Silent Hill 3 (PlayStation 2)

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Description

In Silent Hill 3 the player controls Heather, a simple teenage girl. One fine day she goes shopping, but suddenly finds herself trapped in a strange, terrifying place - the eerie town Silent Hill. She hears footsteps; disgusting, creepy monsters attack her, and she has to defend herself. Exploring Silent Hill - and her own past - Heather must find a way to escape the dreadful town.

The third installment in the Silent Hill series is similar to its predecessor visually and gameplay-wise. Like the previous entries, it is a survival horror game combining action-based (predominantly close-ranged) combat and puzzle-solving. The game is somewhat more combat-oriented than the preceding installments. Heather is able to side-step and block some attacks, but in general shares with the other protagonists of the series their relative ineptitude in combat.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Trailer

Alternate Titles

• "寂靜之丘3" -- Chinese spelling (traditional)
• "寂静岭3 " -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
• "SH3" -- Common abbreviation
• "Jijing Ling 3" -- Chinese title
• "サイレントヒル3" -- Japanese spelling
• "사일런트 힐 3" -- Korean spelling

Part of the Following Groups

• Console Generation Exclusives: PlayStation 2
• Gameplay feature: Multiple endings
• HUDless games
• Protagonist: Female
• Setting: Church / Monastery
• Silent Hill series

User Reviews

A masterpiece of Survival Horror and the last real Silent Hill.	AkibaTechno (254)
And I thought parking was a nightmare.	Terrence Bosky (5458)
With the heart of Silent Hill saga.	MAT (230299)
The game where the Silent Hill series should have ended.	Rik Hideto (461269)
creepy, very creepy.	David Bryan (25)

Critic Reviews

Eurogamer.net (UK)	May 22, 2003	9 out of 10	90
GameDaily	Dec 31, 2003		90
GamePro (US)	Aug 05, 2003	4.5 out of 5	90
IGN	Aug 05, 2003	8.8 out of 10	88
GameZone	Aug 11, 2003	8.5 out of 10	85
Netjak	Sep 03, 2003	8.3 out of 10	83
Game Informer Magazine	Aug, 2003	8.25 out of 10	82
Factornews	Jun 23, 2003	8 out of 10	80
Gamesdog	Nov 10, 2003	7 out of 10	70
Play.tm	Jul 22, 2003	68 out of 100	68

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Trivia

Budget

The budget was US$3Million.

DVD

A DVD was also released on the same day the game was released, called Lost Memories - The Art & Music of Silent Hill. The DVD includes illustrations, sounds, trailers, production materials, and the hidden endings of all the Silent Hill games - all in all 200 minutes of footage. The disc also features unlockable hidden bonuses.

Extras

The US and Japanese version ships with a bonus soundtrack CD which features music from the game. The CD has five tracks, which includes a track that was not used in the game.

Graphics

In the PC version of Silent Hill 3 the rendering resolution can be increased up to 4096 by 2048.

References

• The game starts with a nightmarish sequence, after which Heather —the main character— wakes up at a diner, in a shopping mall. When she gets out of said diner, we can see its name: "Happy Burger". In Silent Hill 2 there was a local called Happy Burger, in the corner of Sanders St. and Neely St.
• Two of the stores encountered in the mall are named after women from Goethe's Faust: Boutique Marguerite and Helen's Bakery.
• Near the end of the game, the player will encounter areas identical to the end of Silent Hill. This includes camera positions, captions and even notepads (used as a save point in Silent Hill). These notepads have messages on them from Silent Hill's protagonist, Harry.
• The game features numerous references to Silent Hill 2 (2001), including several small Silent Hill 2 posters in the Mall. When playing the game with a Silent Hill 2 save game on the memory card, other references appear:
  • In the Mall, you are given the option to retrieve something from a dirty toilet. When doing so, Heather will crouch and hesitantly move her hand towards the toilet, accompanied with suspense music. At the last moment she comes to her senses, turns to the camera and says "Gross. Who would do something like that anyway?". (In Silent Hill 2, the player had to retrieve a wallet from a clogged toilet).
  • When examining your mailbox in the apartment building, Heather comments that there is no mail, not "even from a dead wife". Silent Hill 2 starts with the player receiving a letter from his wife who has been dead for three years.
  • When examining the fence on the roof of Brookhaven Hospital, Heather says "it doesn't look like it's about to break". James from Silent Hill 2 was thrown through the fence off the roof.

Awards

• GameSpy
  • 2003 – Scariest PS2 Game of the Year

Information also contributed by Dr. M. "Schadenfreude" Von Katze, Karthik KANE and Tiago Jacques

Related Web Sites

• Hints for Silent Hill 3 (Question and answer type Universal Hint System hints give you nudges in the right direction before final solutions are given.)
• Official European homepage (Official European homepage in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian)
• Silent Hill 3 (Official North American website)
• Silent Hill 3 (Japanese) (Official Japanese website)