Silent Hill Homecoming

Our verdict on Silent Hill's current generation debut.

	Version 360 (PS3, PC)	Developer Konami	Publisher Konami	Genre Horror

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Sometimes the milking is quite blatant - when Pyramid Head makes an appearance, surfboard-size carving knife and all, you feel like you're being prompted to ask for his autograph. And then to top it all off there are times when the game quits its inspirations altogether and draws on boring survival horror archetypes, like flayed zombie dogs or giant beetles.

Alex at least gets shot of the opposition with a little more panache than previous protagonists. Homecoming bolts on a dodge move and some button-mashing sequences when you're grabbed or pinned, but otherwise combat is the same old merry-go-round: hold a trigger to enter Mr Angry stance, shuffle towards the target, and bludgeon it to death with light and heavy blows. Attacking straight after a dodge will stun your opponent, giving you a few seconds to charge up the next hit by holding the button, and you can regain your feet quicker when floored with a well-timed tap.

Guns are now aimed from an over-the-shoulder perspective, and there's actually more science to their use than simply saving them for boss fights, as you can't dodge and counter with a firearm. It's safe to say that Homecoming continues the series' tradition of improving combat slightly with each iteration, while remaining well outside shouting distance of the best the genre has to offer.

Overall game flow has been evened out: levels are shorter (thankfully, given the scarcity of save points) and the key-based puzzles are narrower in scope, with less of the tracking to and fro across multiple floors which fattened the play-time in previous games. This focus also, however, makes Homecoming's stolid linearity very evident, much as the developer tries to disguise it with a smattering of hidden rooms and, of course, an avalanche of locked or broken doors, which give the impression you're playing through a tightly circumscribed segment of an open world adventure.

Rattling those door knobs, hunting listlessly for something new or, failing that, the exit, is pretty much Silent Hill: Homecoming in a nutshell. There may be a witch's brew of possibilities behind those doors, but Double Helix isn't the studio to coax them into the light. As it is, the only thing between the series and total obsolescence is Akira Yamaoka's predictably awesome ambient score. If he ever loses interest, it'll take more than a bloke with a giant metal orange juicer on his head to yank Silent Hill back from the precipice.

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