Silent Hill

Product Description In Silent Hill, you assume the role of widower Harry Mason, who is trying to get away from the pain of his wife's loss by taking his daughter on a road trip. After a car accident on the outskirts of the resort town of Silent Hill, you regain consciousness to find that your daughter, who was previously asleep in the backseat, has left--or has been taken--from the scene. To find her, you must go into town and unlock the secrets that linger seven years after a tragic fire scarred the town. The game features formidable monsters, perplexing puzzles, a realistic 3-D town, and, most of all, an acute sense of foreboding caused by Silent Hill's creative lighting and sound effects. The makers have included four different endings, based on performance throughout the game, so think, be quick on your feet, and hope for the best of all possible outcomes. Amazon.com A downright creepy "survival horror" title, Silent Hill succeeds where most Resident Evil-inspired titles suck: keeping you hooked and instilling you with fear throughout the game. Players are cast as Harry Mason in his desperate search for his daughter, who mysteriously disappeared after their car crashed into a gully outside of a desolate resort town. The 3-D environments in Silent Hill are bathed in fog or darkness, making its dismal setting all the more eerie; this also allows for some spectacular lighting effects when using a flashlight in the dark. Granted, there are some pretty coarse graphics being obscured here, but it's a fair trade-off, considering the game's short load times. Silent Hill is played from a third-person perspective, viewed from both fixed and moving camera angles. As with similar games, the viewpoint can be awkward at times, especially during combat, which here is so clunky that you should try to avoid it whenever possible--something you should do anyway, as this isn't Tomb Raider. Rather than resort to cheap scare tactics, Silent Hill features a gameplay twist that works very well with its limited visibility environments. Harry carries a radio with him that crackles with static whenever the game's nasties are near, and continues until they're no longer in the vicinity or have been killed off. (Enemies may require further whacking when they're down, as they like to play dead.) Additionally, the supported Dual-Shock controller pulsates in a heartbeatlike fashion whenever you're moderately or seriously injured. --Joe Hon Pros: Suspenseful story with bone-chilling gameplay Short load times Excellent lighting and fog effects Five possible endings add replay value Cons: Coarse graphics Clunky combat Review In a recent interview with OPM, Silent Hill's creators remarked that one of their main goals with the game was to frighten people on an instinctive level, and that's something that, in my mind, they've clearly succeeded at doing. While similar horror titles, like Capcom's Resident Evil series, work well at making you jump in a "boo!" sort of way, Silent Hill establishes a very unsettling atmosphere that at once puts you off and creeps you out. Silent Hill accomplishes this through a host of wonderful little touches: a radio that emits static whenever monsters are near, a lead character that must catch his breath after running, the placement of wheelchairs and broken stretchers in abandoned stairwells, and so on. One of the most successfully unnerving elements is the game's lighting, which is almost always cast from a flashlight, whether you are in a dark alleyway, a fog-enshrouded back street, or a dank basement. The glare it gives off obscures almost as much as it illuminates, like a dying candle. It was that effect, much more than any fearsome creature, which made me leave a hall light on one night after playing it. That's not to say that the monster design is under par though. In fact, there was one species in particular - a shaggy man-thing that barks and sets after you on all fours - that sent a chill up the back of my neck every time I saw one. To back up a bit, Silent Hill begins with a car accident that separates the main character, Harry Mason, from his daughter. He wanders around looking for her in the off-season resort town that they had happened upon, encountering things and events that seem inspired at least in part by horror writers H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King (anyone remember The Mist?). Figuring out what's actually going on in the burg is much more of a draw for the player than discovering where some little girl has made off to, but both quests lead you around the streets, houses, and major buildings of a fairly convincing 3D Midwestern town. Aside from a slightly grainy cast to Silent Hill's look, its graphics are pretty tight. The use of fog and darkness work so well to enhance the game's mood that you don't mind that they're obviously hiding pop-up (perhaps your suspension of disbelief is withheld so that you ignore it or something), and the lighting effects produced by the character's flas
ASIN: B00001XDUB
VSKU: DBV.B00001XDUB.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Konami
Binding: Game_video
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: Individually inspected: Guaranteed to play perfectly or your money back. Case may show wear and may be in library packaging. Ships Fast!