Welcome to the town of Silent Hill, the trip will be so pleasant you will never want to leave... or may not...
Story: 8/10
The story of SH3 is very complex and character intensive, in other words SH3 is a direct sequel to Konamis first and very scary title Silent Hill for the Playstation back than in 1999. However it is not connected to SH2 and only a few parts in the game connect to some events from SH2 but lets talk about the real story shall we ? Its about a girl named Heather Morris who happens to wake up from some nightmarish dream only to find herself into some desolated shopping mall with monsters crawling everywhere. She decides to find out the truth weather its all only a delusion or bitter reality. On her way she meets with Douglas a private detective who investigates her, a woman named Claudia who happens to be the leader of a mysterious occult group and a priest named Vincent who tries to convince Heather that he is on her side. The main question remains... what is waiting for Heather in the town of Silent Hill and what exactly are Heathers origins ? Well give it a try and find it out for yourself...
Gameplay: 6/10
This is where things are really getting nightmarish indeed :)) in other words the gameplay and the fightsystem are lame but thats okay as it was in the previous SH titles as well. You play Heather in third person throughout the whole game and you have to equip guns and melee weapons in order to get rid of the enemies and bosses. Again, the gameplay isn't really that good but this game isn't about gameplay trust me, its all about disturbing impressions and atmosphere. 6/10
Controls: Oh boy... as we are talking about the PC port of SH3 originally released for the Playstation 2, I have to mention that "you will need" a USB gamepad in order to enjoy SH3 on the PC. After using a Gamepad you will be okay as there aren't that much buttons to press throughout the game and also you are given some camera view help which helps a lot in cornered situations for example.
Graphic: 8/10
This is where this PC port of SH3 can earn high points :) I was very pleased with the ingame graphic and the character details. Actually the character details were the best I saw so far in some game, also there is this cool grain effect which gives SH3 a flare of some old horror movie. You can deactivate that effect from the beginning of the game if you like to as well. Also the shadow effects and the ingame details are just awesome.
Sound: 8/10
The sound of SH3 oh well.. Let me mention that SH3 brings his own Soundtrack along and the ingame music is just perfect you will come across many hellish situations where you hear crying, footsteps, whispering and so on, all in one this game would be half as scary if it weren't for the great sound effects.
My Review:
Okay ladies and gents, lets get to the core section of this hell of a game :) ! You start off as Heather Morris a seventeen years old girl who happens to be in a strange and horrible looking amusement park called the lakeside amusement park and by horrible I mean it looks like everyone is gone, there is no light not even the slightest voice and everywhere are stuffed animals around stained with blood. So as Heather tries to make her way through this hellish amusement park she eventually wakes up in a dinner and realizes it was all just a bad dream... or was it not ? We will see soon enough.
As the story evolves she will find herself in a shopping mall and she runs across a private detective called Douglas who was apparently hired by someone to look after her, soon after that, things are going to get really crazy and eerie bizarre. The shopping mall is all of a sudden plain empty, there are terrible voices and screaming everywhere and it seems that strange creatures have invaded the whole complex. In order to make it out alive Heather realizes that she has to fight this nightmarish and bizarre creatures in order to unlock the secret behind their appearance also she must solve a bunch of riddles she encounters. Eventually she runs across some very strange and mysterious woman called Claudia on her way out of the shopping mall who claims that Heather is the chosen one to give birth to god. So far so good.
As we are filled in the story through very cool and character detailed movies we learn about Heathers background and ultimately her connection to the town called Silent Hill, or "the root of all evil" thats what I would call it. It seems Heather is not actually the person who she thinks she is and also Claudia is trying to lure her to Silent Hill in order to awaken god and bring peace on earth. I wont tell much more because SH3 is really, really 90% story intensive and it would take the fun out of the whole game revealing more details at this point.
I strongly recommend playing the original Silent Hill game for the Playstation because as I mentioned before, this game is a direct sequel to Silent Hill and plays exactly 17 years after the terrible events from the first Silent Hill, also you won't understand some things in the game if you don't know the background story of SH. As I played from beginning to end I must say that this game is pretty short. I was able to beat it in under 6 hours on my first try and I am not even kidding. This game packs a lot of terror and disturbing images and this is what Silent Hill 3 is all about.
Running through a shopping mall, some underground subway, a desolated office building, the infamous and most scary Silent Hill hospital and finally the abandoned church at the very end of Silent Hill. I tell you, these locations will scare the hell out of you if you are complete new to the Silent Hill games, especially when you are lost in the dark and there are critters around the corner. All in one the whole idea of making a game which leads the player in confusion and wondering, is just great. You will come across many scenes in the game where you really want to turn the game just off but than you are intrigued, that you want to see whats coming next. The story is great, the characters as well just the fighting system and the very short length of this truly devilish game are to mention as Pro and Contra.
Final Words:
If you really like horror action adventures like for example Resident Evil, Alone in the Dark or the previous two Silent Hill games you definitely have to give Silent Hill 3 a try because you will just enjoy the creepy atmosphere and shock moments this great game will deliver to you. Despite its rather simple and not comfortable fighting system you will learn soon enough that this game is rather for the scary and dark ambient only and definitely not for the faint of heart, therefore I give this truly awesome game a solid 8 out of 10, cheers :D
Endrating: 8/10