[Review] Silent Hill 3

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game information:

Developers:Konami TYO
Publishers:Ingram Entertainment, Konami
Release Date:August 5, 2003
Platforms:PlayStation 2, PC

 

 

First thing about this game...and be warned, it's a four-letter word: "Port." Go on, desensitize yourself now: Port, port, port. As with Silent Hill 2 before it, Silent Hill 3 for the PC is an essentially straight port of the console version, mechanical issues and all -- but it's no less creepy for all that, and that's what you're here for, after all. In this wonderfully loose, versatile language of ours, "port" can have a number of meanings. In addition to covering the translation of a gaming experience from one platform to another, it can also mean, among others things, A) a place of safe haven, or B) a form of alcoholic beverage. Both good things to have on hand after a few hours in the Silent Hill universe.

 

The Silent Hill series has been pretty nasty from the outset -- that old PS1 game (that now looks so comparatively crunchy) still has some baaaaad moments, even in the first few minutes of gameplay (the first time I came across that wheelchair in the alley, my girlfriend pointed at the screen and muttered "That's not good," a phrase which thenceforth became my personal mantra for anything I didn't like the look of in Silent Hill games). In this third game, the story revolves around a fundamentally everyday main character; still no elite, paramilitary cops here, thank you kindly.

 

 

This time, however, our protagonist is an unwilling participant who could hardly be less like her two game-hero predecessors: Instead of being a male (and somewhat bland) thirtysomething entering the haunted town of Silent Hill of his own free will to address a real or perceived wrong, our 'hero' is instead a moody girl named Heather who A) doesn't live anywhere near Silent Hill, B) only begins to suspect something is out of whack when a middle-aged stranger in a trenchcoat accosts her in the corridor to a public restroom, and C) only wants to hang out at the local shopping mall, like any other by-God American teenager.

 

 

By-God." Yes, that's a recurring problem here... particularly when the mall in question goes suddenly and inexplicably straight to Hell, taking Heather--and the player--with it.

 

While Silent Hill 2 took a while to get rolling, Silent Hill 3 immediately finds Heather in an "amusement park" that gives the whole notion a bad name. The mall, too, soon 'goes bad,' its clean, capitalist confines suddenly becoming ruined, hellish doppelgangers of themselves -- dark, rusty, bloody, unpleasant in all major respects. Before long, Heather's entire world is crawling with monsters.

 

Much has remained mechanically true to the series (the menus, the difficulty levels, the viewpoint), but Silent Hill 3 boasts improvements across the board.

 

At least Silent Hill 3 is a little more generous with the weapons: In addition to pipes and a less-than-ideal knife, Heather has relatively quick access to more serious weapons, including a pistol, an Uzi, a shotgun, and a stun-gun. Heather can strafe left and right as she confronts the monstrosities of Silent Hill, and if she bookends her attacks with well-timed, single-button blocks, the katana is surprisingly-effective weapon once you get the hang of it, even on tougher enemies. Monsters are everywhere, their proximity announced by the shrieking static of Silent Hill's now-famous malfunctioning pocket radio. Some players may find the radio annoying and turn it off, while others will find that it adds a level of aural tension.

 

 

Silent Hill 3 benefits greatly from its new PC platform, offering 1920x1440 screen rez, even greater texture rez, and various toggleable lighting/dynamic-shadow options; if your rig has the guts, it looks quite a bit better than the PS2 version (no graphical slouch to begin with), and has some top-notch character modeling. Things are somewhat less hopeful on the control front: There's the 2D keyboard control scheme as an option, and the default 3D control... but neither is ideal, so expect to do a little remapping. Better still, consider the option of a gamepad. In any case, Heather still maneuvers like a lithe, mini-skirted barge, and will still be more vulnerable and less-maneuverable than she ought to be, especially when some wrong-looking thing is shambling down a dimly-lit corridor in her direction, but that's become a survival-horror staple by now; some would even consider it a dramatic tension bonus.

 

All of this is well and good, but a horror game does and should come down to one main question: Is it scary, or at least continually disturbing? Oh yes, on a number of levels. Firstly, Silent Hill 3 very obviously and deliberately goes back to its gaming roots in terms of sheer gore and nastiness -- rooms and other chambers are streaked with blood, hideous, limping things that can no longer be called 'nurses' wobble through dark corridors, and the high-end visuals allow the very walls to throb and bleed. Secondly, the game is rather more directly occultic than its previous incarnation (which, while also great, opted for a more internalized horror-story), and there's a lot of dark religious imagery floating around that just adds another disturbing dimension (it certainly feels a lot like the first game in this regard, with many oblique and direct visual references to classic horror movies, Jacob's Ladder chief among them). Thirdly, Silent Hill 3 isn't afraid to just shut the hell up and use silence, the most of ominous of warnings. Lastly -- like any good horror-flick -- Silent Hill 3 knows when to occasionally drop the brooding, high-minded artsy stuff... and go for the good, solid, reliable cheap-jack scare; Designers Ito Masahiro and Yamaoka Akira are geniuses, but they aren't too proud for that. And if you're playing the game the right way -- alone, in the dark, with a good sound system and/or headphones -- you'll jump for it like a good little chump, like you were wired for electro stimulus, every time. I'm not even worried about warning you, because it doesn't matter one bit. Enjoy.

 

One final note: The difference between the easy and hard settings is as day to night, both in terms of dexterity and mentality. Hope you're up on your mythology, symbolism and classic literature. Seriously.

 

 

Verdict
Yes, the nigh-eternal foibles of cinematic horror games are still here, scattered about, but the product as a whole is still one of the best things going in horror gaming. Really superstitious and/or ADD-afflicted types might want to steer clear for their own special reasons. Everybody else with a reasonably high-end gaming rig, the residents of Silent Hill welcome you.
They're just dying to have you.

 

System Requirements
Minimum 
OS: Win 98
Processor: Intel Pentium III 1133MHz / AMD Athlon MP
Graphics: AMD Radeon 8500 Series 64MB or NVIDIA GeForce 3 Ti 200
System Memory: 256 MB RAM
Storage: 5 GB Hard drive space
DirectX 8 Compatible Graphics Card
 
Recommended Requirements
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 1.4GHz / AMD Athlon XP 1700+
Graphics: AMD Radeon 8500 Series 64MB or NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX 440
System Memory: 1 GB RAM
Storage: 6 GB Hard drive spac