[Mechanical R]

Silent Hill returns again, bringing the messed up and disturbed by the bucket load once again. Who’s ready for the spooks?

This time around we take control of an escaped convict given a ‘second chance’ when his prison transport vehicle comes off the road, leaving our character stranded inside the town of Silent Hill. The game will focus around the southern part of the town, previously unvisited by any of the previous titles.

This is the second time around with a western developer taking on the cult classic franchise. Its second venture on this current generation of consoles ensures the darkness and scares will come at us tenfold and with some gory detail. Whilst general gamer morale towards the western attempts at Silent Hill, the demo at the show floor seemed promising.

The main thing about Silent Hill is that feeling of desperation and solidarity. Gaining that perfect mix of survival horror with psychological thriller like the previous Silent Hill titles are famous for. Unfortunately the consoles showing off the game weren’t accompanied with headphones, so whilst playing I couldn’t get a good feel of the atmosphere and sound. Nothing says scary like playing a game in a noisy warehouse with around 4,000 people in it.

What I did get a good feel of was that the combat is still rather sluggish, in fairness; it’s an issue reviews have been bringing up way back since the original Silent Hill, if anything, I’m starting to feel like they do it on purpose just to make physical encounters with creatures of the town even more terrifying. Sticking with combat, I came across a lot of different weapons. I could pick up almost anything and use it. From poles, bats, to bottles and rocks, I could grab and swing most items. However I could only hold and use one weapon at a time possibly hinting at a shift around in the inventory system.

Sadly I didn’t get to play the game much. After wondering around an old abandoned mine, encountering a couple of enemies, I found myself being attacked by a larger enemy. One which was bigger, dealt more damage and was faster than me. After nearly dying when I tried wailing on it with a screwdriver after accidentally swapping it for my pickaxe, I tried to make a break for it. The darkness of the level and unfamiliar layout of the level (I don’t hang around in mine shafts unfortunately) ended with me getting chased down and slapped about a bit before I finally hit the deck. Game Over.

Silent Hill Downpour is rumoured to have a story which is focused more around the character, Murphy Pendleton rather than the town’s mystery and general mythos. Whether this will be in the same sort of story as the famous Silent Hill 2, or be a complete departure remains to be seen. All we can say for now is that Silent Hill Downpour looks like your best bet to have a scary night in when it is released in November, along with the HD versions of classics Silent Hill 2 and 3.







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