Silent Hill: Review
Harry Mason is on a late night drive to the resort town of Silent Hill after his daughter, Cheryl, asked him to take her there. All is quiet and comfortable at first; Harry is focusing on the road while Cheryl naps in the passenger seat. They are suddenly passed by a cop on a motorcycle. Harry thinks nothing of it until he spots the motorcycle overturned on the side of the road moments later, with the cop nowhere in sight. Distracted by this, he doesn’t notice a shadowy figure stepping into the middle of the road ahead of him. He slams on the breaks and attempts to swerve out of the way, and blacks out in the ensuing crash. Upon awaking, he finds himself in his intended destination of Silent Hill; but something is very amiss. Cheryl is missing, it is snowing out of season, a layer of fog covers the town, and day turns into night without warning. Thus begins the Silent Hill franchise, and by no means are these humble beginnings.
Is Silent Hill the scariest video game of all time? It certainly earns my vote, and I’ve seen it placed highly on the lists of many others. While some people complain about the graphics and the controls, those who are willing to overlook such trivial qualms will find a truly intense survival horror experience. Plainly put, Silent Hill is a nightmare disguised as a video game; a harrowing trip through hell. The game introduces two ingenious devices that became mainstays of the series. The first is a radio that emits static whenever a monster is near. This may not sound like much on its own, but couple that with the fact that because of either fog or darkness, your vision is always obscured past arms length in front of you. Thus, you can always hear a monster before you see it, and have to quickly establish which direction it’s coming from or else you may find yourself in a lot of trouble. The game is backed by a moody, ambient score that rapidly shifts from quiet and spooky to violent and jarring, which many times will make it difficult to maintain your cool. The main event, however, is that the town shifts from the empty, foggy streets to a hellish industrial version of itself, known simply as alternate Silent Hill.
If you’re not unsettled enough by Silent Hill’s streets, which seem to stretch vastly from curb to curb, the alternate world will surely do you in. The alternate world is a mind melting realm of terror, featuring a fierce rust coloration that dominates the otherwise monochromatic color scheme, with most of the floor being made up of chain link grating. Beneath the blood stained diamond pattern is a black void that seems to span downwards without end. Many a bloody sight is to be seen, such as skinless bodies suspended by barbed wire, body parts lodged in a giant steel fan, bloodstained gurneys that have been mangled out of shape, etc. But Silent Hill is not a tasteless, fast-paced bloodbath. What these twisted visuals do is create a tense atmosphere rife with eerie anticipation. The moments of the game that are by far the scariest are those that have the player slowly wandering down a dark, decaying hallway, with a crude pocket flashlight penetrating the darkness only enough to see the immediate area. Imagine how scary it is when the radio suddenly begins to emit static, and in the distance you hear an inhuman groan as something begins to approach, undoubtedly intent on carnage.
However, Silent Hill certainly has more under its belt than terror; there is a constant sense of loneliness throughout the game as well. Harry must constantly search for Cheryl, traversing deeper and deeper into the disturbing alternate world of Silent Hill. No matter how deep he goes, Cheryl is always further away, and he receives only vague indications as to where she might be. Harry meets a few other people in town, but his interactions with them are brief. The brash doctor, Michael Kaufmann, always acts as if he is in a hurry to get somewhere, as does the cryptic Dahlia Gillespie. She seems to know what’s happening to the town, but she constantly speaks in riddles, and only seems interested in sticking around long enough to give Harry his next set of directions. The two warm presences in town are the cop Cybil Bennett, and the nurse Lisa Garland, both of whom genuinely want to help Harry. However, Harry is constantly being separated from them due to the constant shifts from the normal world to the nightmare world. And yet, Harry perseveres for Cheryl’s sake alone. He feels it is his duty to protect her and will go to any length to do it, even go through Silent Hill’s hellish trials; parental dedication like this must be admired.
There is also something undeniably strange about the game’s atmosphere; little things that add up over time. Items of importance are marked by pools or trails of blood, as opposed to having Harry turn his head to notify the player. In the school there are posters tacked up everywhere, some of which are blurry and indistinguishable, others with odd things written on them, such as “who are you?” and “dog eats cat”. Throughout the game there are phantom noises, such as a child crying in an empty bathroom stall. These noises range from unnerving to downright disturbing, the most endearing example being an empty room where the sound of glass shattering is heard repeatedly. In cut scenes, character movements are stiff and awkward; I realize this is due to hardware limitations, but it still aids in the alienating feel of the game’s atmosphere. I’d even go so far as to say that with better graphics, the game wouldn’t feel nearly as odd overall. As such it becomes a timeless classic, one that cannot be sufficiently recreated with better graphics on a next-gen system.
In regards to gameplay, the game developers decided to take the opposite approach from Resident Evil and make its protagonist an ordinary guy as opposed to a special forces agent. He doesn’t always aim well with a gun, he runs out of breath after running for too long, and the best weapon he gets is an unsteady hunting rifle instead of a one-hit KO rocket launcher. In higher difficulty modes, you’ll find yourself going through ammo far too rapidly, and may find ammo conservation a wise choice. This lends the game an emphasis on melee combat. And if you thought gunning down zombies in Resident Evil was violent, wait until you hear the brutal crunch of a massive hammer against the skull of a possessed nurse. Not to mention that in most cases, you have to stomp a monster to death in order to finish it off. Although the clunky controls will at times make melee combat difficult, the game still rewards you for sticking with melee weaponry. Some enemies, such as the flying monsters, will be crippled if you land a successful blow; they can no longer attack or fly away, but merely flap their broken wings in desperation.
Many of the monsters are designed well, but some are particularly noteworthy. In the hospital, Harry will encounter possessed nurses and doctors. What makes these enemies especially creepy is the fact that they are clearly human yet retain so little humanity, stumbling about like soulless drones, appearing to be controlled by parasitic protrusions on their backs. They also highlight the game’s often excellent sound design, as their groans of pain are truly chilling. I mentioned the game’s emphasis on melee combat above, and it extends to the monsters as well; very few of them have ranged attacks. Harry will be stabbed, slashed, gored, and have razor sharp fangs tearing into his throat throughout the course of the game. Combine all this with the aforementioned blood splattered aesthetic, and the overall scope of the game’s violence becomes very difficult to overlook.
To wrap things up, let me say that the plot is one of the most genuinely disturbing that I’ve encountered in a video game. With references to drug trafficking, a mention of an esoteric religion, and a little girl horribly disfigured in a fire, the plot does indeed seem complex at first. However, once the pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together, the image becomes one of emotional scars, a deep seeded desire for revenge, unfathomable pain and suffering, and endless greed. There’s even a particularly powerful scene near the end of the game that is truly heartbreaking, while remaining utterly disturbing. It wouldn’t be fair for me to give away the details in this review; I’ll let you find out the secrets of Silent Hill for yourself.
Overall Ratings
Gameplay: The controls are slightly clunky, but who cares? A lot of people also complain about the dated graphics, but again, who cares? These are mere trivialities. The gameplay innovations of the radio and the flashlight are invaluable, and the emphasis on exploration, melee combat, and Harry’s unsteady aim fit the storyline like a glove. 9 out of 10
Scares: Oh hell yes. Silent Hill is scary not so much via boo! moments, which it does have, but it is primarily scary due to its unshakably creepy atmosphere and its twisted visuals. Also delivering the scares is the harsh industrial score. Considering all this, you’ve got a gaming experience that is altogether too frightening. 10 out of 10 – Perfect!
Plot: Although it may seem altogether too vague at first, once you begin to analyze and make sense of things, a highly complex and truly disturbing plotline begins to appear. 9 out of 10
Screenshots were provided by forum member Samael.
