So here it is -- my review of Silent Hill: Homecoming at Variety. Thus far from chatting to people, I've gleaned that I think a bit better of it than many of my colleagues do, though Mike McWhertor's much more measured assessment of the title at Kotaku is the only actual other review I've seen.I'm surprised at how defensive I feel of what Double Helix has achieved here, and I fear it might lose too much in over-zealous comparisons to the rest of the series. Perhaps I'm so (pre-emptively!) defensive because I perceive fan sentiment for the original trilogy to have raised the bar for Homecoming on all fronts so high that some of the subtler, more intriguing victories it achieves will be lost in waves of whining over anything vaguely different or new. We've had an entire console generation -- and then some -- to masticate the first three Silent Hill games, and because of that, I think we're forgetting some things.
Read my review, and then let's talk, fan to fan, about Homecoming, shall we?
1. You will probably dislike Homecoming's combat... It's more complex than what you're used to, it's more difficult, and you will have to do it somewhat more often. But lest you forget, you disliked the previous trilogy's combat, too. "The combat was supposed to be bad" is an angle we have selected to defend the technical flaws of a series we love against lame reviewers who tried to make technical flaws a reason to overlook its singular successes.
Let's quit fooling ourselves. Clunky combat adds to the fear, we said, and while it's definitely true, I'd like to ask the designers of the original Silent Hill whether making the controls crappy was an intentional design decision -- nobody sets out to make bad controls, period. Improving the combat does not miraculously transform it into an action game. Don't worry, Homecoming's combat is clunky too. ...but when has combat ever really played a role in whether you like Silent Hill or not?
2. Its plot is less obscure... Previous Silent Hill games begged twenty-page dissertations on their symbols and themes. It's fun to discuss and debate, but at the end of the day, you're not going to get a clear answer about why, at the end of SH2, there was no difference in function between the "scarlet egg" and the "rust-colored egg."
As we've been discussing, the Japanese horror approach tends to favor raising questions while the Western approach tends to favor answering them. We've also agreed that Japanese entertainment in general likes to pastiche together elements that evoke response without needing them to mean anything or inter-relate wholly. Being able to connect the dots does not ruin the game. And while some of it is overt, it's also layered -- there is plenty to wonder about and hyperanalyze, and rest assured that I myself will be indulging in hyperanalysis aplenty over the next few weeks. ...but at least it all makes sense, and you'd be surprised at how much more immersive that is.
3. Its pacing is more traditional... You are used to gigantic areas, a billion locked doors, and areas that felt like distinct stages governed by their own tangential objectives that sometimes appeared to have a symbolic relationship to the main story (Heather Morris in the hospital, James Sunderland in the room with the hanging nooses) -- and sometimes didn't (Stanley Coleman was scary, but what'd he have to do with anything, really?). This made the experience feel disjointed and surreal, which served the series. Homecoming is still disjointed and surreal, never you worry. But largely, everything you do in it has relevance to either the subtext or main plot of the story... and this makes it scarier. The smallest things around you become frightening if you can invest them with meaning.
4. Yes, it visually resembles the movie... but the only good thing about the movie was that it looked and sounded, superficially, just like the game. I am not seeing an abandonment of the root visual lexicon by any stretch of the imagination. Major visual cues specific to the movie alone are precisely two, and yes, one of them is Pyramid Head. I'm actually rather stunned that, reading comments and concerns around the web, one of the predominating anxieties is that Homecoming's Pyramid Head looks more like the movie's than like SH2's Pyramid Head... but is this really preferable to this, anyway? [Edit: I actually thought of a couple more movie-things in the game, but still, it's non-disruptive.]
In other words, fans, you will find things to quibble with in the fifth installment of the Silent Hill franchise. But why do you really want to quibble when you could also enjoy this game and make new discoveries, too?
And Here Comes The Rant...
I feel that we -- both reviewers and audiences -- get so hung up on certain minor debates with important titles that we miss their accomplishments. Most of the discussion around Metal Gear Solid 4, for example, hinged on criticizing Hideo Kojima's aggrandizing, overburdened directorial style. And it's a fair criticism, but wouldn't it be also fair to note that the late-game "microwave hallway" scene and the visceral, psychological impact it evokes deserves to be one of the most memorable moments of the year, or that the all-female, emotionally traumatized Beauty & Beast unit is one of the most interesting slates of villains we've seen in the comparatively short history of our medium?
Stuff like that is all there in any game if you want to look -- and it saddens me when I see that what we most want to do is to nitpick, make self-referential comparisons, and grab quick and easy answers on whether something is "good" or "bad," or "better than" or "worse than" what we're used to. Especially when we were all too happy to criticize "what we're used to" in the days when it was still new.
We end up idealizing our past, and that's unfair to our present and cruel to our future. Unable to come to a definitive answer to disagreements about certain aspects of BioShock or GTA IV, for example, we banish them from our vocabulary.
We wait years for some of these games, and make constant, steep demands of the industry for where it "should go" or what it "needs to do" that approach obnoxious entitlements -- and yet misguided nostalgia often makes us entirely unwilling or unable to embrace steps they take in the right direction. Reviewers are jaded, consumers are perpetually unsatisfied, and nobody ever wins. And that's a shame.
We want things from games, we expect things, and that's fine. But have we forgotten that we love them?
Critics should be critical; I'm not suggesting people should stop raising complaints when something doesn't strike them right. But I definitely feel that we -- again, both reviewers and audiences -- have created a culture wherein we are deliberately searching for things to dislike, issues to take up arms over. And the discussion and debate that's taken place here at SVGL in the last week just about genre definitions and combat design mechanics demonstrates, I think, that there is not always a "right answer," there is not some universal standard-meter that starts at one hundred percent and just keeps dropping for every flaw we find.
This is an especially salient point when we're discussing Silent Hill, which proved arguably better than any other series that one man's flaw is another man's feature. So as you read other reviews and critical scores for Homecoming in the coming week, I'd like you to keep a couple things in mind -- first is that I really like the game, and if you read this blog, you clearly think my opinion counts for something, even a very minor something.
I'm not telling anyone to buy a game just because I like it (even when I often say so, jokingly). If you're on the fence about Homecoming, as I sense a lot of people are, read a lot of reviews, think about your own tastes and come to your own opinion.
Which brings me to my second point. Unfortunately I feel I'm "preaching to the choir" by saying this to the excellent readers of this blog, but nonetheless -- just because one person might levy certain criticisms, against Homecoming or any other game, that doesn't necessarily mean you won't like it -- even if those flaws are legit and not subjective at all.
You can fault the review lexicon we currently have, you can fault our demanding gamer culture, you can fault the readers who still demand "objectivity" from us as if a reviewer, ideally a gamer something like yourself, could truly posess any such thing.
And to illustrate my second point, I'll leave you with excerpts from reviews of our beloved Silent Hill 2 back when it came out, as something to keep in mind when you remember just how much you love that damn game -- and when you're comparing Homecoming reviews to your fond memories of 2. Many of these quotes were extrapolated from 8 to 10-rated reviews, by the way.
...And Reflection
"Instead of the brain-bending adventure with scares and gore that I had so desperately hoped for, it turned out to be a sloppy, monotonous bore that nearly put me to sleep." -- Game Informer
"Silent Hill 2's gameplay mechanics are no different than those of any other game ever slapped with the 'survival-horror' tag. You'll whack legions of the same four or so enemy types, using the same familiar array of blunt objects, pistols, and shotguns; get Medallions A, B, and C; put them in Statue D, which opens Door E; walk through Door E; repeat until numb. You'll fight awkward camera angles as much as freaky bad things... fans of the original will be disappointed that not much is new." -- GamePro
"The action, though, is simply repetitive, as even the most common creatures must be bludgeoned repeatedly to 'kill' them (and there are a lot of creatures)." -- Next Generation
"The pacing can be a little languid at times, and the combat and movement controls could use some tweaking. Also, this game feels a little linear and lacking in extras when compared to the original." -- GameCritics
"Flawed, frustrating and contrived, but as an experience it's one of the most emotionally engaging games in existence." -- GamesRadar UK
"Silent Hill 2 doesn't break any molds or revolutionize the survival-horror genre in any particular way..." -- IGN
"Silent Hill 2 is a much prettier, somewhat smarter but less-compelling game than the original... The game's storyline makes more sense in the end of this sequel than it did in the original, but unlike in that game, it never creates the pressing need to understand it in the first place." -- GameSpot
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...Just sayin'.
(And lest you think I'm being prejudiced against Silent Hill 2, here's a reminder that I love it still. And even though I've outlined why I think Silent Hill 4 is the weakest, I found a few key things to like about it, too.)
