Silent Hill Homecoming

It's not really like me to write a review about something without seeing it to the end, but I've decided to do so for two reasons. One: there's something in the game that's keeping me from finishing it. Two: I'm planing to write another review if my expectations were proved wrong after beating the game.

Let's start by explaining something about the Silent Hill series. Most of the people I talked to thought that as much as the games were terrifying, they were also utterly stupid because of the plot twists.
In reply to that, I'd say that the plots are not as superficial as they seem. In fact, those people are taking them a little too literally. The series reflect the Japanese concept of horror, that which lies in the person's own sub-conscious. You need to understand that most of the main characters there have a certain guilt that becomes manifested in the town of Silent Hill.

The second thing I wanted to address is the movie. Usually, I don't like movies which are based on video games or vise versa. For me, the movie would ruin a once perfect game. The biggest example of that is the horrendous Resident Evil movie which turned the story from a horror plot to that of selling semi nude pics. After the movie came out, the series just lost it. Resident Evil games are still good action games, but they somehow lost their essence.
The same goes for Tomb Raider which due to demands of realism became nothing but a random game that has nothing special about it save for its graphics.

I'm afraid Silent Hill is taking the same turn for the worst. Being a video game addict, I can never have a new game lying around without finishing it in 3 to 5 days max, but Silent Hill Homecoming will probably take me like forever.

After buying the game, I immediately took a quick look over the small box's content, eager to read about the new plot. I noticed that the crew working on this game in particular had not a single Japanese name among them or so it seemed until I realized that team Silent had little to do with this installment.

Graphics:
Almost every Silent Hill game had spectacular graphics. The way the characters are designed and their interaction with the surrounding environment look realistic enough. To tell the truth, I expected Homecoming to have the best graphics given the fact that it's on the PS3, but it was the same as it's predecessors...a bit worse actually.

Gameplay:
Boring, and I can't stress that enough. The enemies are just a drag to kill thanks to the stupid aiming system, specially those monkey things. Don't get me wrong, I like a challenging game, but you need to have a battle system that encourages you to keep going. The new targeting system just didn't do it for me. It bugged me. It made me hate using guns. Besides, Alex's responses seemed a little slow. He dodges after recieving the attack. He attacks in the wrong direction in spite of my pressing the target button, he opens doors after he makes me go though one hell of an anger fit. In addition to that, controlling Alex's movement is stiff, hard, and only old games used this way of moving a character. It makes me feel that I'm driving a car, not controlling a character. There's also the issue of the camera too. Most games would give you the reverse option, but this game didn't have it.

Music:
The only good thing I could think of. Akira Yamokak is a genius and he's one of my favorite composers. This piece in particular is mesmerizing:

Actually, it's the one thing that makes me go back to playing this game after giving up on it.

Plot:
Too early to judge now, but I bet it's a good plot...as always.

All in All:
I'd give it 6 out of 10, but even that is not totally conclusive. I'll re address the topic after I finish the game, I have to, I must. Otherwise, it would be like spending 200 RS on nothing.