Not all silence is golden...
Okay, another one I'm late on. Even though I started this shortly after picking it up on its release day back in 2012, I couldn't exactly remember why I suddenly stopped playing when I was clearly past the halfway point. It might have been due to other games coming out at the same time, but that's still quite peculiar in my case.
Silent Hill has been beloved favorite series of mine since playing the original just a little over fifteen years ago. I'm not one that's easy to scare, and nothing has come so close to nerve-shredding terror as these games. Well... the earlier ones at least. After Silent Hill 4, things sorta went downhill.
Sure, there was that bright spot called Shattered Memories that popped up in 2009 for the Wii, but ever since the games fell out of Japan's grasp, my confidence in the series' lifespan was diminishing fast. Homecoming especially left a bad taste in my mouth.
So here comes the eighth entry... Downpour. Does it fix the problems of its recent predecessors, or does it fall flat on its face?
Pros: Haunting weather and lighting effects engulf the eerie town in a beautiful fashion; Great unsettling soundtrack; Great looking indoor environments in both normal and dark worlds; Clever puzzles and plenty of side quests
Cons: Heavy technical problems like framerate and freezing plague the experience; Weak story, and even weaker supporting characters; Erratic and obnoxiously lengthy load times; Way too much emphasis on combat, which is both clumsy and frustrating; Drab and completely uninspired monsters; Breakable weapons; Cheap jump scares teeter on annoying more than frightening; Dark world segments are small, and wasted on lame chase sequences
First Impressions & Story
The tone of Downpour is definitely an unnerving one, going by the game's first few minutes. Convict Murphy Pendleton enters the prison showers alone, fully clothed, and obviously not there to wash his hair. With the help of a shady prison guard, he turns on all the hot water to fog up the surveillance cameras. Right away you know what he's up to.
Just moments later, his target wanders in... fat, out of shape, and wearing nothing but a towel. We're not told why, but the way he begs for mercy as Murphy slashes and beats the life out of him gives us a hint that things were personal. At least so we think.
And then we see Murphy snap out of it in his cell. Was it a dream? A flashback? We're not really sure, but I will agree that this was a strong way to introduce our game's protagonist. The setting slightly changes as we he seem him escorted to a prison bus, en route to another facility, and just before he steps on board, he's eyeballed by the female cop. What does she know?
But we know this bus isn't going to make it. It's late at night, the driver's taking sharp turns down winding roads in the deep forest, and in a flash, he catches a glimpse of the road abruptly ending in a cliff and loses control. The bus rolls violently down the cliff, and the scene immediately goes black.
Murphy awakens and notices that not only are his handcuffs gone, but he's the only person near the wreckage. Not knowing where he's at, he drifts toward Silent Hill on foot, hoping to at least find a safe way back to civilization.
Now, this is not a bad start at all. In fact, the first fifteen minutes of the game really had me hooked. But then it happens... Upon making his way back up the cliffs, the female cop Anne tries to stop and arrest him. Umm, why? What does she plan on doing once she detains him? They're MILES away from any police station, and neither one of them has a phone, let alone a fucking CAR to drive back. But hey, she's a cop, and he's a prisoner. While keeping the gun on him, she loses footing and almost falls to her death.
Now the game decides to give us a morality choice. She's hanging on for her life, do we let Murphy help her back up, or do we let him walk away? Come to find out, neither choice makes any shred of difference. She falls no matter what. Of course she doesn't die, but when that's the case, why even have the option?
As the story continues, more side characters start showing up, and a few don't even make any sense why they're even there. You have this mailman that wanders around and vanishes like Batman. Why is he there? We never know. There's a man who commits suicide (after another pointless morality choice) at the top of this lift station because he accidentally killed a bunch of kids on a train. His purpose? Never explained. We have a DJ at a radio station broadcasting music. Why's he there? No explanation.
In fact, Downpour's story breaks the one fundamental rule with the town of Silent Hill: Not a single character has a direct connection with the town. Every game before this, our protagonists had some sort of draw to Silent Hill. Harry Mason vacationed there with his daughter frequently. James and his wife Mary held special memories there. Heather was drawn because of her father Harry and her birth being linked to the town. Henry Townsend was drawn in because of a serial killer named Walter Sullivan murdering children there. Alex Shepherd was related to one of the occultists. There was always a link.
What connection does Murphy Pendleton have? Zero. How about the cop lady? Nope. The shady prison guard? Nope. The whole purpose of Silent Hill is that it draws you in from some sort of personal attachment. But this game treats it like a haunted amusement park. Fuck, it even has rides, I shit you not.
I won't explain the whole story, but I'll give you this... The end of the game treated the whole thing like it was some sort of hallucination. That's not how Silent Hill works. None of the games have a happy ending, but this one sure did. Well... if you pick all the "nice guy" choices.
Visuals & Presentation
From an artistic standpoint, Downpour is beautiful to look at. While the fog doesn't roll in the way it does in the older games, it's static, and still gives your surroundings that thick, misty appearance. The way beams of light shine through the trees and structures from the overcast sun are used to great effect. Weather changes often as the clouds get darker, and the rain and thunder start hammering down. It's pretty effective, and really gives the atmosphere the eeriness it needs.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the framerate. When the game auto-saves, it dips HARD below 2fps, and will even freeze completely on occasion. Also, reloading a save is incredibly slow. One session took almost 40 seconds after simply opening a door to a shop. Detailed textures will also hesitate to load, leaving characters looking flat and uneven with their surroundings. The falling rain will even cause the framerate to dip. Hit detection is dodgy, and there are times where I'd destroy structures with my axe, only to have the wooden planks remain... sorta. I'd be able to walk through them.
On the audio standpoint, it's 50/50. The music is terrifically composed by Daniel Licht (the guy behind Dexter's soundtrack) he even uses subtle nods to older games, while using his own accents. Sadly, the same can't be said for the voice acting. The only one that sounded sincere was Murphy. Everyone else sounded bored.
Gameplay
Here's a question I'm sure has been on everyone's minds since the first game: "When are they going to give us combat that works?" I'm willing to understand that the protagonists are usually meant to be ordinary folks with no combat experience, but I still refuse to believe that a grown man can't swing an axe at something that's only two feet away. In Downpour, it's as sloppy as ever.
If you're surrounded by monsters and happen to knock one down, he'll still automatically keep swinging at the fallen corpse while blatantly ignoring the other one in front of his face. Murphy can only carry two weapons at a time no matter what, and all melee objects are breakable. Look, I can understand wooden planks or shovels being breakable due to the simple fact that they're made of wood. But don't sit there and expect me to be okay with a STEEL FIRE AXE breaking in two after so many uses! Bullshit! Not only that, but this game encourages combat as much as Homecoming did, so having my weapons constantly break after two or three kills is completely asinine.
You can also pick up rocks, bricks, bottles, chairs and throw them at your enemies. Too bad no crosshair is given, so all you can do is throw and hope to God you hit something. Firearms work well just as long as you don't aim. Trust me. Fighting with a weapon's crosshair will make you think Murphy was liquored up pretty damn good.
Another disappointment is that monster designs are at their worst ever in Downpour. In fact the only enemy that even closely RESEMBLES a monster is the "weeping bat" in the above image. All others are simply just zombie-like human figures, with little to zero creativity put into them. Yeah, there are also a few that are strapped to the walls and spit shit at ya, but these are the most derivative and uninspired creature designs the series has ever been given.
While you can run from many of them, some force you to fight no matter what you do. And every strike makes you wince, being that's one less strike your melee weapon is going to be able to withstand. You're welcome to use your fists, but it'll take like 30 hits just to knock ONE down. The most offensive foe is the mannequin, which spawns unlimited invisible ghosts. You have to break it in order to stop it, like monster generators in Gauntlet.
And some of these creatures scream so high, I strongly suggest NOT wearing headphones. Hell, the jump-scares alone in this game are more likely to piss you off and annoy you rather than scare.
And speaking of annoying, get used to BEING annoyed. This is also one of those games that when a monster has a hold of you, or stuns you, the game promptly commands you to jiggle the left thumbstick back and forth until they let go. Can we stop that shit? No, I'm not joking, THAT NEEDS TO FUCKING STOP. It's already nerve wracking when I'm being attacked and low on health, it's worse when the game tells me to have a goddamn seizure with my controller.
How about exploration? Well, this is something the game gets right. The town is quite open, with lots of detours and shortcuts to discover as you wander. Side quests are plentiful, and the game puts out some great mind-bending puzzles that are sure to bake your noodle. That stuff has always been a welcome diversion in survival horror. So in a proper nod to the older games, Downpour definitely doesn't skimp on the extra stuff.
The layout of indoor areas is often beautifully detailed, you'll often want to take a moment and look around. And with the UV function for your flashlight, you can find all sorts of written clues on the walls and ceilings that you never could see before.
Then you have the "other world" or "dark world" as all the older games have been known for. The parallel rift between earth and the netherworld that opens up and devours your surroundings. The transition here is is fantastic, but unfortunately, these sequences are extremely short, and very few even occur.
One thing in the dark world that's new is that Murphy will encounter this glowing vortex/orb that distorts and rips apart anything in its path... sorta like a black hole. You can't fight it. You can't feed it anything. All you can do is run before it catches up to you. However, it's not just running away that saves you. The sequences will often force you into a looping maze until you pick the right exits, and if you're not fully paying attention, you could go in circles with the damn thing for five or even ten minutes. And the mazes get bigger and harder the further you get.
You will experience hair-pulling levels of frustration if the vortex gets really close behind you, because it deliberately slows down everything to a crawl while you're still trying to run away from it. Yeah, that shit isn't scary. It even gets borderline laughable when you enter a cage or train, and it literally gives you a ride to the next destination, all while watching scary displays of monsters as you pass by them. That's all these games needed. Their own version of Disney's Haunted Mansion.
But back to the exploration part, there are some places that can't be reached unless you perform specific actions, like puzzles which I mentioned earlier. What about ladders that need to be pulled down? Get this... only one item can pull them down: a fire poker. Will a pickaxe work? Nope. How about a regular axe? Nope. A shovel or a rake? Nope. Funny, since ANY ONE of those weapons in real life would be able to hook on to a ladder and pull it down.
Sometimes Murphy will refuse to climb a ladder if he's not perfectly lined up to it. The same goes for some doors and tight spaces. Why can he climb a rock wall, but can't climb or jump over a chain link fence? And don't get me started on balancing narrow planks across wide openings. I know it's for a more realistic effect, trying to keep balanced while crossing slowly isn't exactly fun.
Also, the light from your flashlight doesn't emit the way it should, as it tends to not bounce off some surroundings. Wander too close to a wall, and you might as well not even have one on, the light just gets sucked away. It's even worse in those dark caverns during the game's first half. I found myself missing quite a few narrow passageways and doors because of that.
And lastly, you have the boss battles, or extreme lack thereof, anyway. You only really fight one major "boss" and that's at the very end. Hell, it's not even really a fight, as you just ride up elevators, shine light in its face, and disconnect its gigantic life support hoses. In fact I could have used my guns left and right if I wanted, I'm so used to conserving all ammunition for the real intense fights.
The game itself isn't even really that long, as I breezed right through it with 80% of the sidequests in under 9 hours. That makes this the second shortest game I've played in the series. Shattered Memories wins that title, but that's forgivable, being that the game is more focused on varied story structure than anything else.
Verdict: 4/10
I hate to say this, but aside from a strong opening, and a semi-interesting main character, Silent Hill Downpour is one of the weakest games in the series. There's absolutely nothing here that adds to the ongoing mystery of the haunted town. Every game in the past has successfully added to the lore over the years, but this one was better off simply being forgotten, like half its characters.
As a huge fan, I was heartbroken. If you're still looking to own this, you can likely get it new for about $15-$20 easy... at your own risk. Here's hoping Kojima's and Del Toro's take on Silent Hills will repair the damage.
Silent Hill has been beloved favorite series of mine since playing the original just a little over fifteen years ago. I'm not one that's easy to scare, and nothing has come so close to nerve-shredding terror as these games. Well... the earlier ones at least. After Silent Hill 4, things sorta went downhill.
Sure, there was that bright spot called Shattered Memories that popped up in 2009 for the Wii, but ever since the games fell out of Japan's grasp, my confidence in the series' lifespan was diminishing fast. Homecoming especially left a bad taste in my mouth.
So here comes the eighth entry... Downpour. Does it fix the problems of its recent predecessors, or does it fall flat on its face?
Pros: Haunting weather and lighting effects engulf the eerie town in a beautiful fashion; Great unsettling soundtrack; Great looking indoor environments in both normal and dark worlds; Clever puzzles and plenty of side quests
Cons: Heavy technical problems like framerate and freezing plague the experience; Weak story, and even weaker supporting characters; Erratic and obnoxiously lengthy load times; Way too much emphasis on combat, which is both clumsy and frustrating; Drab and completely uninspired monsters; Breakable weapons; Cheap jump scares teeter on annoying more than frightening; Dark world segments are small, and wasted on lame chase sequences
First Impressions & Story
The tone of Downpour is definitely an unnerving one, going by the game's first few minutes. Convict Murphy Pendleton enters the prison showers alone, fully clothed, and obviously not there to wash his hair. With the help of a shady prison guard, he turns on all the hot water to fog up the surveillance cameras. Right away you know what he's up to.
Just moments later, his target wanders in... fat, out of shape, and wearing nothing but a towel. We're not told why, but the way he begs for mercy as Murphy slashes and beats the life out of him gives us a hint that things were personal. At least so we think.
And then we see Murphy snap out of it in his cell. Was it a dream? A flashback? We're not really sure, but I will agree that this was a strong way to introduce our game's protagonist. The setting slightly changes as we he seem him escorted to a prison bus, en route to another facility, and just before he steps on board, he's eyeballed by the female cop. What does she know?
But we know this bus isn't going to make it. It's late at night, the driver's taking sharp turns down winding roads in the deep forest, and in a flash, he catches a glimpse of the road abruptly ending in a cliff and loses control. The bus rolls violently down the cliff, and the scene immediately goes black.
Murphy awakens and notices that not only are his handcuffs gone, but he's the only person near the wreckage. Not knowing where he's at, he drifts toward Silent Hill on foot, hoping to at least find a safe way back to civilization.
Now, this is not a bad start at all. In fact, the first fifteen minutes of the game really had me hooked. But then it happens... Upon making his way back up the cliffs, the female cop Anne tries to stop and arrest him. Umm, why? What does she plan on doing once she detains him? They're MILES away from any police station, and neither one of them has a phone, let alone a fucking CAR to drive back. But hey, she's a cop, and he's a prisoner. While keeping the gun on him, she loses footing and almost falls to her death.
Now the game decides to give us a morality choice. She's hanging on for her life, do we let Murphy help her back up, or do we let him walk away? Come to find out, neither choice makes any shred of difference. She falls no matter what. Of course she doesn't die, but when that's the case, why even have the option?
As the story continues, more side characters start showing up, and a few don't even make any sense why they're even there. You have this mailman that wanders around and vanishes like Batman. Why is he there? We never know. There's a man who commits suicide (after another pointless morality choice) at the top of this lift station because he accidentally killed a bunch of kids on a train. His purpose? Never explained. We have a DJ at a radio station broadcasting music. Why's he there? No explanation.
In fact, Downpour's story breaks the one fundamental rule with the town of Silent Hill: Not a single character has a direct connection with the town. Every game before this, our protagonists had some sort of draw to Silent Hill. Harry Mason vacationed there with his daughter frequently. James and his wife Mary held special memories there. Heather was drawn because of her father Harry and her birth being linked to the town. Henry Townsend was drawn in because of a serial killer named Walter Sullivan murdering children there. Alex Shepherd was related to one of the occultists. There was always a link.
What connection does Murphy Pendleton have? Zero. How about the cop lady? Nope. The shady prison guard? Nope. The whole purpose of Silent Hill is that it draws you in from some sort of personal attachment. But this game treats it like a haunted amusement park. Fuck, it even has rides, I shit you not.
I won't explain the whole story, but I'll give you this... The end of the game treated the whole thing like it was some sort of hallucination. That's not how Silent Hill works. None of the games have a happy ending, but this one sure did. Well... if you pick all the "nice guy" choices.
Visuals & Presentation
From an artistic standpoint, Downpour is beautiful to look at. While the fog doesn't roll in the way it does in the older games, it's static, and still gives your surroundings that thick, misty appearance. The way beams of light shine through the trees and structures from the overcast sun are used to great effect. Weather changes often as the clouds get darker, and the rain and thunder start hammering down. It's pretty effective, and really gives the atmosphere the eeriness it needs.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the framerate. When the game auto-saves, it dips HARD below 2fps, and will even freeze completely on occasion. Also, reloading a save is incredibly slow. One session took almost 40 seconds after simply opening a door to a shop. Detailed textures will also hesitate to load, leaving characters looking flat and uneven with their surroundings. The falling rain will even cause the framerate to dip. Hit detection is dodgy, and there are times where I'd destroy structures with my axe, only to have the wooden planks remain... sorta. I'd be able to walk through them.
On the audio standpoint, it's 50/50. The music is terrifically composed by Daniel Licht (the guy behind Dexter's soundtrack) he even uses subtle nods to older games, while using his own accents. Sadly, the same can't be said for the voice acting. The only one that sounded sincere was Murphy. Everyone else sounded bored.
Gameplay
Here's a question I'm sure has been on everyone's minds since the first game: "When are they going to give us combat that works?" I'm willing to understand that the protagonists are usually meant to be ordinary folks with no combat experience, but I still refuse to believe that a grown man can't swing an axe at something that's only two feet away. In Downpour, it's as sloppy as ever.
If you're surrounded by monsters and happen to knock one down, he'll still automatically keep swinging at the fallen corpse while blatantly ignoring the other one in front of his face. Murphy can only carry two weapons at a time no matter what, and all melee objects are breakable. Look, I can understand wooden planks or shovels being breakable due to the simple fact that they're made of wood. But don't sit there and expect me to be okay with a STEEL FIRE AXE breaking in two after so many uses! Bullshit! Not only that, but this game encourages combat as much as Homecoming did, so having my weapons constantly break after two or three kills is completely asinine.
You can also pick up rocks, bricks, bottles, chairs and throw them at your enemies. Too bad no crosshair is given, so all you can do is throw and hope to God you hit something. Firearms work well just as long as you don't aim. Trust me. Fighting with a weapon's crosshair will make you think Murphy was liquored up pretty damn good.
Another disappointment is that monster designs are at their worst ever in Downpour. In fact the only enemy that even closely RESEMBLES a monster is the "weeping bat" in the above image. All others are simply just zombie-like human figures, with little to zero creativity put into them. Yeah, there are also a few that are strapped to the walls and spit shit at ya, but these are the most derivative and uninspired creature designs the series has ever been given.
While you can run from many of them, some force you to fight no matter what you do. And every strike makes you wince, being that's one less strike your melee weapon is going to be able to withstand. You're welcome to use your fists, but it'll take like 30 hits just to knock ONE down. The most offensive foe is the mannequin, which spawns unlimited invisible ghosts. You have to break it in order to stop it, like monster generators in Gauntlet.
And some of these creatures scream so high, I strongly suggest NOT wearing headphones. Hell, the jump-scares alone in this game are more likely to piss you off and annoy you rather than scare.
And speaking of annoying, get used to BEING annoyed. This is also one of those games that when a monster has a hold of you, or stuns you, the game promptly commands you to jiggle the left thumbstick back and forth until they let go. Can we stop that shit? No, I'm not joking, THAT NEEDS TO FUCKING STOP. It's already nerve wracking when I'm being attacked and low on health, it's worse when the game tells me to have a goddamn seizure with my controller.
How about exploration? Well, this is something the game gets right. The town is quite open, with lots of detours and shortcuts to discover as you wander. Side quests are plentiful, and the game puts out some great mind-bending puzzles that are sure to bake your noodle. That stuff has always been a welcome diversion in survival horror. So in a proper nod to the older games, Downpour definitely doesn't skimp on the extra stuff.
The layout of indoor areas is often beautifully detailed, you'll often want to take a moment and look around. And with the UV function for your flashlight, you can find all sorts of written clues on the walls and ceilings that you never could see before.
Then you have the "other world" or "dark world" as all the older games have been known for. The parallel rift between earth and the netherworld that opens up and devours your surroundings. The transition here is is fantastic, but unfortunately, these sequences are extremely short, and very few even occur.
One thing in the dark world that's new is that Murphy will encounter this glowing vortex/orb that distorts and rips apart anything in its path... sorta like a black hole. You can't fight it. You can't feed it anything. All you can do is run before it catches up to you. However, it's not just running away that saves you. The sequences will often force you into a looping maze until you pick the right exits, and if you're not fully paying attention, you could go in circles with the damn thing for five or even ten minutes. And the mazes get bigger and harder the further you get.
You will experience hair-pulling levels of frustration if the vortex gets really close behind you, because it deliberately slows down everything to a crawl while you're still trying to run away from it. Yeah, that shit isn't scary. It even gets borderline laughable when you enter a cage or train, and it literally gives you a ride to the next destination, all while watching scary displays of monsters as you pass by them. That's all these games needed. Their own version of Disney's Haunted Mansion.
But back to the exploration part, there are some places that can't be reached unless you perform specific actions, like puzzles which I mentioned earlier. What about ladders that need to be pulled down? Get this... only one item can pull them down: a fire poker. Will a pickaxe work? Nope. How about a regular axe? Nope. A shovel or a rake? Nope. Funny, since ANY ONE of those weapons in real life would be able to hook on to a ladder and pull it down.
Sometimes Murphy will refuse to climb a ladder if he's not perfectly lined up to it. The same goes for some doors and tight spaces. Why can he climb a rock wall, but can't climb or jump over a chain link fence? And don't get me started on balancing narrow planks across wide openings. I know it's for a more realistic effect, trying to keep balanced while crossing slowly isn't exactly fun.
Also, the light from your flashlight doesn't emit the way it should, as it tends to not bounce off some surroundings. Wander too close to a wall, and you might as well not even have one on, the light just gets sucked away. It's even worse in those dark caverns during the game's first half. I found myself missing quite a few narrow passageways and doors because of that.
And lastly, you have the boss battles, or extreme lack thereof, anyway. You only really fight one major "boss" and that's at the very end. Hell, it's not even really a fight, as you just ride up elevators, shine light in its face, and disconnect its gigantic life support hoses. In fact I could have used my guns left and right if I wanted, I'm so used to conserving all ammunition for the real intense fights.
The game itself isn't even really that long, as I breezed right through it with 80% of the sidequests in under 9 hours. That makes this the second shortest game I've played in the series. Shattered Memories wins that title, but that's forgivable, being that the game is more focused on varied story structure than anything else.
Verdict: 4/10
I hate to say this, but aside from a strong opening, and a semi-interesting main character, Silent Hill Downpour is one of the weakest games in the series. There's absolutely nothing here that adds to the ongoing mystery of the haunted town. Every game in the past has successfully added to the lore over the years, but this one was better off simply being forgotten, like half its characters.
As a huge fan, I was heartbroken. If you're still looking to own this, you can likely get it new for about $15-$20 easy... at your own risk. Here's hoping Kojima's and Del Toro's take on Silent Hills will repair the damage.