I definitely agree with this...not so much the rip off of PH, but in the sense that his design was so bland and generic and it's true that he looks like one of the cult members from Homecoming.

And while i do understand his whole angle with him wearing a raincoat in conjunction with the title and events within the game, i just wanted his design to be a bit more creative....his design alone could be seen in other countless forms of media...movies, comics..other video games etc...

^This is mainly what I wanted to elaborate. When you feel a character could be put in so many other games in different genres, its safe to say that the design is very dull and
deficient.

>The Bogeyman in Downpour is nothing like pyramid head.
Designwise? Maybe not. But his appearance in the game, the way he stalks the player and shows up in cutscenes without doing anything else than creeping you out, his purpose when it comes to judgement.... Its just so obvious and not original, it's PH over and over again in different shapes. They even gave him the same name that PH has in Homecoming. He is not "completely different symbolically" as you are trying to point out, since his purpose of judgement lies close to PH's purpose of judgement. You are just failing to see the underlying tones of obvious non-orginality and the developers lack of trust in creating SH games without PH-similar characters.

Another con about the Bogeyman is that he is taking valueable screentime from the Wheelman, which in my opinon would have been a much better "stalking character".

>Completing the sidequests should have at least unlocked different costumes or some alien weaponry.
I agree, there was a lot of room for amazing extras. But since there are basically none, Downpour isn't very replayable.

The Lag was the most annoying thing. It felt like the disc was somehow skipping. Aside from that the lack of imagination with the monsters would be a close second.

7:52 - 14:24 pretty much sums up this game's cons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP3CgexZv70

I almost closed the tab at "Oh god why did [Murphy] have to be so ugly?!" (because really? Really? This is what we've gotten to complaining about these days? Because they've always made such an active effort to make every Silent Hill protagonist so attractive in the past), but then Benny Hill started...

he was making that statement as a "joke" because murphy looks like him..apprently you werent paying attention..

that video is spot on with everything..the combat, lack of a monster design, weapons system, LAG (how there can be lag when this isnt even an online game is really incredible), constantly having to pause the game and go to statistics to view your health.. just make the game such a hassle to play..they really missed the boat on this game (just take the extra 2 or 3 months and WORK OUT THE ISSUES BEFORE RELEASING IT - same can be said for homecomming will all of thats games awful glitches), storywise and presentation its all there..this really had the opportunity to be one of those great all time games but just the constant LAG alone make the game impossible to list on any "good game" list out there.

i would like a patch so the game is actually playable and not lag and constantly F***ing itself..also a patch with actual monster designs would be awesome instead of fighting zombie girls and boys throughout the entire game. a patch so the lifebar is either on the screen with me or just in the main inventory would be great..a patch so we can have more guns to use..(i thought i was buying silent hill downpour, but instead i got Silent Hill: The Drunken Irish Pub Brawl Simulator).

I feel like the only person who doesn't think that Downpour's controls and combat is all that bad, especially when you realize that Silent Hill has never had smooth controls and combat.

I never had any problems with it either (except accidental weapon throwing, but that was mostly just hilarious).

Count me in as well. I found the combat worked fine, and is actually better than a lot of survival horror combat systems. Besides, running from enemies is pretty easy, most of the time.

The throwing could be fun once you actually get used to it (although one time my cat headbutted my controller and Murphy sent his fireaxe soaring into a chasm, never to be seen nor heard from again). At this point I just like to imagine Murphy's throwing a literal tantrum when he picks up and chucks priceless vases onto the street.
I guess the weapons breaking was a pain, but unlike Origins I was never stuck in a position where I was screwed if I didn't have one on hang. And the limited inventory was at least kind of handled in a way that made sense to me. Kind of annoying, but again, once you get used to it it's no big deal.
To me, Downpour's combat and controls were so smooth that going back and playing the previous games just feels awkward sometimes (until I get used to those controls again, that is).

I have to talk about these running segments which you may all remember being the worst thing about shattered memories and the 1 thing that nobody in the right mind would wanna bring back..well its the same exact B/S with this game, only somehow its gotten even worse.. you are chased by a formless and faceless ball of dark f***ery and you have to just run around aimlessly FOREVER...its not scary...its just annoying.,..plus add in the constant lagging and glitching it really makes these parts of the game a "real" nightmare.

I don't understand the complaint(s) above about checking your health in Downpour.
In the original games you had to pause to view your health, & there was a noticeable wait between you pressing the button & the screen actually appearing.
In Downpour, you pause the game, then go to statistics. They even out because with Downpour when you press start it activities instantly.
Besides, throughout Downpour's development the developers made it clear that looking at Murphy's physical state was the intended method for deciding how low your health is; which is awesome.

To stay on topic... how about that silence?
Downpour really muffed up its atmosphere at times by being too quiet for too long.
All of the other games were filled with ambient background *music* during normal gameplay in many portions of the game. It was a simple, but extremely effective was at setting tone; and when they used silence, it was used to great effect as well as they used the music.
"Town Rain" & "Jump Monster" constantly playing

I found that looking at Murphy'ds physical state never really worked for me. I could have 90% health according to stats page, but he'd still be covered in blood. I also didn't think it worked for the decaying weapons either.

I don't know about you guys but I got lost a lot, the town never really had any characteristics that poked out to me to where I could say "oh I know where I am."

A lot of this game feels very unimaginative and the monster cop cars are the stupidest thing I've ever seen in game.

Yeah all the roads and alleyways looked the same and a lot of the interiors looked identical, there were a hell of a lot of things that had little to no diversity. That is the opposite to the earlier games.

Wtf happened to this thread's title?

I think the prisoner enemies were at least equally ridiculous.

I'm with you. The whole prison section at the end was very linear and probably my least favourite part of the game.

Yes. The cop cars and that lame ass bogeyman are probably my two main complaints. Overall I liked downpour, but AS SOON as I could turn those stupid cop cars off, I would do that mission. Otherwise, it didn't feel like Silent Hill. It was just annoying. As soon as that's taken care of, I go back to enjoying the game.

The gameplay/combat in Downpour is atrocious. Homecoming was a step in the right direction, and then Downpour took us 2 steps back. It's easily the worst game in terms of gameplay/combat, aside from maybe SH4. Also, playing the game is a chore due to the terrible framerate.