I'm actually liking it this time...

[simeonalo]

Sadly for me you can't get it on the PSN store here in the UK. But yeah the PS3 has a PS1 emulator built in (you can play PS1 disks on it too) so the games go on it pretty easy. I find Silent Hill 1 to be horribly dated though, every time I try to play it I get frustrated, but I'm happy watching the movie, I love it

Gutted about backwards compatibility though, I have no way of replaying 2, 3 or 4 (I love all three) due to the PS3 not actually playing PS2 games for some bizarre reason. The Xbox 360 (I don't have one, I just mean in your interest) plays the Xbox versions but both SH 2 and 4 have major errors, 4's isn't too bad, but cracks appear all over the characters' faces in the cut-scenes, 2, however, is pretty much unacceptable as compatible in that the textures completely disappear after a while and you're just walking around in a world of white...

Sadly, there are no more reverse-compatibility options on the newer PS3's.

[Skele]

yeah, Sony should've had full BC included on all PS3 models.

and yeah, last gens games tend to look crappy on HD tvs. the only games that look good are the 2d fighters (which i mostly play).

[Aldo]

BC is one of the reasons the PS3 was initially so expensive. In order to be competitive with the 360 and the Wii they had to cut costs someway.

[DistantJ]

Well, Wii games look just as bad, they have the same aliasing problems, and I was mostly okay with playing that on HDTV, though I would prefer a backwards compatible console which adds some smoothing to it.

As for cost I'm sure they could have made an emulator by now. I do keep hearing that they're working on one though. If they ever do I'm grabbing the SH collection in an instance. If it was backwards compatible I'd be playing Shattered Memories right now.

I have the PS3 slim and I was kinda disappointed that it wasn't compatible. However it doesn't make it any less of an awesome console as it's got an amazing library of games on it's own without the need for the PS2 games. I'm more likely to grab myself a PSP really now though as that way I don't get the aforementioned ugly SD games on a big HDTV.

[SPRINGS02]

^yeah luckily i got a 60 gig ps3 model which is BC. But its a gift and a curse because they're more prone to get the Yellow light of death. It happened to my other 60 gig model that i only had for like a year or 2 and i had to pay sony 150$ to get a refurbished ps3, i was pissed. But at least i can still play my ps2 games.
Also kind of off topic but i hate how nowdays they make the text in games formatted only for hd, which makes it tiny on regular tvs. Its like they assume everyone has an hd tv.

[DistantJ]

I already can't wait to re-play this one a second time. Got Mirror's Edge and Sonic Racing to get through but after that I think I'm going through SH5 again

[Aldo]

I just finished up (well nearly, I still have to solve the riddle puzzle and fight the boss) the prison level. It was pretty fun, but seemed a tad on the easy side. I can't wait for the final portion of the game.

Edit: Well, I beat the game. I'm watching the credits now and I know there's an extra scene if you collect all the photographs, but I'm pretty sure I missed one in the cemetery right after the Scarlett fight.

I got the

PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER_SHOW PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER:

Hospital

ending btw. Kind of depressing actually.

All in all it was a fun game, I can certainly see where others would look down on it, but it was an enjoyable experience for me, and I'm glad I played it through to the end. I can't help but feel some of the revelations would have had more impact if I hadn't spoiled myself prior, but oh well that's what I get for snooping around where I shouldn't have, lol.

[DistantJ]

I got the same ending as you. Quite Jacob's Ladder (though not as profound!), I really enjoyed the game too. As somebody who has no way of playing any other Silent Hill games (no PS2 anymore, no Wii or PSP), it does a pretty damn good job of giving me my Silent Hill fix.

[Aldo]

And to think you have to shoot your own mother to get the good ending, lol. Looking back though, I really liked the Hospital ending, it gave the game a bit more closure than the "Happy" ending (yeah, I don't normally play through a game a second time, so with the Silent Hill series after I get one ending I usually youtube the rest).

[DistantJ]

Personally I'm gonna be playing through this one a LOT... lol

I was playing it with a friend today, he was always curious about Silent Hill, he played through the nightmare prologue sequence and then I showed him Scarlet and fought some Schisms in Shepherd's Glen and he seemed really impressed, so perhaps I've pimped the game out to somebody else now.

Of course, if I could I'd always recommend Silent Hill 2 as the first one to play, but he only has a PS3 like me.

[-mimic-]

Homecoming was my first SH game.

And now that I've completed SH2, 3 and 4 aswell.

Homecoming is almost the only survival horror game out of those

4 could be there aswell.

But you barely got any ammo in Homecoming, and you really thought about each round you used.

Got done with SH2 today, and I had over 200 handgun bullets left, over 100 shotgun rounds.

Pretty funny actually. Because when I first played homecoming, I didnt conserve that well, and I got my butt handed to me by scarlett. Then I reloaded one of my other saves, which was about an 1hour back (remember to have atleast 3 different saves, switch between them) Then I didnt have much problems with the game, except for some of the puzzles.

With SH2 and the others, I went in with the Homecoming mindset. And I had a sh!tload of ammo at the end.

Another thing, really not a fair comparison, since the other SH games are older. But I really loved the gameplay mechanic in homecoming, where you could switch your flashlight off, and the nurses would stop coming towards to. Made for some really tense moments.

[DistantJ]

I remember that happened to me with Silent Hill 2 as well - I had saved up so much ammo, Resident Evil style, that I got through the final boss in about 30 seconds.

You could switch the flashlight off and creep past some monsters in the previous ones too, though in 0rigins and Homecoming it's more reliable (and I particularly love how you can bump into furniture and knock it over, alerting the enemies you're trying to sneak past, it means you're still really on edge).

[Aldo]

Silent Hill 2 was a cake walk for me once I picked up the Great Knife. It made the fight with Eddie, the two Pyramid Heads, and the end boss ridiculously easy.

[phantomess]

I can kind of identify with your first post, DistantJ. The first time I played Homecoming, although I didn't hate it, I was really disappointed. I thought there were too many movie-related things in it, and I found the story to be too predictable, at least as a fan who had already played all of the Silent Hill games. I also found most of the action to be really difficult, with the cult members being the main exception. (I usually killed them with no problem.)

But I just recently did a second playthrough. Since I'd done some reading up after my first playthrough, I used the knife almost all the time, whereas I'd used mostly the pipe and axe in my first playthrough. The knife made battles much, much easier against all enemies except for Smogs, but those are easy to kill in one or two shots with my gun if done right. I ended up saving quite a bit more ammo and health items this time through due to my new and better fighting technique.
Also on this playthrough, I really appreciated the atmosphere of the environments, and basically enjoyed the whole game up until

PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER_SHOW PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER:

Pyramid Head's scene in the church

. Not that I absolutely hated that scene, but I didn't care for it much, and things kind of got worse from there, for me. I'll probably never be a big fan of the scenes in the Lair section of the game, and of that "twist" ending that just seems (to me) so unoriginal for a Silent Hill game.
But the merits the game does have are enough to make me appreciate the game and to include it in my Silent Hill marathons from now on.

Also, I have it on PS3 and find the controls to be just fine. Although button mashing sequences are annoying.

[DistantJ]

Good to know, phantomess

I find Homecoming a lot better if you consider it a next gen SH1 rather than a SH2 successor (which we seem to judge every SH game based on). SH1 seems to have it's fair share of cliches and horror conventions while still being beautiful and atmospheric.

The Lair sections are my only real disappointment in the game as well, not that there's anything wrong with them, just that they seem to be a different kind of horror to Silent Hill, but I don't put that down to Double Helix 'not getting it' because so much of the rest of the game nails SH so perfectly, I think they just wanted to include a bit of western horror in there too now since it was an American-developed game. I was just glad to see an Otherworld transition occur again followed by a very nice, surreal, Silent Hill-esque boss. I do sometimes wonder what it'd have been like to have had an otherworld lair though, ya know? To see what the nightmare world would have made out of all the torture rooms and stuff, but I think maybe they realised they were pushing it a little already.

On my second proper playthrough (I'm in the middle of it at the moment) I noticed all kinds of things I had skipped first time around, particularly in the town hall the first time you visit, learning things about the history of Shepherd's Glen, and an extra-interesting bit of character development for Dr. Fitch in the form of a newspaper article. I also think that the design of Shepherd's Glen and the decor in Alex's house is really interesting, far moreso than the town was in Shattered Memories - it has this really sort of quaint, fishing town quality to it, with some 70s art nuveau and all that, I particularly liked seeing Alex's Mum's sewing machine and materials and the prayer tapestry, there's just something so humble about it all.

The movie references I actually kinda like, not because I want a game to be like the movie, but because it separates Homecoming a little - makes it something you don't need to have played any of the previous games to appreciate and which doesn't contradict either the first game OR the movie due to it's vague portrayal of the Order etc. so a person who hasn't played through the series on PS2 isn't left behind, they can either consider it a followup to the movie or even it's own story altogether, and personally I like 'standalone' SH games a lot better.

As for Pyramid Head and the sexy nurses, well I think they're pivotal to the series. Sure, they were originally created for James, but they were so iconic that you relate them more to the series than any of the protagonists and they become part of the town itself, not having them return at least once would be like never having Yoshi feature in Mario again outside of Mario World (think about it, that game was set in dinosaur land, Yoshi was a dinosaur, makes sense, later on he's just pulled out of it and placed anywhere, but it'd be a shame not to). That's the way I see it... Though if they have to return yet again I'd like them to put a new spin on them - PH was redesigned but mostly to match the movie version, I'd like to see a different spin on him, like the Butcher but more interesting...

I'd also be more likely to recommend Homecoming to 'mainstream' gamer friends than I would SH2 - it's just more accessible to mainstream people. I'm a pretty casual guy with movies and games and all that but I also appreciate a bit of 'high art' here and there too, so for me Silent Hill 2 was a profound experience but like the movie, Homecoming takes that amazing world and makes it appeal to the casual part of me as well... If that makes sense?