Time to write a novel guys...Apologies in advance.

Finished Silent Hill Downpour the other night. I wouldn't mind going back to complete the side-quests but seeing as the game never lets you save, and the load game screen only let's you pick from the last 5 auto-saves, that would mean starting the game from scratch to do so (and no, there's no new game +). Considering just how bad the first few hours of gameplay are, this is gonna take a whole heap of motivation just to even get back into Silent Hill (you start off on SH's outskirts in a place called The Devils Pit - or as I like to call it The Pits).

I have to say, I really enjoyed the story in Downpour. You won't be thinking about it for days after like other games in the series, but it's solid nonetheless. It's so rare for a game to present a mature storyline like this these days, so it certainly gets props in this department. The protagonist, Murphy Pendleton, is quite simply the best character we've had to play as (Walter Sullivan is the best SH character ever ) since James in Silent Hill 2. It's a shame then that almost everyone else you encounter throughout Silent Hill is completely superfluous. The black mailman...What was the point in him? The guy at The Devils Pit? What the point in him? etc. They add nothing! Why not throw in some characters that are there for their own reasons like SH2?? SH2 would be half the game it is today if not for Eddy, Angela and Laura!

A big problem I have with this game is that it doesn't feel like a horror game (let alone a Silent Hill game!). It feels more like an adventure game with some supernatural elements thrown in to make it "Silent Hill-y". In terms of vibe, it actually feels a lot more like Bioshock to me which is quite bizarre. Gone is the David Lynch style weirdness, the demonic imagery, the symbolism, the suspense, the dread. They've stripped everything right back and this is largely what makes Downpour such a letdown (and so boring to play).

A key part of the Silent Hill experience is the Nightmare world. This is another aspect that Downpour handles extremely poorly. It basically boils down to you running through some at times physics challenged (I refuse to compare it MC Escher as so many Silent Hill fans have as this implies it's actually good) areas while being chased by....Wait for it, a red mirror ball. Yes, you heard that right. What should have been the most interesting and most terrifying part of the game has been reduced to a chase scene reminiscent of those in Shattered Memories (not quite as bad as those mind you but that's not the point! ). **** this makes me mad, of all the things to screw up...Speaking of Shattered Memories, Downpour steals a number ideas from this game for eg. the slow opening of doors. Why they actually did this I don't know because, like in SH:SM, they never use it to great effect! Very, very odd.

The monsters are something that a lot of people are upset about, and rightly so. There are no metaphors behind their pathetic designs, their animations are atrocious, the AI is hilarious and they're about as scary as a Goomba from Mario. Utter, utter fail. The only good thing I can say about actually fighting these things is that you don't feel like you always have the upper hand in battle (although this is more to do with how broken the gameplay is than an intentional act on the developers part).

Rather than making a great Silent Hill experience, I believe the developer Vatra has spread themselves thin by adding side-quests at the detriment of everything else. I applaud the fact that they've made Silent Hill a place that can be properly explored for once, however, I think this has come at the cost of everything else. This could have worked if the game were in development for a hell of a lot longer, or perhaps done by a more experienced team, who knows. Being only Vatra's second game I think they've bitten off more than they could chew, and would have been much better off keeping the game more linear and focusing on what makes a Silent Hill game a Silent Hill game.

I can only recommend this to the most loyal, die-hard Silent Hill fans. If you can make it through the abysmal gameplay there are a few highlights (namely some of the puzzles and St Maria's Monastery) and a great story hiding behind all the garbage.