Just got to St. Maria's and I can't tell you guys how much I love this game. It's quickly become my game of the year so far, edging out Diablo, Mass Effect, Amalur, Max Payne, Guild Wars, Darksiders, and whatever else has come out this year that I've played. I don't know that it'll stay my goty after Assassin's Creed, Dishonored, Halo, and so on, but damn... I love it so much.
It's creepy, it's subtle, it's got immense atmosphere, and while I hated the combat at first, and still kinda do, I get a little giddy feeling every time I see an enemy and run in terror, get jumped by an enemy and frantically beat it to death with my pistol in order to preserve precious bullets, or get jumped by an enemy and out of sheer terror empty two clips into it, and miss nearly every shot. By giddy feeling, I do of course mean immense fear, followed by massive hyperventilating. The inclusion of a "look behind" button is indicative of this game's overall feel. Even when I know nothing's there, I'm constantly hover my finger over L1, because goddammit there might be someone or something there!
And it has one of the most enjoyably explorable environments in a game I've ever played.
Just a goddamn shame the game was buried and no one talked about it. I really wish I could go back and tell myself to buy it day 1 just to show my support. I didn't expect it to be this good, and dammit, GAF, it is that good!
Oh, and this game went completely un-discussed by every podcast I listen to. Are there any decent discussions out there on it? I thought 8-4 Play might have, but a quick google search of "8-4 Silent Hill" yielded little in that regard, and then I remembered it wasn't developed in Japan, and therefore probably earns the ire of several fans of Team Silent-only SH games, and likely wasn't talked about by those guys.