Silent Hill 3 is not without its shortcomings, but its good qualities outweigh the bad, giving player another strong ent
+ Some of the most disturbing, yet amazing graphics seen on the PS2
+ Character expressions are very real
+ The story alone is worth the price of admission
+ Plenty of cool unlockables
+ Soundtrack is amazing
Cons
- The controls can feel somewhat clunky
- The voice acting can detract on certain scenes
- Very short
The Silent Hill series started out strong on the PlayStation and made its next-gen debut with the equally impressive Silent Hill 2. With such a pedigree, it is a good thing that Silent Hill 3 capitalizes on the series strengths and manages to rise above its predecessors with sharp visuals, an equally impressive soundtrack and well-thought, poignant psychological story.
Unlike Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3 is a direct sequel to the first game and requires players to be familiar with said game if they really want to grasp the events transpiring here. Still, players that go in with no prior experience will get an enjoyable adventure, though the many references to the first game might leave them a bit cold. It has been 17 years since Harry Mason, the hero of the original Silent Hill put an end to the events that where going on at the time in the eerie town and escaped with his infant daughter. Heather, now a college student wakes up to find herself lost in a creepy, bloody amusement park. Though she has no idea what is that is going on, the monsters populating the area soon convince her to take flight. She soon finds herself waking up in a small burger shop, apparently all being a dream. As Heather decides to leave the local mall and head home, she meets Douglas, a PI bent on getting her to meet his client. Soon after this encounter, the mall becomes just as disturbing as her previous dream and her descent into this decadent nightmare turns out to be more real than she thought.
The first thing fans will notice is that the game does not begin in the titular town. In fact, players will have to do a lot of exploring before even setting foot inside Silent Hill. Whether it be Silent Hill or not, fans will still feel at home, as the game plays exactly as the previous two in the series. That means that you’ll be traveling to some disturbing locales, avoiding all sort of monstrosities as you try to uncover what is going on. While this is just as compelling as it was in since the first game, the archaic controls have also found their way into this latest entry. They have been ironed a bit, but they are still more of a chore than compelling. This can be frustrating, as the game forces you to be a little more aggressive than in Silent Hill 2, where you could run away from most encounters. You can still do this, however, most of the environments in this game can be pretty claustrophobic and leaving many enemies behind can prove to be counter-productive in the long run. Thankfully, the arsenal of weapons have been increased a little bit as well, featuring such weapons as katanas, Uzis and some other good ones.
The game looks astonishing. Never has a horror game before Silent Hill 3 managed to bring such a heavy and downright disturbing atmosphere as this. The environments look amazing and have superb detail on them. More importantly, when the game makes the transition into the alternate reality, the walls pound with flesh, bleed in gushes and are extremely gruesome. The characters themselves are rich with detail an animate very well. Their facial expression are very human-like, bringing a lot of realism to a tale that certainly benefits from it. The biggest success in the visuals however, comes from the monsters themselves. They are as disturbing as they are imaginative. Never has a video game seen aberrations such as the ones you’ll encounter in this game. It makes them even more impressive that each and single one has the highest level of detail and attention possible on the PS2. What’s more, there are tons of them.
Sound is also a big winner here. As expected, Akira Yamaoka puts out yet another quality soundtrack that gives the already sinister world of Silent Hill 3 another coat of emotion. The voice acting, while not astounding, fits for the most part. The actress that plays Heather does a very believable job in most situations and is a good fit. The sound effects are just as good as the music, which adds life to the places you’ll visit, as well as the disturbing factor, courtesy of the deformed Silent Hill residents.
Silent Hill 3 is not without its shortcomings, but its good qualities outweigh the bad, giving player another strong entry in the series.