Welcome to a little place called Silent Hill...

Have you ever heard of a quaint town known as Silent Hill? If you haven't, then you should know right now. Silent Hill is not quaint, nor a normal town. Do not believe anything about it being so, for even though it used to be a normal place, now it has become a place that would make for a horrible vacation. Silent Hill has always seemed to be a long-since empty place, and it is. In all the Silent Hill games, you are either the only human being there, or among literally just one or two. This is no exception. While human life is almost non-existent inside of Silent Hill, that doesn't mean there isn't life at all. Monsters, your own inner demons given life and form, lurk behind every corner. This town is alive. It knows you. It knows what you've done. It will fill with your own horrors, turn into your own hell, torment you without end. It won't let you leave. Don't go to Silent Hill.

You'll find out why I'm warning you to never go to that cursed town here after the jump.


Silent Hill: Downpour follows the course of a man named Murphy Pendleton, whom is a prisoner at the Ryall State Corrections Facility for a reason that is not revealed right away. When you start a new game, Murphy is released from his cell by Sewell, whom is one of the guards at this facility, and leads Murphy throughout the facility until you reach the showers. The reasons for this as well are not revealed immediately, but as the player follows the guard's instructions it becomes more apparent. You are instructed to fog up the cameras by turning on several showers, before grabbing a weapon on a nearby bench right before a prisoner walks in for a shower. After a small confrontation, you are then introduced to the game's combat system while brutally murdering the man, Napier, whom Murphy [i]really[/i] has a beef with. The bad blood between the two men is not revealed at this point in the game, being something revealed later on as the player learns more and more about Murphy and his past. So! I'm not going to tell you! You're gonna have to find that out for yourself.

Murphy Pendleton in the flesh, and prison uniform to boot!

After this brutal killing, time skips forward a few days and you are back in Murphy's cell, not convicted for the murder in the shower. Once again, a guard arrives at Murph's cell to let him out. This time, however, instead of being sent to murder a man, it is revealed that Murphy is being transferred to a different prison, Wayside Maximum Security Prison, because of a riot that had happened before while that Murphy was killing Napier. Convenient, no? Regardless, Murphy is put on the transport bus along with the others later that same day. However, during this roadtrip between prisons, one of the prisoners causes a small scene in the back while the bus goes through a storm, which causes the bus driver to both become distracted and crash. Murphy later then awakens outside of the bus, alone and somehow no longer wearing his handcuffs, and begins to make his escape. It is also revealed that, after making it out of the initial wooded area, instead of crashing in the middle of nowhere, the bus crashed near civilization with Murphy at first finding an abandoned gas station and then later a diner and tram station. This is in actuality on the opposite side of a large hill where, on the other side and much exploration later, is Silent Hill. Everyone knows what you did.

Now, Silent Hill: Downpour is thankfully enough going back more towards the survival horror roots that the initial games from Silent Hill 1 to 4 carried. Unlike in Homecoming, players are now once again greeted with the mechanic of coming repeatedly across fight-or-flight scenarios. Players now have to think about whether or not they should fight an enemy, as fighting could not only affect their storage of health restoring First Aid Kits, or the status of their ammo and weapons. Melee weapons are not made out of the strongest materials known to man, and will break after several uses, or just after so many guarded enemy attacks. Because of this, it's entirely possible your weapon will break in the middle of a fight, causing a panic situation and making the player either turn tail and run or scurry around the environment for some other murdering tool. Of course, at points in the game Murphy will be able to acquire either a handgun or shotgun, but then comes the problem that ammo is very scarce. More often than not, running away is the better choice, leaving your weapons in better condition for situations in which you have to fight.

It's fortunate that the developers of Downpour decided to not just develop weapons for Murphy to defend himself with, instead of designing a handful and calling it there, sprinkling them throughout Silent Hill and making melee weapons repetitive and limited in creativity and originality. Murphy will be able to wield quite a variety of weapons, ranging from a brick or beer bottle to fire-axes and sledgehammers. There are even weapons you can acquire from green lockers in Silent Hill, using codes obtained from pre-orders that funnily enough work for even people that didn't pre-order the game, such as a rifle or .45 pistol, or golf clubs and double-headed axes. Because of the durability mechanic with melee weapons, you will be switching through such weapons often, having to pick up brand new ones because of your previous one shattering in your hands, or just to get more oomph in your attacks, as obviously an axe is going to put more hurt in than, say, a bottle.

On this subject, however, there are flaws. The combat system implemented in the game is dated at best and hence there will be times in which Murphy will do something you didn't tell him to do in the middle of a battle. There is always a chance that even though he's facing an enemy, Murphy will turn in another direction and swing at thin air and giving the monster an opening to rip your face off. Murphy is also able to throw weapons at enemies, but the flaw that can be seen in it is that Murphy will either miss the monster entirely, or once again he will turn in the completely wrong direction before throwing the weapon, leaving you more often than not defenseless. Incidents like this can easily lead to frustration, especially when fighting multiple enemies at once, or when in the middle of a forced encounter.

Another thing that can be annoying with the combat is the fact that the inventory system has been really simplified in this title, being nothing more than a bar that slides down when the assigned button is pushed, not pausing the game when its opened. While this is not much of a gripe in itself, what is a bigger one is the fact Murphy is not able to carry more than one gun, and the fact you can not place melee weapons in your inventory. This does make sense, as Murphy does not carry a bag or something similar to one with him, but still this is something that the developers could have added and still have kept the game mechanic with the inventory that it has now.

The people of Silent Hill take pride in their repair-work.

Stop lying.
One thing that Silent Hill: Downpour has brought back from the earlier games that I missed is the very open sort of exploration style that was in the initial games. The town is almost entirely to you, leaving you with the choice of running around the part of town you're currently in, which is always quite a large area, in order to pick up extra goodies like ammo or first aid kits. There is also the opportunity to find and complete side-quests, which is something that hasn't been done ever since the very first Silent Hill game. These are kept track in Murphy's journal, accessed with either the Back or Select button depending on which console you're on, along with the various maps and notes, that Murphy will discover in his journey through the town. Exploration in Silent Hill generally always pays off, at least if you flee from the creatures on the streets instead of stopping to fight every single one.

Now, as the title may suggest, Silent Hill: Downpour has in itself a unique mechanic with outdoors. During Murphy's entire stay inside of Silent Hill, the weather will in real time switch between being heavily cloudy to raining or storming. The player is informed in game that more creatures are attracted by these storms, and through that it is implied that more caution is recommended during these periods. Of course, Murphy is able to escape the rain, and the monsters that the storms attract outside, by either entering one of the buildings or fleeing down into the various subway stations around Silent Hill. The subway system is, at first, locked entirely upon discovery and is only unlocked bit by bit through progressing in one of the side-quests. Not only does the weather change in real time, but the time of day changes as well, going back and forth through night and day.

Of course, with this being a Silent Hill title, there is also another thing worth mentioning. The Otherworld does make an appearance in this game as well, and like in the previous Silent Hill title, SH: Homecoming, the transition between the real world and Otherworld is done in a fashion very similar to the Silent Hill movie. However, the difference in Downpour and the other appearances it has made in other titles, the transition to it does not occur with the sound of raid sirens. Instead, it only seems to occur during high-tension events throughout the story. The Otherworld segments are also done quite well, showing a very f*cked up version of the area you were formally in. Something unique in Downpour's version of the Otherworld is the addition of an entity that has no real name, being something that seems to be a mobile black hole or void, only appearing in the Otherworld before it chases down Murphy, sucking up everything around it during its hunt for its prey. Are you sure you're alone?

The graphics of Silent Hill: Downpour are very well done, with the developers having taken the time to polish it throughly and adding in things that other developers tend to forget or purposely leave out. One thing that seems minor and yet helps so well with immersion in games such as the Silent Hill series is the fact that posters and whatnot on the walls throughout town are in easily readable quality, letting players stop and read whatever is displayed, being able to stop and do this with almost every one, assuming a monster isn't right behind you. Another nice detail is the fact that when it rains and Murphy is standing out in the open, his clothes and hair get wet, and the further that Murphy becomes the more he limps around, as well as more and more blood becoming visible through his clothing.

The atmosphere of Downpour is another thing that the developers have done quite well, especially in certain points, creating areas that can give a player pause while deciding whether or not to stick around in that place or not. The creepy, unnerving factor has definitely gone up with this Silent Hill title, even more so due to the fact that monsters are able to easily sneak up on you, waiting until you turn around before attacking sometimes, or just attacking from your blind spots out of nowhere, scaring the living hell out of you. There will be times you'll glance over your shoulder, just to double-check there isn't something standing right behind you, just waiting for you to notice it...

Saaaaaay... doesn't this place look a tad familiar? Where's Henry Townshend?

The voice acting in Downpour has also been remarkably done, with the lines throughout the game being made rather believable unlike what other games sometimes fail to accomplish with their actors. The sort of reactions and emotions that you would feel, and perhaps do while playing, in the kind of situations Murphy gets into through the game are ones you can hear in the voices of the actors. For instance, upon the first encounter with the Otherworld, you can clearly hear fear and confusion in the voice of Murphy's voice actor while the world around him crumbles and distorts into the freakish nightmare that is the Otherworld. Touches such as this are very appreciated, and instill within the player the right kinds of reactions with the reactions of the characters as well as the well done atmosphere. We're coming for you.

The story is also something that should appeal to players, which is done in a way similar to the other games. The players are only given just enough information through cutscenes to have a decent understanding of what is going on, with more information about past and current events being revealed through the various notes and letters Murphy finds through his experiences in Silent Hill. The story has deep meanings to it, and though this may thing several things may go over misunderstood or not realized at all by those that don't pay attention to certain things, it does enough to pique interest time and again.

As the player goes further into the game, they also find more and more about Murphy's past, such as why he was imprisoned and why he murdered Napier in the beginning of the game. One other interesting thing in Downpour is that the developers have created a relationship between the main character and a malicious entity similar to the relationship of James Sunderland and Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2, as well as the Butcher and Travis in SH: Origins. Throughout the game, Murphy comes across a massive masked being wielding a sledgehammer, who is called the Boogeyman. The exact reasons for the Bogeyman's existence and his meaning with Murphy in Silent Hill is something else I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to find out yourself.

All in all, Silent Hill: Downpour is a game that has decided to go back to the survival horror roots and yet tries to do new things as well. It is obviously well polished, but polishing is the only thing that the developers seem to have done. On the surface, Downpour is a very nice looking game, and judging a book by its cover is something that is true in this case. However, the latest addition to the series still has its flaws, with not only a faulty dated combat system and a too simplified inventory mechanic, with bugs and glitches clearly present in it as well, a couple of these actually game-breaking. Nevertheless, Silent Hill: Downpour has proven itself to be a quite worthy addition to the series, snuggling itself nicely next to the accepted games before it. Any Silent Hill fan that enjoys a good time with survival horror and mind games should definitely at least give Downpour a good look and chance.

Do I recommend you go and check out Downpour and step into the dirty and worn shoes of Murphy Pendleton? I honestly say that you should, if you're a fan of the old style Silent Hill and want some new to go with your game breakfast. Mmm, tasty.

Oh, and one last thing.
They won't miss you.

Don't turn around.