Silent Hill 3

The Good
For those who have some familiarity with the precedent Silent Hill series, this third installment is just like a walk in a known territory, only to discover this territory VERY upgraded with relentless fear factor turned up on max. If you were a previous vacationist in Silent Hill (namely SH2), coming back this vacation should feel like exactly like if you never left. So, has it been that long? The concept of this game is now up to date with the new graphic technology available. In character build, Konami tried to make this experience a bit less lonely than in SH2. Not that is a Swat-based game, though. You'll have the chance to meet some un-un-unusual types along the way, with their own agenda. You probably wouldn't miss chasing blonde little girl-brats around town, like in the previous game.

The monster concepts kept the psycho frantic head-shaking tortured appearance, looking like they were straight out of Adrian Lyne's motion picture "Jacob's Ladder". Actually there are more to this "climbing down Jacob's ladder" metaphor than only in the creatures. The whole approach of the game presents (or continues) the concept of the "Otherworld", with a lot of stairs and elevators-to-Hell and, of course, ladders. And when you see the Otherworld taking over, you can get to witness bucolic locations turning from "zombish" abandoned look, to utterly satanic with a little twist of religion on the side. The monster art again brings the deviant deformations of existing creatures, using mostly human figure to increase terror when you look at them, giving you the distinct impression that some monsters were (are?) human once.

The game design, as most aspects of the game, is more-of-the-same with map-based exploring, checking out locked or opened rooms, looking for keys and figuring out some puzzles that vary from "Dumb" to "Einstein", including an interesting Shakespearian book puzzle. The main props are all the same. You get to have the sam'ol radio and the good'ol pocket flashlight, and the guns are mainly the same also (9 mm, shotgun), except for introduction of a katana sword, with a lot of damage points (yes, you actually can defeat a boss with it), and a huge maul that is very hard to use. In the replay mode you find a submachine gun in the inventory, but is more to make a cathartic effect. Many times in this game you WILL say "MY, oh my. if only I have a machine-gun..."

Graphically speaking, looks like Konami is using the same Capcom quality especially in human skin figures. You can actually see the expression/emotion face lines even from a distance. I'm talking in-game here, guys. Not only in cinematics. The set design is more or less the same, although is less grainy than in SH2, but the human characters gained more skin texture making Konami turn to Vertex/pixel shader technology that is available only in Geforce4 Ti, GeforceFX and Ati Radeon graphic cards. That is the issue that no doubt is the most question-raising in the game. Even the demo in early November already announced. Some say this demo was really a scared warning from Konami that really didn't know how gamers would react to it.

The sound in SH3 is suitable for those with a big sound rig at home with any sound card that supports Live 5.1 audio. The voice acts are not Oscar worth except for the Heather’s voice actress that really delivers even when she dies, screams or cries. The detective’s voice should have been my father’s. And he’s not an actor. The role of Claudia, despite the fact she’s a true carbon-copy of Cate Blanchett’s “Galadriel”, is fairly voice acted. But the true triumph in SH3 is the sound effects and ambient music (?). It boosts up to orbit the fear factor. Is like in a David Lynch’s twisted backward played opera, using human organs for instruments.

The Bad
Watch spoilers ahead! The storyline is unfortunately one downer in SH3. Then again is not that of a big downer. Is just doesn’t keep up to the other Silent Hill games. The Demon possession-based with New Order Satanists trying to bring the Paradise plot is not really the most inspired background. Even so the game actually does not start in Silent Hill, so there is another town with the same curse that has relation with the curse in Silent Hill? Is confusing. But this is background only. The way this story develops throughout the game, unfolds a gruesome sheet of subplots that smoke-screens the uninspired storyline a bit anyway.

The Bottom Line
Silent Hill 3 is definitely the most gruesome, dark satanic game to the date. Make no mistakes; it WILL chill you to the bone. Expect human slaughter houses, torture chambers, ornaments made with human parts, child-mummification, evisceration, amputations, driven to both Silent Hill and Resident Evil gamer. No similarities between these two games involved. The game is a slow-paced work of gothic art with the wit of the occult. Not a futuristic-weapon loving trained chick fighting science aberrations. This is to say that SH3 and Resident Evil are alike, but different, and will please the same kind of gamer that is looking for plain fear.

The Good
I don't have the preference due to main character, but seeing a woman selected always makes my heart pound just a little bit faster. In this game, you control 17 year old girl called Heather. She somehow fell into the abyss of looping nightmares which couldn't be accepted to her mind nor understood. Using synthesis of normal but empty and alternate but disgusting worlds, Konami once again shifted us players back at the steering wheel of our very survival.

Characters are as very few as usually, but nicely selected for the plotline. They aren't as mysterious as those of Silent Hill 1 where you could barely find out who's who and what does each of them want, but nor do they own a deep root of storywriter's explanation of their background with such perfection as the characters of Silent Hill 2 had. It's a balance. It's a balance that is nicely established and equally nice elaborated as you're unraveling the very end.

What's so great about sequels and what I always loved about them are few things actually. First that you may have encountered recurring characters (not much luck about it here, but not very far from it either), and secondly, you travel through some well known areas. Hence, you will go through the amusement park, familiar looking sewers, church, and certain rooms you encountered in the original Silent Hill game, and later in the game you'll visit the same old foggy and eerie town of Silent Hill, Heaven's Night, and Hospital which you got familiar with if you've played Silent Hill 2.

This is so to say almost literal sequel to original Silent Hill which will tell and explain you everything blurry that you were with after finishing original Silent Hill. The story happens 17 years after the incident in Silent Hill when Harry (our male protagonist of SH1) went searching for his daughter, Cheryl... and found her, just not the way we thoght he might've. Think logically about Heather in SH3 and you may be able to assemble some spoiler picture, but only if you've finished original Silent Hill game and know what happened there.

One of the finest touches that aides this new Silent Hill unlike the others is humor level Konami decided to include in the game. It's really great, and aboveall unexpected. For example when you're in some WC and there's some disgusting thing in a toilet and you can choose whether Heather will dig in with her hand to find something or not, and if you choose yes, she will just turn to player and say something like "whoever may be so twisted to even think of such thing in a game". Or here's one of the greatest jokes I've seen in a game (never in a horror-survival though, which makes it even better), it happens near the very sole end, after you have final boss battle. You see Heather approaching her wounded detective friend sitting on the bench, and as he notices her he asks "Heather! Is it really over?" and she coldly replies "Not yet.... You're still alive." as she liftens her knife gripping it in her hands as approaching the detective. Shitlessly scared detective barely mummbles something like "Heather, what the..." just before she says "Boo!" and starts laughing saying "Just a joke." to which he gasps in relief "You've got terrible taste.", hehe, man that was like almost the best part in the game. For the fact it was really convincing, you couldn't know whatever gotten in he mind ;) Don't worry fellas, for whoever just read this, this ain't no spoiler, the real one is before and moment after this scene, but not this scene itself. This one was just nicely included humorous hex.

Kudos goes to songs which now are at least three with vocals (three that I've noticed, maybe there're four). These you can find only in opening trailer and/or cinematics, but really suit their place more than well. As for the ingame soundtrack, there isn't any... correction, there isn't any while you're alone, but as soon as your radio starts emitting static and monsters get closer, some music which sounds almost like the monsters itself starts, which can sometimes be troublesome 'cos you dunno if it's monster you're hearing or the music itself. It can deorient you sometimes, but you can always take it as if that was the intention. But of course, you can always turn it off if neccessary.

Also, you can try some extra options, some of which I've seen to be in Silent Hill 2 as well, such as blood color, or blood amount shown on screen, but also some neat ones that I don't remember from the predecessor, such as being able to turn on/off the noise or sharpen the whole picture. For those who want to decrease the atmosphere and make the game look more like some other horror-survival with clear picture, they've been given that choice now. But playing in noise is what makes it so great and atmospheric.

I've finished the game on something over 6 hours, without walkthroughs whatsoever puzzle-wise (yup, I'm proud to say so), but that isn't a bad point of the game. No way, as I was approaching ending, I just wanted to finally reach it sooner and sooner and to get this thing done with, I was anxious to see the final unraveling of the story, and I assure you, this game is big enough to explore, maybe bigger than the previous two, but it has the potential to be finished within a one very well planned sleepless day. So it may be short according to time your PS2 will eventually give you, but it ain't. My playing time was like 12 hours or more, so beats me how the console showed me just 6.

A word about gameplay itself - it rocks! It is very similar to that of SH2, but you get a feeling like nothing is going slow, whereas in SH2 I constantly had a feeling something's dragging all the time. Well, this game isn't. It'll move as swiftly as you turn your steering buttons on your gamepad. Nice ingame touch is that Heather can fall off any edge so be careful walking near the end. Of course, she won't fall immediately, you'll have time to save he as she'll swing for a short time. On easy mode, however, that is very unlikely 'cos you can't fall even if you'd want to.

The Bad
Well, monsters are kinda... clichéd. There are some hounds, and nurses we saw in SH2 which seem fine for their place, but many other are kinda... well, not so imaginative as I found those really marvelously designed in SH2 (piramid head or jacket monsters). These monsters here are just an ordinary monsters which doesn't create any different feeling but what would create such monster encountered in a Turrican or Shadow of the Beast platform games. Those in original SH1 were sort of animalish, whereas those in SH2 clearly has a psychical impact on you, whereas these from SH3, I dunno, just as if they took some from RE some from AITD and some form their previous SH games, and added them in this game. I'm not saying I know what kinda monsters would suit this game better, I'm just saying SH1 and SH2 had both better thought monsters and bosses. These are sort of repetitive and unoriginal.

The Bottom Line
The bottomline is, Konami entered the world of horror-survival fairly new, only in 1999 which is like six years behind the schedule, yet it climbed up to the very throne already with their second installment. They don't make as much Silent Hill games (just look at Capcom and their market with at least 2 Resident Evil games per year, which I find good nonetheless, but making all the remakes or unimaginative sequels, tsk tsk tsk, or moving to first-person perspective... tsk tsk tsk, just ruining the genre, which stops being horror-survival and becomes first-person shooter only of a horror style), but when they do one, you can be certain of two things - you'll love it, and you'll appreaciate the work it underwent through.

Needless to say, I can't wait to see what the fourth one will be about. Especially story-wise, now that SH3 raised my interest in the plot much above the ground level. One recommendation though, this game uncovers lots of the original one, even explains the very ending of it, so it would be better if you'd start with SH1 prior to playing this one, or this one's story may seem kinda unknown.

The Good
Silent Hill 3 begins with a girl having visions of a nightmarish amusement park while she daydreams at the mall. The girl's name is Heather and waking from the dream, she's confronted by a private detective who hints that there's something mysterious about her past. Heather gives him the slip, sneaking out a bathroom window, but finds the mall has changed—stores are closed, people are gone, and strange creatures from her dream now lope down the backroom corridors. Welcome to Silent Hill.

At the start of the game, the player picks the difficulty level of the game for the combat and puzzle portions. Setting easy, medium, or hard for the combat is a pretty standard feature, but making the same adjustments for puzzle solving is a nice touch. On the easy setting, a puzzle might be absent or its solution blindingly obvious, medium requires some brainwork, and hard can be insidiously evil (but often poetic). Regardless of the settings, the game's ending is the same (at least on the first play-through).

In terms of game play, Silent Hill 3 is accessible to the newcomer, but if you haven't played the original game (or at least Silent Hill 2) the story might be elusive. Having played the original game, I still found myself reading a walkthrough of it just to clear up some of the finer story points. This, of course, would be the big difference between Silent Hill and the Resident Evil series. While Resident Evil puts you in charge of paramilitary characters, the protagonists of Silent Hill are the Lovecraftian doomed Everymen.

The opening levels in the mall set the tone for the game. In the mall, Heather runs past monsters to duck into open stores, where she finds inventory items or solves puzzles. Certain events trigger Silent Hill's signature feature—the transition into the nightmare world. When this happens, the mall's floors turn into a rusty, corrugated metal, the walls drip with blood, and more monsters appear. Now in the nightmare mall, Heather must revisit locations to find new items or explore areas which were previously closed off. It's unsettling, which is Silent Hill's second signature feature.

Following this model, Heather's adventures take her to an apartment building, an office building, and a hospital familiar to Silent Hill fans. There are also some frightening detours into the subway, the sewers, and, of course, a nightmarish amusement park. In addition to the private investigator, Heather also runs into Claudia, a cultist who also knows something about Heather's past, and Vincent, who delivers the game's most chilling line.

Silent Hill has a fare assortment of monsters: dogs whose mouths open vertically, not horizontally, giant walking cancers, and the classic mutated nurses. Heather is surprisingly well-armed against them: handgun, shotgun, katana, etc. Her best weapons, though, are the maps she finds. Heather records information about puzzles, locked doors, and the location of the many player-friendly save points. Heather's other equipment offers trade-offs: a flashlight lights the way, while drawing monsters' attention and a Kevlar vest reduces damage, but slows her down. The handheld radio returns, buzzing static when monsters are near and there are various health restoratives to be found.

I found this entry to be more engrossing than scary, which isn't to say that Silent Hill doesn’t offer more than its share of chills, but it's probably wordier and subtler than most survival horror games. Graphics are great, with cutscenes blending into game play, and the wall textures are amazing, especially the squamous ones. Voice acting is great and the music is so good the game comes with a separate soundtrack CD.

The Bad
I really enjoyed the first Silent Hill—it offered multiple endings, most of which were bleak, placed you in confrontation with allies, and told a very disturbing story very effectively. I liked this game but found it lacking in several ways.

Silent Hill 3 has monsters you've never seen before and some of them just look silly. There are bizarre tripod things, weird bipedal creatures that look like miniature, headless ostriches, and one of the bosses screams phallic image. Not that these things aren't dangerous, but… really? I also don't understand why the monsters of Silent Hill change from game to game.

So some of the monsters are silly but dangerous, thankfully, Heather's well-armed. Too well-armed and too proficient with the arms she has. When's the last time you found a katana? Close quarters, in the dark, with monsters all around—how accurate are you with a gun? How fast can you reload it under those circumstances? It's amazing how collected Heather is, but it's astounding what she actually reacts to. After fighting the phallic image, Heather finds a newspaper rack with papers a few months old. That freaks her out. The worm didn't.

The Bottom Line
As I was playing this, Silent Hill 4: The Room was released. At this point, I'd like to see some of the mysteries of Silent Hill cleared up, rather than new installments taking place in its surrounding areas. I'm not saying that I wouldn't like to see more games, but perhaps they could be set in earlier times. I'd like to see a story arc, instead of sequelization.

Having said that, Silent Hill 3 is a very good game that fails to kick up the genre or the franchise.