Silent Hill: Homecoming

Opening with a short, violent descent into a blood-spattered vision of hospital orderly–staffed hell, this could be only one game — Silent Hill: Homecoming, the fifth in the emotionally disturbing survival-horror series.

“You know Silent Hill,” explains Konami producer William Oertel. “You don’t explain a lot of things. Much of it is very deliberate. You don’t have to go into every single detail. You leave it to the fans to decipher…In a sense, the whole game is like a puzzle.”

Indeed, from its harrowing initial sequence — one that also introduces you to a new button-spamming mechanic you’ll have to employ to escape the restraints of a leather-strapped gurney — things definitely aren’t what they seem. As incredibly reserved protagonist Alex Shepherd, who’s just returning to his hometown from some mysterious form of military service, you feel like nothing is real — and in fact, you’ll be hard pressed to figure out exactly what’s going on even after you’re a few hours into the game. Everything from the trademark quivering, herky-jerky nurses to the empty hospital hallways to the sudden realization that everything up to that point might be a dream (D’oh! spoiler alert!) — it can all be seen as merely some physical manifestation of what may or may not be happening in Shepherd’s mind.

But while the storyline has always been the series’ most riveting bullet-point, Homecoming doesn’t exactly let up on the gameplay. The most notable newness comes in the form of combat — something that in previous games was pretty much relegated to “Smack that dog around with your pipe” or “Shoot the nurse!” This time out, the team at developer Double Helix (a.k.a. The Collective and Shiny merged together) has opted to make things more interesting with your ability to dodge attacks, inflict heavy or light hits, and execute massively brutal finishing moves. Deliciously, each weapon you wield harbors a unique finishing move depending on the enemy you’re facing — in the nurse example, the last blow is particularly grisly, as you plunge a knife into the creature’s chest repeatedly. Psycho.

All in all, combat seems…well, tougher than before. Timing and dodges aren’t common words in most Silent Hill fans’ vocabularies, so you’ll rely heavily on another feature new to the franchise — enemies’ ability to detect sound and light. Running into objects (like an appropriately rusted iron lung in a darkened hospital, perhaps?) shows off the game’s new physics system. Metal objects clatter to the floor, while discarded chairs and other bits knock around. All of them make the kind of noise that’ll set those stumbling bad guys into a frenzied hunt for your sorry hide.

Another mechanic that’s new to the series is the ability for conversations to “branch.” It’s not nearly as deep as, say, Mass Effect, but in certain situations, you’re prompted to ask questions from a two-choice list. Depending on what you ask, you may get more background or garner a slightly different reaction. You’ll have only one shot at each conversation (replay-value alert!), but the world itself is fairly wide-open. If you visited the City Hall earlier and you’re still in town, you can always backtrack.

But not surprisingly, the real meat of our demo was the storyline — hardcore franchise buffs should be happy to note that it’s all coming along swimmingly. With a few nods to previous series entries (Silent Hill: Origins trucker Travis shows up as giving the hitchhiking Alex a ride to Shepherd’s Glen) and the franchise’s trademark general weirdness intact, the team behind Homecoming is dead-set (heh, sorry) on making sure that the plot holds up in the tradition of Silent Hill 2’s psychological wake, rather than emulating any of the other, more literal-minded chapters.

Why is Alex’s hometown shrouded in fog and devoid of people (except for a handful of characters we saw during the demo, including his childhood friend, Elle; Elle’s mom, Judge Holloway; and a kooky junkyard owner named Curtis)? Why is Elle putting up a flier for so many missing townspeople? Where has your brother run off to, and why is your mom sitting around with a gun in her lap? And how the hell do you end up in Silent Hill? Well, we know the answer to that last one, but we certainly aren’t telling.