"Murphy Pendleton has been incarcerated for several years, having had his sentence extended once already. Due to his history at Ryall State Prison, he is being transferred to nearby Wayside Maximum Security Penitentiary-but a freak accident cuts the journey short. Waking up in a forest next to the wrecked bus, Murphy has a clear shot at freedom. He makes his way into the sleepy town of Silent Hill where mysterious locals welcome him into a slowly developing personal hell.

Silent Hill Downpour is the latest Silent Hill game offering the familiar Survival Horror game play delivered in the most defined visual quality to date. The game also expands on the exploration theme of the franchise design-wise and through psychological torture, ambient story, horrific enemies and self-evaluative questions of despair.

Renowned story and music talent attached to the game including - Silent Hill comic writer, Tom Waltz Original music directed and composed by renowned composer, Dan Licht, of the Showtime series, Dexter Theme song performed by hard-rock multiplatinum group, Korn "

Well, I like the notion of playing a criminal, because it does get tired of always playing someone "innocent" who just happens to stumble into SH. OK, maybe not entirely innocent, but still, I have to say the SH storyline left a bit to be desired (except for SH1, which was awesome
Anyway, I love the notion of exploration, that sounds great. I'm a little more skeptical when it comes to the music, but I won't criticize it until I've at least heard it. OH, and this game will be 3D compatible...

maybe it will allow the option to switch out the game disc for other silent hill osts to replace the background music...
the only dark place you should find korn is in baby poo...

Was getting really excited until I started seeing who was involved. Definitely a little disappointed. I suppose it's too early to tell for sure, but the only Silent Hills that I enjoyed were the ones by Team Silent and I honestly don't think anyone else can even come close to doing it right.

I'd like to remind you that Team Silent also produced SH4.
A fifth grader on an Apple IIe could make a better game than SH4. I think other SH games such as Shattered Memories were very good, in fact better than the ones produced by Team Silent (except for SH1 Of course, what I'm looking for is story and atmosphere. I will also wait and hope for the best.

I think as flawed as Silent Hill 4 may be, it's atmosphere was pretty unique compared to other Silent Hill games. Never understood the hate for it. I don't like people playing the Team Silent card every time there's talk about the newer games, but I do think the series has become stuck in a sense that most of the newer developer's really try to keep the sense of Silent Hill that so many fans would like to see. However, to be honest, what I'd like to see is something that is not catered to Silent Hill fans. I'm not claiming to speak on behalf of all the Silent Hill fan community, but I'm pretty sure we'd be seeing Silent Hill 2 clones (a tad bit too strong of a word, I admit) all over the place if the developers were to follow the fans, and one can argue that this influence has been something we've seen for the past installments (where the focus has gone to the dark secrets of the main character). Silent Hill 2 was an unique entry, but because being a fan favourite, it has had the most negative impact on the direction of the series, in my opinion. The thing is, the western developers seem to be the fans themselves! So, naturally, what we witness is the influence of Silent Hill 2, as if that was what Silent Hill was all about.

Edit: Regarding Team Silent, I think it's something of a misnomer to use it in referring to as a cohesive group throughout the 4 games. The mastermind behind the original Silent Hill left the team right after the first game, the creative vision behind the second game left as well (don't remember the details, but apparently his vision of the sequels was very different) and third and the fourth game were developed at the same time by different people as well (on this one my memory is a bit cloudy).

That's a good point. I guess what I should be saying is that I prefer the Japanese approach to Silent Hill. There's just something about the series that didn't click with the American and British developers; it's like there's something missing.

As for Silent Hill 4, even with its problems, I still enjoyed it. If nothing else, it was easily better than Origins, Homecoming and Shattered Memories. I hope Downpour will be good, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

One of the things I loved about Shattered Memories was that it did not just try to clone the old games - Climax took the general idea and ran with it in their own direction and it ended up being (in my opinion) VERY good (although very UN-Silent Hill in a lot of ways, which alienated loooads of people).  It was a breath of fresh air after the relatively lifeless and unoriginal Origins (meh) and Homecoming (ugh).

I'm... curious... about the new one, but I'm disappointed that they didn't let Climax have another shot at it after what they accomplished with Shattered Memories.  I'm also curious about WayForward's Vita entry, but as I've stated time and time again, horror games NEED to be playable on a TV so that you can have an audience.  For people like me and my friends, that's at least half the fun.  Sitting alone and playing a Silent Hill game that nobody can watch just doesn't appeal to me.

I disagree. SH4 was horrible! In my opinion it was far worse than Origins, Homecoming, and especially Shattered Memories which was one of the better SH games. The original SH was my favorite, I felt like that did most everything right, and of course it came out at the right time (ie was original). SH2 may be a fan favorite, but I have NO desire to play it again. It was not frightening (unlike the original SH you were not frantically searching for your daughter), and despite a nice premise the storyline was disappointing. I think it became a fan favorite because when it came out in the early days of the PS2, there was hardly anything else to play. It's not a bad game, but definitely not the masterpiece many people claim it is.

http://www.gamesradar.com/pc/f/beloved- … 4280496215
"Know what else, Konami? You can concoct as many bizarre-looking freaks as you want. You can even put them in nurse outfits and make them have dirty bathroom sex with Pyramid Head. But unless you give them some kind of psychologically frightening reason for existing, it's... just... not... scary. (See how you like it when I drag everything out?) "It's all in the character's mind" doesn't count. In fact, that's a total copout. So is making me play through this mess multiple times to get a real, mildly comprehensible ending."

By the way, I would take a sequel to Eternal Darkness any day over Silent Hill! ED was beautifully done, and although not the same thing as SH (ie ED is not a survival horror), the storyline was just so fun and fleshed out... I digress, but then again, I don't care that I digress

That article also includes Super Mario World, which I think says a lot about about the quality of the views.

I think SH2 is a stunning piece of work. Perhaps not a stunning game, but a wonderful experience. Not as scary as the first though, no doubt.

I didn't think SH4 was too bad. It was certainly interesting and had some good ideas, although the level structure and having to play each one twice was unforgivable. But far more inspired than something like Origins, which was very competent and pretty good but was like a cardboard cutout of a Silent Hill game.

But Shattered Memories was a total revelation for me. I had written off Silent Hill and was so skeptical of a remake but that game completely took me by surprise. Incredibly smart, very different, very brave in ways.

And it seems to have been very well received.

So I was pretty baffled when they weren't given the next Silent Hill. As for Downpour, it looks interesting but seems edging towards the more obvious SH sequel (like Origins, yes, I know it's a prequel) than something new and inspired. Still, it does look interesting so I'll be keeping an eye on it.

I pretty much agree with everything Jay said, except I really just can not stand SH4. Also, I'm not saying the article is particularly good, but I do have to agree with the contributor's opinion on SH2. I too, think that the next SH game should have been given to Climax Studios, and it does seem like Downpour is likelty to be similar to the previous SH games (perhaps that sells better?) At any rate, I will of course wait before making any decisions. Also, there is the Silent Hill HD Collection coming out for those who want to play SH2 and 3 again (apparently it lacks SH1... lame).

Wow, that is the biggest piece of sensationalist tripe I've ever read.

Shame on you for making me give that waste of bandwith an extra pageview.

I probably should have put a disclaimer before including the link
To be fair, I almost never go to that sight since they do publish a lot of garbage, but every now and then they get things right (less often than they get things wrong)...

Soundtrack up for preorder on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006WAF3PO

Looking forward to tracks 2-19!

Razakin: "Haters will hate."

Samples are up!

http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Hill-Downp … rackPlayer