Silent, Downpour, not, good, tries, fails, heugh. Sorry if
that opening sentence was a little hard to read but unfortunately the sentence
was developed for the PS3 so the framerate chugged a bit. Not that it’s a
technically functional game on either system but when the PS3 version of Silent
Hill Downpour collapses to the point of
a Powerpoint presentation because it can’t handle movement and loading a trophy
at the same time it feels worthy of mentioning.
Poor technical performance might come off as an odd thing to
mention in the first paragraph of a review too but frankly after playing it on
the Playstation 3 that’s the strongest impression it leaves on your brain. It’s
certainly stronger than any of the themes Downpour attempts to convey through
its story and gameplay so looking at it retrospectively “Low Framerate” would
actually be a more appropriate subtitle.
Enough of that though, Silent Hill: Downpour is a
continuation of the series all about America’s worst tourist town and also a
continuation of Konami’s company policy to keep giving the Japanese horror
franchise to Western developers so they miss the point. This time the game
surrounds the story of Murphy Pendleton, a convict who has some kind of dark
past and ends up lost in the town of Silent Hill so he can be confronted with
it in a selection of increasingly stupid ways. Why “Downpour”? Because at the
start of the game you stab a bloke in the showers, so it rains a lot in the
town, this is apparently “theming”.
Once again, the big issue here is Downpour isn’t scary, at
all. One of the major issues is the monster designs, there’s only about half
the amount other Silent Hill games have provided and they’re all pathetic.
Three of them are pretty much interchangeable, and all of them are just guys
with gashed up mouths and faces, it’s a stretch to call them monsters at all
really. Some of the environments are okay but the general feeling of a gloomy
and horror filled atmosphere is just non-existent, the other world especially
is lacking the twisted imagery the franchise demands and look more like dumb
Castlevania levels than Silent Hill nightmares.
It’s kind of like a haunted house for six year olds with its vague scary
imagery and occasional jump scares, but even then the jump scares don’t work so
in the end Silent Hill Downpour is just a creepy guy who hangs around six year
olds.
Speaking of child abuse Downpour is all about that, it’s
clear early on that dead kids are part of the theme this time round and maybe
the fat bloke at the start of the game bought an ice cream van for reasons
outside of gluttony. This is where the disappointment of Downpour comes
through, there are some really mature ideas and concepts on hand here which on
paper sound like a wonderful subject for the Silent Hill series to tackle, but
it all falls under the “great ideas, awful execution” umbrella. The
game has multiple endings which alter the story entirely which means depending
on which one you get half the content is entirely irrelevant and off message
anyway stripping away the tight focus the previous good Silent Hill games
masterfully retained. It’s difficult to dive much deeper without spoilers, but
let’s put it this way, you know something has gone wrong with a story when
child murder starts to become funny…that or there’s just something wrong with
you…
Downpour isn’t lacking one or two cool moments, perhaps the
most creative being a puzzle recreating a child’s play which although probably
doesn’t make it into the top 10 Silent Hill moments is a highlight for this
game. The game also has some okay sidequests but they’re all done for their own
sake considering the items you get from them all get taken away in the last
level, and frankly the game isn’t good enough to warrant the effort so all
making these bits sidequests really achieved was make the game seem shorter.
There is also the fact that as much as Downpour gets wrong
it still seems favourable to other Western Silent Hill titles such as
Homecoming and Origins, with the former being a love letter to all the worst
bits of the Silent Hill movies and the latter being an unbelievably tedious
affair aside one or two moments where it rips off other better games which is
more frustrating than entertaining.
Really, the issue with survival horror games is that
designers deliberately make the gameplay and exploration elements weaker and
more frustrating to add to the stress and atmosphere, so when the game fails to
excel the whole experience comes off as a bit cack. Downpour fails in
atmosphere as nothing really feels like a threat, and any scare the game
attempts gets mauled by the framerate so any stress comes from panicking that
the game has crashed (which it did once) and you’ll have to do some of it
again. Compared to other bad games in the genre like the aforementioned
Homecoming, Downpour isn’t nearly as painful to get through, but when it ends
there’s no feeling of emotional simulation or satisfaction so it’s impossible
to recommend as there really is no point to play it other than maybe get
annoyed at some of the missed potential in some of the ideas.
But if you’re a big Silent Hill fan and must insist on
getting it anyway, for the love of Alessa get the 360 version.
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