Great premise and gameplay - oddly unsatisfying
posted by Tirade (GLENDALE, CA) Jun 12, 2012
Member since Oct 2009
First and foremost - I found DOWNPOUR strangely empty of meaningful things to discover and interact with - the game encourages you to explore and solve puzzles, but the rewards of doing so are mostly unsatisfying.
(spoiler) Example, there is a long and fascinating puzzle sequence where you have to find three different film clips and enter each film world, interact with objects in each world and then splice the three clips together to open a mysterious chest. Sounds great, but when you finally get the chest open, all you get is a PISTOL that's a little better then your current pistol - and ammo is so scarce in the game, what was the point?
The whole game feels like this. A large, interesting, creepy town to explore and all you ever find are more weapons, more healthkits and the occasional note.
There are some good bits and spooky moments, but all-in-all this feels like a wasted opportunity. They could have really saturated the city with interesting and meaningful things to find and interact with.
The COMBAT is just right for a horror game, the controls are mushy and clumsy and makes each encounter a tense, harrowing affair, with victory uncertain.
The STORY was lame in my opinion. I could care less about the tortured past of this Murphy guy. The cursed town of SILENT HILL is what is interesting - I wish the story was about the town and offered some new insight into the cataclysm that led to it's downfall.
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