Downpour: Let The IP Go (Part 1)

Downpour....yooooou.

YOOOOOOOOOOOOU.

Yes. You.

You irritate me Downpour. You had potential. You took a survivalist approach to the game, and outright limited guns and melee weapons to "pick up as you go". You figured it out, you figured out that having limited options in a fight, combined with a protagonist who isn't G.I. Joe adds tension. You figured out that a modicum of atmosphere goes a long way in representing a horror theme. You figured out that a game called "Silent Hill" should probably take place IN THE TOWN, and not a side city called Shepherd's Glen. You got that down, you got exploration in, you made all these advances.

It's weird. By what you normally measure a game by, Downpour should be a step ahead of Homecoming. The graphics are better, Murphy Pendleton is FAR more interesting than Alex Shepherd, as are the supporting cast, the combat has been improved upon...So why do I resent you more? It's hard to quantify why. Homecoming is stupid, almost incompetent as a Silent Hill game, and Downpour is competent, and attempting. But I think if I had to give a reason why...it commits the act of Shyamalan.

The Nostalgia Critic said it best: "Have you NO passion, for possibility? Have you NO understanding, this, barrel of Miyuzaki that you could unleash with this creativity?" I'll give it credit for the joke ending, that one was kind of awesome. But...the level design is too bright, and all you're fighting are humanoids. HUMANOIDS. Say what you will, but Silent Hill ONE had a wide array of enemies you could fight. Silent Hill 3 had the best in my opinion. Look at them.

The common theme throughout the series is simple: keep it inhuman. It can be humanoid, but it has to be disturbing. It has to be unsettling to look at, unnerving to fight. What does Downpour offer? Humans. All with faces. Nothing defining about them, except maybe the torture device on the heads of certain Prisoners. But you can still tell they have faces. The doctors and nurses of Silent Hill 1 at least had a reason at the time, the implications of being possessed by parasitic demons. Even Silent Hill 2, with the fewest in its lineup of lunacy, kept the most human-looking thing relegated to the Nurses; Lying Figure was appropriately inhuman, trapped within a fleshy straitjacket. The Mannequin was no more than two pairs of legs. Pyramid Head kept his helmet on like he was Judge Dredd, even when he dies. But the closer you get to "human", the less "shock" impact a monster will have. The final boss of Downpour is excellent, but god does it ever pound you over the head with overt symbolism. There's no other interpretation other than "suffering guy on life support".

I'm the wheelmaaaaan.

With the Mannequins, they were set up to be a little more vague as well. On the surface, it's a pair of legs on top of a pair of legs. Then you realize James is looking for his deceased wife; this is a "female" kind of enemy...so it stands that it could go to his frustrated libido. The Nurses follow the same theme, but notice Maria shows up before you go there. Then James' libido may get even more frustrated, leading to the sexualization of their chests...but that's the subtle implicit themes following a more likely implicit theme of James' frustrations with the hospital being unable to help his wife on her deathbed. Note again that these have to be implicit, where Downpour's enemies are just explicit "look, I am a prisoner monster rawr".

You can deconstruct Silent Hill monsters like that. The more layers to it, the more interesting it is. That's one of the reasons I hated Homecoming, touting Pyramid Head around and doing absolutely nothing with him. The manifestation of James' own need for punishment makes sense; but Alex is far more deluded, thinking he can save his brother, being completely unaware of what he's done until the very end...unlike James, who figures it out before the end. You could argue that because he's so far gone, only the illusion of punishment lingers in his mind, but at the same time, you could also argue Alex wanted his father to undergo punishment ...and if that's the case, I can't agree with it...I mean, why would Silent Hill accept Alex as a punisher of the guilty? How deluded and unlikeable would Alex have to be as a character?

But I've already taken a few shots at Homecoming. I could deconstruct it further, but lets get back to the topic at hand...The Bogeyman.

Ahm Scurry. Boo.
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 Guys....look. You DON'T have to make a second or third or millionth Pyramid Head. Hell, why couldn't you just be like Silent Hill 3? Make a Valtiel. Valtiel was one of the best things about Silent Hill 3 in my opinion...because he was there. He did absolutely nothing TO you...if you were lucky. But that was the beauty of him. You saw him in the background, you saw him manipulating things just out of your reach. He disturbed you, but also made you wonder "Why? Why are you here? What are you doing? What are you up to?"

WHY!?
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That is the question...and you have to interpret it yourself, really. You have to pay attention to what he does, you have to question where he is, and maybe, just maybe....you screw up, and you get a subtle clue, in the creepy throes of death. He's doing everything he needs to do as an element of horror without even being a direct threat: ambiguous motives, inhuman movements, disfigured limbs and hands and feet....always following you, a twitchy decorum to the blood-splattered walls.

Do you see why Downpour irritates me? LOOK AT VALTIEL. That's horrifying. Look at the Bogeyman. He's a guy in a trenchcoat wearing a gas mask with a cinder-brick maul. Whoop. De. Shit. Even The Butcher from Origins was a FAR better idea, and that was just a Pyramid Head clone by most respects. Why would you make a human this inhuman element in your game? You should RARELY do that. Back in Silent Hill 1 they did that, but they made it grotesque enough to question it.

Problem 1 : It looks like he's one of the cultists back from Homecoming.

Problem 2 : His choice of weapon is so bland compared to Pyramid Head or The Butcher.

Problem 3 : Too human. The gas mask gives him the element of a face.

Problem 4 : Too bland. He just looks like a normal person.

Now you may think with these four problems I'd be done with him, but I'm not even done yet. These are all artistic issues. I haven't even TACKLED his symbolism and role. Spoiler: it's stupid.
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Cited from the Silent Hill Wiki:
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"Its presence is due to a character's lack of personal accountability and short-sightedness. The Bogeyman is an illusion created from the perceptions of the individual to rationalize his or her own crimes and misdeeds by placing the blame on the "Bogeyman" rather than themselves. When Murphy realizes that his actions made him a "Bogeyman" as well, he is able to take accountability for himself and defeat his version of the Bogeyman, retrieving the "freedom" key in the process.

He also could represent destruction brought about by revenge, as the relentless pursuit of vengeance can become just as destructive to oneself as that which caused the revenge-seeking behavior in the first place. "
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 Ergo, the Bogeyman is the manifestation of judgement. Think about that for a second; would it have been so hard to manipulate "Blind Justice"? This inhuman wretch, wielding a giant maul, face melted or mutilated, blind as justice itself. It would've fit so much better, and have been something much more symbolic of the needs of Murphy and Anne in terms of their inherent desire to deliver their form of vigilante justice, believing that the justice system has failed them both. Moreover, that doubles as a reason for it to HAUNT them both. With Murphy, he knows that he deserves it for the consequences of his actions. With Anne, she is following the same path as Murphy; and when she sees him, that's why she sees him as a monster...a monster she feels she must put down, and a monster she sees as a reflection of her own better judgement coming back on her.

It's too human. It needs to feed into their desires, their deeper pains. It's too bland to get this message across.

And I'm just getting started on this game...