Customer Reviews

Silent Hill

5 star:		(170)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I'm not easily scared. In fact, of every "scary" movie I've seen, nothing has come close to unnerving me besides maybe In the Mouth of Madness. This game, however, is sufficiently creepy to make me love it and hate it at the same time. It's almost masochistic playing it, but maybe I'm masochistic, because I've beaten it 6 times so far, and I plan on playing it some more. It just scares the hell out of me every time.

I won't get into the plot as figuring it out is half the fun (and you WILL have to do some figuring. I'm pretty sure a lot was lost in the translation from Japanese because the story can be hard to follow at times).

In order for the game to be rewarding, though, it requires patience, along with nerves of steel and an iron stomach. The game starts out with a bang (or a bunch of dead, moaning, faceless knife weilding babies stabbing you to death within 3 minutes of play, I guess that counts as a bang, right?) This is misleading, though, as the game then calms down considerably for about the next 45 minutes of game time. Before we go on, though, two things: 1) The graphics are fairly blocky, but, for reasons that will become apparent, this doesn't matter. They're well textured, which is much more important. 2) The sound is PHENOMINAL. Always bear this in mind.

You wander the fog enshrouded town of Silent Hill searching for your daughter. Now, here's the great part about this game. It just seems so WRONG from the very beginning. The town is built right to scale and rendered in totality. You can, in theory, go anywhere. You even get a street map (complete with names like Koontz street and Bachman ave. Get it?) After a little exploration, though, you'll find something is amiss. The goal early on is to get to the local elementary school, and this seems easy enough with a street map, but there's one minor problem. The streets have this tendancy to just...end. All major roads leading to the school are just gone. Not there. They stop, and all you can see in the distance is the the fog. Add to this the "monsters" lurking the town. These basically consist of skinless dogs and large pink birdman things, who don't seem so terrifying, really. You get a radio that emits static when enemies draw near, but more on that later. This is all part of the game's attempt to unnerve you. Before you know it, you're across the chasm of the roads and now the REAL fun starts. Now, it's suddenly dark. Pitch black, in fact. You get a weak little flashlight with which to see (a pocket light, really) and THAT'S IT. Now, let's see. We're in a deserted town haunted by things that, while kind of weak and stupid looking, want to kill you. We could see just fine in the fog, but now it's dark. Right. So, we're off to the school, and now things get worse. The dogs are faster now (one constant in the game: The darker it gets, the more powerful and evil the enemies become), and now that you can't see them, it makes shooting at them much harder since they never stand still, really, and all you have to aim with is a weak cone of light that doesn't extend very far. Plus, as you'll soon happily discover after wasting 3 clips firing at the spot where a dog just was, ammo is limited! Yay! And the dogs have now been joined by the bird thingies, who ALSO want to kill you! DOUBLE yay!! So, we run now. Run all the way to the school, past the two(!) dogs guarding the entrance, through the door, and BAM! We're alive. Woohoo! Thank God! Now then...The school! Then it dawns on you: You're in a deserted ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. In the black-as-pitch darkness. With...wait for it...things that want to kill you! The knife-baby things, this time. Righty-o! Having fun yet? Oooh, it gets better. After some puzzles, you'll open the clocktower. By this point, it will be apparent that Silent Hill is home to some sick, sick people. I won't go into details, but trust me. So, as you mutter to yourself about the sick inhabitants of this town, you'll be climbing down the clocktower (yes, DOWN. It has a basement. Well...Sort of. You'll see.) It's here, HERE, that the game got to me. When you come back up the other side (bear with me here, it's hard to explain), you're back where you started, in the school courtyard. But not really. It's not the same...Then you go in the doors, and everything is...Aw, I'm not gonna kill it for you. Suffice to say that THIS is where the game goes from creepy to INSANELY CREEPY, and it just gets worse and worse and worse and WORSE as you go on. By the time you finish the school section and see daylight again, it's more of a relief than you can imagine. I was practically cheering my first time through. After that school, well-lit fog is a damned BLESSING!

Little did I know I had a hospital to look foreward to. And yes, as bad as you can possibly think it could be, it's worse. And when you're done with that...you're not even halfway to the end yet.

This game is all about the overhwelming sense of DREAD it will instill in you, making you almost not want to play it anymore. I've had friends hit the hospital section, take one look at their surroundings, and hand me the controller and leave the room. It's not that it's overly gross; it's not. It's just the prospect of having to subject yourself to the Silent Hill version of a freaking HOSPITAL that makes you almost cringe before you even start. And by the time you get there, you know just what the term "Silent Hill version of" means.

For those brave souls who wish to do it alone (which, by the by, I VERY, VERY HIGHLY reccomend your first time through), do it right. Play it in the dark, late at night, ALONE, with some good speakers set up. If you're new to it, start at the beginning, and enjoy the first part of the game. It's a slow starter, but once it gets going, the only reason it lets up is to allow you to contemplate exactly what else it's going to do to you.

Buy this game NOW if you haven't played it, and God help you.

Oh, and the second one is supposed to be twice as bad. I can't wait!

Silent Hill is a unique survival horror game. The main character is a "regular" guy searching for his daughter. The game features a greatly immersive and often disturbing atmosphere. Instead of using pre-rendered backgrounds like the Resident Evil series, Konami has modeled a 3-d world where you can move in any direction. The graphics contain a lot of fog and are often dark and washed out. It often feels like you're walking around in a dream world. Few places are safe in Silent Hill. You can't sit still for very long. I jumped out of my seat often even though I knew I was getting close to a mutated creature. The tension can really get to you. I found the puzzles to be fairly straightforward. Although a short adventure (8-10 hours), it's not one that you'll soon forget. To the game's credit, it features multiple endings depending on your performance. Compared to the Resident Evil series, Silent Hill is more about eliciting anxiety and psychological terror, and less about using a rocket launcher to blow the head off some zombie. If "Silence of the Lambs" was your kind of movie, then Silent Hill is your kind of game. Recommended.

There's pus spewing from the kitchen sink, the walls are bleeding, the fog is so thinck you can cut it with a knife and this is during the daylight hours. Things get worse at night as a demon world attempts to merge itself with our own. This is the premise of the story as Harry Mason navigates his way through this errily bizzare town that his hauntingly a lot like something only the most twisted and bizar mind could create. Resident Evil has its shock moments, but regardless of what anyone might tell you, for a real scare the original Silent Hill is the game to play. This is hands down the creepiest game, and while it has few of the zombie jumping through the window sort of scares there is a great deal of darkness, and erie sounds to compensate. This is a different kind of horror than RE, a game that bares no resemblance to this original master piece with the exception of the irritating control style, but thats where the similarities end. RE relies on catching you off guard, SH requires you to constantly be on guard and plays on your paranoia the entire time, especially with the radio. While RE comes off as a fun B-movie SH comes off as the darkest dream you don't want to remember, which makes it a worthwhile experience well worth the money.
It also features some of the finest FMV sequences to grace the PS1, topping the work of Final Fantasy VIII. The in game graphics leave a lot to be desired though. This is another game I would like to see remade for GCN, however Konami has taken a very stubborn anti-GCN stance, the likelyhood that this will happen is slim.
As with most Survival Horror titles this game packs an awkward control style that is even more devistating to the overal game than the RE control because the camera moves as though it were stalking you, a cool effect that is hindered by the horrible control set up, a problem that was adjusted in the PS2/Xbox sequel "Restless Dreams". Aside from this complaint the game is brilliant and every horror fan should pick this title up. However, this game is NOT for kids, nor is it for the weak in stomach and faint of heart. It takes a strongh stomach and even stronger will power to get through this game. I don't care how strong you think you are this game will scare you.

Many people loved Resident Evil because it is a scary game. I agree with all of them, but until you've played Silent Hill, you haven't played an actual SCARY game. From the second you start the game you feel uneasy and like something is wrong The fact that you can only see a few feet in front of yourself because of the darkness or the thick fog only increases this effect. Every where you go is deserted , except for the horrible creatures running around town. If the town really is deserted , then where are those horrible sounds coming from? These are just a few of the things that are going through your head as you play this game. Then, when you feal like you've finally got ahold of yourself, and you think you can handle the game, what's that ? A siren goes off, and the town you were just in turns into a horrible dark evil version of the town with extremely creepy music. Let me tell you something right now, if you every play this game , don't play it on the second floor of you house at 1 in the morning, with all the lights off with only your terrified younger brother there to protect you. And if you do, just hope you don't have to go to the bathroom, because it's a long walk downstairs in the dark , trust me I know!

I had read a few reviews about Silent Hill before I actually purchased the game. Most of these reviews focused on the "chunky graphics" and "camera problems" and paid little attention to the storyline and overall game. Boy, were they ever wrong!

Silent Hill is not perfect in that the graphics are coarse in a few places and yes, the camera angles do have a tendency to get in your way at the least opportune times (like when you're trying to ... something) but believe it or not...its not really that big of a deal. I say this because the rest of the game is so above average that you won't even notice it half the time. As for the control operation, if you're used to Resident Evil and similar games, you'll have it mastered in no time.

The main character, Harry Mason, is a regular guy in an abnormal situation, trying to find his missing daughter. He doesn't have special covert operations training or tactical gear...like most other games (Resident Evil, etc). In fact, Harry can barely hit the side of a barn with his various (and limited) weapons, which adds to the overall anxiety that is created throughout the game. We can relate to this unlikely hero because Harry doesn't know what the ... he's doing half the time and let's face it, neither do most of us. Most of the time, Harry blunders around in the dark, wheezing as he runs...sound familiar?

The game is veiled in a dense, creepy fog or pitch blackness and you are armed with a pitiful little flashlight, that limits your vision a great deal and makes it next to impossible to anticipate just what nasty is about to leap out and attack you. The only warning you get is a blast of static from your radio which warns you that something wicked this way comes.

The creativity to this game is outstanding and downright ghoulish. One minute Harry is wandering around in a normal town, in a normal elementary school and the next he is thrust into some demonic, acid-trip alternate universe. Said universe is complete with rabid dogs, ghost-kids with knifes, unexplained bloody corpses hanging from the ceiling and blood-stained bathroom stalls, just to name a few highlights. Sure makes Resident Evil look like a walk in the park. Zombies...HA!

To add to your horrific delight, the few people that Harry encounters serve to only raise more questions and make you feel a renewed sense of panic to find Harry's missing daughter and get the heck outta town.

Silent Hill is a true survival-horror game in every sense. If you enjoyed the Resident Evil series, wait until you get your hands on this. With easy controls, above average voice talent, actual replay value (there are 4 different endings), an outrageous creep-out factor and more creativity in the first 20 minutes than most games have at all, Silent Hill is a must have.

This game is awesome but I can't believe the cheapest price to purchase it is almost $50. You can log on to konamistyle, the official website, and purchase the game new for $19.99. You should definately get your hands on a copy!

I am not a "gamer", though I have enjoyed Resident Evil(1,2,3) and spent some time kicking and punching hell out of Tekken and Dead or Alive characters controlled by my 7-year old son. Also I've walked through Metal Gear twice.

These are the acclaimed bestsellers and everyone loves to play them, but Silent Hill is unique. All the reviewers mention the frightening quality of the game but for me the most important thing is that it makes you care for the guy you are walking through the maze.I could not get Sybil, the policewoman and Lisa, the nurse out of my head for weeks. Can you say that about the Resident Evil? It's fun when you blast at the yukey zombies with all your firepower.But it does not touch you a bit at the emotional level. If you are a "gamer" and basically interested in hitting the red spot with green blast in time to get great score this game will disappoint you. If you are interested in the athmosphere and suspense, in characters that are brave and human Silent Hill is the best in the market.

Let's face it, there aren't too many scary video games on the market. How do you convey a scary story into a video game? The Resident Evil series has done a fine job in this particular genre, and now Silent Hill has taken it even further. This game has the type of creepy feeling that most horror movies lack. It's foreboding, nightmarish atmosphere kept me tense throughout (don't believe me, try playing it at night with all the lights out). Although the story is a bit convoluted, it's still very intriguing. As for tension, I got that mixed feeling of nervous excitement every time I approached a new door to open, never knowing what's going to be on the other side. If you're looking for something different than the usual shoot-em-ups, give this game a try.

I'm a bit of a freak about this game, so you'll have to excuse the title. :) I finished reading the reviews everyone else posted, and felt the need to correct them slightly. While overall, they hit the nail on the head, most people seem to forget that Silent Hill and the Resident Evil series have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in common (aside from the scare-factor). There's an ENORMOUS difference between terror (RE) and horror (SH). Your average "Joe Gamer" has a tendency to lump all scary games into the "survival horror" genre. The fact is, there never WAS a true "horror" genre up until SH (The D's and Clock Tower's may be exceptions, but I haven't played them just yet). Alone In The Dark, Resident Evil, Dino Crisis (*snicker*), etc. are all terror. "Oh, god, a zombie jumped out of the shadows! Walk! Walk for your life!" They rely on cheap thrills to get you worked up. SH is the kind of game that gets under your skin, freaks you out, and leaves you with more questions than answers. Putting Silent Hill on the same level as Resident Evil (or any other game, for that matter), or even just calling it a "terrifying" game, is an insult to Konami.

Few games can truly scare a person. Resident Evil creates a tense atmosphere and makes you jump sometimes. But it doesn't scare or disturb in the way Silent Hill does. Along with being scary, it's also quite fun. It has quite a good number of confrontations with disturbing creatures, but not too many so that you don't get smothered and so it can concentrate on other factors like puzzle solving. Speaking of puzzles, the puzzles in Silent Hill are harder than RE's amd take a bit more brain power. They're not impossible by any means however. Graphically, the game is grainy and foggy, but that is not really a problem as it actually helps develop the creepy atmosphere. The sound is great, the banging doors and children crying will definitely freak you. As for the controls, they're not bad, but may take a little getting used to.

Overall, Silent Hill is a great game(although not perfect, which is why I did not give it 5 stars), and an excellent entry in the "survival horror" genre.