A scene from Silent Hill: Downpour by Konami
The mystery around Pendleton is one of the most underrated points in the story. You become him — are him — but your motivations are often terribly unclear, and Pendleton’s narration adds to that. One moment, you think he committed a crime, the next you’re unsure.
That ambivalence adds to the wildly uneasy atmosphere of Konami’s new town of Silent Hill. Years of Silent Hill games have made Vatra expert at generating atmosphere, and evidence of that is littered throughout Downpour. Silence is a key tool throughout Downpour, and the effect makes your journey feel truly lonely.
Visits to the Otherworld, strange and unprompted early on, are especially creepy. There’s often little combat or patient gameplay here; but there’s the occasional puzzle, and plenty of deft running, as you dash away from a chasing darkness.
Paths appear and disappear as you run aimlessly through the Otherworld, a sense of urgency and confusion ever present. These thoroughly tense and creepy sections provide a brilliant change of pace to the more exploratory, curious looking around that takes place in the real world.
Add in deft puzzles, and some excellent camera angles, and Downpour has all the tools necessary to exact emotional tension from the gamer. It continues to do that in its battle system, too, subliminally tying enemy behavior to the weather; heavier rains lead to more aggressive enemies.
It’s a subtle thing, but it forces you to think about the weather, a typically cosmetic piece of a game, and your survival as one. Battling, when it does happen (and the game gets off to a thoroughly slow start, by the way), creates a sense of anxiety and desperation. You watch the weather, and you constantly survey your environment for new tools, because your current weapons degrade.
It all feels so good, but Downpour is limited by several factors. The combat is easy to learn, but Pendleton’s attacks animate unevenly. Battles wind up killing your sense of immersion, and frequent framerate issues do the same thing. The framerate hitches happen with frustrating consistency — too often to be loading issues, and they truly wreck your gameplay experience.
Such issues diminish Silent Hill: Downpour ever so slightly, but when it all comes together, this game can be truly frightening.
And in a world where not much really scares us, that’s truly worthwhile.
Reviewed on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3( Usally if we want to play some dvd video game on portable devices, we can use leawo DVD ripper to transfer)
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