Hands-onSilent Hill 3

Today GameSpot received a playable build of Silent Hill 3, the latest installment in Konami's popular horror-themed adventure series. Like its predecessors, Silent Hill 3 uses suspenseful real-time camera angles and moody, atmospheric scenery to make for some disturbing yet captivating sequences. The gameplay, much like in any horror-themed adventure game, involves exploration, puzzle-solving, and battling all sorts of terrible creatures using conventional weapons. However, what immediately sets Silent Hill 3 apart from other, similar games is its surprisingly impressive level of graphical detail.

The game's graphics have a grainy motion-picture quality, similar to that of Silent Hill 2, but the extensive use of realistic real-time shadows and lighting, as well as a convincing and creepy fog effect, makes Silent Hill 3 look even better. Yet the most impressive aspect of the graphics must certainly be the real-time character models. Similar to games like Final Fantasy X and Metal Gear Solid 2, Silent Hill 3 switches to high-detail real-time 3D character models for its noninteractive cinematic cutscenes, and here you will see what are easily some of the best-looking characters on the PlayStation 2 to date. Subtly realistic skin tones, facial expressions, and lip-synching make Silent Hill 3's characters look completely convincing.

This installment's main character is a young woman named Heather, who finds herself standing in the middle of a dilapidated and blood-soaked amusement park holding nothing but a knife. After coming face-to-face with some ghastly creatures including something like a cross between a dog and a worm, and a vaguely humanoid monstrosity with impossibly shaped limbs, Heather awakens to find herself in a fast food restaurant. Must have been the fries.

Of course, the events of her dream weren't just a dream. Heather appears to be on her way to meet her father when she's confronted by a detective. His intentions aren't clear, but Heather wants nothing to do with the man and flees. She soon finds herself in a run-down shopping mall infested with the same awful creatures she first saw in her dream.

Gameplay and control in Silent Hill 3 should be familiar to fans of the series and accessible to new players. We had a chance to view a few confrontations that take place a little later in the game, one of which involved a zombielike creature scurrying across the ground. Heather was able to distract the creature by putting a piece of beef jerky on the ground. While the creature was gnawing away, Heather walked up behind it with a steel pipe and smacked it over the head multiple times. Another battle placed Heather up against a massive wormlike creature that pops its head out of holes located in the walls.

The soundtrack for the game is also particularly noteworthy, because Silent Hill 3 will be the first game in the series to feature music tracks with vocals. In addition, the development team has developed its own surround sound system to mimic the audio quality produced by a full 5.1 system, and it seems to work quite well.

The remarkable good looks of Silent Hill 3 and its mysterious plot are sure to appeal to survival horror fans when the game ships later this year. For now, don't just take our word for it about the graphics--check out our new media for yourself.