Silent Hill: The Escape is a Silent Hill spin-off game, featuring first-person shooter-style gameplay. Its characteristic feature is a gameplay mechanic called gesture technology, which is a method of controlling the actions in the game via image feedback from the mobile device's built-in camera. The game objective is for the player to make their way through ten levels by finding the key and bringing it to the locked door at the end of each level. The player must slide their fingers to move the character in a first person perspective and tap the screen to shoot enemies.
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It's no secret to anyone who does a fair amount of mobile gaming that if you type Silent Hill into whatever app marketplace your phone uses a lot of cheap knockoffs with goofy names like "Hushed Town" or "Quiet Mountain" will pop up. Particularly on Android devices. There have been officially licensed SH games for phones however, and this is one of them. It's just that due to the rapidly evolving nature of cellular technology requiring consistent updates that very few devs actually provide in order to keep them running on newer models it takes some digging and extra work to play the titles these days.
Now, obviously it would be very difficult, if not legitimately impossible, to create a full-fledged survival-horror experience like the ones we got on PlayStation consoles on a bloody iPhone. So the developers had to come up with something new centered around a more limited concept. This naturally led to the majority of the fanbase writing The Escape off as something that "never should have been made." Personally, I don't think it's that bad. Yeah the storytelling and symbolism that define the main entries are gone, but this spin-off does still have some noteworthy qualities. For one, the atmosphere is surprisingly solid.
The gameplay is reminiscent of those super low-budget indie jump scare fests you can find when scraping the bottom of the Steam barrel in that you're thrown into a maze to locate a key and reach the exit while dodging monsters. It delivers on some classic genre staples such as resource management by only giving you 25 bullets each level and there's a surprising amount of content in the form of things like additional unlockable characters. Playing through with each one of them is rather repetitive as it will be the same stages every time, and not to mention much easier thanks to their unlimited ammo, but doing so grants new endings that serve as amusing nods to the franchise's cheekier aspects (think aliens and Shiba Inu and you'll get an idea).
Honestly, the worst part is simply the controls. Movement is handled by swiping the screen and shooting by tapping it. Sometimes it will confuse your inputs putting you in sticky situations which can be frustrating. Positioning the crosshairs is also done via gyroscopic aiming. As a result this could look really silly/weird if played in public. Although maybe not because of the advent of AR games such as Pokémon GO and Jurassic World: Alive.
While somewhat considered a "lost" entry in the Silent Hill canon, there are still ways to play this provided you know where to grab the files and tricks for installing them. Despite not being anywhere near the abomination you've probably heard though, solely the hardcore devotees similar to myself are likely to find it worth the effort of uncovering again. It's an ultimately inconsequential and disposable piece of the series' overall puzzle, yet I did enjoy the look at the fuller picture of what is easily among my favorite properties of any medium has (or had, technically) to offer regardless.
6/10
Now, obviously it would be very difficult, if not legitimately impossible, to create a full-fledged survival-horror experience like the ones we got on PlayStation consoles on a bloody iPhone. So the developers had to come up with something new centered around a more limited concept. This naturally led to the majority of the fanbase writing The Escape off as something that "never should have been made." Personally, I don't think it's that bad. Yeah the storytelling and symbolism that define the main entries are gone, but this spin-off does still have some noteworthy qualities. For one, the atmosphere is surprisingly solid.
The gameplay is reminiscent of those super low-budget indie jump scare fests you can find when scraping the bottom of the Steam barrel in that you're thrown into a maze to locate a key and reach the exit while dodging monsters. It delivers on some classic genre staples such as resource management by only giving you 25 bullets each level and there's a surprising amount of content in the form of things like additional unlockable characters. Playing through with each one of them is rather repetitive as it will be the same stages every time, and not to mention much easier thanks to their unlimited ammo, but doing so grants new endings that serve as amusing nods to the franchise's cheekier aspects (think aliens and Shiba Inu and you'll get an idea).
Honestly, the worst part is simply the controls. Movement is handled by swiping the screen and shooting by tapping it. Sometimes it will confuse your inputs putting you in sticky situations which can be frustrating. Positioning the crosshairs is also done via gyroscopic aiming. As a result this could look really silly/weird if played in public. Although maybe not because of the advent of AR games such as Pokémon GO and Jurassic World: Alive.
While somewhat considered a "lost" entry in the Silent Hill canon, there are still ways to play this provided you know where to grab the files and tricks for installing them. Despite not being anywhere near the abomination you've probably heard though, solely the hardcore devotees similar to myself are likely to find it worth the effort of uncovering again. It's an ultimately inconsequential and disposable piece of the series' overall puzzle, yet I did enjoy the look at the fuller picture of what is easily among my favorite properties of any medium has (or had, technically) to offer regardless.
6/10
Hard as hell to emulate because of use of the camera but surprisingly fun, but maybe only because it's more mindless than Orphan was.