Silent Hill: Homecoming

Sometimes, a game’s plotline can surprise you. Awhile back, we posted a story called the top 7 games with mega plot twists you never saw coming that showcased seven brilliant “gotcha!” moments in gaming history. This is not that story. No, this story is a celebration of the unsubtle and clumsy, a compilation of those games whose plot twists were so thinly veiled, so heavy-handedly, elbow-in-the-ribs foreshadowed, that everyone and their grandmother figured it out ten minutes in. The only people fooled by these swerves were people who called it, but second guessed themselves, thinking, “Nah, it can’t be that stupid and obvious, can it?”

Yes it can, friends. Yes. It can...

Konami has apparently teased a follow-up to recent Silent Hills Homecoming and Shattered Memories, with more details apparently to be revealed at E3. As a fan of serious, intelligent horror, a few years ago nothing would have excited me more than this reveal. But these days I’m massively ambivalent. Here’s why…

Perhaps better than any other creative medium, videogames have managed to recreate entire ecosystems of imaginary creatures and presented them in an observable context. Books and movies may offer detailed glimpses of anatomy and behavior, but only in videogames does the observer interact with organisms and experience behaviors first hand.

You know the only real problem with downloadable content? It’s typically designed by the same people who made the original game. That’s boring. Why not give other folks, who don’t necessarily worry about whether something is “a good idea” or “sensible” or “legal,” a shot? Sure our ideas might be a little unusual at times, and a couple of them could conceivably land someone in jail.

A few months back we featured the most bloodcurdling games to be unleashed this fall. We then graded each fright fest depending on what we assumed would be the scariest. The big surprise though is that half of the games featured - including FEAR 2 - either won’t be released by year’s end or - like in GhostBusters and Fatal Frame’s case - don’t even have release dates.

The new adventures of Silent Hill - subtitled Homecoming - have stuck very close to the winning formula of creepy dilapidated buildings, grotesque monsters, uncomfortable storyline, excellent music and a boatload of locked doors. Why plop us down in a semi-open world and then lock every door in the environment with the exception of a few?

You know that phrase people use when something "stays with you long after it's over?" Nothing fits that statement better than video games, and here we've collected the seven best examples of games that leap out of the screen and infect, impede or enhance your daily existence. In other words, you're still playing these reality-altering games even when the power's off.