Let's share our thoughts on Silent Hill Downpour.

[SvennoJ]

I recently finished Silent Hill Downpour and although it's far from great as a whole, the 2nd act, exploring Silent Hill, was totally worth it.

The negatives first.
Dated graphics with poor performance. There were times in the beginning where I thought the game had crashed but it just likes to lock up for several seconds at a time. Textures are continually being updated around the edges which pretty much destroys the whole effect of things moving at the edge of the screen. The frame rate stutters a lot, especially when running which can cause the camera to turn wildly as it applies your last input over the missed frames. The first act is pretty linear and not much fun imo. The last act is pretty average too. The other world chase sections are more frustrating then scary as you keep running around in circles trying to find the next trigger point.

Yet the middle part, from the moment you arrive in Silent Hill proper until you leave is some of the best game design in a while. The balance between combat, exploration, puzzles, side quests and story progression is perfect. Side quests are all vastly different with a few really good ones. (movie theater, turn back time)
The centennial building and monastery are great places to explore with plenty of interesting pieces of information to find. The theater quest in the monastery is my favorite. The town itself feels real and has plenty of places to discover. Combat is satisfying enough, not great, but that's not what draws me to a SH game anyway.

A game of two halves. It would have been nice if the north east section of the map was available too instead of the final act. Maybe a few more buildings to explore and some more claustrophobic underground exploration.
And it would have been awesome if there was a 2nd campaign where you can play through the whole game as the cop instead with different objectives.

I rate it 7/10 for the game as a whole. 9 for the 2nd act, 6 for the rest, 5 for performance.