One Of My Favorites

[MurphyPendleton]

I don't understand why people have been putting this game down as low as Their "LEAST" Favorite game, personally i can't decide which game is my Favorite but its either Downpour or Homecoming. I liked the story in homecoming and the characters and the environment i don't see whats the downside to it.

[Q. Valintyne]

I loved the original Team Silent games. I really liked Homecoming. The things that seem to bother everyone else never even crossed my mind. I thought it was a solid addition to the lore and the gameplay was fun to me. There were a few graphical quips that got me, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was one of the first games I got for PS3 and I played it a whole lot before I was able to buy more. I think the monster design is some of the best and most creative of the series.

In all honesty, it was the only one (besides SH4) that ever scared or unnerved me. That's just me. The drill scene was intense.

One of the things I hated was the Order soldiers. Fighting real people was a huge disconnect for me. That was the only thing I really disliked about it though.

[Floodclaw]

I think people don't like it because of the following:
It takes atmosphere and stuff from the movie (what with the busty nurses and the Order members in mining suits and such)
It references modern day Western horror rather than 90s and earlier horror (Hostel and stuff versus Jacob's Ladder and stuff)
It doesn't have clunky, sticky combat and controls rather well compared to older games, and it is difficult to run away ('Silent Hill is about helplessness and not being able to fight back all the time')
It sticks to Silent Hill 2 a little too much (the plot twist, the monsters, the achievement names)

Among other things. I mean, I personally quite liked the game, but I can see why people don't. It is...an acquired taste, I guess, after having played the TS games. I honestly think it would have fared much better critically if it didn't have the SH name attached to it, but I like it for what it is.

[Q. Valintyne]

I agree with all of what you've said. If I'm not mistaken, wasn't it originally going to be a tie-in to the film of sorts?

I see the "horror homage" thing as well. I've actually never thought of it that way, either. Good observation.

I played the PS3 version so I never really dealt with the achievements (and a patch never added them in trophy form). I can see where it kinda breaks its own immersion by using those references in an otherwise pretty solid game.

I don't think it would've fared very well at all without the SH name, however. People would have definitely made correlations (even without P-Head) and may have even said "this would've made a decent Silent Hill game." It's just the fact that it's already juxtaposed in the series and it will literally make or break fans of the series and their discussions on it. It tried new things that people didn't necessarily like. Even with the better combat, I didn't always fight... especially if my heath was low and I saw a damn Siam.

But yeah... I really like Homecoming. A whole lot, actually. I liked the characters and the bosses the most.

[OneFreeMan]

While it is my least favorite I still liked. I liked the characters of Alex & Elle, The design was great as was the voice acting and soundtrack.

The story I thought good although the twist that

REVEAL SPOILER

Josh was dead

I thought was rather weak and predictable. To me it was anyway. I thought that after completing the Hotel stage. For the only problem it has is it has a lack of atmosphere. But that's just me.

[Floodclaw]

^Indeed. The plot was rather weak concerning that. The cult offshoot part of it was nice, though, and the voice-acting is the best in the series. Or rather, it was before Downpour came out.

And the bosses, definitely some of the best in the series. Scarlet and her music in particular.

[OneFreeMan]

I definitely feel the voice acting get better by each installment and scarlet is the best boss in the game and has the best design of any monster i the game.

[Augophthalmoses]

I've run away from my fair share of monsters in Homecoming. And I will never understand the "Silent Hill needs protagonists to be helpless complaints with Homecoming". Were the main characters in past games really that helpless? The games provided you with a shitton of ammo and Heather had no problems using a submachine gun despite her likely not having any experience with such a weapon. You don't need clunky combat to have scares or tension.

[Shadedarkan]

The combat was just as difficult in Homecoming as in other games. You had to know when to hit the dodge button, which didn't always work, and you couldn't use just one weapon on everything. I know in all the TS SHs I always used the steel pipe to kill everything but bosses and sometimes even then, depending on if I felt like dealing with it. I loved that you had to figure out which weapons were best to use on which monsters and if you didn't there was no way to get past certain points of the game because you got hit so much there wasn't enough health items to continue. I got stuck at the end of the sewer because of that and had to restart the game from the beginning.

[Augophthalmoses]

The combat was just as difficult in Homecoming as in other games. You had to know when to hit the dodge button, which didn't always work, and you couldn't use just one weapon on everything. I know in all the TS SHs I always used the steel pipe to kill everything but bosses and sometimes even then, depending on if I felt like dealing with it. I loved that you had to figure out which weapons were best to use on which monsters and if you didn't there was no way to get past certain points of the game because you got hit so much there wasn't enough health items to continue. I got stuck at the end of the sewer because of that and had to restart the game from the beginning.

Having to know when to hit a monster and when to back off and get out of the way has been part of Silent Hill's melee fighting since the very beginning. I remember having to time my swings with the pipe in SH1 so as to hit the children before they're able to grab a hold of my legs. That's not something that wasn't around until Homecoming came along. It just seems much more apparent to people because:
A. Gun ammo is limited making people rely on melee fights more.
B. The game (like SH3 & 4) continues the tradition of having the player exploring buildings more often instead of more free roaming which leads to a bit less room to dodge.

I do think they should have given the player more health (or a better solution: having more than two difficulty levels for action as well as the Bullet Adjust option that SH1-3 had) to accommodate the upgraded fighting mechanics. If the game had things like that, it probably wouldn't have been criticized as much. It also depends on player skill as well. I've heard numerous comments from fans about getting hit so much and being low on health supplies. On the same token, there have been just as many fans who think the fighting is easy and never run low on health (especially since reloading a previous save always resets your health to about half even if your health was lower than that prior to reloading).

I like how weapons were more realistic with some being faster, slower, more damaging, etc. than others. But the main problem was not being better help the fans with the fighting mechanics via more padding, not the mechanics themselves.

[NarooN]

The only thing I didn't like about HC was the Order soldiers. Kinda obvious they got it from the movie and it was just boring fighting other humans. Other than that, great game to me.

[MurphyPendleton]

The only thing I didn't like about HC was the Order soldiers. Kinda obvious they got it from the movie and it was just boring fighting other humans. Other than that, great game to me.

I thought the orderly's are scary, shows that Alex is not even slightly afraid to kill a man

[captain crowbar]

I don't judge. If you like it that's fine. I think it's one of the worst in the series, personally, but I don't hate the game. I just feel like it had a ton of wasted potential.

[JaneTheNurse]

Love it. Alex is relatable, the story is good, the graphics are good, the creatures are excellent, the symbolism is everywhere and quite interesting to think about, and the voice acting is pretty awesome.
I think one of the few things I don't like about it is Judge Holloway's supervillain speech.

[MurphyPendleton]

Love it. Alex is relatable, the story is good, the graphics are good, the creatures are excellent, the symbolism is everywhere and quite interesting to think about, and the voice acting is pretty awesome.
I think one of the few things I don't like about it is Judge Holloway's supervillain speech.

im with you on that one haha

[astro]

I thought the combat in Homecoming was overall pretty good (because it was difficult and frenetic), and it has the best survival element in the series thus far with the possible exclusion of Downpour, if only because the combat in Homecoming is pretty easy to take advantage of. The issues I have with the game revolve around it being overdone and cliche, but not much else except for a couple of mechanics, like dialog options (some of the symbolism was slightly lacking too [especially in the monsters]).

[Augophthalmoses]

Yeah, borrowing Order soldiers from the movie was pretty uncreative. But I didn't have problems fighting human enemies for a change. It gave the impression that there is a community to the Order and it's not just a handful of three or four people. And they did a job of balancing them in encounter rate by having them show up towards the end of the game instead of throughout the entire experience.

[rollerfan222]

I loved the original Team Silent games. I really liked Homecoming. The things that seem to bother everyone else never even crossed my mind. I thought it was a solid addition to the lore and the gameplay was fun to me. There were a few graphical quips that got me, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was one of the first games I got for PS3 and I played it a whole lot before I was able to buy more. I think the monster design is some of the best and most creative of the series.

In all honesty, it was the only one (besides SH4) that ever scared or unnerved me. That's just me. The drill scene was intense.

One of the things I hated was the Order soldiers. Fighting real people was a huge disconnect for me. That was the only thing I really disliked about it though.

i totally agree with you on everything you said, they gave hoemcoming such a hard time for not being made by team silent, and modernizing the controls ( in a good way ) it had a creepy, dark, and depressing atmosphere and was a great game pretty well developed. the monsters were perfect, soundtrack was amazing and story/characters were great too, it actually scared me the most out of all the sh games and its my favourite along with 2. and i played it soo much too.

[schlaufuchsMIKE]

... the graphics are good...

I never quite understand it when people bash this game for not having as good of graphics as it's predecessors. I mean, slightly less good would be understandable, but they treat it like it's a huge step down. As far as I can tell, the graphics really aren't bad. I feel as though people blowing the graphics out of proportion is hinged on their hate for the game.

[WhiteClaudia]

I personally didn't have a problem with the Order Soldiers. Yes, they have the same uniform, but they do not have the same meaning or role as they do in the movie. The cult in the movie is not the Order. It's an opposing religious organization, thus making those soldiers not Order Soldiers. What I didn't like was what was said above:

REVEAL SPOILER

the cliche twist at the end with Joshua.

I did like however:

REVEAL SPOILER

finding out that Alex was never in a war at all, but in a mental hospital, suppressing all those dark memories from before.

It's not one of my favorites from the series, but I still liked it and it certainly is not at the bottom of my list. I still actually haven't decided which is XD Even the game that IS at the bottom, I still liked playing and enjoyed the storyline.