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Game Information
- Platform: PlayStation 3
- BBFC Rating:
Suitable for 18 years and over. Not for sale to persons under age 18. By placing an order for this product, you declare that you are 18 years of age or over. - Media: Video Game
Frequently Bought Together
Product Features
Platform: PLAYSTATION 3
- Enter the next chapter of Silent Hill and learn the town history
- First silent hill game on PS3
- All new next gen graphics bring silent hill to life like never before
- solve treacherous and deadly puzzles to learn dark secrets
- Features an all new soundtrack by acclaimed series composer Akira Yamaoka
Product details
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Product Description
Platform: PLAYSTATION 3
Manufacturer's Description
Amazon.co.uk
Silent Hill: Homecoming marks the debut of the renowned psychological horror series on next-generation consoles. Building upon the series' trademark foundations of atmosphere, adventure and storytelling, it introduces a frightening new and standalone gameplay experience destined to haunt the dreams of both first-time players and those with some experience wandering the famously fog-shrouded streets of the town of Silent Hill and its new sinister sister city Shepherd's Glen.
The Story of a Grim Homecoming
Homecoming's story follows the nightmare turned real life of Alex Shepherd, a war veteran returning to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen to investigate the sudden disappearance of his kid brother, Josh. From Shepherd's Glen to the foggy streets of dreaded Silent Hill, Alex must face the darkest of horrors in order to find his brother. Struggling with his own grip on reality, it's here that Alex must unravel the mystery behind his nightmares, discover the truth behind his brother's disappearance, and confront the evil that takes hold of his own flesh and blood in the process.
Although Alex Shepherd is the only playable character in Silent Hill: Homecoming there are many other important characters--some returning from earlier games in the series--that can have a dramatic impact on the game. When interacting with these, players are given a choice in how to proceed via dialog trees. Will you take the short route letting only the search for your brother guide you or will you explore the nooks and crannies that make up the mystery of Silent Hill hidden in the small talk you share with non-playable characters? The choice is yours, with different paths providing for possible alternate endings each time you delve into the game.
Silent Hill: Homecoming marks the debut of the renowned psychological horror series on next-generation consoles. Building upon the series' trademark foundations of atmosphere, adventure and storytelling, it introduces a frightening new and standalone gameplay experience destined to haunt the dreams of both first-time players and those with some experience wandering the famously fog-shrouded streets of the town of Silent Hill and its new sinister sister city Shepherd's Glen.
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Homecoming's story follows the nightmare turned real life of Alex Shepherd, a war veteran returning to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen to investigate the sudden disappearance of his kid brother, Josh. From Shepherd's Glen to the foggy streets of dreaded Silent Hill, Alex must face the darkest of horrors in order to find his brother. Struggling with his own grip on reality, it's here that Alex must unravel the mystery behind his nightmares, discover the truth behind his brother's disappearance, and confront the evil that takes hold of his own flesh and blood in the process.
Improved Gameplay
Firmly steeped in the Survival-Horror genre its series has been pivotal in establishing, action in Homecoming remains based on exploration of the terrors residing in the communities surrounding Toluca lake and puzzle-solving skill as a means of surviving them. But to its credit game developer Double Helix refuses to rest on past laurels, choosing instead to include new more accessible gameplay in the hopes of gaining a new audience for Homecoming. Examples of this gameplay include:
Next-Gen Visual and Spatial Features - Every sequel seeks reinvent the namesake game in their series. Homecoming does this in three ways, by adding the ability to toggle between a traditional third-person view and an action-oriented first-person view; by adding fully 3-D physics to the game, creating a realistic range of motion for any and all objects impacted by the player; and by adding transitions or "Hell States" that alter the game's physical landscape at points in the game both in real-time and via cinematics. All three actively change the way players see themselves and in the process create a whole new game experience.
An Enhanced Combat System - Adding to the standard knives, axes, pipes and other melee weapons that made up the arsenal of previous Silent Hill games, Homecoming adds a wide variety of guns and explosives. Fitting with the military back-story of protagonist Alex Shephard, these weapons can be wielded in attacks weighted as weak or strong and can be strung together in combos to stun or incapacitate opponents, who can then be taken out with powerful finishing moves. With practice players can even perform evasive ducks and rolls and follow these up with counterattacks. But remember that enemy AI has also been significantly improved to compensate for your higher degree of combat prowess, and that it's not uncommon to battle multiple monsters simultaneously.
Key Features:
- Enter the next chapter of Silent Hill as you delve deeper in the tormented history of the town and learn of the evil that surrounds Toluca Lake.
- Silent Hill: Homecoming is the 1st Silent Hill game designed for PlayStation 3.
- From the murky fog to the ominous shadows, all-new next-gen graphics bring Silent Hill to life like never before.
- Survive the denizens of Silent Hill with an all-new enhanced combat system that gives you a wide array of attacks and counters.
- Solve the treacherous and deadly puzzles of Silent Hill to discover its darkest secrets.
- Silent Hill: Homecoming will feature an all-new soundtrack by acclaimed series composer Akira Yamaoka.
Although Alex Shepherd is the only playable character in Silent Hill: Homecoming there are many other important characters--some returning from earlier games in the series--that can have a dramatic impact on the game. When interacting with these, players are given a choice in how to proceed via dialog trees. Will you take the short route letting only the search for your brother guide you or will you explore the nooks and crannies that make up the mystery of Silent Hill hidden in the small talk you share with non-playable characters? The choice is yours, with different paths providing for possible alternate endings each time you delve into the game.
A Frighteningly Masterful Soundtrack
All games in the Survival-Horror genre seek to create tension and unease through sound and Homecoming does this masterfully through the compositions and sound engineering of Akira Yamaoka. Having scored the music and effects for dozens of video game titles, including all of the previous games in the Silent Hill series, Yamaoka is considered a master at using sound to illicit a response.
Product Description
Follow the story of Alex Shepherd, who is returning to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen to investigate the sudden disappearance of his brother. From Shepherd's Glen to the foggy streets of Silent Hill, Alex must face the darkest of horrors in order to find his brother. Struggling with his own grip on reality, Alex must unravel the mystery behind his nightmares, discover the truth behind his brother's and father's disappearances, and confront the evil that has taken hold of his own flesh and blood.
Product Description
Silent Hill: Homecoming marks the debut of the renowned psychological horror series on next-generation consoles. Building upon the series' trademark foundations of atmosphere, adventure and storytelling, it introduces a frightening new and standalone gameplay experience destined to haunt the dreams of both first-time players and those with some experience wandering the famously fog-shrouded streets of the town of Silent Hill and its new sinister sister city Shepherd's Glen.
The Story of a Grim Homecoming
Homecoming's story follows the nightmare turned real life of Alex Shepherd, a war veteran returning to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen to investigate the sudden disappearance of his kid brother, Josh. From Shepherd's Glen to the foggy streets of dreaded Silent Hill, Alex must face the darkest of horrors in order to find his brother. Struggling with his own grip on reality, it's here that Alex must unravel the mystery behind his nightmares, discover the truth behind his brother's disappearance, and confront the evil that takes hold of his own flesh and blood in the process.
Improved Gameplay
Firmly steeped in the Survival-Horror genre its series has been pivotal in establishing, action in Homecoming remains based on exploration of the terrors residing in the communities surrounding Toluca lake and puzzle-solving skill as a means of surviving them. But to its credit game developer Double Helix refuses to rest on past laurels, choosing instead to include new more accessible gameplay in the hopes of gaining a new audience for Homecoming. Examples of this gameplay include:
Next-Gen Visual and Spatial Features - Every sequel seeks reinvent the namesake game in their series. Homecoming does this in three ways, by adding the ability to toggle between a traditional third-person view and an action-oriented first-person view; by adding fully 3-D physics to the gam
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Platform for Display:PLAYSTATION 3
Fun:
As a long-time Silent Hill and general horror fan, I was certainly dubious when I heard that development of Homecoming had been handed over to a different team than the original. Silent Hill has always been the definitive horror game series, foregoing standard gore and gimmicky jumpy scares for a pervasive atmosphere and disturbing exploration of all the unattractive elements of the human psyche. Since the original game, Silent Hill has been setting the standard for visuals, setpieces, stories and sound effects that get right under your skin and are difficult to forget.
How unfortunate that Homecoming seems to be the first real deviation from the perverse deviance that we have come to know and love from that immersive, terrifying town. The pieces, at first glance, are all there and SHOULD have worked. You play Alex, a discharged war veteran returning home to his town nearby the infamous Silent Hill, only to find it shrouded in fog and largely empty aside from a menagerie of Silent Hill beasties. He sets off to find his younger brother and uncover the violent mystery that wracks his hometown.
The graphics are pretty polished, if uninspired. Everything looks a little too clean for Silent Hill - you spend most of the time wandering around the grey town, the grainy filter over everything is half-hearted, and even that trademark slimy sheen on the enemies is either absent or so badly rendered that the enemies look plastic. The enemies themselves are a dull assortment of monsters, some with interesting designs, but the developers seem to have forgotten one thing - the MEANING each of those enemies holds to the protagonist. We never get to connect the enemies with the guilt and doubts and personality flaws that the protagonist holds as we did in the previous games - they're just stereotypical horror monsters.
For example, Pyramid-Head's role in Silent Hill 2 was an exceptionally personal one to the protagonist of that game, but with appearances in the movie, the arcade game, and now Homecoming, he has been reduced to a standard recurring horror villain. This is, for me, the epitome of how the developers have lost sight of what makes Silent Hill a successful horror series. Team Silent really explored aesthetics, concepts, sounds and scenarios that were genuinely psychologically disturbing - if you've ever seen the Making Of for Silent Hill 2, you'll see that they are completely unabashed in explaining how they drew their inspiration from everything to abandoned places to sex, rape, human deformity and violation. The new team seem to have tried very hard to emulate many of the standards of the previous Silent Hill games, without really understanding or getting their claws into the psychological depravity that makes all of those standards work.
As a result, it feels empty. The atmosphere is non-existent. The reliance on 'make you jump' scares and mobbing you with enemies is more Resident Evil than Silent Hill. There is no wickedly clever use of disorienting camera angles. Their best effort seems to be making your fumble around in the pitch black - a frustrating rather than frightening exercise. And when you strip away the scares and the atmosphere from Silent Hill, what you are left with is a guy wandering around an empty, foggy town. Boring, to say the least!
Add to this the fact that the gameplay design is ludicrously bad, and you have an excellent example of how Silent Hill should not be done. Your progress through the game is exceptionally linear - there is hardly any frightened, panicky exploration of sprawling, rotting buildings because there is usually only one way to go. The barbaric, morbid puzzles are mostly missing, and the entire game feels like a neverending key hunt. Usually you have to keep going until you reach a dead end, sigh, turn back to return the way you came and suddenly a magical cutscene will open up a new way for you. As a gamer, you feel completely powerless and lack any influence. Save point locations are poorly chosen and few and far between - I appreciate that developers feel this might add difficulty, but often gamers will not have hours and hours in one go to play a game. I have been forced to discard game progress several times simply because I had to switch off. It didn't help that several times, the game froze, making me unable to even continue from the last checkpoint.
The savepoint issue becomes particularly glaring in the second half of the game, where the difficulty all of a sudden becomes RIDICULOUS. There is so little health and ammunition and the combat is so finnicky that I don't think I ever fought one enemy unscathed. At one point I had to fight four or five of a particularly nasty breed of baddie with a fraction of my health bar left and no extra items to top it up, and THEN something else appeared to smash me to a bloody pulp.
To sum up - poor game design meets poor interpretation of Silent Hill's gloriously depraved charms to produce a game in the franchise that I would rather forget. The only redeeming feature is the soundtrack, because Akira Yamaoka can do no wrong! Unfortunately, he has also abandoned ship now!
RIP, Team Silent. RIP, Silent Hill.
How unfortunate that Homecoming seems to be the first real deviation from the perverse deviance that we have come to know and love from that immersive, terrifying town. The pieces, at first glance, are all there and SHOULD have worked. You play Alex, a discharged war veteran returning home to his town nearby the infamous Silent Hill, only to find it shrouded in fog and largely empty aside from a menagerie of Silent Hill beasties. He sets off to find his younger brother and uncover the violent mystery that wracks his hometown.
The graphics are pretty polished, if uninspired. Everything looks a little too clean for Silent Hill - you spend most of the time wandering around the grey town, the grainy filter over everything is half-hearted, and even that trademark slimy sheen on the enemies is either absent or so badly rendered that the enemies look plastic. The enemies themselves are a dull assortment of monsters, some with interesting designs, but the developers seem to have forgotten one thing - the MEANING each of those enemies holds to the protagonist. We never get to connect the enemies with the guilt and doubts and personality flaws that the protagonist holds as we did in the previous games - they're just stereotypical horror monsters.
For example, Pyramid-Head's role in Silent Hill 2 was an exceptionally personal one to the protagonist of that game, but with appearances in the movie, the arcade game, and now Homecoming, he has been reduced to a standard recurring horror villain. This is, for me, the epitome of how the developers have lost sight of what makes Silent Hill a successful horror series. Team Silent really explored aesthetics, concepts, sounds and scenarios that were genuinely psychologically disturbing - if you've ever seen the Making Of for Silent Hill 2, you'll see that they are completely unabashed in explaining how they drew their inspiration from everything to abandoned places to sex, rape, human deformity and violation. The new team seem to have tried very hard to emulate many of the standards of the previous Silent Hill games, without really understanding or getting their claws into the psychological depravity that makes all of those standards work.
As a result, it feels empty. The atmosphere is non-existent. The reliance on 'make you jump' scares and mobbing you with enemies is more Resident Evil than Silent Hill. There is no wickedly clever use of disorienting camera angles. Their best effort seems to be making your fumble around in the pitch black - a frustrating rather than frightening exercise. And when you strip away the scares and the atmosphere from Silent Hill, what you are left with is a guy wandering around an empty, foggy town. Boring, to say the least!
Add to this the fact that the gameplay design is ludicrously bad, and you have an excellent example of how Silent Hill should not be done. Your progress through the game is exceptionally linear - there is hardly any frightened, panicky exploration of sprawling, rotting buildings because there is usually only one way to go. The barbaric, morbid puzzles are mostly missing, and the entire game feels like a neverending key hunt. Usually you have to keep going until you reach a dead end, sigh, turn back to return the way you came and suddenly a magical cutscene will open up a new way for you. As a gamer, you feel completely powerless and lack any influence. Save point locations are poorly chosen and few and far between - I appreciate that developers feel this might add difficulty, but often gamers will not have hours and hours in one go to play a game. I have been forced to discard game progress several times simply because I had to switch off. It didn't help that several times, the game froze, making me unable to even continue from the last checkpoint.
The savepoint issue becomes particularly glaring in the second half of the game, where the difficulty all of a sudden becomes RIDICULOUS. There is so little health and ammunition and the combat is so finnicky that I don't think I ever fought one enemy unscathed. At one point I had to fight four or five of a particularly nasty breed of baddie with a fraction of my health bar left and no extra items to top it up, and THEN something else appeared to smash me to a bloody pulp.
To sum up - poor game design meets poor interpretation of Silent Hill's gloriously depraved charms to produce a game in the franchise that I would rather forget. The only redeeming feature is the soundtrack, because Akira Yamaoka can do no wrong! Unfortunately, he has also abandoned ship now!
RIP, Team Silent. RIP, Silent Hill.
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Platform for Display:PLAYSTATION 3
Fun:
`Silent Hill: Homecoming' is the latest game in the survival horror series and introduces a new character named Alex Shepherd who returns home to Shepherd's Green and to Silent Hill to find his lost brother Josh.
I've been a huge fan of the series since the first one on the Playstation 10 years ago (is it really that long ago!?) and just couldn't wait to play this one so I imported it a few months ago and have just gotten round to finishing it. My first impressions were very, very good - it has all the charm of the old ones such as the haunting music, the foggy streets, the twisted monsters and the blood-curdling sound effects. The story is pretty good too and the characters are all well designed. The graphics are fantastic and although they are in HD and are very detailed and realistic, it still manages to keep the original grainy feel to it that made the originals so creepy.
The gameplay is pretty much the same as before where you have to lead your character through various sections of Silent Hill and Shepherd's Green such as the hospital, cemetery, sewers, a hotel etc and solve puzzles, collect items and battle enemies, but the one thing that really lets this game down is that the developers have concentrated a lot on the combat side of things as there is a lot of bashing nasties with a metal pole or an axe, and let's face it, Silent Hill has never been great for the fighting sections and it hasn't at all been improved here (other than the shooting, which has been improved a little bit).
Overall this is a great addition to the series and is one that any fan of Silent Hill should get into as soon as possible. If the rumours are true that this is going to be delayed for even longer in the UK, the US copy of the game is region free so I'd import it now to save waiting.
I've been a huge fan of the series since the first one on the Playstation 10 years ago (is it really that long ago!?) and just couldn't wait to play this one so I imported it a few months ago and have just gotten round to finishing it. My first impressions were very, very good - it has all the charm of the old ones such as the haunting music, the foggy streets, the twisted monsters and the blood-curdling sound effects. The story is pretty good too and the characters are all well designed. The graphics are fantastic and although they are in HD and are very detailed and realistic, it still manages to keep the original grainy feel to it that made the originals so creepy.
The gameplay is pretty much the same as before where you have to lead your character through various sections of Silent Hill and Shepherd's Green such as the hospital, cemetery, sewers, a hotel etc and solve puzzles, collect items and battle enemies, but the one thing that really lets this game down is that the developers have concentrated a lot on the combat side of things as there is a lot of bashing nasties with a metal pole or an axe, and let's face it, Silent Hill has never been great for the fighting sections and it hasn't at all been improved here (other than the shooting, which has been improved a little bit).
Overall this is a great addition to the series and is one that any fan of Silent Hill should get into as soon as possible. If the rumours are true that this is going to be delayed for even longer in the UK, the US copy of the game is region free so I'd import it now to save waiting.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Platform for Display:PLAYSTATION 3
Fun:
Well like all SH fans, I was really excited about this release. I saw all the problems straight out of the box, but I made allowances because it was silent hill
There is little introduction to the game, you're pretty much thrown straight into it. But I thought fair enough, the story must build up slowly. But it doesn't. There is no background. You won't care for any other characters. When you encounter the bosses, there's no sense of WHY you're battling them. The final boss had no sense of finality about it. It was just another hurdle to clear. Hollow and empty
The controls are just awful. It is so linear. They clearly haven't tried. Contrast to arkham asylum or metal gear solid where the range of movement is vast, flowing and expansive. There seems to be a delay from pressing a button to the execution actually happening. Which in combat is so, so irritating.
The settings have now become oh so tiresome. The whole running around in the dark thing is a lot more frustrating than it is scary. Although in the later stages of the game the settings do begin to show a bit of color whilst maintaining some eeriness. Thankgod.
There was only puzzle in this game that is challenging. It would have been nice to re-introduce the silent hill 3 option where you could set the riddle level. Instead the majority of the puzzles have become tedious and tiresome.
Save points are so far between. For me this was a real pain, as I like to sit down and have play for 20 minutes here or there. Each time you turn it on, expect a 45 minute session. At minimum. This ruins the flow of the game, as you get into the mindset of i'll just play till the next save point.
One introduction I did like was that during the video scenes, you had options on what do to next. For example, you could choose between one of two questions to ask. I dont know whether the choices you make influence the game. There was one scene where you have to make a really difficult decision. However, on the whole this feature was not utilized enough. It had massive potential
In conclusion, not worth it. Every other member of the series tops this one; with silent hill 2 sitting at the top as a game that me and my flatmate still talk about 5 years after having completed it! I completed this game yesterday and i've forgotten about it already
There is little introduction to the game, you're pretty much thrown straight into it. But I thought fair enough, the story must build up slowly. But it doesn't. There is no background. You won't care for any other characters. When you encounter the bosses, there's no sense of WHY you're battling them. The final boss had no sense of finality about it. It was just another hurdle to clear. Hollow and empty
The controls are just awful. It is so linear. They clearly haven't tried. Contrast to arkham asylum or metal gear solid where the range of movement is vast, flowing and expansive. There seems to be a delay from pressing a button to the execution actually happening. Which in combat is so, so irritating.
The settings have now become oh so tiresome. The whole running around in the dark thing is a lot more frustrating than it is scary. Although in the later stages of the game the settings do begin to show a bit of color whilst maintaining some eeriness. Thankgod.
There was only puzzle in this game that is challenging. It would have been nice to re-introduce the silent hill 3 option where you could set the riddle level. Instead the majority of the puzzles have become tedious and tiresome.
Save points are so far between. For me this was a real pain, as I like to sit down and have play for 20 minutes here or there. Each time you turn it on, expect a 45 minute session. At minimum. This ruins the flow of the game, as you get into the mindset of i'll just play till the next save point.
One introduction I did like was that during the video scenes, you had options on what do to next. For example, you could choose between one of two questions to ask. I dont know whether the choices you make influence the game. There was one scene where you have to make a really difficult decision. However, on the whole this feature was not utilized enough. It had massive potential
In conclusion, not worth it. Every other member of the series tops this one; with silent hill 2 sitting at the top as a game that me and my flatmate still talk about 5 years after having completed it! I completed this game yesterday and i've forgotten about it already
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Was ok (/' ' ')/
Game was alright but was too easy when not in boss fights.
would give it a 6/10 (/' ' ')/
would give it a 6/10 (/' ' ')/
Published 8 months ago by Simon Allen
Horrifyingly frustrating addition to the Silent Hill catalogue
My love of the first two Silent Hill titles has always kept me playing the progressively weaker additions to the series. Read more
Published 12 months ago by MR P M HEATON
silent hill xD
brilliant game awesome if you like following a story line and getting goodies along the way (weapons ect. Read more
Published 17 months ago by bug brain 91
Silent Hill, for Mum
Novice mum player has to ask son to help her kill the 'bosses' but otherwise good game play and atmosphere.
Published on 30 April 2010 by D. A. Hart
Maybe the Last of its Kind?
The reviewers who state that this is different from the other Silent Hill games are correct in that it has more action, but the essence is still there. Take the graveyard. Read more
Published on 27 Mar 2010 by C. Pendlebury
a new strange experience
Silent Hill is always a terrifying town, with family secrets and real horror , wainting for you in dark corners ; FEAR OF THE DARK !!
Published on 7 Oct 2009 by Courtois
Boo Hiss!
This is not a good Silent Hill game...I would say it's the least impressive of all the major releases to date. Read more
Published on 28 Sep 2009 by A. Griffiths
Not that bad - worth buying cheap!
Back to Silent Hill then? Well not really as most of the action takes place in Shepherds Glen. Apart from that, it's the usual mix of monsters and fog and meetings with characters... Read more
Published on 16 Sep 2009 by SP Crowley
Silent hill review
Decent game,very scary at night especially as you can't see much in the dark. Not as good as the original resident evil games,storyline is a bit confusing if you are new to silent... Read more
Published on 1 Sep 2009 by Charmer
Same formula still works
Unlike Resident Evil, this game has kept gameplay pretty much the same as all the previous versions (which isn't a bad thing). Read more
Published on 20 Jun 2009 by Mr. L. J. Mullen
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