Hey there folks! I'm doing something a bit differently and reviewing something I've never reviewed before: a game mod!
I normally don't do this because much like game expansions (and why I never do those seperately from a game review) mods are usually additions to the game to improve it. There may be an extra quest sure, but at most it's maybe an hour worth of content that was created, and most of the time it's using in game assets to bring really nothing new graphically to the table aside from maybe minor tweaks here and there.
It's usually nice saying some things here and there like "I really like the direction they went with this quest" or "Oh yikes, those are some awful new voices they put in, but I appreciate the effort it must have taken." but not enough to fill an actual review. This is actually quite the direction I expected with Whispering Hill's description of introducing the fog, monsters, and town of Whispering Hills into the Fallout 4 world. I was expecting "Oh, well I'm probably going to have to walk all the way to this town for a single quest, it's going to take maybe 20 minutes at most, and the rest of the mod's gimmick will be the constant fog with the raining ash, the dark nights, and the Silent Hill monsters."
Am I really (mostly) glad to say that I was completely wrong on this, and that this is one of those rare really-ambitious mods that does a lot more than the description gives credit for. So, let's dive in!
So I'm going to be structuring this a bit differently than the normal review, giving a brief Pros (The Good), cons (The bad), and almost dealbreakers (the ugly) into this. This is going to be my normal format from now on if I do future mod reviews.
The Good
*The Atmosphere
*The Care in recreating familiar areas
*The Easter Eggs/Nods to the games
*The Variety in monsters both familiar and unique
*The Effort
*The Puzzles
The Bad
*Inconsistent soundtrack that is either super random when it decides to play (not in the atmospherically changing sense, though it's great when it does that), doesn't play (meaning it's 100% silent, normally when just free exploring Whispering Hills), or radio music will play on top of another song already playing on the radio.
*At least one of the features meant to be a mindfuck is more of a nuisance when trying to get to an area (Episode 3 when you're in the Apartments, opening the 3rd Floor door glitches or "glitches" you on the bottom area, and falling off the edge has equal chance of putting you on Floor 3 where you wanted to be, or a hallway where it becomes a chore having to get through, only to appear on the actual bottom floor...so if you were trying to get to floor 3 you have to repeat the process and hopefully fall off the right part of the edge to land at floor 3).
*Whispering Hills itself isn't a faithful recreation (Specific areas are, the city itself is smaller, those specific areas are in super easy convenient to find places rather than accurate to where they are in actual SH map for the series).
*You lose all items when transitioning into Whispering Hills, and likewise lose all items when transitioning out...meaning you can't keep anything that you snag from this area...yet. At least not without cheating.
The Ugly
*Sole Survivor's new voice actor for the original content was a horrible choice both in it sounding completely different than the regular game, and it overall sounding off for this mod. Keep in mind this is concerning the male Sole Survivor (aka Nate), as I haven't tried it with Nora to hear how different it is with hers. However, Nate has a deeper, somewhat gruff sounding voice in the base game whereas the new voice for the mod is noticeably higher and slightly more nasally, and has more of whiny-esque tone to it.
Edit: Okay, nope. Just watched a video of the intro to the quest with the Nora Sole Survivor, and the replacement voice for her sounds just as bad, if not noticeably worse.
The Description
So as I said, you're forgiven for thinking this is a somewhat cosmetic Fallout 4 mod with a simple quest, because as soon as you load it up...that's what it feels like. The weather is auto-replaced with the ashy fog, enemies minus a select few (which yes, the humans enemies are not included) are replaced by Silent Hill monsters from across the franchise, as well as some completely original ones that I could absolutely see in a Silent Hill game such as the nightmarish Siren Head...a giant monster whose head is literally a wooden pole with those big old emergency sirens on them. Likewise the UI sounds are changed to familiar Silent Hill UI sounds...so overall, it's very much a cosmetic mod...right?
Actually no. If anything, that's maybe 1% of the mod.
The real meat of the mod begins when you see that you have a new quest of meeting the unknown stranger who happens to be watching you. Making the trek back up to the entrance to Vault 111, you meet with "Harry Manson" who tells you that his daughter is in some place called Whispering Hills, and that the same cultists who have her were the ones who took your son Shaun from the vault and dragged him to that same town.
Okay...so let's guess: You're going to trek all the way to where the quest marker is, find some modded in town named Whispering Hills, kill some monsters, go into some marked place like a school or some other nod to the series like an amusement park, fight more monsters, kill the boss monster, find out that your son isn't there but you get some shiny item that is some nod to the series like an iconic outfit or gun (or maybe an outfit that lets you use Heather's Sexy Beam from SH3?), and the quest will be over as quick as it starts...right?
Again, no. Not even close.
After Harry gives you the quest, you make your way to the familiar location of Dunwich Borers. After making the long trek there (or fast traveling if you've already been there before and weren't insane enough to try this quest right after stepping out of the vault) and making it past the raiders and though the door at the bottom, that's when the mod really begins. Past the bodies of dead ghouls, you get your first bit of mind fuckery as you step through a door, only for a sudden flash forward, some images, and then you're back behind the door you just opened. This continues with another eventual flash event of seeing folks praying at an altar, before it switches to you fighting monsters. After swimming down and resurfacing in a creepy red lit area where the game text tells you how you're both intrigued and frightened on opening the door in front of you, the mod only continues to spiral. This area acts as a foreshadowing of how the overall mod will act, going deeper and deeper into the Silent Hill horror aspect with the nods to PT with the radio bits, the constant random voices chattering or crying, the symbolism with the baby bottles and cribs, nods to the Otherworld from the abundance of dark outside areas with fences and creepy inner areas with dirty and questionable looking walls with large fans and atmospheric lighting, and how the world changes on a whim and maybe look different when you least expect it...hoping to scare you when your back is turned...and finally the dread you'll feel when certain monsters have to be ran from such as the iconic Pyramid Head.
And once again, you'd be forgiven for thinking this in itself was the full mod itself...that finishing this area and leaving through that lighted passage at the end would take you back to the Commonwealth, and all of this would be just a bad dream.
But no...no that was just the beginning of the mod. A tutorial of sorts to prepare you for what you'd really be in for...because that lighted passage doesn't lead to the Commonwealth...it leads to the town of Whispering Hills.
And what an intro, for the moment you transition out of that last area, you're met with a radio host thanking you for tuning into Whispering Hills Radio and speaking for a moment before moving into playing a song. Now is where Episode 1 of this mod really begins (also to answer your question: No this isn't an actual episodic mod that ends and transitions to a new episode, but the modders are in fact releasing it in parts, updating every time they finish a new part). After walking around a bit in the not-exactly-map-accurate Whispering Hills, you'll notice Midwich Elementary is directly in front of you. Episode 1 is all about that specific location, and yes, unlike Whispering Hills, Midwich is almost entirely accurate to its layout in Silent Hill 1...with the one major difference being the lack of a clock tower (the Otherworld transitioning point now being a room in the basement).
It's also worth pointing out that like Silent Hill (and of course, it being a thing for Fallout as well), notes are scattered throughout the different main focus areas (IE Midwich Elementary, Achemilla Hospital, and Blue Creek Apartments currently...with the next Episode more than likely focusing on the Lakeside Amusement Park. Naturally like both FO and SH, notes can be skipped and in Episode 1 it is 100% okay to do this aside from the ones that your quest marker will hover over. If you're a note collector then go ahead and pick them all up and get a feel of the lore they're looking for...but I will warn you that the language in this game is bizarre and at times makes the notes a little awkward to read. You'll have notes from supposedly kids to each other that sound incredibly formal (such as using "do not" as opposed to the shortened "don't"), and some of the adult written notes are equally oddly written to where it made me wonder why the writers were going for so formal since it sounds completely off.
After making it through Midwich Elementary and its Hell version (complete with a boss at the end), the Episode 2 update gives you the quest to visit Alchemillia Hospital. After heading through the sewers (part 1) and making it to a new part of the town, you'll find the hospital also in a convenient center (and also more than likely not map-accurate) area. As a particularly fun but equally unsettling nod to 3's Heather Stalker, you'll find notes from someone who has been watching you, and tries to entice you by leaving you the gift of a rotted brain on a plate (which you of course leave alone). After going through more of the hospital as well as its Hell version, you're given another cutscene with a very familiar Silent Hill character, where you have to endure hearing the new voice acting for the Sole Survivor even more. You're then given another boss to fight as you try to leave, and Episode 2 ends and transitions into episode 2.5.
This is quite possibly the most trolling part of the mod, and it's absolutely 100% in character of what Silent Hill would do. At some point early on, you find yourself in the incredibly familiar (but definitely not 100% faithfully recreated) hallway from the P.T Demo. Exactly like that demo, you'll be repeat going down this hallway, going through the door at the end, and starting over with some minor change in the hallway constantly...actually I think slightly more constantly than the demo did. While the mod doesn't go fully 100% as gory dark as the original P.T did with the swinging bloody fridge with the baby possibly inside screaming out, this is still absolutely a creepy mindfuck experience. You have a new enemy with what I recall to be hook-like hands and one of those violently quick shaking bubble-heads like the nurses that now will pop up, and at one point actually try to kill you. There's a new room along the hallway which is normally locked, but does at some points allow you to go in to escape. Also, I take back what I said about the bloody fridge part, because in one of the transitions you see a baby behind bars that you can't get through, and the only way to move forward is to push a button that basically says "Burn the baby" and then go investigate what you've done.
But when I said that this is the most trolling part of the mod, what I meant was that there's a few moments where you finally think you're out of the hallway. At one point you jump down a hole and into a pool of water, and think "Thank god I can finally move on" when you swim up, only for you to immediately go "Damn it" when you open the door and see the hallway again. In Episode 3, it does it to you again at some point in the Apartments when you're making your way through, and suddenly you're back in that hallway again and if you're like me, you wonder when the next moment is going to be.
However, aside from that incredibly random one time moment in episode 3, you can rest well-ish knowing that once you get past that hallway at the end of 2.5, you'll never have to see it again. You will, however, get to see some nicely lit streets and buildings which was obviously supposed to be an equally nice nod to the end of P.T, right before you step into the Blue Creek Apartments.
If the theme of this area was supposed to be repetitiveness, Episode 3 does it differently than 2.5 did. After stepping into the Blue Creek Apartments and having an immediate fight, your task is to use the keychain you were given to enter into apartment 302 (which for folks who know their SH lore, that's Henry Townsend's apartment number from Silent Hill 4: The Room). You can choose to talk to the person on the nearby radio and get more information...but that also means having to endure hearing more of your character talking, so do so at your own peril.
Either after you did that or after stepping in and getting ready to head to apartment 302...you, the player, realize immediately a problem: All of the apartments on all 3 floors are marked as 302 and yes, the keychain works with all of them. What's more is that every apartment on the inside looks identical (and identical to how Henry's looked in Silent Hill 4, which was a wonderful touch), though some of them have some minor differences such as who you may find inside or a hole in between apartments, or major differences such as a mysterious hole in the wall or creepy familiar otherworldly doors. Much like the last two episodes, this one also has its moments of mindfuckery (the PT hallway revisit being one of quite a few) including one that comes off as a glitch and may very well be, but I'm like 99.5% sure it's actually intentional.
This episode also has a couple of puzzle sections as well. I won't spoil what they are, but I will say the first seems difficult, but it's exceptionally easy if you look at the notes, think of how Silent Hill does its word puzzles, and don't forget your compass. The other is also exceptionally easy and is much more of a hunt for items to get the items you'll need. It may seem difficult, but the items will always be in a nearby room, and there'll be some imagery next to them to let you know it's the item you need to take to get what you need. And be sure to look in corners, because some items are very well hidden...again, much like SH liked to do on occasion.
Once you beat the Apartments and leave, you're free to walk around the areas that are open, but as of now that's the extent of the mod. Episode 3 just came out on the 7th (with Episode 2 I believe having come out this January, so maybe Episode 4 will be around the end of the year/beginning of next). So at this point you can explore, or leave Whispering Hills (returning to that creepy hallway and backtracking to the other side), return to the Commonweath, and retrieve the items you lost upon entering the creepy hallway for the first time from a green Redemption Chest near the door once you step through. Just keep in mind that:
1) Much like you lost your items upon entering the creepy hallway to Whispering Hills, you'll lose all of the items that you gained during your time in Whispering Hills making that trek again through the hall back to the Commonwealth (they'll be stored in the locker in that area right as you enter Whispering Hills). So theoretically it's impossible to take any of your new outfits or guns with you. That being said, you can use a mod like the Cheat Terminal (which has the Cheat Holotape that you will always keep no matter what) to force fast travel out of Whispering Hills (since it's a "fast travel is impossible from here" area) and keep any items that you gained from Whispering Hills (and you'd just backtrack to Dunwich Borers to where the door leading to the hallway is at, grab all your other stuff from the Redemption Chest, and be golden). Just keep in mind that the Robbie Rabbit outfit is glitchy currently, even in parts of Whispering Hills.
2) There's a second time that you lose your items while in Whispering Hills, which is during the PT sequence. Those items can be re-retrieved through a briefcase surrounded by a red O on the ground as you're moving around Whispering Hills from the Apartments to the door to the first area that requires the Red Barrier Key to unlock. Be sure to grab those so that you can have your Robbie the Rabbit outfit again if you choose to take it with you.
3) Naturally, if you disable this mod because you've finished the content for now and don't want the fog/dark transition and constant monsters, those items will also disappear regardless of being back in the Commonwealth with them in your inventory.
Overall though, this was a great mod. It had its weak spots with the voice acting (mostly the new voice for the Sole Survivor), some weak dialogue, awkwardly written notes, inconsistent or overlapping music, and a not entirely map-accurate Silent Hill recreation (but still overall very well recreated nonetheless). But the attention to detail for the main areas, the various easter eggs, overall atmosphere (mostly) and the consistent jump scares and overall mindfuckery really outweighed the rest of it (though the MC's voice acting really came close in some areas to pulling me out of it). Where it really mattered, it felt like a Silent Hill experience...which is saying a lot considering the disappointment of the last couple of games (Downpour and Book of Memories) and the overall quietness for the franchise. This was definitely a mod that despite it flaws was created by passionate fans of the series, and was a very well crafted one where I'm looking forward to Episode 4 and any future episodes that may come after. I may not care for the dialogue and voices behind them, but I'm very interested to see how the Sole Survivor's journey through Silent Hill (well, "Whispering Hills" is going to end).
And if you can genuinely fool me into forgetting I'm playing Fallout and believing at points that I'm playing a horror game, let alone a familiar horror game, that's already a great mod right there.
I should also obviously note that this isn't a short mod. Using cheats because I'm an impatient person and want to see the meat of the mod, I clocked it at about 3 going on 4 hours on a second playthrough, roughly longer on the first since figuring out where some of the items are or how some of the puzzles work was really difficult (in a "the solutions were so obvious to but made to seem like they weren't" kind of way). So a regular playthrough without things like one-shot kills will add a bit more to the playtime since enemies are abundant, and ammo is less so. Considering this is also an unfinished mod with at least one more episode on the way, you can expect more than likely another hour at least as well to be added to the finished product.
