SH: Downpour - First Impressions

I have three game series Im loyal to and Silent Hill is one of them. My history with these games goes all the way back to 1999 when first one was published on PS. Silent Hill and Resident Evil has something in common; both of them went through changes after 3rd "main sequel" in the serie. For some fans this is when the downhill began, and again for both of them. You can still see alot of same names behind SH4: The Room (ie Keiichiro Toyama and Hiroyuki Owaku - in small concept tho) but it just didn't have the same feeling anymore. And it didn't help the serie that after SH4 Akira Yamaoka wasn't working on music anymore.

So, Downpour was finally published last week - at least in EU. If you count in all other parts of serie this should be 8th, if it matters.
Keiichiro Toyama is still there as a writer, but otherwise the crew has changed alot. Brand new director Brian Gomez has taken over; former director of video game Jericho, and writer of PowerBuff Girls VG as well as Evil Dead VG. So, what can you expect from guy with that experience ?

I've had 2 nights now to test this Downpour and what I can tell so far this will be the very first Silent Hill VG Im not going to complete.
Im just going to quit playing it and leave it to collect dust on my shelf. Yes, it's so far off from typical Silent Hill that I don't even WANT to play it.

There is only two positive things I can say about it; character controls are smooth and some parts of environment are done well.
I wish I could just forget everything else about this game.

- Scaryness ? It's gone. Crows will come from there, crows from there, and again, crows from there.. zz... youre in forest. Crows. More crows.
- Breaking weapons, omg like reality ! You pick up a knife, kill one monster and go to kill another one - on first swing your knife breaks and you end up hitting that creature with bare fists since there are no other weapons nearby, draining every possible health kit you've stored in your inventory so far - because without 8 inches kitchen knife, YOU CAN'T BLOCK ENEMY ATTACKS.
- Throw items, amazing ! You pick rock, throw it, pick rock, throw it, pick rock, throw it, pick fire extinguisher, throw it 40 yards. Murphy should play American football.
- Oh yeah, streets. They all end to abyss. And there's so many of them it becomes tasteless. Someone got obsessed with earthquakes.
- Voice acting, no comment. You can hear it from any video from youtube.
- The big whirl ? It looks like a flying red a**hole, sucking everything in pixel by pixel. If it catches you, you start breathing heavily, but you don't die. What's the point ?
- Weapons (or should I call them tools).. You pick one, spin around, new one has appeared in the place of old one. Damn replicas !
- Menu, it looks like someone has taken picture of food label with bad quality camera and scaled it 400 times larger. Menu graphics looks horrible.
- Tip from loading screen, "if you don't know what to do listen to Murphy". You don't need walkthrough or game guide for Downpour, your character is giving you voice guidance while you play ! Hurray.
- bla bla bla, so many other things..

Sorry, there is nothing big in Downpour.

Kino_00 wrote:

I have three game series Im loyal to and Silent Hill is one of them. My history with these games goes all the way back to 1999 when first one was published on PS. Silent Hill and Resident Evil has something in common; both of them went through changes after 3rd "main sequel" in the serie. For some fans this is when the downhill began, and again for both of them. You can still see alot of same names behind SH4: The Room (ie Keiichiro Toyama and Hiroyuki Owaku - in small concept tho) but it just didn't have the same feeling anymore. And it didn't help the serie that after SH4 Akira Yamaoka wasn't working on music anymore.

So, Downpour was finally published last week - at least in EU. If you count in all other parts of serie this should be 8th, if it matters.
Keiichiro Toyama is still there as a writer, but otherwise the crew has changed alot. Brand new director Brian Gomez has taken over; former director of video game Jericho, and writer of PowerBuff Girls VG as well as Evil Dead VG. So, what can you expect from guy with that experience ?

I've had 2 nights now to test this Downpour and what I can tell so far this will be the very first Silent Hill VG Im not going to complete.
Im just going to quit playing it and leave it to collect dust on my shelf. Yes, it's so far off from typical Silent Hill that I don't even WANT to play it.

There is only two positive things I can say about it; character controls are smooth and some parts of environment are done well.
I wish I could just forget everything else about this game.

- Scaryness ? It's gone. Crows will come from there, crows from there, and again, crows from there.. zz... youre in forest. Crows. More crows.
- Breaking weapons, omg like reality ! You pick up a knife, kill one monster and go to kill another one - on first swing your knife breaks and you end up hitting that creature with bare fists since there are no other weapons nearby, draining every possible health kit you've stored in your inventory so far - because without 8 inches kitchen knife, YOU CAN'T BLOCK ENEMY ATTACKS.
- Throw items, amazing ! You pick rock, throw it, pick rock, throw it, pick rock, throw it, pick fire extinguisher, throw it 40 yards. Murphy should play American football.
- Oh yeah, streets. They all end to abyss. And there's so many of them it becomes tasteless. Someone got obsessed with earthquakes.
- Voice acting, no comment. You can hear it from any video from youtube.
- The big whirl ? It looks like a flying red a**hole, sucking everything in pixel by pixel. If it catches you, you start breathing heavily, but you don't die. What's the point ?
- Weapons (or should I call them tools).. You pick one, spin around, new one has appeared in the place of old one. Damn replicas !
- Menu, it looks like someone has taken picture of food label with bad quality camera and scaled it 400 times larger. Menu graphics looks horrible.
- Tip from loading screen, "if you don't know what to do listen to Murphy". You don't need walkthrough or game guide for Downpour, your character is giving you voice guidance while you play ! Hurray.
- bla bla bla, so many other things..

Sorry, there is nothing big in Downpour.

Its not al all as horrible as you make it out to be. The voice acting is pretty shitty, but the atmosphere and the puzzles are great. The character designs seem a little disappointing compared with what they couldve done, but the game is scary. And what do you mean you cant block? press Y and you block smart guy. The game does what its supposed to do scare you, and having you guess with the puzzles and story. Im liking it so far (maybe playing alone at night will help? i only play it after 2am by my self). The game is not horrible, dont go all ORC on it.

00biohazard wrote:

Its not al all as horrible as you make it out to be. The voice acting is pretty shitty, but the atmosphere and the puzzles are great. The character designs seem a little disappointing compared with what they couldve done, but the game is scary. And what do you mean you cant block? press Y and you block smart guy. The game does what its supposed to do scare you, and having you guess with the puzzles and story. Im liking it so far (maybe playing alone at night will help? i only play it after 2am by my self). The game is not horrible, dont go all ORC on it.

For me it's been horrible enough to stop playing, and that's not what I've ever done with any former SH game. If someone else finds The Feeling from it, I'm happy for them. I just can't. And yes you can block but without a weapon enemies will just "break" your block. Kitchen knife makes such dramatic difference. Or chair. Or leg of chair.
I think they tried to make Downpour just way too.. realistic ? There are good sides in this game, but way too many bad sides.

I heard there are some hardcore glitches in it too. lol

SH Downpour? I've seen it's trailer and the main character seems new.

Miss Claire Redfield wrote:

the main character seems new.

He is.

Sargent D wrote:

Miss Claire Redfield wrote:

the main character seems new.

He is.

I knew it! Who's that Guy anyway?

Miss Claire Redfield wrote:

I knew it! Who's that Guy anyway?

Can't remeber what his name is but it's a guy with the typical SH first name and weird last name. lol

Murphy Pendleton, some random convict who's being transferred from prison to another. Bus crashes, obv near Silent Hill. Where else would cars ever crash ?

Kino_00 wrote:

Murphy Pendleton

See Miss, I was right.