There’s a certain stillness in the air and things don’t feel quite right. As a siren plays overhead and metal rusts, it’s clear you’ve found your way into Silent Hill.
Released in 1999, “Silent Hill” was one of the first 3D survival horror games ever released. Now, it’s nothing too scary, but the way it draws players in and takes them on a psychological ride through the mind of a single father in a crisis is still compelling.
The game centers on Harry Mason, a father who is stranded in Silent Hill after he gets into a car accident where his daughter, Cheryl, flees the scene. Chasing a figure he believes to be his daughter, Mason follows the figure through the foggy snow-covered town into an alley, where the horror begins.
As he runs through the alley, the sky begins to darken and his surroundings rust as a siren plays overhead. Flicking on his lighter, he comes across a body torn to shreds and hanging on a fence. Disturbed by his surroundings, he turns to run only to find himself surrounded by bloodied creatures with no faces who attack him.
After waking up in a diner and collecting a radio, Mason wanders into the streets of a warped Silent Hill to find his daughter. The streets are barren, with several roads collapsed to show that Mason is trapped within the town.
Along the way, gamers will pick up notes and discover secrets about the town such a mysterious house fire and a ghost that still haunt the town. Often while exploring locations in the game, the world will shift into the rusted “Otherworld” version, bringing with it monsters that Mason must fight or run from. These creatures range from a large lizard with a split head, bandaged nurses carrying knives and mumbling children-like figures with holes in their faces.
“Silent Hill” operates in a fixed camera perspective with tank-like controls, much like the first three “Resident Evil” games. To move left, Mason has to be turned to the left before he can begin running in that direction, which often left me unable to run in a straight line. Despite a few frustrations with the controls, the game holds up surprisingly well despite its age.
At the time of its original release, the game was praised for its visuals which were often grainy, but reviewers said that it added to the decay and distorted atmosphere of the game. The fog covering the town is a simple, yet effective way to hide the limitations of the Playstation 1’s hardware, but it still has an eerie charm to its look.
Much like the “Resident Evil” games, however, “Silent Hill’s” voice acting is less than amazing. The whole game feels like a B-movie at times, with characters taking long pauses between sentences and their “shock and horror” readings of lines falling flat.
“Silent Hill” has five different endings, which became a standard of the series. By meeting requirements such as saving certain characters and picking up certain items, you’ll change the course of the game.
Though dated by today’s standards, the original “Silent Hill” is still one of my favorite horror games. Though boxed copies on Amazon will run you around $30 on Amazon, the game can also be downloaded on PS3 and PSP for $6.
