Konami unveiled a new trailer for their Silent Hill series called Silent Hill Homecoming. While I did not get a chance to play Silent Hill hands-on, I had a great view of the trailer and the explanation of the game itself at the Konami Press Conference on Wednesday as we were all shown a long demo of the game from the developers at the conference.
This run of Silent Hill puts you in the role of Alex, who is lost in a city and is searching for his brother Joshua. Of course, as in past Silent Hill games, the town that you are exploring will jump between a normal world and a world gripped by Hell. Our demonstration started off with Alex inside of the mayor’s primary space in what we believe is City Hall. Alex is searching for the mayor to get an idea where his brother could be as well as the mayor’s son.
One huge positive for this version is that the fixed camera angles are a thing of the past. It is now a free roaming camera that will allow you to look all around an area, searching every nook and cranny for hints, clues, monsters, or anything else that you want. Graphically, the game looks impressive, with the textures fairly clean and character models done quite well. A downside to this aspect, however, is I noticed a short lag time between characters moving their lips while speaking, so they would almost get ahead of themselves. Granted, this is an early build, so we would have to assume that this issue would be corrected.
Continuing on in the demo, Alex manages to find the area he has to be in, although when he approaches the door, the world turns into the Hell-gripped world. Alex then opens up the door and finds the mayor, mulling around, almost as if he’s possessed. When you initiate the conversation with him, you find that he may be possessed, but he’s more or less just given up and has no motivation to do anything. The conversation between the two characters is pretty deep, as Alex shows the mayor his son’s watch, but simply takes it from Alex and tosses it aside. From there, a boss battle occurs as a monster literally comes out of the ground and squashes the mayor. This immediately sets up the battle.
Silent Hill Homecoming utilizes a cover based system, allowing you to stand behind objects and take cover if necessary. The boss battle we were shown demonstrated this ability, which is always a plus for any game. Having to simply position yourself behind an obstacle and hope you are out of the way is a thing of the past with almost every game that is like this now, and it’s great to see everyone utilize this aspect.
Silent Hill Homecoming is slated for release on September 30, 2008.
