Silent Hill 3 Review

Developer	KCET
Publisher	Konami
Genre	Adventure

Although the horror genre has clearly evolved in different ways since the genre’s inception with Alone in the Dark, the survival horror game had always been one of video gaming’s constants over the years – a solo character, desperately fighting off an army of zombies/vampires/mutants in an attempt to escape the town and find other survivors. But it was Silent Hill, a relative latecomer to the scene in 1999, that innovated with its everyday hero Harry Mason, and a subtle, more supernatural plot that was refined and complex. And while the Resident Evil series and its occasional clones have leaned towards action-movie status in its presentation, the Silent Hill series steadily churned onwards, with beautiful graphics, intensely personal stories and some of the scariest moments in video game history. There were horror fans on the PS2 who didn’t give a damn that the Resident Evil series had become a flagship for the GameCube, and if games like Silent Hill 3 are any indication, they were right.

The helpless-and-ordinary character motif of the Silent Hill series is given new life by giving players control of Heather, a seventeen year old girl who appears as ordinary as any teenager. But after a routine trip to the shopping mall, she finds herself chased by a private detective who only wants to talk to her, and it is while fleeing the detective that an average sunny day turns into the hellish, broken-down environs familiar to the Silent Hill series. The story, which has several direct ties to the first game in the series, is reasonably well developed, and while there are some characters that you wish could’ve gotten more screen time, the central characters, particularly Heather, are expertly portrayed.

Gameplay – From an outsider’s perspective, the gameplay hasn’t been changed much at all. The controls are still largely similar (with the game still offering the option of 3-D and 2-D control to make things easier), there are but a few new weapons and the expected assortment of unlockable extras, and the puzzles, while more refined, are still quite similar to previous incarnations. But the subtle tweaks in the game design help Silent Hill 3 become one of the scariest gameplay experiences of all time, bar none.

It certainly helps that we’re allowed control of a teenage girl, as throughout the game Heather reacts to some of what she sees with striking realism – from her first, terrifying encounter with a monster in which she’s barely able to hold a gun straight, to the way she’ll comment on the items she examines, Heather is a memorable character, and it’s fun to watch her progress as the game goes on. There are times in which you’re overpowered to the point that you are forced to run rather than fight, but couple that with the expert creature design and audio, and these moments become as scary as they should be, rather than annoying.

Being a story-driven game, SH3 could easily have thrown its gameplay to the wayside, leaving things as they were in prior games of the series. Thankfully, that’s mostly not the case. While there are familiar aspects of the design, including oppressively creepy camera angles and multiple endings, there are several improvements in the gameplay that actually feel improved. Melee combat, something of a mainstay in the Silent Hill series, is improved. In addition to the light and heavy attacks, there are thrusting attacks at Heather’s disposal, as well as the option to block an enemy’s attack with some skillful timing. It becomes important to master these aspects of the game design as there were several points in the game in which I barely had time to wonder where all my ammo had gone while being chased by a pack of Double-Head dogs. The puzzles are also more intuitive – there are no places in which inane, obscure puzzles like the one involving the soda cans in Silent Hill 2 appear. This is also important because SH3 offers separate difficulty levels for the puzzles and the action, and those who’ve turned the action down to easy will want something in addition to the story to keep them engaged. With the brilliance of many of these puzzles, I’d say Konami has succeeded.

Although the game’s length is cut down (my first time through took me about five hours even), this also reduces the amount of aimless wandering through the town of Silent Hill. Most of the game’s locales are indoors, and the few times which the player is allowed outside, areas are fenced in and roped off just enough to keep you on path. And there are plenty of unlockable costumes and items, as well as three different endings to keep you playing for at least a short while (say, for example, until Fatal Frame 2, heehee). The length is somewhat disappointing, as there are an awful lot of characters (including the intriguing Tom Cruise look-a-like Vincent) who simply don’t get enough chance to participate in the story, and the story itself seems as though it had some extra layers that weren’t put on. But what’s here is quite remarkable.

Graphics – While I’m all for peace, love and harmony between the major consoles, the next time an X-Box fanboy tells you that all PS2 graphics suck, you can hang screens of Silent Hill 3 next to their hospital bed. All the characters are stunningly rendered, and as the game’s script calls upon them to show more emotion then in most games of this sort, the graphics engine is more than capable of showing them in that state (note Heather towards the end of the game.) What’s even more stunning is the fact that some of the most impressive moments of the game don’t utilize the team’s now-legendary CGI effects (that’s only a few points in the game.) The in-game graphics are simply a feat, using no cheap tricks like pre-rendering backgrounds or anything of that sort. As a result, the game feels totally organic with its often-moving camera angles, grotesque, often phallic creatures and backgrounds that feel as if they could be real. The lip synching is also quite good, as are the animations – you can almost see the struggle on Heather’s face as she attempts to lift the maul over her head, and it’s plenty satisfying when she finally does, bringing it down with a dull thunk upon whatever monster is in front of you. Everything is realistic enough to help players sympathize with Heather’s plight, but when the game is scary, it’s terrifying – and the graphics do plenty to help that.

Sound – Flawless, as usual, Akira Yamaoka has crafted yet another sound design that’ll be worthy of some end-of-the-year awards. The dialogue has got a certain charm about it, so that even when the script (occasionally) becomes a bit hokey, it’s still plenty tolerable. The sound effects are similarly worth mention, from the nails-on-chalkboard effect that comes out of Heather’s radio when she’s nearby a monster, to the creepy narration in certain locales of the game, each effect is deliberate and cacophonous and adds to the overall tension of the game. Further appreciated is the game’s soundtrack (which comes packaged in the box), and while it’s not the most ambient of Yamaoka’s compositions, there are enough subtle, melodic tracks to keep the balance up.

Overall Value - A definite improvement over Silent Hill 2 in almost every way (except length), SH3 is probably one of the best survival horror games available right now. While the length affects things other than the replay value, the unlockable extras do their part to extend the game’s longevity. But even looking at the game itself, there are just so many marked improvements over both previous games in the series and other survival horror titles that makes it easy to appreciate Silent Hill 3, from spicing up melee combat to a degree, to making the puzzles less tiresome, to slightly cutting down on the amount of long-distance backtracking you’ll have to make. It makes SH3 a more refined, concise horror game, and fills the extra space with plenty of fantastic scares. The only thing the game is missing that could make it scarier is an exorcist…

Review by Adam Matlock