Silent Hill 3 Updated Preview

Although Silent Hill 3 is not scheduled for release in North America until the first week of August, this past weekend saw the European release of Konami's long-awaited survival horror sequel. Up until now, we've only enjoyed access to all-too-brief demo versions of Silent Hill 3, so now that we've had a chance to spend a few hours in a darkened room with the full European version of the game, we thought we'd give you some idea of what you have to look forward to.

As was the case in Silent Hill 2, the game offers varying degrees of difficulty for both the "action" and "riddles" options so you can effectively customize the game to suit your taste. There are easy, medium, and hard settings for both options, meaning that were you to play the riddles option on easy the first time through, you could then replay the game with additional puzzles another two times. The game also offers both 2D and 3D controller settings--allowing you to choose either a Resident Evil-style system in which you have to push up to move forward, or a setup in which you move the analog stick in the same direction you wish to move Heather on the screen. Although the Resident Evil system might prove tricky for you if you're not familiar with survival horror games, it's actually superior because it allows you to easily keep moving in the same direction even when the camera angle dramatically changes.

As we previously reported after playing Konami's demo version of the game, Silent Hill 3 kicks off with a dark and disturbing dream sequence that'll see you fighting for your life in an abandoned amusement park. Any fight you put up against the monsters at the park is futile, though, and once Heather "dies," she awakens in a shopping mall cafeteria feeling a little perturbed by her nightmare. After a brief encounter with a creepy old man--who Heather manages to elude by climbing out of the window in a washroom--it's time for you to explore the Central Square Shopping Center, which, although appearing to be relatively well maintained initially, degenerates into an unrecognizable, decaying structure overrun with monsters as you progress. Unfortunately, Heather's ability to explore the expansive shopping complex is severely restricted, and with locked doors far outnumbering those you're able to open, your progress through what initially appears to be a labyrinthine three-story building can often feel much too predetermined and linear to be rewarding.

It's only when you manage to locate a map of the mall that you really become aware of just how large it is, but it's unfortunate that such large areas of it are inaccessible in the beginning, as this inevitably results in you either attempting to open the same locked doors on multiple occasions or having to refer to the map--which indicates your current position, as well as the locations of open and locked doors, puzzles, and save points--constantly as you navigate the often featureless hallways between important locations. Rooms that you're able to explore include washrooms, offices, and stores, mostly--although the majority of them are barely recognizable. And, as every open door reveals either supplies, an item, or a puzzle in need of solving, the lack of rooms that don't have an important role to play in your progress serves to reinforce the idea that you're proceeding on a linear course through the early parts of the game.

One of the reasons why so many of the doors in the game are locked could be that none of the monsters seem able to navigate doorways or staircases. While this lack of monster mobility keeps your enemies in the locations the game's designers intended for them, it also takes away much of the tension that you'll feel every time you're able to hear a monster in the darkness before actually catching sight of it. The larger, more powerful monsters that lumber around certain areas of the mall are relatively easy to sidestep in all but the most confined of spaces, and should one of them--or a group of smaller monsters--attack you, respite is only an unlocked door or a couple of steps up a staircase away. We're certain that such areas will become fewer in the latter stages of the game, but the fact that we were able to easily kill one large monster with a handgun simply by standing at the top of a broken escalator was disappointing--particularly since the other aspects of the monster AI are so impressive.

On one occasion, for example, we came across two split-faced dog monsters chewing on a large hunk of meat. The monsters seemed content to let us pass by them initially, but when Heather's back was turned, they both proceeded to attack. We were armed only with a small knife at this stage, and it seemed an eternity before the first monster let out a yelp and slumped to the floor. We breathed a sigh of relief as the second monster then scampered off into the darkness--seemingly feeling a little less brave after witnessing the death of its cohort. Our relief was short-lived, though, as the monster soon reemerged from the shadows with renewed vigor and seemed intent on devouring Heather rather than the piece of beef jerky we'd armed her with, thinking that it might prove to be a more mouthwatering prospect for monsters than human flesh. Frustratingly, we weren't able to pick up the beef jerky for future use after placing it on the floor the first time, but wasting one of our four pieces of jerky was the least of our concerns at that point in time. We'd arrived at a dead end, you see, and even after checking the map several times for any doors we might have missed and roaming the mall in search of anything that might be useful, we were coming up short.

Without wishing to give anything away, we eventually found a way up to third floor of the mall after locating a small item that we'd previously failed to notice in a clothing store. Unlike many games in which locating items plays a large part, Silent Hill 3 doesn't highlight important items with any kind of strange glow or sparkle, instead requiring you to carefully watch the direction that Heather is facing, since her eyes are drawn to objects of interest even if the current camera angle prevents you from noticing them yourself. It's possible to control the camera manually in the majority of locations, and being able to position it directly behind Heather and hold it there is especially useful if you find yourself fleeing from something nasty.

We've yet to actually die in Silent Hill 3 playing it on the normal difficulty setting, but there have been plenty of occasions when we've feared that we might be subjected to sitting through a game-over sequence of some description. We've encountered a handful of different save points in the game to date, and it has to be said that each of them has been more welcome and more ingeniously located than the last. Save points in Silent Hill 3 take the form of a red circle with symbols inside it, and unlike the randomly placed typewriters of the Resident Evil series, each and every one fits in perfectly with its surroundings. The first save symbol, for example, appears to have been drawn on a washroom mirror with lipstick. Subsequent examples include versions of the same image on a TV screen, a wall, and a bedsheet.

We were only a few hours into Silent Hill 3 at the time of writing, and although the game's pace has been a bit pedestrian at times, we fully expect to get scared silly once we reach the hospital and haunted house locales that appear later in the game. The fact that you have to regularly access the item screen and any maps that you've obtained inevitably breaks up the tension so masterfully created by such details as the moans and groans of unseen monsters and the controller vibrating in your hand with Heather's heartbeat, but since Konami's only other option would have been to have had item selection, health indicators, and a map onscreen at all times, this is certainly the lesser of two evils. The loading screens that pop up whenever you enter a new area or room are also unfortunate, but they're certainly no more distracting than those used in previous Silent Hill and Resident Evil games.

Before you start playing Silent Hill 3 for the first time, you'll be presented with a warning stating that "some parts of this game might be considered violent or cruel." Based on what we've seen of the game so far, we feel obligated to also warn you that Silent Hill 3 might be considered addictive, occasionally frustrating, and so impressive graphically that while a part of you might want to hide your eyes behind a cushion during particularly gruesome scenes, you won't want to miss a minute of it. Expect more on the game in the coming months.