Silent Hill 3

I really hate Silent Hill. I despise that town with every breath in my body. The monsters are all terrifying and the locations twisted, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy the game. This is actually a good thing, as long as you don’t mind being reduced to shaking in a corner like a frightened three year old. For those new to the world of Silent Hill, the third in the series is, like the others, a 3D 3rd person survival horror game, only for the first time in the series, you take control of a female protagonist, Heather, who is well up for meeting the challenge of a nightmare world. You’ll use melee and ranged weapons to defeat or defend against a selection of hellish monsters if you dare, and solve puzzles that can be devious or downright simple.

As anyone who has played the others will know, the Silent Hill games are a very strange almost masochistic experience. Personally, I disliked almost everything that happened in the game, not because it was bad, but because it pumped up the horror. Relying more on long drawn out fear of what is coming than the sudden shocks of the Resident Evil series (although there are still plenty of shocks), if you do not enjoy being more petrified than, you should not play this game. In fact you shouldn’t even look at the game box in your local games store.

Story and the series

A blood soaked alter dedicated to the cult that no doubt awaits you down the ladder.

The story centres on Heather and a small cast of characters as they make their ways through the deserted town of Silent Hill, and a short stint in a nearby addition, and for once in the series isn’t far too overly complicated for anyone to understand, although previous knowledge into the first two games is recommended. Weaving in and out of the plot of the established series, you’ll even see and have plenty of references to characters in the previous games, and it seems to tie up the first beautifully.

The cult, which was trying to resurrect the (most likely evil, from the look of things) God of the town has restarted itself, and through various events are now able to try again to bring into motion their ‘Eternal Paradise’ which would be great if it didn’t involve killing, blood stained metal grating and creatures that would have no trouble frightening off burglars, if that isn’t the understatement of the year. During the game you’ll be thrust between two versions of reality, of which the first is scary enough. The second however is known as the ‘hell’, ‘other’, or ‘alternate’ version of the town. As intricate as the rest of the story is, revealing anything too much about it could spoil a lot of the surprises and references in the game, so you’ll just have to trust me that I consider the game to have the most complete and intriguing plot of the whole lot.

Can’t take the pressure?

'Alternate' Silent Hill looks even more sick and twisted. Take bleeding firey walls for example.

The game features a choice of levels for both action and puzzle difficulties, and where the puzzle difficulty varies greatly, the action goes from being reasonably challenging (definitely not a walk in the park) to being a nightmare to games playing ‘professionals’ everywhere, although they won’t affect your instant death scenarios. The pure horror of the game truly hit me when entering a seemingly innocent room in the demonic hell realm that I had been thrust into, after happily wandering around the normal version of this location.

I ran in with false bravery toting my gun with rapidly decreasing ammunition as I scanned the room. It looked like a pretty dirty, but empty room, with nothing but a bathtub in one corner, and a mirror on the wall facing me. I could see myself in the mirror, and was admiring the reflection technology when the floor and walls of the mirror version began bleeding in front of my eyes. Streams of blood arced around the surfaces and made their way towards the mirror version of me and began crawling up my legs and figure. When I had been covered with blood, trails began heading towards the mirror bathtub and proceeded to come out of the real bath! Running to the exit and finding it was locked I decided to get as far away as possible, speeding around the room to find a clean area. The blood streams came closer, spidering out from the tub as I noticed that my mirror version was no longer following me, but had become independent and walked to the front of the mirror, staring out at me. The floor was covered, I was being infected, and finally, the familiar Game Over screen appeared. Needless to say, I didn’t venture in there again with any great haste.

Return to Silent Hill

Outside running about is minimal but you may recognise some locations.

Frustratingly, it does take a little time for Heather to even decide to make her way to the town of Silent Hill, but even when you’re there, there is a lack of the familiar large scale running around searching for the right place sections. I didn’t really miss them, but felt it made the town seem smaller and the game more linear. You’ll visit the amusement park, a subway station, Heather’s home, a Church, that horrible Hospital (which isn’t so dull and boring this time around) and you can even pop into the Heavens Gate bar if you fancy a little trip down memory lane.

Repeating the Silent Hill 2 hospital area seemed like a cheap trick to enlarge the game without much extra development time, but it works surprisingly well, and manages to keep it fresh, due to the completely different puzzles, monsters, and layout of where you can and cannot go, although you will see some creepy nurses and even hear about our beloved Lisa from the first game.

More of the same, only supercharged

Bosses are varied, dangerous and want to do one thing... kill you!

The control system hasn’t been enhanced or changed from Silent Hill 2 at all, which works perfectly well for the gameplay, and seems to offer a nice balance between easy, versatile, fun to control and visually realistic. Changes to the rest of the game include the addition of a supplies menu, where all of the items you’ll use multiple amounts of (ammo, health drinks and beef jerky – more on that later) are located. This frees up your item menu for objects you can actually use. Purists will worry that the all powerful siren noises to signify transition to the ‘alternate’ Silent Hill have disappeared, but I’m sure they practically sent me mad in the previous game.

There seem to be a lot more monster types in Silent Hill 3 than in its predecessor, and they all look very varied. Running motions have been improved with transition animations to smooth over going from a fast to a slow run and you can even fall to your death down holes if you are not careful. Instant death scenarios (for example one false move and you die – remember the Ring of Contract from Silent Hill 1?) have been increased with plenty more ways for you to snuff it and cry out at your TV afterwards, although I do consider all of them to be much fairer than in previous games, warning you, or giving you a save point just beforehand.

Pick up my jaw, it’s in-game

Heather in an incredible looking cinematic, all of which are rendered in-engine.

The graphics engine has remained pretty similar to the one used in Silent Hill 2, which is by no means a bad thing. If anything, it has all been improved, with high detailed models and animation, while the effects you notice are truly mind-blowing. Visually, there is nothing major I can complain about within the game. Lip-synching in cinematics (which themselves could easily be mistaken for pre-rendered FMV sequences if it wasn’t for changing costumes being shown in these cut scenes) has been improved greatly, but is still not perfect, while the rather effective fog does limit your view (by design) quite frustratingly.

The characters, managed to fool my flatmates (at a quick glance) into thinking that they were live action movies at some points, with realistic hair and stubble, freckles on Heather and facial animations that can only be rivalled by the technology test of Half-Life 2. All of this topped off with incredibly well executed motion capture make the cut scenes a reward far outweighing a new weapon (although the odd extra clip to make things a little easier wouldn’t be rejected).

I thought getting a stereo sound system was a good idea

There are plenty of areas to fight through, and the subway station and train are effectively creepy.

Musically, the Silent Hill series has always been quite simplistic, with perhaps a main theme and a few character or event themes to tie up the soundtrack, completing it with various horrific sound effect tracks that should make any grown man shake as much as being told that the pub’s out of beer. It really works in this case. Combining this “music” which seems to vary in volume depending on a lot of well conceived factors for maximum terror with the dynamic nature of the static radio, which gets louder as monsters close in, like a film score crescendo, meant to heighten the fear of what’s coming. What a great excuse to make sound important for gameplay, and yet more terrifying.

The game is packed with sound effects that couldn’t have been conceived by a team that still has all it’s marbles, at least not before hearing them all through. Appropriate and petrifying, they make you want to turn off your console, spray it with holy water and recite prayers (although you won’t, you’ll probably just keep playing, as it would be worse to have Heather waiting all alone in Silent Hill for you to pluck up courage). The voice artists, although leaving long dramatic pauses do fit their roles excellently, and perform them without a flaw, proving that vocals in games are definitely improving. Finally in a Silent Hill game the player seems as terrified as us about the appearance of monsters.

Hurt me more

Extras include new costumes and weapons, and they certainly spice up replaying the game.

In terms of extras, there are quite a few. After finishing the game, new weapons and costumes are unlocked, which you must pick up during your next game (which will then earn you the next weapon etc.), and it definitely keeps the incentive for continuing up. At least three multiple endings can be found depending on what and how you do during the gameplay, but to be honest, for someone to put themselves through such a horrific experience something about the game has to be right.

Ultimately, it seems very hard for me to find any flaws in the game, which should then perhaps imply a full 10/10 score, but there are a few things. Slightly imperfect lip sync, a definite feeling of linearity and the lack of a recurring monster to challenge you throughout (think Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2, or Resident Evil: Nemesis’ title monster) must almost complete the list, but they do justify knocking a point off perhaps the most emotionally influencing (specifically for horror) game I have ever played, if only because it’s not quite perfect.

Silent Hill 3 is without a doubt stuff of nightmares, and if you’re up for a mental as well as physical challenge, don’t mind a bit of horror and have a lot of changes of underwear ready, I couldn’t recommend the game strongly enough.