Silent Hill 3

Yet again gamers are welcomed back to a world of horror where everything is not quite what it seems. If you leave a normal brightly lit room one minute and enters back another minute to see it covered in blood, dark, rusty, and a child lying dead on the floor what is the explanation for it?

The laws of time suggest it is impossible for this to happen, a child being butchered to death and blood smeared across the walls is just about plausible for a highly experienced killer, but how can a new building rust in minutes? Science argues this is impossible unless, there is another explanation - hallucination?

Silent Hill plays with the gamer's mind raising questions which seem to have no rational explanation yet these events happen behind the gamer's eyes! This time it is Heather rather than Harry Mason or James Sunderland who gamers get to take control of, a gentle teenager on a shopping trip.

In typical Silent Hill style the shopping trip is short lived when a perfectly normal environment turns into an abandoned world full of demonic creatures.

Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 were relatively disconnected in terms of plot and Silent Hill 3 appears to have no link to the original or prequel, that is, however, until a very dramatic scene takes place which links Silent Hill 3 directly back to the roots of Silent Hill in a plot twist you would never imagine possible!

GRAPHICS

There is a dark and macabre feel to Silent Hill created through wobbly camera angles, mist and a picture which at times appears to be breaking up.

As before, the dark rooms lit only by a flashlight and the fog play an important part in setting the atmosphere and hiding graphical glitches such as the slightly jagged edges to the characters occasionally.

You cannot help but get the feeling the events are being recorded by an amateur as the camera randomly shifts from one view to another. Sometimes the camera angle plays a more important part, creating an eerie effect so it can help gamers identify what they need to do to solve a puzzle. For example the camera may deliberately have a certain item as the focal point of the screen luring the eye towards it.

One feature places Silent Hill above the likes of Alone In The Dark and the PS2 offering of Resident Evil Code Veronica is the contrast between the bright reality and the dark nightmare vision known as the dark side of Silent Hill.

In reality places are brightly lit looking very smooth and lush much like a graphically superior version of Konami's awesome Shadow Of Memories.

When in the evil world of Silent Hill details are very gritty and sordid. It is as if the room has a cyst of cancer polluting the atmosphere.

Gamers are afraid to touch items for fear they may contract a disease and with the amount of blood caked around it is understandable.

You can never be quite sure what is going to be viewed. In some rooms gamers might see rusty railings with a blood splattered wheelchair kicked over and a child's doll ripped into pieces, other rooms may be engulfed in fire like an inferno, and others may change while the gamer is there.

A classic example of this is when Heather walks into a normal room and looks in the mirror. It appears the room serves no purpose, which is confusing considering all rooms have a purpose even if it is merely as a place to seek refuge from the monsters. As the gamer looks closer into the mirror and around them they begin to see blood crawling up the wall, as the gamer turns to exit the room the blood has clasped around the door handle and there is no way to escape.

Frantically searching the gamer looks into the mirror once more and to their horror the reflection looking back is their reflection but covered in blood and decaying.

It is not just the dark scenes which give Silent Hill a psychological edge or even the way you can walk through a corridor in a normal world and in the same corridorstep into a hellish world, in addition to both of these there are the creatures which possess the game.

Admittedly both the last Silent Hill games have been enough to evoke fear within gamer's minds but there are only so many times viewing graphic images can cause gamers to wail.

Konami have clearly identified this and now the game boasts the largest amount of mutated adversaries ever to appear in a Silent Hill title.

To accompany the monsters there are hounds wrapped in bandages with half of their face already partially devoured. These fiends have the looks and the slick movements of a hungry canine dashing at gamers in a pledge to salvage a very much appreciated meal. It is not only the canines which are hungry but every other monster possesses a natural instinct to consume humans.

There are hog-like monsters, 20 foot monsters, obese monsters, creatures that fly, and oh so many more hellacious beings.

Resident Evil and Resident Evil 0 unquestioningly possess the best horror graphics for any console. Rather than directly comparing the two games it is fair to say Resident Evil and Silent Hill both have different objectives in terms of graphics and indeed as games in general.

Resident Evil sets out to shock gamers with the life-like visuals and big guns whereas Silent Hill depicts a grim image of what life would be like on hell. In terms of quotes "when there's no room in hell the dead will walk the earth" from Dawn Of The Dead seems to apply very accurately to Silent Hill 3 because the world created is a hell on earth, everything is affected and there is no escape.

In terms of pure graphical capabilities Silent Hill is not quite as polished as Resident Evil because there are places where the graphics appear a little jagged around the edges. However, as regards creating an atmospheric vision of hell and horror Silent Hill 3 surpasses Resident Evil. Resi may see heads falls off zombies and hunters claw Miss Valentine herself but nothing can come close to the ever changing environment between hell and reality and the sheer quantity of blood. There is a vision of a world where children are butchered, dirty nails pierce the skin and anything will be done to ensure people's stay lasts the remainder of their life; that vision is Silent Hill.

18/20

SOUND

Some enemies such as the decaying flying creatures have music to indicate when they will be making an appearance, in the case of these creatures gamers are treated to a disorientated grinding of violin strings. This music is vital to the game, and seems to sum-up the type of music gamers can typically expect from Silent Hill 3.

Music is fear evoking often indicating the type of room a gamer is in. If the music is frantic gamers can guarantee a blood bath, if quiet but unnerving there is a key element to the game contained in the room and if plain eerie gamers are usually venturing down a corridor. In contrast to Resident Evil there is no such room which has peaceful, melodic music.

Even save rooms have an element of surprise or horror to them, often because save rooms are not simply confined to being save rooms but often have multiple functions for examply containing a riddle.

Although the soundtrack, like Resident Evil, is first rate there are also other factors which play a part in the game such as the infamous radio.

When the radio was first introduced to Silent Hill it was dubbed an innovative new feature to the horror genre as gamers could detect enemies approaching from radio waves. Now, although often taken for granted, the radio still plays a key role in Silent Hill but admittedly it does not cause quite as much panic in the gamer as it once used to...that is unless the gamer happens to be extremely low on health!

No Silent Hill game would be complete without a series of additional sound effects. There are many effects which help create a stir, too many to list.

Walking down the hospital corridors gamers may hear the shrill cry of a baby from a room, upon entering there is nothing there at best, but at worst a bloody mess.

No doubt many gamers will be unnerved by the knocking at a toilet door. Gamers knock once, the door knocks back, gamers knock again and sure enough the door knocks back. How can a door knock back?

Well, you would assume this is not possible but, back away from the door as if to leave the area and the door flings open, you rush into the toilet to confront whoever knocked back but they have disappeared, all that is left is a toilet coated in blood.

The only explanation you can think of for this is that there was somebody knocking and they used some sort of devise such as a chainsaw to hack themselves into pieces, hence the blood. The theory is obviously fundamentally flawed as 1. There is no chainsaw 2. The gamer would have heard the chainsaw because unlike the silenced pistol there is not the silenced chainsaw!

Other eerie noises include the creak of floorboards, the clunk from behind a locked door, and a 1950's horror-style voice which accompanies the infamous haunted mansion ride at the amusement fair. There certainly is no amusement by the end of the ride as gamers will find out the hard way in an ingenious twist.

The script and sound effects from monsters both help create an unsettling gaming experience.

Acting and sound is fine and the script itself helps engross the gamer rather than bore the gamer with trivial details about the matter of blood and whether it is Chris's or not (the original Resident Evil will never be forgiven for that!). The piercing yells and yelps of the monsters sound as if they came directly from hell, and with the ever advancing realism from Konami they probably did.

19/20

GAMEPLAY

The concept is fairly simple as it is much the same as any other Silent Hill or horror game. Gamers play as Heather, a young woman, who is shopping in her local shopping mall. While shopping she fell asleep for a few minutes experiencing a terrible dream depicting a world of horror in Silent Hill's now infamous Lakeside Amusement Park.

Upon waking everything seems to be well until the shopping mall abruptly transforms into a hellacious nightmare world. Heather must now battle through the shopping mall with her aim being to escape. Unlike its predecessors Heather was not brought to this shopping mall because she needed to find something out, she stumbled on it accidentally and furthermore unlike its predecessors the shopping mall is not actually in Silent Hill.

After finally escaping the shopping mall and briefly encountering a detective called Douglas and woman called Claudia Heather makes her way home, although she must first battle on the train she is travelling on and then through a subway and abandoned block of offices.

Upon returning home Heather sees a certain something that connects the third game directly with the original and after this she must travel to Silent Hill.

Douglas who seems to be more reasonable than the quite frankly insane Claudia claims to be a detective and offers Heather a life to Silent Hill. Once in Silent Hill after a long FMV scene in the car that takes gamers quite by surprise with the detail revealed the pace really starts to pick up. Gamers battle in the town itself, as with all Silent Hill games, in the hospital, no surprises there, in the amusement park, and in the church!

Upon playing the game for a couple of hours gamers may experience frustration because the action all seems a little too familiar or they simply cannot complete a puzzle!

Admittedly there are times in the game when puzzles do not seem to have a solution, gamers must search the area for hours and then find they found the answer to the puzzle hours earlier but just did not happen to use the item in exactly the right place required to activate the solution to the puzzle.

Although this causes a great deal of frustration it is also understandable why Konami have done this, if you could press "use" a distance away from where it was meant to be used then there is the possibility gamers could solve puzzles entirely by accident, which is clearly not the point at all.

The reason for familiarity is everything seems very "samey" there is the same formula of action and riddle complimented with a bit of FMV, but more importantly the FMV just does not seem to be up to scratch and the plot a little weak. However, feel reassured once the initial action in the mall, subway and office has taken place the plot picks up and so the game becomes a lot more enjoyable as Heather has a direct mission and purpose to be involved in Silent Hill.

Some may feel as long as action is of a top standard a storyline is only second rate but this is a good example of why games need an engaging storyline because if one is not present the appeal soon disappears.

As mentioned earlier there is a great deal of variation in the amount of monsters to battle and to compliment this there is also a large amount of weaponry.

Whatever style gamers are comfortable with there is a weapon for you. If gamers like close street-style knifing there is the very basic combat knife, prefer the ancient art of kendo or the old fashioned club to the head method there is a handy two by four available, if gamers feed the need to be evil there is of course the mace, sword fighters can be content with a powerful Katana, and for those who prefer modern weapons there's a handgun, shotgun, and sub-machine gun. There are weapons which can be unlocked upon completing the game which can add a very interesting dimension to the gameplay indeed as can a certain extra costume.

Silent Hill 3 is a game which can be played by most gamers providing they are 1. Old enough 2. Have the right frame of mind and nerves of steel and 3. Do not get easily frustrated when no solution appears available for a puzzle or they did not see the door which is not a door but can only be identified from an aerial camera angle!

Silent Hill 3 is universal because it has both an action and a riddle level both levels range from easy to hard and are geared to suit any type of gamer. For gamers who like a challenge but found the likes of Tomb Raider frustrating an easy riddle setting, and hard action setting will be welcomed, those who loved Tomb Raider but hate multiple enemies can opt for the reserve of this, those new to the genre can opt for easy/easy, average gamers can opt for a normal experience all round ("normal" is an ironic word to associate with the abstract world of Silent Hill), and those who fancy a challenge can opt for hard/hard.

Of course any combination of difficulties is possible so the game really can cater for all needs. Generally speaking the harder the difficulty the more enemies appear, the more damage they can inflict on the gamer, and the harder the riddle level the more difficult the puzzle.

For example easy riddle level will literally spell out the solution to the puzzle, "there is an object down there if you used the tongs you could probably obtain it."

In addition to this there are also more puzzles from each mode, for example easy mode misses out a few of the standard puzzles such as the standard ventilation/crow puzzle in the mall.

There are various options available to the gamer such as activating beginner mode after dying multiple times, changing the colour of the blood, changing the quantity of the blood, and tinkering with the control set up. Of course it is the second time round that playing the game is rich in options due to the amount of items unlocked upon completing the game.

Gameplay does not bring anything innovative or new to the horror genre but rather sticks with the same old winning formula. Horror fans and gamers with a very strong stomach will welcome this game with open arms. Lock yourself in a room, cut out the lights, and immerse yourself in a world of horror then see if you do not become just a little unnerved as cinematic sound echoes around the enemy room.

Silent Hill 3 will not have as much shock impact as the original or predecessor simply because both were the first Silent Hill games for different consoles, but for those new to Silent Hill, oh boy, you are in for a scare and for veterans the horror is upon us once more...

22/25

LIFESPAN

On average the game will take between five and eight hours through first time depending on difficulty setting and the gamer's ability. Although this is only average for a horror game there are a lot of incentives to play the game through multiple times, the first reason is there are multiple endings as always, good, bad, and of course normal. A larger incentive is the weapons and alternative costumes unlocked.

Heather can go around boasting various strap tops with different designs on but more impressively a Princess Heart transformer outfit can be unlocked for comical value!

Of course the weapons are far more worthwhile unlocking and give a tremendous amount of replay value, secret weapons range from the unlimited ammo flamethrower and submachine gun to the almighty beam sabre - a light sabre with a different name.

Yes, that's right, gamers can now go around in their princess heart outfit and light sabre whacking the hell out of demonic creatures! It is very possible to complete the game second time around with the unlimited weapons in two and a half hours which makes replay value very do-able as the incentives are enough to make gamers want to play the game but the length is not too consuming to prevent gamers from playing it again.

For those who wish to "cheat" their way into playing the game less the secret outfits can be unlocked through a password system which means gamers can put passwords in without finding them.

Passwords are either given upon completion of the game or can be acquired while searching the areas in the game if gamers are fortunate enough to stumble upon a password.

It is by no means the longest game in the world but it is one of the few games that has the benefits of being played over and over again while remaining enjoyable and fairly hassle free.

23/25

ORIGINALITY

Silent Hill 3 maintains the winning formula combining riddles, storyline and action. Although it is not the most original of formulas and has appeared in most horror games, there is a large cast of new monsters never seen before.

Let us face it, who has seen an obese naked monster covered in blood that gets out of breath if it runs too far? Then of course there is the addition of a hellacious depiction of a melting inferno and the rusty blood caked corridors.

In terms of storylines Silent Hill 3 certainly takes a turn for the better but essentially this is another horror game, but one that is executed perfectly.

6/10

OVERALL

Gamers who can withstand going through hell, back again and going through more hell, this is recommended. For the faint hearted - stay away from Silent Hill 3.

Great evil and fanatical cult like activities await the gamer. This will psychologically break first time Silent Hill gamers down while other gamers will feel weakened and exhausted by the whole experience.

It is certainly the best of the Silent Hill games with the only weakness being the frustration puzzles can bring first time with gamers having to place objects exactly where they should be. Aside from this major flaw Silent Hill 3 is the horror game of all horror games. Prepare for a nightmare, prepare for Silent Hill 3!

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