Silent Hill: Downpour Review

Posted By Austin Yorski about 1 year, 2 months ago

Silent Hill: Downpour Review

Silent Hill: Downpour was one of BT’s “Worst Games of E3.” The demo Konami had on hand wasn’t just bad, but actually unplayable, as it glitched and became impossible to progress. I tried to put my first impressions of the game aside to review it, assuming they used the multiple delays to iron out bugs and tighten up the newest entry in what had once been one of gaming’s marquee franchises. I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of the I things I saw in my latest trip to everybody’s favorite haunted town, but I can’t help but feel the lingering ghost of the problems that haunted the original gameplay demonstration.

You begin Downpour by taking control of protagonist Murphy Pendleton as he violently penetrates another man in a prison shower. Perhaps I could have worded that better… Either way, you then follow the prisoner onto a transport bus that crashes in the titular town of Silent Hill. Yes, the game has the same opening as The Fugitive, but its content is much different. It’s about a psychologically tortured prisoner who has to fight off symbolic monsters while coming to terms with his dark past that has something to do with his child. Oh wait, that’s the plot of The Suffering.

Snark aside, Murphy is actually a pretty unique main character, as far as white, heterosexual, American males go. His personality faults are clear from the get-go, and his exasperation with the behavior of the few residents of the eponymous hellhole is actually hilarious. Of course, the conclusion of his character arc depends on which ending you get, but the general storytelling on display here is good, if not up to Silent Hill 2‘s standard. But, then again, what is?

This is one of the only supporting characters. He is a magic mailman.

It’s important to address the franchise’s legacy right out of the gate though, because your attachment to previous games in the series will likely dictate if you should purchase this game or not. While Downpour doesn’t reach the lofty heights of its fore-bearers, it is a lot closer to them in terms of gameplay style. Gone is Homecoming‘s focus on combat or Shattered Memories‘ personality guessing system. This iteration is the closest of any of the modern Silent Hills to the original trilogy in terms of mechanics, so if you’re looking for that old-school fix, then it’s finally arrived.

As you may have noticed, I put the game’s “clumsy combat” as a positive at the beginning of the article. This is because Silent Hill isn’t meant to be an action-heavy experience, and the frantic fumbling that accompanies any given encounter is actually to the game’s advantage. In fact, the game actively encourages you to avoid combat, with several achievements/trophies being dedicated to avoiding, running away from, and not killing enemies. It also appears that some of the criteria for certain endings is based on how many monsters you take down, with the better ones favoring pacifism. Don’t come into Downpour expecting something like the modern Resident Evil games. I found two guns and about 50 bullets between them over the course of my play-through, and never needed to fire a single shot.

Gosh, I sure hope nothing comes in through that cracked window.

So, if you spend half of the game running away, then what do you do the other half of the time? Solve puzzles, of course! There are your standard combination locks, the old “find the right key” gambits, and even a sliding tile puzzle waiting for you, but there is the occasional exceptionally clever challenge. One in particular that I really enjoyed involved putting on a stage production of Hansel and Gretel, if you can believe it. Another smart one I solved through sheer luck, and only later realized what I should have done upon further reflection. The game does offer several different difficulty options for its puzzles at the start, but from what I can tell the answers usually stay the same, but the clues and methods of carrying out the solution become more complex on higher settings.

The last important element of Downpour is the fact that there are large sections of it when you are just left to your own devices in the city. These segments actually let you explore the locale at your own leisure, and are some of the most atmospheric and interesting. I only got lost once, thanks to the surprisingly useful maps that Murphy keeps in his journal. More interestingly, these sections allow you to walk around and complete side-quests. Yes, side-quests in Silent Hill. From freeing caged birds to returning stolen items to their rightful owners, these diversions are interesting, but pretty out of place. It’s yet to be seen if completing all of these quests has any effect on your ending, but it seems to make sense with Pendleton’s character arc that he would be rewarded for taking the time to do so.

Silent Hill: Downpour Review

By Austin Yorski

Does the newest Silent Hill overcome its soggy E3 demo and bring the series back to its roots?