Silent Hill: Homecoming
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Silent Hill: Homecoming (AKA: Silent Hill V) is the sixth video game in the Silent Hill series.
Silent Hill: Homecoming was released on October 1st, 2008 on PS3, Xbox, 360 and PC. In Germany is to be released on February 2009.
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[edit] Synposis
The story revolves around Alex Shepard, a young man in his early twenties, returning home from a war. Alex returns home after his tour of duty, only to find that his brother and father had vanished, and his mother is in a depresive state. Alex must then find the truth behind the odd occurrences, and thus must travel to the town of Silent Hill.
[edit] Plot
As the game begins, the sounds of heavy artillery and bombs can be heard over a dark screen. The screen then brightens to reveal the player, Alex Shepherd, being wheeled through a hospital on a gurney while passing by rooms in which doctors are doing weird and frightening things to their patients. The doctor who is pushing the gurney remains silent in spite of Alex's repeated cries for an answer as to where he is being taken and what is being done to the other patients. Once he has finally been wheeled to his room, Alex struggles with his restraints as the doctor leaves through the doors and back into the hallway. Through the blurred glass of the double doors, Alex watches in horror as a mysterious assailant impales the doctor with a giant blade. Alex manages to break free from his restraints, and ventures into the hallway. There is no sign of the doctor or the assailant, save for a huge puddle of blood on the floor. Traveling further through the Hospital, Alex finds his brother, Josh Shepherd, drawing with crayons. As his path is blocked by a door of metal bars, Alex can't get to Josh until he's solved the first of the game's many puzzles. Once he get's through the door, however, Josh runs away, as he then continues to do whenever Alex gets close to him. Further progressing, Alex follows Josh's trail into an elevator. During the elevator ride, Alex hears the sounds of metal screeching against metal and feels the elevator car shake violently right before a huge blade (like the one that was used to impale the doctor earlier) is thrust through the door and into Alex's face.
Just as the elevator sequence ends, a startled Alex shakes himself awake as he sits in the passenger seat of an 18-wheeler driven by Travis Grady, the main character of Silent Hill: Origins. Travis asks Alex if he's had a bad dream, and then turns on the radio. Arriving at Alex's destination, Travis calls him "soldier". This, along with Alex's military jacket and the sounds of warfare prior to the gurney scene imply that Alex is a soldier returning home from war. Once having been dropped off in his home town of Shepherd's Glen, Alex discovers that the town has mysteriously taken the same appearance as its neighboring town, Silent Hill. Thick fog covers the town, all the streets are in a state of heavy disrepair, and almost no people are to be found. On his way to visit his parents' home, Alex encounters Judge Holloway, the mother of his childhood friend, Elle Holloway. Both Alex and Judge Holloway are descendants of the four families that founded Shepherd's Glen hundreds of years ago. Shepherd's Glen is, in fact, named after Alex Shepherd's own ancestor. Judge Holloway seems surprised to see Alex, and tells him to go see his mother. Arriving at his childhood home, Alex finds his mother in a near catatonic state. After briefly telling Alex that she misses his brother, Josh, and that his father has gone to look for him, she refuses to speak to Alex further. Alex proceeds to explore the house as he begins his journey to find his brother, Josh.
While walking through the house, Alex sees many pictures on the walls of his parents with his younger brother, Josh. Oddly, none of the pictures feature Alex himself. While looking at the various things in the house, Alex makes repeated comments about his parents' behavior that give the player the impression that his parents never liked Alex nearly as much as they liked Josh. While investigating the basement, Alex comes across a locked room that his father uses to butcher the animals that he hunts, prompting him to have a flashback. In the flashback scene, Alex opens the door to his father's hunting room, causing his father to turn around and scold him fiercely. After the scene, Alex comments that the door to the hunting room has a very strange lock.
After leaving the house, Alex eventually encounters his childhood friend, Elle Holloway, outside of the Police Department. She seems preoccupied and upset, and she seems cross with Alex for leaving for the military without ever saying goodbye to her. Apparently, one day he was just gone. After talking with her, Alex continues his search for Josh.
Alex eventually finds himself travelling through a graveyard near his house, trying to find clues as to both Josh and his father, Adam Shepherd's, whereabouts. While there, he sees two tombs, belonging to two of the town's founding families, that are locked with the same type of lock he saw on his father's hunting room door. A series of events leads to Alex blacking out in the tomb of the Bartlett Family, another one of the founding families of Shepherd's Glen. When he awakes, he finds that he has been mysteriously moved to the neighboring town of Silent Hill. There he sees his brother run into an abandoned hotel. Following Josh into the building, Josh is stalked by numerous monsters before encountering a humanoid creature with a large, metal, pyramid shaped mask locked over its head: Pyramid Head. Pyramid Head, a series favorite who was featured extensively in Silent Hill 2, is dragging a huge blade behind him. Alex sees that the blade is shaped like a giant combat knife, just like the smaller one that he himself carries. It is also the same blade that was used to attack the doctor and Alex himself during the opening sequence in the hospital. Pyramid Head notices Alex, who is hiding behind a shoddy barricade of broken furniture and turns to stare at him briefly before moving on. After this encounter, Alex encounters Mayor Bartlet, the mayor of Shepherd's Glen, in a large, circular greenhouse elsewhere in the hotel. Mayor Bartlet, like Alex, is also a descendant of one of the founding families of Shepherd's Glen. Alex learns that Bartlet's son, Joey, has also disappeared mysteriously. After questioning Bartlet, Alex is horrified to see a monster, Sepulcher, rise from a hole in the ground and kill the Mayor. Alex manages to kill it only to fall into Sepulcher's hole and black out again.
Alex awakes to find himself locked behind bars in a holding cell. The town deputy, Deputy Wheeler, questions him for a while before being convinced of Alex's good intentions and letting him out of the cell. The two make their way through the Shepherd's Glen Police Department building only to be separated. Alex then encounters his school friend, Elle Hollaway. They both escape into the sewers where Alex and Elle are separated. Arriving back on the street, Wheeler radios Alex and tells him to meet up with him so they can find a man named Dr. Fitch, who, like Alex, Judge Holloway, and Mayor Bartlet, is a descendant of one of the four founding families of Shepherd's Glen. Along the street, Alex finds Fitch and follows him into his clinic where Alex finds a slightly disturbing collection of dolls before being attacked by a group of Nurse demons, a mainstay of the Silent Hill series. Alex finds a key which unlocks a small box containing another doll. Upon Alex's grabbing of the doll, the floors and walls peel away to reveal a rusted, bloody, metal world: the Otherworld or Nightmare World.
Travelling through the Otherworld version of the clinic, Alex finds Dr. Fitch in a large room where he is seen cutting himself to "repent for his sins". Alex questions him as he questioned Bartlet in the abandoned hotel and learns that Fitch's daughter, Scarlet, has disappeared as well. Fitch, now going into a state of depression, says that he forgot to bring Scarlet her present. After Alex hands him the present, the doll that he found upstairs, Dr. Fitch's cuts proceed to multiply. His blood and the doll then transform into a large monster, Scarlet. The monster kills Fitch by biting his head off, and then attempts to do the same to Alex. After defeating the monstrosity, Alex awakens in the clinic, finding a key that goes to something in City Hall.
Arriving at City Hall, Alex proceeds to use the key to unlock an underground passage where Alex finds a Ceremonial Dagger. He also finds portraits of the town's founders, the heads of four families who left Silent Hill to found Shepherd's Glen many years ago: the Bartlets, Holloways, Fitchs, and Shepherds. Oddly, the portrait of the Shepherd family's head, Alex's own ancestor, has been taken down from the wall. Heading back home, Alex discovers that the dagger, aside from being a weapon, is the key that unlocks the strange lock on his father's hunting room door as well as the other doors featuring the same type of lock. In the hunting room, he finds a key that unlocks the Attic. In the attic, another flashback scene commences. This scene shows Adam Shepherd, Alex's father, giving Josh their family ring. He tells Josh that the ring has been passed down through generations, is incredibly important and special, and is not to be shown to anyone, even Alex. After the flashback, Alex finds a note written by his father stating that he was told he had to choose just one of his sons. Exactly what he had to choose a son for is intentionally left vague. Judging by the preferential treatment that Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd have always shown Josh, the family ring that was secretly given to him, and this mysterious note, it would seem that Josh has been chosen for some special purpose by his parents and the Order. The Order is a secretive group of demon worshippers who have been at the heart of everything that has happened throughout the Silent Hill series. Alex, with the newfound information from his father's note, attempts to question his mother about about Josh once again, only to be interrupted by members of The Order who beat Alex and kidnap his mother. The house then transforms into an Otherworld version of itself, which Alex must escape by solving puzzles involving the pasts and guilty consciences of each of his family members.
Escaping the house, Alex meets back up with Elle and Wheeler, stating that they must go to Silent Hill to save everyone. While traveling via boat, The Order assaults them and kidnap Elle and Wheeler, leaving Alex to wash ashore in Silent Hill. Receiving radio calls from Wheeler, Alex is lead to the penitentiary where he fights multitudes of monsters and Order members before rescuing Wheeler. Alex asks if he knows where Elle is. Wheeler says that he doesn't know for sure, but he heard members of the Order talking about taking a woman to the Solitary Confinement block. Travelling deeper into the prison, Alex reaches solitary confinement and finds his mother, not Elle. Mrs. Shepherd is chained to a crucifix shaped torture device, which is slowly stretching her body beyond its limits. Alex's mother begs him to end her suffering, and the player is given a choice of whether or not to do so. If the player decides not to help her, Mrs. Shepherd is alive and conscious while the torture device tears her body in half. If the player decides to help, Alex mercifully puts a bullet in her brain, killing her right before the machine tears her body apart.
Alex meets back up with Wheeler, and they proceed to travel through the Otherworld version of the penitentiary, finding Elle's mother, Judge Hollaway, strapped to a chair. Alex releases her, but a terrible monster grabs Wheeler through a hole in the wall and pulls him in prompting the Judge to run. As she leaves, the Judge's face changes from a feigned expression of fright to reveal a more sinister intent. Alex defeats the monster, Asphyxia, and once again sees his little brother, Josh whom he follows outside and into a Church. Inside, the player encounters a shadowy man in a confession booth. The conversation between Alex and the mysterious figure implies that it is Alex's father, or his conscience, asking for forgiveness for the way that he and his wife have always treated Alex. The figure also speaks more of having been given a choice between his two sons, echoing what was said in the note that Alex found in his attic earlier. He also says that he and his wife have always loved their son, but that they couldn't show him. They couldn't let him see the wonderful things in life, like love and laughter. While the reasoning behind this has been strongly hinted at this point in the game, it is still not explicitly stated. The player is then given a choice of whether to forgive this person or not. After solving a puzzle to reveal a door behind an enormous pipe organ, Alex finds his father tied up, similarly to how he found his mother in the prison.
Alex begins questioning his father as to whether or not he knows where Josh is. It is revealed that Alex was never a soldier at all. While he thought, and the player has been lead to believe, that he was in the hospital due to wounds sustained during the war, Alex has actually been in a mental institution. In a flashback, we see that, on the night after Mr. Shepherd gave Josh the family ring, Alex took Josh out on a boat on Toluca Lake. While there, Alex teased Josh, whom he obviously felt jealous of due to his parents' preferential treatment. To counter Alex's taunts, Josh showed him the family ring, prompting Alex to grab it in anger. Josh stood up in the boat, trying to take the ring back, however he fell while struggling with Alex and cracked his neck on the boat before falling into the lake and drowning. When Adam retrieved Josh's body, Alex went into mental shock, saying over and over again that there was a way he could save his brother, even though he was obviously dead. We then see Mr. Shepherd scold Alex fiercely, telling him that he doesn't know what he's done. He says that they chose Alex, but now Alex has ruined everything. He says that everyone else will suffer for Alex's mistake. It is not stated explicitly, but it's implied that many people in the town were told that Alex went off to war rather than that he was institutionalized, as Elle scolds him earlier in the game for not saying goodbye before joining the military. Just as the flashback ends, Alex tells his father that he's sorry, only to see Pyramid Head, or Bogeyman, appear and slice Adam's body in half before retreating down a staircase. Following after, Pyramid Head, Alex is soon captured by The Order.
Alex awakens to find himself tied to a chair in a large, blood-stained room. Sitting in the room is Judge Hollaway, who reveals that the disappearances of all the children were all part of a ritualistic sacrifice system. She reveals that Shepherd's Glen was founded by four families from Silent Hill, who no longer wanted to take part in the doings of the Order and their demon worship. They were allowed to leave Silent Hill under one condition: every fifty years each of the four families must sacrifice one of their children. This sacrifice has since provided protection to Shepherd's Glen from the troubles that have been felt in Silent Hill, until now. Holloway reveals that the protection is no longer there because, while three of the families made the sacrifice recently, one family, the Shepherds, failed to do so. Mayor Bartlet sacrificed his son, Joey, Dr. Fitch sacrificed his daughter, Scarlet, and Judge Holloway sacrificed her daughter, Nora. Adam Shepherd, Alex's father, was supposed to sacrifice one of his boys, but he didn't do so. Because of this, the protection from the Order's "god" is no more. Holloway goes on to say that there is no longer any choice for the town but to return to the old ways of the Order and Silent Hill. Therefore, she and her fellow faithful have been kidnapping, torturing, and murdering everyone in Shepherd's Glen that refuses to go along with them. Holloway then begins to torture Alex by running a drill into his thigh muscle. He breaks free from his restraints, however, and turns the drill back on her, killing her.
After running through the Order's compound for a while, Alex finally finds Elle, who is being tortured. He manages to kill her assailant and frees her. They then find Wheeler tied to a chair with several knives protruding from his abdomen. The player is given a choice of whether or not to save him with a medical kit or to let him die. Either way, Alex then goes on without Elle to face the end alone.
Alex pushes further through, finding the tombs of the four families who's children have been sacrificed throughout the years. On each of the tombs are four names: those of the children who have been sacrificed by each family over the years since the town's founding. On the Shepherd family tomb, Alex, finds his own name, confirming that his parents chose to sacrifice him and let Josh live. This fully explains why his parents were so distant and cold toward him. They couldn't bear to love him knowing that they would have to kill him one day. The world once again shifts to the Otherworld where Alex fights the final boss, Amnion. After defeating the creature, Alex cuts the monster open, and Josh's corpse slides out. Finally finding closure with his brother, Alex laments and apologizes to Josh and leaves.
Depending on the player's actions throughout the game, five different endings can be unlocked.
[edit] Endings
There are a total of five endings.
Good Ending (Kill your mother, forgive your father, save Wheeler): Alex defeats Amnion and apologizes to Josh before reuniting with Elle and leaving Shepherd's Glen. Also, after beating the game on Hard mode, if you wait for the credits to end you will see a special scene. In first-person view Alex enters the house and sees wet footprints leading up the stairs. He follows these into his and his brother's bedroom. Inside he finds a wet Josh sitting on his bed with a camera. He takes a picture and laughs. The picture that emerges from the camera is one that Alex found earlier in the game.
Drowning Ending (Kill your mother, don't forgive your father): Alex awakens in the bathtub in his house. His father approaches him and claims that with his death, Josh can carry on the family legacy, before drowning him.
Bogeyman Ending (Don't kill your mother, don't forgive your father, don't save Wheeler): Alex awakens to find himself strapped to a chair. Two Bogeymen come out of the darkness, holding two halves of the helmet they wear. They stand over Alex and place the two halves on his head, transforming him into one of them.
Hospital Ending (Don't kill your mother, forgive your father): Alex awakens in the Mental Hospital, strapped down on a table. He is told by the man standing over him, who sounds suspiciously like Wheeler, that he needs to take responsibility for his actions and accept the present. He is then administered an electric shock. This reveals that throughout the game, the patient in room 206 was in-fact Alex.
UFO Ending (Don't kill your mother, don't forgive your father, save Wheeler): Similar to the Good Ending, only that right as Alex and Elle are about to embrace each-other, a UFO appears and abducts them. As they are both floating up, Wheeler comes out and shouts about how he knew that this is why people had been disappearing.
[edit] Known Details
While very little has been officially confirmed, chief designer of Silent Hill 5, Masashi Tsuboyama announced the game's development in a 2004 interview with Eurogamer. Tsuboyama first clarified rumors that it wasn't going to be called 'Shadows of the Past' as previously reported from one website. In the same interview, he stated that Konami wasn't sure which next-generation console it would be released on. Although dodging the question, composer/producer Akira Yamaoka recently shed some light upon the question with, "We cannot say yet, but we are hoping to carry on the plans of the earlier Silent Hill platforms."
During an episode of The Electric Playground, Tommy Tallarico asked a developer about Silent Hill 5 who responded with, "It's a good time to be a Silent Hill fan", and the interview ended. There was a segment about the franchise shortly after, and it was stated that the title would be released on both current and next-gen consoles, yet it was unspecified which consoles they were. The mention of current consoles contradicts the statement made by Masashi Tsuboyama who reported that the fifth installment wouldn't be available on them.
In several interviews, Akira Yamaoka has revealed some information regarding the fifth release. He hinted at a return to the psychological roots that were present in Silent Hill 2 and that the team was interested in setting the game's atmosphere in a sunny environment gone wrong. Yamaoka has commented that the game might not even be called Silent Hill 5, possibly indicating that Konami will scrap the numerical title and settle for a subtitle.
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