Silent Hill 3

Those of you keeping track know I've been on a Silent Hill marathon, so now it's time to make a review on #3, another PC/PS2 horror game by Konami.

Okay, Silent Hill 3. First off, let me explain the series a little bit. Silent Hill (#1) for the Playstation was a major hit. Why? Because it made horror something more than "Resident Evil"'s style of shoot-things-that-won't-die. It took horror into something you COULDN'T see, something that was in your head. And it did incredibly well. So, they made #2, which I reviewed as our 200th review- a flagbearer of Playstation Two technology. Now, we're up to #3- and it deserves the title of Silent Hill just as #2 did.

Silent Hill 3 throws you in the shoes of Heather, a normal Teenage girl who begins to have strange nightmares. As you progress through the story, you encounter a strange cult-ish woman and different mysterious people who all make odd allusions to Heather's importance in this nightmare. I won't ruin the bulk of the story, but suffice to say, it's a good enough story to make you keep playing the game, which helps this game move smoothly, as opposed to other generic adventure games.



As I reviewed Silent Hill 2, I noted that the graphics were impressive. Well, Konami took it one step forward. Still limited by the Playstation Two graphics system, Konami still keeps pumping out unrealistically awesome graphics no matter what the system. Frankly, I never knew my PS2 could make the screen look as good as my huge gaming CPU, but it did. The lighting effects, however, have been especially beefed up from the last game, now even casting lensflares on the "Camera".

The big upgrade in Silent Hill 3 is the horror in general. See, when I played SH2, I had somewhat of an attitude by the end of the game. I feared nothing. I ended up with like 60 rounds in my shotgun and I'd blast away in motherf***ing nurse who got near my stuff. Now, in SH3, they make it a bit more desperate. For one thing, Heather is notably weak. James in Silent Hill 2 seemed somewhat imposing, even though his voice sounded like he was a budding closet homosexual. Heather feels weak. Even with a d*** mace in her hand, I kept feeling the impression that I was going to get totally raped by some monster. And that worked to make me scared.

The big thing that made me scared, however, were the more interactive environments. While Heather is a little nonchalant about them (I'll explain later in the review), they are genuinely, 100% scary as hell. I'll give you an example. In one level, you're in a demented office building, and I went into a office for a mannequin seller. Obviously knowing the rabid Mannequins from Silent Hill 2, I beat everything in there with my pipe "Just to make sure". So, I go into this one store room and see a bunch of mannequin bodies, one on a stand with a head on it. "Okay", I think, so I fag around looking for ammo. The second my light shines off the head-owning-mannequin, I hear a LOUD scream. I mean, I jumped, my fatass sleeping cat jumped, my dog jumped, and my adrenaline jumped up to unrealistic levels. I turn around. The head is gone. And the stump of a neck is bleeding.

My response: "JESUS F***ING CHRIST".

This game definately takes Konami's best asset to this series, the ambiance, and cranks it up to a level I've never seen in a video game or movie before. When I felt so messed up I had to put it in windowed mode and surf 4chan or something funny, THAT is scary. Obviously, I don't need to explain that this game in no way is for little kids and unless you want to have a screwed up 8 year old brother, you keep him out of the room when you play this.



However, not all is better in SH3. Konami still really doesn't want to learn how to do a decent camera system. See, back in the days of the Playstation, it was acceptable to do these wierd camera angles to hide half the area, because you pretty much assumed if they had to make a WHOLE 3D AREA, it would crash. So, games like FF7 just did 2D-3D things and it was passed off as decent. However, Silent Hill 3 carries the same controls/camera issues that it's predecessors had, now becoming quite annoying. For example, one of the first levels is a mall. God forbid you turn around and see what's following you or the like, you just keep running and hope it's not on your ass.

Another issue I found is the control system in general. I feel like a repeating record on this, but even with my favoured WASD format, it still was hard to guide Heather around. Thankfully, Konami added psuedo-mouse support, but the mouse support is somewhat clunky and useless and just makes it harder to use (The mouse only controls turning around, which means moves on the Y axis of the mouse are d***ed useless).



One last complaint: Heather herself. Yes, I said it, the only main girl in the series is a little boring. See, when this game was coming out, there was a HUGE deal over Heather. Of course, most of it was psuedo-sexual (Google "Silent Hill 3" and count how many pictures make a big deal over her miniskirt) and just d*** overanalytical. So, the game comes out, and it's a dissapointment in her department. Why? She's just nonchalant about EVERYTHING. James in Silent Hill 2 had this scared, disturbed, "What the hell" attitude all the time. You bonded to his character beause you believed he was genuinely scared. Heather, however, gives general responses like she encounters this s*** more than she changes a tampon:

"Oh, a body hanging from fishhooks in it's skin. Nice."

"Oh, a bloody wheelchair in the middle of the mall. OK."

"Oh, that big thing with a split head's coming after me. Oh well, better get out the SMG."

So, don't expect the acting job of the year out of Heather. Just do what I do. Stare at her miniskirt and try not to find out if you can get one of the "Sucker" enemies to suck where it ain't appropriate. In general, just ignore her.

Is Silent Hill 3 a good game? Yes. Is it scary? HELL yes. But is it perfect? No. The Silent Hill series is the scariest video game series in existance, but it still misses out on controls and general gameplay things that all games have to deal with. It's obvious Konami spends a lot more time coming up with stuff to make me spend three hours a night shaking in my bed than coming up with an effective battle system. Hell, I'll make that tradeoff. If you play this, you probably won't mind too. Just don't expect perfection.

4 star(s) out of 5

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