Silent Hill 3 Hands-On Impressions

At Konami's E3 booth, we got to play a demo version of Silent Hill 3, the latest in the company's long-running and very macabre survival horror series. The demo didn't preface the action with much in the way of story details, so we can't say too much about that aspect of the game, but we did get a healthy dose of the game's excellent graphics and familiar gameplay.

The Silent Hill series typically introduces a new character in each game, and the third game holds with this tradition. You'll play as Heather Morris, a normal young girl who, like the other protagonists in the series, is trapped in the bizarre town of Silent Hill. The demo had us starting off with Heather in an incredibly dirty, run-down, industrial-looking building. We explored several rooms inside the structure and encountered one pretty twisted enemy that scrabbled around frantically on the floor as it tried to attack Heather. The thing's head was grossly misshapen and it made some hideous noises, and if this one enemy is any indication, it looks like the game will continue Silent Hill 2's trend toward really bizarre and disturbing monster designs.

There were no lights in the building we had to traverse in the demo, which provided ample opportunity for the game to show off its graphics. Frankly, Konami's developers are cranking some pretty amazing things out of the PlayStation 2 hardware with Silent Hill 3. The most impressive facet of the game's visuals is its lighting. Heather has a flashlight that she keeps in her shirt pocket, and in the darkened rooms of the demo, this showed off the engine's dynamic lighting and shadowing very well. The character model for Heather is also quite detailed and realistic, although her facial animation looked a bit rough in the brief intro sequence. Silent Hill 3 uses the same grainy filter that the previous game did, which gives it a washed-out, horror-movie-like feel. Overall, Silent Hill 3 is one of the better-looking PS2 games we've seen lately.

Silent Hill 3 is shaping up to be a solid sequel to the previous games. It seemed from the demo to play pretty much exactly like Silent Hill 2 in terms of item selection, movement, and targeting. Since there was nothing particulary broken about the last game, that's fine with us. We'll bring you more on Silent Hill 3 as it becomes available.