Celebrated as gaming’s most notorious ghost town, Silent Hill: Downpour comes with madness and surrealism that has made this series awesomely successful. Now with most of the original fundamentals still intact, a few changes were made to this horror game.
Murphy Pendleton, the protagonist, is a prisoner at Ryall State Prison, but the circumstances of his imprisonment are unclear. When Murphy’s prisoner transport bus crashes in the outskirts of Silent Hill, it gave him the chance to flee form the law. Occasional moral choices let you shape Murphy’s character, and can give identical scenes an entirely different meaning.
During the opening scenes, it’s clear that Downpour is a new Silent Hill game. The fog, for example, is nowhere near as thick as in the previous versions. Here, it’s less prominent and upstaged by constant rain. When raining, enemies become numerous and more hostile.
In this game, Murphy can only carry one melee weapon at a time: fire axes, chairs, lamps, and more are littered about, but they eventually break apart. So you might start a fight with a garden rake but end with a little stick. If you’re lucky enough to find a firearm, you can only carry one. Guns are extremely powerful, but ammo is scarce.
Besides combat, the town of Silent Hill: Downpour is filled with puzzles and side quests to discover. Side quests include investigating a domestic murder, searching for a missing child, and venturing inside a collection of historic films.
Silent Hill: Downpour has made distinguished tweaks to the series, and considering that it’s the eighth addition, it’s really a game you must try out.
