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Silent Hill f (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £69.99)
Verdict: It’s not a place, it’s a state of mind. Terror.
Can you do Silent Hill without Silent Hill? Judging by the latest entry in the long-running horror series, the answer is yes — very well.
For Silent Hill F is not set in the eponymous, modern-day American town. It’s set somewhere faraway — could that be what the mysterious ‘f’ stands for? — a small rural village in 1960s Japan.
But Silent Hill never really was a place; it was always, quite literally, a state of mind.
Here, the psyche we’re delving into belongs to Hinako Shimizu, a girl with an abusive father, a weak mother, an absent sister and plenty of questions about what she’s going to do after leaving school.
Little girl lost: Hinako Shimizu, the schoolgirl protagonist of the new Silent Hill f, with one of the makeshift weapons at your disposal. Better pray you can run away.
And what horrors lurk in Hinako’s head! Soon into the game, a fog descends on the village; strange, tentacled plants start sprouting from every surface; and her demons are made manifest. These monsters are as nasty as anything else we’ve seen in this series. Twisted, bruised and bloody things.
The good news is that you can run away from them. Unlike the dour blokes in previous Silent Hill games, Hinako doesn’t have a gun nor much combat ability, so I often resorted to dodging enemy attacks — and then pegging it.
The bad news is that you can’t always run away. The game also gives Hinako a set of rough-and-ready melee weapons, like lead pipes and baseball bats, and sometimes expects her to use them. The resultant scraps are a bit too fraught and clunky to be enjoyable.
A dark and scary place: Silent Hill f has the same brilliantly awful atmosphere as its great predecessor, Silent Hill 2. But the fraught fighting (two more ‘f’s) is a flaw, says Peter Hoskin
Were it not for the fighting, we might talk of Silent Hill F in the same breath as the masterpiece that is Silent Hill 2. It is a game with a brilliantly awful atmosphere, an endearing and believable protagonist, and some of the best puzzles in the entire series. There’s just that one small flaw.
Hey, hang on a second — could that be what the ‘F’ stands for?
EA Sports FC 26 (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £59.99)
Verdict: Plus ça change
Another year, another entry in the series formerly known as Fifa, now called EA Sports FC. And to be honest, these games are starting to become almost unreviewable. Although I’m going to give it a shot.
Each makes improvements on the previous entry, making the latest, by definition, the best. But those improvements are often so small that it’s hard to get truly excited.
So it is with EA Sports FC 26, which looks and feels much like EA Sports FC 25. The biggest difference is that, in certain modes, the game now allows you to choose between ‘competitive’ gameplay (which is faster and slicker) and ‘authentic’ gameplay (which is, apparently, truer to the experience of playing football on a cold, rainy night in Stoke). Cool…I guess?
Fantasy football: Cole Palmer celebrates a goal for Chelsea, in the new EA Sports FC 26 game
Of course, if you’re someone who lives for EA Sports FC, this change — and assorted other micro-changes — might make a considerable difference to your experience.
But if, like me, you’re a longtime dabbler, then you’ll barely notice. And you may also miss some of the wackier options that were included in past entries in the series but that are no more. There is, for instance, nothing in EA Sports FC 26 to compare to the pitch-side soap opera of the old narrative mode known as ‘The Journey’.
No, this is a stripped-back experience with an emphasis on modes like Ultimate Team — which, with its player-buying mechanics, just so happens to make a lot of real money for EA. Funny that.
I just wish they’d put some of that money towards revolutionising, rather than constantly refining, this series.
For the inevitable EA Sports FC 27, how about stadia in which you can meet other players before arranging a match?
Or masterclasses from some of the best in the game?
Or even just a continuation of The Journey? Actually, forget revolution: at this point, I’d probably settle for some new celebratory animations when my team wins the cup.
Go on, EA, make football fun again.
