Silent Hill
Description official descriptions
Harry Mason, an average man, is driving to the town of Silent Hill with his daughter. Upon approaching the town, a cop speeds by on a motorcycle. When Harry gets closer to town, he sees that same motorcycle sprawled in the middle of the road. Harry also spots a woman standing in the road, but due to the dense fog, he can't stop in time, so he swerves to avoid her, crashing into a railing, knocking him unconscious.
When Harry wakes up, his daughter, Cheryl, is missing. Sensing that she would head to the town to seek help, Harry sets out on a journey, not knowing what to expect from this eerie town, enshrouded with fog.
You play Harry Mason, a normal man, with no powers or training of any kind. You must search through the town of Silent Hill, looking for your daughter. You will come across many people, some friendly, some not. You must visit many different areas, such as the school, and the church.
Will Harry find his daughter and safely get out, or is there more to this town than a simple fog layer?
Spellings
- サイレントヒル - Japanese spelling
- 寂静岭 - Simplified Chinese spelling
Groups +
- Censored Japanese releases
- Console Generation Exclusives: PlayStation
- Gameplay feature: Interactive piano
- Gameplay feature: Multiple endings
- Games made into books
- Games made into comics
- Games made into movies
- HUDless games
- PlayStation Greatest Hits releases
- PlayStation Platinum Range releases
- Setting: Church / Monastery
- Silent Hill series
- Theme: Amusement park
- Theme: School
- Weapon: Chainsaw
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Credits (PlayStation version)
93 People (81 developers, 12 thanks) · View all
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 87% (based on 34 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 191 ratings with 15 reviews)
An amazing Survival Horror game, deep and disturbing.
The Good
Silent Hill is truly disturbing. From the get go you are bombarded with horrific imagery like strung up corpses and half skinned dog carcases, this disturbing nature however is offset by the raw humanity conveyed by the characters in the game from Harry's ceaseless searching for his daughter to the sheer loneliness, isolation and despair felt by Lisa. The game itself is vast, you explore several districts of Silent Hill including one part of the game that is completely optional yet no less expansive. Weapon wise Harry can wield pipes, knives, axes, shotguns, rifles and chainsaws in his quest to find his missing daughter, an odd pick up you can find actually makes you pretty much invincible for a short period of time.
Enemies are disturbing (obviously) one resembles a gorilla with it's skin pulled tight over it's body, another is a small child with razors for fingers - this sounds like a Clive Barker game but believe me it's not.
For all of the blood and guts and chainsaws Silent Hill never looses it's sense of purpose, it never leads you off into corners you don't need to go to and you always know where you have to go thanks to the ingenious map which Harry draws on as he finds blocked or locked doors or impassable areas.
Finally the soundtrack is simply amazing. Akira Yamaoka has struck a perfect balance between surreal, unsettling and frightening and tender, relaxed and calm tracks. Some tracks make you want to cry, others almost put you to sleep and other terrify you but they are all works of art.
The Bad
Very little in this game can be considered bad. At times some individuals may find the constant adventuring a tad tedious, others criticize the fog present in the game and at times the acting can be considered a little lame.
The Bottom Line
Silent Hill is the epitome of horror. It screws with your mind and makes you go to places you never thought of going to, the gameplay superb, character designs are excellent and the music is just so well dichotomised words cannot describe it.
If you are a fan of Survival Horror and you have been avoiding Silent Hill then shame on you but it is still out there, I suggest you find it and savour the fear.
PlayStation · by AxelStone (34) · 2008
The Good
Silent Hill managed to accomplish what many other Playstation games failed to: create a lasting appeal. The story of Silent Hill is well conceived and executed, creating a truly chilling world to explore. The graphics, when assessed from the perspective of the time, are quite impressive. Plus, I'm not sure many of the gore-ridden images Silent Hill offers would help me sleep at night after seeing them in HD. The sound of the game, but musically and atmospherically, is what I found to be the strongest of all the strong points of the game. The sense of horror and adventure still provide legitimate thrills ten years after its release.
The Bad
The only criticisms of this game that I have are the camera and voice acting. The camera adds to the chaos and insanity of the environment, and achieves that well in hallway scenarios; however, I found the camera to be a nuisance when roaming the outdoors, as it always repositioned itself poorly. The largest pitfall of this game, in my opinion, is the voice acting. The lines are delivered in a painful monotonous manner with awkward pauses and complete lack of emotion. I have a suspicion that this is only an issue with the translated version and that (given you can understand Japanese) the original version's language track is more natural.
The Bottom Line
Silent Hill is a survival horror game for the Playstation that often gets lumped into a category with Resident Evil. While sharing some similarities such as survivalism, isolating environments and shockingly graphic scenes, it is important to recognize Silent Hill on it's own merits. It tells the story of a man searching for his daughter in a small town with very strange goings-on. The inclusion of multiple endings helped to further establish the moral-choice phenomenon in modern gaming that adds loads of replay value to the title. If you have not played this classic title, do yourself a favor and treat yourself to the twisted world of Silent Hill.
PlayStation · by Jon Collins (11) · 2009
Scariest Game on the Playstation!
The Good
Silent Hill is a game that has more of a focus on psychological horror than the action horror that the Resident Evil series have dominated.It forces you to think more than on any other survival horror game.It also has the best storyline out of all the survival horror.You play Harry Mason,a man who just wants to take a nice long vacation with his daughter.Unfortunately,you crash and when you wake up,your daughters gone.That's just the basic storyline.If you go in just knowing that,you're going to be terrified.If you go in knowing more,there'll be less tension.
Another plus is the contols sytem,that works great for the 3D enviroments.The camera never gets in the way and you're always able to see behind and in front of you with just a push of a button.There's still some problems with it,but it works fine enough to look right through them.
The Bad
The main thing was the save system.It uses the same one where you can only save in select spots.This doesn't really work in this game because it's a pretty big enviroment and only a select few places to save,so you end up playing longer than you wanted to.Another problem is with the voice acting.While the music and sound effects are excellent,the voices are done poorly for a game of this calbire.
The Bottom Line
Silent Hill is a tension filled trip through a little town full of horror and surprises.Expect everything in this game because anything can happen in Silent Hill...
PlayStation · by SamandMax (75) · 2001
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
Opening sequence is brilliant | Donatello (466) | Sep 9, 2013 |
1st person mode | Donatello (466) | Aug 11, 2007 |
Trivia
1001 Video Games
The PS1 version of Silent Hill appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Bloopers
This game features a "blooper reel" that can be seen upon completion of the game.
Censored content
The Pal release of Silent Hill is slightly censored, specifically it's missing the deformed child-like enemies that appear in the school and other places of the game. For this release they were replaced with the "Clawfinger" monsters (which only have a minor appearance late in the original game).
Development
When Silent Hill was first announced, press releases indicated that there would be two playable characters with different scenarios, like Resident Evil 2, but the retail version was released with only one playable character: Harry. Apparently, Cybil was originally intended to be the other playable character, and another side of the story would be viewed from her perspective.
Cybil's scenario was never completed, but not all the clues were taken out of Harry's scenario. On the map it would seem most places marked out in dark pink are significant to you on your adventure, however there is a shop on Simmons St. that doesn't open. There is also a boat below Indian Runner that you cannot get to. The door of the diner next to Norman's Motel is only locked, not jammed. In the school Chemistry Equipment Room, there is Glucose and Distilled Water — these are among the ingredients needed to make bombs, but you are told you have no reason to take them.
On a side note, Cybil as a playable character would later appear in the Japan-only GameBoy Advance text-adventure remake of the game, Silent Hill Play Novel.
References
- Most of the street names in Silent Hill are names of sci-fi or horror authors: Finney - Jack Finney, author of "Time and Again" Bachman - Richard Bachman, Stephen King's pseudonym Bloch - Robert Bloch, author of "Psycho" Matheson - Richard Matheson, author of "I am Legend" Ellroy - Jack Ellroy, author of the "Black Dahlia" Bradbury - Ray Bradbury, author of "Something Wicked This Way Comes" Levin - Ira Levin, author of "Rosemary's Baby" Sanford - John Sanford, author of the "Prey' books Simmons - Dan Simmons, author of "Song of Kali" Sagan - Carl Sagan, author of "Contact" Crichton - Michael Crichton, author of "Sphere" Koontz - Dean Koontz, author of "Phantoms" Wilson - F. Paul Wilson, author of "Nightworld"
- Blood marking a garage door across from the church spells out "Redrum", a reference to Stephen King's "The Shining"
Sonic Youth
The teachers on the register in the school, Moore, Ronaldo, and Gordon are the three main members of the band "Sonic Youth", Kim Gordon, Lee Ronaldo, and Thurston Moore. Also, the school section ends with you picking up the "K. Gordon" key and going to her house!
Information also contributed by Dr. M. "Schadenfreude" Von Katze, hydra9, Lain Crowley, Tiago Jacques, and Zovni
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Related Sites +
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Silent Hill: Lost Memories
An active fan site that covers the entire Silent Hill universe. -
Wikipedia: Silent Hill
Information about Silent Hill at Wikipedia -
Zarf's Mini-Review
A short review of Silent Hill by Andrew Plotkin (March, 2000).
Identifiers +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Grant McLellan.
PSP, PlayStation 3 added by Jeff Hazen. PS Vita added by GTramp.
Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Richard Simpson, JPaterson, Alaka, Zeppin, DreinIX, Zaibatsu, Jon Collins, brandon221234, FatherJack.
Game added April 4, 2001. Last modified February 8, 2024.