Silent Hill

[Angantyr]

An Eerie Horror set in Silent Hill, in which you take control of Harry Mason who, is looking for his abandoned daughter. Unlike most horror games Harry does not have any special training for something like this, in fact he is a writer. He has no idea what is happening but he just wants to grab his daughter so he can find out.

Storyline 3/5

Silent Hill is a story where Harry is trying to figure out where his daughter is but then he finds out there is much more to it than he thinks. Upon coming to Silent Hill, he finds that all the exits are blocked and he must find a way around them. As he attempts to find an escape he mets this Lady Dahlia who keeps saying how he is the one who must fight stop this 'evil' from consuming the town. The overall story is all right but nothing incredible. There are a few un-answered questions, which you are supposed to find out through playing Silent Hill 3.

Graphics 5/5

Silent Hill was released in 1999, when the Playstation 1 was pretty much at it's peak and pushing out games with amazing graphics that I never thought the Playstation would be able to. The artwork in Silent Hill is quite amazing in my opinion, you can see a lot of tiny things adding to the already amazing scenery. One thing that is also quite special about SH is that they used a grain filter, what this does is basically make it look a tiny bit fuzzy kind of like an old school movie. This has quite a nice effect, and if anybody has seen the bonus CD on SH2 you will see just how much different it looks without it.

Gameplay 4/5

Silent Hill is the type of game that you only have limited resources and you must find stuff to get you through the game. When I played through the game I went through it on easy so most of the stuff was fairly easy to come across and I managed to make it last, but I think if you chose a harder difficulty then you don’t get as much ammo and health drinks do not heal you as much. This was the first time I had played a game with controls like this, at first I found it quite difficult to navigate but after a while I got use to it, still had a few hiccups though.

Difficulty 4.5/5

When I watched my friend play this, I saw him often looking the map trying to figure out what goes where, find the key which unlocks that door. Most of the games that I have played main focus to find out where you need to go and try and beat the monsters there. Well I knew there was a bit more puzzles than I was use to but I figured most of them would be fairly easy with a little time. I didn’t manage to figure some of them out much and ended up having to look at a walkthrough, some of the puzzles like the science one at the school or the astrology in Nowhere are quite obvious. But occasionally there were some that I didn’t think of, perhaps I didn’t try hard enough but I found myself stuck more than once.

Music 5/5

Being a Musical lover, especially of the dark kind, I was quite drawn to see what this game had to offer. One piece in particular that caught me was the piece Not Tomorrow. I had already heard this piece from a collection of midis and I knew how to play it on a guitar. The musical pieces that played are quite intriguing and I wish I had an original copy of the OST. Also another great addition to this game is the eerie ambient piece that play as you are going through the game. They are strange noises put together quite well to suit the imagery along with the story, the OST is worth the price of the game itself.

Overall

Being a typical RPG fan I was hesitant in playing this game but I decided I want to play a different type of game. I got into the series through a friend of mine and decided I wanted to go through the whole series. Overall I think it was worth playing and 1 day I may go through it again. The game is rather dated now but I still think it is worth going through if you haven’t already. Thank you for taking your time to read this and I will eventually write one for the whole other SH games.

[midgarmako]

Nice review there, Silent Hill is a great game series.

[Chez Daja]

Wintermetal, I find your review to be exquisite, although am shocked to see only a 3/5 for storyline...I'm sure you understood the deep connection between Alessa and Cheryl, although shall say no more as I don't want to spoil it for others. I think your review was good, but was disappointed to see somebody give only a 3 in the storylines department. (Ironic how I just reviewed your review, though! )

[X SlAyEr]

I love Silent Hill I watched the movie and I played the game it's very hard to finish it but it's cool game and I will download the music today AND I will listen to it and I will give you my opinion

[Lowlf]

Also if you play Silent Hill Origins for the PSP or PS2 you will get a whole lot more answers for the main Silent Hill storyline. (SH, SH1 and SH3).

As far as all Silent Hill games. other then 2, I think the main storyline is great. The connections, the truths, it's all just to good. Sad to see you gave it a 3, a 4 would be reasonable, but hey, everyone has their own opinions.