to say a few things about the game but i'll list them with the pros and cons later. The Mainstory was very well crafted and extremely well told once you got around to actually getting to the story itself. Basically Murphy was lost in Silent Hill and had no way of escaping; But this time Silent hill is a metaphor for his incarceration The main quest is very driving, Haunting, Scary, and will leave you with anticipation and shock at each turn it will let you experience it. There is also a very big twist in the game after you go to the church so i won't list it here. The Pros: The Game is taking a step back to the original Silent Hill games It's very fun and enticing to play The story will grasp you in even if you don't like it The game play is well crafted when you are fully immersed into the game for the first time. It's actual Survival horror where you have a very limited supply on ammo and where items can break so it makes you feel like you're in the game trying to find anything to fight off frantic creatures There is no interface that tells you how much health or stuff you have done, this gives players a reason to feel connected and on edge when Three/Four Monsters come out and try to kill you. The Cons: The Game for what its worth isn't big at all but without maps on hand (Locating them which is part of the game) it is common to go back and fourth from the same spot over and over and over and over again... The Combat isn't what is should be being how everything breaks at the same rate (Which seems strange comparing a plank of wood to a rod of metal) Blocking is a joke, the only way to prevent damage is to have a weapon equipped. Getting lost is almost imminent, Even though you have a map there are no true directions on where to go and it seems like side quests are part of the main quests. The Monsters: Alright i'm putting this in the cons because as a picky choice; the reason why i'm saying this is because the four monsters (Besides the weeping bats) look like they're almost complete humans. My friend use to say that the monster design use to be horrific beings to go out and frantically chew on your health, The design just seems like they aren't too far off from one another. The puzzles seem to be too hard with out a guide, Most of the time you're just pushing buttons and hoping for something to happen It may seem that there are more cons than pros but the cons are very tiny compared on how the game grasps the attention. It's taking a step into the right direction to be as the franchise was. Plot 5/5 Story 5/5 Gameplay 4/5 Graphics 4/5 Sound 4/5 Replay Value 7/10 (For those who grind for achievements 9/10) 4/5 Stars 4.0 As many people know, SIlent Hill is a long running series, premiering with the original Silent Hill on the original Playstation back in 1999. It, along with three other games were developed by "Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo.", but after Silent Hill 4: The Room, the games started being developed by other companies, such as Double Helix, who developed Silent Hill: Homecoming.The latest installment, "Silent Hill: Downpour", gives Vatra Games a take on the franchise, is it a bright holy light at the end of a tunnel, or a dark trip through Silent Hell? Story: Silent Hill: Downpour follows Murphy Pendleton, a prison inmate whos story starts out very thin, but you learn more about as the game progresses. You start out being woken up, as you, and several other inmates are boarded onto a bus going from Ryall State Corrections Facility, to Wayside Maximum Security Prison, taking you through eastern Silent Hill. A drivers stupidity causes the bus to crash, and for Murphy to escape. Murphy decides to travel through Silent Hill to escape and get to freedom, but he'll find that he'll find out that prison was heaven compared to the hell he's about to face.... Gameplay: SIlent Hill: Downpour plays out somewhat like previous Silent Hill games. You start out in the outskirts of town and must find a way to the more "downtown" area. Traveling through different locales, you soon get your trusty flashlight, Radio, and melee weapon. This time around, melee weapons break, meaning you must constantly pick them up as you find them, luckily there are about 20 different melee weapons to choose from. There are also guns, but with little to no ammo around, melee is the key to survival as always. The radio seems to be completely useless in this game, I only heard it a couple of times from all the enemies I came across, I'm not mad, it gave it a refreshing change to always being alerted to an enemies presence. That being said, most enemies are useless, you can go through the entire game not killing a single enemy (and there's an achievement if you CAN do it), but really, other than the achievement, what's the point of not killing anything? If you can't kill, your entire game is you running around for a good 4 hours solving puzzles. Now granted, it's NOT mandatory, however to get certain endings, you really might need to spare a LOT of enemies lives. As stated before, a run on normal without doing any of the side missions is about 4 hours of play time, with the side missions is probably double that (8 hours), however various bugs at the time of writing this review exist. On my first playthrough, a fishing rod I needed to give a bum didn't spawn where it was supposed to, and I could not complete the mission, which stopped me from earning the "complete ALL side missions" achievement. Aside from buggy items not appearing, some doors randomly wouldn't open, there is a constant pausing/freezing issue when running around Silent Hill, (but rarely when running around a "dungeon"), and for me, I had the sound cut out a few times during cutscenes, for a game that was held back about 3 or 4 times, it's confusing how all these problems were overlooked. The "Otherworld" returns in Silent Hill: Downpour. Although many people will find that this time around, most of your time in it is spent running away from some glowing red light. Never in the story is it explained what the red light is, but your destined to run away and constantly throw objects in front of it to slow it down, while trying to find a way back to the real world. This is incredibly annoying, as it's hard to grasp in the awesomeness of the otherworld's detail, when you're more focused on trying to escape a red light trying to kill you. Achievements: Silent Hill: Downpour comes packed with 41 achievements. There's 8 storyline achievements, 5 "get this ending" achievements, 15 achievements for doing side missions, 6 achievements for doing various things with certain enemies, as well as standard achievements for completing the game on hard difficulty, with the puzzle difficulty set to hard, and as stated before, an achievement for not killing A SINGLE enemy. A fun list, but with the irritating bugs with side mission items not appearing, and all the freezing/pausing issues, it can be somewhat annoying, but definitely not impossible. Sound: The voice work in Silent Hill: Downpour is solid. Even though it's hard to get a feeling for the main character, due to learning so much about his past so late in the game, you'll find a game worth listening to. The main theme for the game is performed by Korn, while the in-game soundtrack is composed by Daniel Licht, I've personally never heard of him, but the music was one of the strong points considerably. Overall: For veteran Silent HIll players, Downpour may seem disappointing. While the game still takes place in Silent Hill, the whole horror aspect seems to have disappeared. While there still is the occasional "jump" moment, most players will find this game stronger on it's story, and visuals than on it's original direction that Silent Hill 1, 2, and 3 had. For new players, it's a chance to really get an idea what SIlent Hill is about, a creepy abandoned town with no escape route, and a very thick fog that only lets you see abouta couple feet in front of you, as well as compare the "boss" monsters to the protagonists life,which might spark interest to re-explore the previous Silent Hill games, to re-discover the horror aspect and see what brought the series it's shining glory. With the Silent Hill HD Collection releasing on Xbox 360 with achievements, it makes replaying Silent Hill 2 and 3 feel even sweeter than playing it on an older generation console. One can only hope for a HD version of the original Silent HIll, as well as Silent Hill 4: The Room. Silent Hill: Downpour is a game that could have been much better. But with the constance of wanting to release a week before Resident Evil: ORC, it seems as if it would have been better to delay the game again. Freezing, pausing, bugs, glitches, a game with about 4 delays should have had better polish, but instead players were left with a horrorless, buggy addition to the Silent Hill franchise. Luckily the story is there to keep the interest. 3 Stars 3.0 The next installment in this psychological horror has arrived and could it be the next hit in the series? Well that's what this review is for right?Gamers are taken through a journey into Silent Hill seen in the view of prisoner and eventual fugitive, Murphy Pendleton as he explores the town in search of a way out . The town of Silent Hill is twisted and turned into Murphy's own terrible, personal nightmare and he must venture through and discover the truth about his past. I will critique each individual feature of the game, both good and bad. (There will be spoilers) STORY: I could probably sum the story up with one word, mediocre. It is decent at best. The reason for this is because I had no real motivation to see the end of the story. Mid-way through the game, I already had an idea how it would end and what really happened to Murphy. The story itself is rather good, just how it was told was not fulfilling. This brings me the ending of the game. There are 5 total endings to this game (with and extra twist ending that I don't really count) and I couldn't really figure out which one of them is the true ending (either A or B is my guess). There is some symbolism throughout the game though, like the hanging bodies, which represent execution. Overall, the storytelling could be better but it's far from the storytelling in the older games of the series. GRAPHICS/SOUND: The graphics, in my opinion, are the outstanding factor in the game. The graphics are definitely a step up from Homecoming and it shows when exploring the town. The lighting is done just right and the animations in cutscenes are fairly decent. You can really tell the expression of fear in Murphy's face when he is around danger and you can also see how Murphy staggers and limps when he is hurt. Those are some nice realistic effects that add to the survival factor of the game. The only thing I found surprising about the animations was that even though Murphy's animations were descriptive and fluent, I noticed that the animations on the other characters were not as good. They could have spent more time working on other characters too instead of just the main character. They felt almost lifeless when in cutscenes. The monsters are nothing special either. They aren’t as scary as previous installments and, at times, can be a nuisance to deal with in combat. For any hardcore Silent Hill fan, they would expect monsters to be outside anything they could imagine. The monsters look too human-like and didn’t seem as scary as they could have been. Monsters in Silent Hill are supposed to be more than just monsters; they are manifestations of the conscience. Instead they designed the most generic enemies as possible. The sound I can actually be positive about. The sounds for weapons, objects, ambience effects, and monsters were done quite well. Daniel Licht has done very well for his first attempt at a Silent Hill game. He may not be Akira Yamaoka but the ambient music does set a mood for the game. As for the Korn song that is only heard in the end credits, not quite what I had in mind for a game like this. Aside from that, the voice acting in the game is also good, not great, but good. At times, Murphy seems to not have any emotion in his words although he sounds better further into the game. GAMEPLAY: The developers seemed to have made a style of choice to the gameplay, and both work well. Players are given a choice to stay and fight or flee. If you choose to fight, you are flung into a brawl with a monster using the somewhat flimsy battle system. To say it is flimsy is not to say it’s bad but just not perfect. There is some strategy involved when fighting, especially on harder difficulties. You can block a monster’s attack and make it stagger for a moment, but sometimes it’s hard to tell when the monster will strike again. The Screamers can attack you with 4 or 5 attacks at a time, causing massive damage on hard difficulties. You can hold the attack button to do a charge attack but doing so can leave you vulnerable. Weapons also break over periodic use but there are plenty of weapons scattered around to find. Two-handed weapons seem to be the most durable (I used the double-sided axe for most of the game and it didn’t break). If enemies are attacking and a player doesn’t have time to find a weapon, they can use their fists; however it is not nearly as effective as having a weapon. There are also firearms that you can use such as a Colt pistol, shotgun, and even a nail gun. They encourage minimal use of firearms since there is not much ammo throughout the game. Aiming with a gun is as simple as holding the left trigger to aim and firing with the right trigger. Players can equip a melee weapon or firearm and keep a spare firearm in their inventory; however, the equipped weapon has to be dropped when taking out the firearm. There are many things to explore within the game. About an hour through the game, you will finally enter Silent Hill and be able to freely explore buildings and alleys. Along the way you can find side quests that involve intricate puzzles based off of the puzzle difficulty you have chosen. Some of these side quests will reward you with first aid kits and ammo while others give you nothing but the satisfaction of completing the quest. If not for there being achievements related to the side quests, some of them would be pointless to do. There are side quests that require you to explore every inch of the town, while there are others that you can solve in the very same building you found the quest in. There have never been side quests in the previous Silent Hill titles, but I think it is a nice touch to add to the total length of the game. The Otherworld also returns to the game, but in the form of an unknown figure called “the void”. When the player enters the Otherworld, the walls and objects “melt” away and existence is twisted and turned into a mess of random hallways and corridors. It’s up to the player to find the way out while running away from the void. If the void gets too close it will do damage to Murphy and eventually kill him. The Otherworld in this game looks completely different than its real world counterpart, rather than the same like in classic Silent Hill games. ACHIEVEMENTS: I thought I’d add an achievements section to the review, this being an achievement site and all. The achievements definitely encourage exploration, requiring you to complete each side quest in the game. In order to get the full 1000 gamerscore, you will have to complete the game at least 3 times to get each ending, with at least one playthrough on hard action and riddle difficulty. Most of the achievements you can get just by playing the game. None of the achievements are too grindy and there’s only one achievement that involves collectibles. Overall, the achievements are not too difficult and could probably be completed within 15-20 hours. BUGS/GLITCHES: There are a few minor bugs and glitches within the game but nothing entirely game-breaking. Interestingly enough, I encountered my first glitch right at the beginning of the game. The first door you enter would not open, no matter how much I pressed A. It wasn’t a serious issue since all I had to do was reload the game. Another somewhat annoying bug is the framerate slow downs when the game auto saves or loads a new area. It lags only for a moment but still something that shouldn’t happen. Other glitches I’ve heard were quest items not appearing but that hasn’t happened to me. All the glitches are just minor and the game autosaves quite regularly so if a glitch does occur, you can just reload a save and you should be good to go. SUMMARY: Pros/Cons Here’s a breakdown of the game of pros and cons (Since you probably said tl;dr) Pros: -Graphics are fairly detailed -Interesting music does its part -Plenty of room for exploration -Side quests add to the length of the game (7-10 hours on first playthrough) -Achievements encourage replayability (“Digging up the Past” side quest only available on second playthrough) -Has its own “wtf” moments Cons: -Sounds are lacking -Clunky but far from imperfect battle system -Not enough fear put into the game -Bugs/Glitches are noticeably common but not too serious -Not quite up to par for veteran fans of the series Silent Hill Downpour is not a bad game in itself, but it seems to lack that classic Silent Hill feel. It is definitely a different experience that veteran players of the series may not feel like they are even playing a Silent Hill game, but it has an interesting style and story to back it up. It’s easy to feel skeptical about the new Silent Hill games coming out since Homecoming and Origins didn’t do so well but, in my opinion, this is the best release after Silent Hill 4. The downside is that only half of the features in this game are improvements, while the other half (Monsters, Sounds, Fear Factor) are lacking and can be further improved. For those of you that enjoyed this game, I would suggest trying out the Silent Hill HD Collection if you have never played Silent Hill 2 and 3 before to get to know the roots of the series a bit more and even get that classic Silent Hill feel. 3.0 Silent Hill is possibly everybody's favorite survival horror game. ( Well that and Resident Evil). Sure Silent Hill has had a crooked history (like every franchise for example Sonic the hedgehog) but I'm sure that it will someday get back up on its freaky feet and start a new. Silent Hill Downpour is it's last shot at redemption.In this game you play as Murphy Pendleton who is an convict at Ayall prison. You would expect him to be some low life with an attitude but he is not. He is an ordinary man with a normal life. Well had one until someone ruined his life forever. I won't say what that guy did cause it'll ruin the surprise but it's safe to say that Murphy wants revenge. To do that he will need to go to prison to meet the man that ruined his life. So he stole a police car and got himself into prison. He then meets the man face to face and kills him in a very brutal way. The police find out and he gets transferred to a maximum security prison near Silent Hill. So while he was being transferred in the bus, the bus crashes and drys up in the woods. Murphy survives and makes a run for it but he didn't know what was running for him. I'm gonna getcha He ends up in Silent Hill and he wants to escape. Unfortunately for him. Silent Hill is no ordinary town. It's a town where nightmares become true. He will have to face his forgotten history to face his fears but he is not alone. Now here's a review worth going to prison for. Graphics. Silent Hill Downpour takes a step back into the old classics which is good right? Well the game looks awfully like Silent Hill 2 with the whole town scenario rather than a shopping mall like Silent Hill 3 did. Except for the beautiful atmosphere the graphics actually looks pretty old because of the bland textures and colours. Not only that there are plenty of graphical glitches such as screen tearing and frame rate drops. These two glitches happen all the time especially the frame rate drops but luckily it can be resolved by installing the game to your hard drive. Despite it's old look the character models look pretty good especially Murphy although sometime his facial expressions in cut scenes can look a little off. I will say that the monster design is really weak. They don't look creative. They pretty much look like people except from the blow up sex doll and the wheel chair monster and none of them look creepy. Really? Is that the best you can come up with. I can make a creepier and more creative monster by drawing a stick man figure with a picture of Susan Boyle's face as its head. I give the graphics a 6.5/10. Sound. Silent Hill has been known for its brilliant sound score but this is ridiculous. The sound effects are underwhelming and the monster voices are just plain crap. The only good thing is the voice acting but the voice acting is a hit or miss. I give the sound score a 5/10. Gameplay. The gameplay plays similar to the classics. you know free roam, find the key for this solve the puzzle for that but they have forgotten one thing. Where the hell are the scares. There just isn't any. Well tries to a couple of times but they all fail. It's just cheesy and most of the time you can expect it to happen for example a box is covering a door and you know you can't move it so you wander what's in there? A bomb, a rocket launcher that armed itself? No it's a monster and you know it is cause Silent Hill doesn't do explosions. Dark. Yes. Scary. No. The reason why there aren't that many scares. Is because the game is heavily dosed on combat which was a stupid move to make because the combat system in all Silent Hill games has always been clunky and sometimes horrific. The combat has been improved but it's still clunky. Murphy can't swing a bat to safe his life. Attacking an enemy is fine but it's slow paced and blocking is very close to pointless. In most games when you guard you simply point the direction you want to block but in this it works in a circular way for example if you want to guard right you have to spin the joystick clockwise. It's just stupid. The gunplay is also pointless because the combat is very close quarter so it's pretty hard shoot. It also doesn't help when the crosshair moves but that's probably because Murphy has never shot a gun before so you could say that it was used to make the survival experience come to life. Moving on from the combat side of things Exploring Silent Hill is actually pretty good. There is quite a lot you can do cause the town is swarmed by side quests and secrets and entering the other world is pretty cool. Darkness will fall! The game is like the classics with a few modern quarks. I give the gamplay score a 7/10. Story. Ahh the storyline. The one thing that I always look for in a game. Does this game have a good storyline? Yes. Am I satisfied? Yes but I want more. The storyline is pretty good with an interesting plot and with pretty interesting characters like the odd mail man that just appears out of know where. Murphy really has an emotional background which will make you care for him and maybe feel sorry for what he has been through. I will say however the story can be a little hard to piece together but with good hard thinking you can figure out what does this guy have to do with anything or why did he do that. The interesting thing is the endings. There are 6 in total and work by an interesting moral system. I give the storyline score an 8.5/10 Summary: Good -Interesting story and characters. -Beautiful atmosphere. -Exploring Bad -Bad sound effects. -Poor combat. -Last gen graphics. Overall I think the has room for improvement but it's on its way to becoming what it once was. I give this game an overall score 7/10 3.0 Is Silent Hill Downpour a good game?While not as good as some previous Silent Hill games, this new adventure -- from first-time developer Vatra Games -- has a few things going for it. This includes bigger set pieces with more freedom to explore, side-missions that add to the gameplay, and solid voice acting that helps with the chilling narrative.
How do you get the good ending in Silent Hill Downpour?You'll obtain this ending by having good karma (choose to help when given the option,) do not kill any monsters (knocking them down is permitted) and sparing the character at the end.
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Silent Hill: Downpour secret ending song
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