If you’re like me, then you love it when a game gives you a good scare. There’s nothing like sitting in the dark, with a pair of high-quality headphones on, playing a good old frightening game—I have since I was a wee 8-year-old playing Resident Evil on PlayStation in my Christmas footy pajamas. The horror genre as a whole has seen a bit of a decline over the last few years, though, with genre stalwarts like Resident Evil trending more towards action than classic terror. But this Halloween, horror fans have hit it big with the release of not one but two horror games: Silent Hill: Homecoming and Dead Space.
Konami’s Silent Hill: Homecoming is the sixth game in the superb Silent Hill series that last appeared on the PlayStation Portable in November of 2007. Horror games have always belonged on console (it’s difficult to create any sort of fear or tension on a handheld you’d play on the subway), so it’s appropriate that Silent Hill’s next-gen debut brings with it a fear of a totally different kind—series fans know that Homecoming is the first major Silent Hill game to be debuted by an American team instead of series creators Team Silent over in Japan. Despite concerns that the American team would simply miss the point—and early previews seemed to hint that Silent Hill was about to go completely over their heads—the team at Double Helix largely delivers.
The series is best known for Silent Hill 2, a game that moved the medium forward with its daring, mature narrative that explored the player character James’ dark psychosexual pathologies. Silent Hill: Homecoming delivers a story that is clearly patterned around Silent Hill 2, and that’s definitely a good thing—sure, it can feel like an imitation at times, but it’s still entertaining. Players control Alex Shepherd, a war veteran returning to his hometown of Shepherd’s Glen only to find it shrouded in Silent Hill’s trademark fog with people disappearing left and right. Eventually the player discovers the “dark connection” between Shepherd’s Glen and Silent Hill, making for a highly enjoyable and frightening game that actually does make quite a few strides in terms of game play. Double Helix’s focus on making Silent Hill’s combat not terrible (as gifted as the Japanese team was with narrative, they couldn’t make a game with good gameplay if their lives depended on it) pays off quite a bit, and the game really is very frightening in that tense, nervous kind of way. Still, even as I write this I can’t help but wish I were describing Silent Hill 2—one of my favorite games ever and a much more creative experience than the fairly safe Homecoming.
It’s a little surprising that Electronic Arts’ Dead Space proves to be quite a bit more risky than the series that, back in the day, was known for being riskier than subprime mortgages. Dead Space is completely new intellectual property from EA, and it puts players in the boots of engineer Isaac Clarke (see the horror nods there, eh?) as he and a team of Bald Space Marines and Marinettes explore the USG Ishimura, a futuristic mining ship that has gone dark and stopped communicating with Earth a few days prior to his arrival.
There’s only so much I can say about Dead Space—the game is absolutely stunning. The presentation is almost ineffably good, and the graphics and sound are some of the best I’ve experienced—to further increase the player’s sense of immersion, EA Redwood Shores completely removed the idea of a Heads-Up Display. All relevant information is displayed to players through visual cues on screen, or via menus that appear relative to Isaac, not the player. It’s a completely seamless experience and it’s frightening as hell—you end up discovering the ship has had a bit of an “accident” involving miners from the cruiser uncovering an alien artifact called the “marker” and (of course) bringing it on board. Now everyone’s turning into “Necromorphs”—a breed of veiny, lanky, gelatinous mutants with extremities that grow outwards like stalks from a celery plant. Fundamentally, the game plays similarly to Resident Evil 4 in that you’ve got your third person, over-the-shoulder camera, but it takes place in darker, more claustrophobic environments. You’ll be seriously frightened by this game—and with the complete immersion it provides, there’s no pause button to save you. Sure, the story doesn’t really go anywhere or say anything like Silent Hill 2... er, Homecoming tries to do, but the gameplay is so much more innovative and engaging that you won’t really care.
Dead Space is one of the best games I’ve played all year, and, to be honest, Silent Hill: Homecoming isn’t too big of a slouch either. If you’re looking for one of the most polished, most impressive experiences of this console generation that is going to scare your pants off, then you can’t go wrong with either game—but Dead Space is what I’ll be offering trick-or-treaters.
