Silent Hill

The Good
Silent Hill, released in early 1999, went unnoticed before its release with very little hype.However, when it was released, people started buying it. Now it stands as one of the playstation's greatest hits and personally, on my top 5 games of all time list.

Silent Hill is about a man named Harry Mason who is taking a vacation to Silent Hill with his daughter. A mysterious woman passes in front of his car and he drives off the road and gets knocked unconcious. When he wakes up, his daughter is gone. You must find out where she is and what happened to her.

Silent Hill has one of the greatest plot's in video game history. The story has plenty of twists and turns that keep you guessing. There are no shortage of puzzles that will boggle your mind but will also keep you interested in the game. This game has the perfect mix of strategy, mystery, and action. Almost everything about this game is great. Konami created a horror masterpiece that will forever be remembered as the game that knocked the Resident Evil series off it's throne.

The Bad
I loved everything. Nothing of this game was bad.

The Bottom Line
Final Score: 9.8/10

Truly one of the best games ever made. A masterpiece.

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.

The Good
It took me a year to finally agree to get Silent Hill 2 (I'm not much into any kinda horror, but when the story beats it to second place, I'm always in), but wanted to try out the original prior to immerse myself fully into the psychic twist of the second. Starting with a great pening, Silent Hill puts you in a story as swiftly as possible, due to a crash, your daughter Cherryl has gone missin'. Now you have to explore the dead town of Silent Hill following her traces, to unravel the mystery that lies in the finale, and background story between you and your daughter.

As this is Konami's first attempt to enter the world of horror-survival, they entered it in a style, making it a PSX game only, they achieved amazing graphical effects from that little console, and put creepy sounds and effects in main use of creating an atmosphere instead of music, which was in use mainly for opening and end credits. Alone in the Dark series created the genre using a mansion as a point of all conflicts, Resident Evil series recreated the genre employing more open fields and non-stop action in use, and Silent Hill added the real emphasis on the world 'horror' in this survival genre.

Like it goes with these games, they ain't as adventure to have many dialogues and characters, but use couple of them throughout the entire game, making a random appearance to upgrade the story. Characters in SH are as mysterious and unqieu as you may possibly want them (only surpassed by those in SH2 with their depths of backgorund exploration). Bottomline, this just starts as "father searching for his daughter" story and it unveils unto mystery and suspense to its utmost experience.

Sometimes, it was just begging me to turn off the console and take a break from all the suspense the game gave me. But it wasn't so psychical like in its sequel, it is just pure, normal, horrifying situation the game constantly gives you. Switching from reality filled with predatorian animals from hell to some alternate world filled with monsters and killer nurses. Yeah, this hospital in 'ere will kill ya. But hey, whoevere said what doesn't kill you makes you stronger ;)

The Bad
This game simply took both words that define its genre way too seriously. In attempt to enter the world of horror-survival, they made one steap ahead and make it too real for players with a weak heart. So heed the warning.

And I never know wether to quality multiple ending in a game as plus or a minus. Sure, it extends replayablility level, but sure shortens the gameplay time. And frustrates if you achieve an ending that is not supposed to be original and must replay it again and know exactly what to do to achieve the right or desired one. No, multiple ending isn't a bad thing, but I can't see how it can be an entirely good thing either.

The Bottom Line
With Silent Hill Konami made their entrance into horror-survival genre and they've proven they can compete and even to surpass the fittest of its kind. Silent Hill is not just a horror game with no point like many out there. Silent Hill has the spirit which will keep you want for more, keep you under suspense 'til the very end. And while Silent Hill made their entrance, Silent Hill 2 placed Konami on top of the sole throne. I was intrigued by the second, and hence opened the gate to both worlds of SH, normal and alternate. And there's a thing I can say about it, some fears are worth experiencing.