Silent Hill 3
As a teenage girl named Heather, players must explore and unravel the mysterious connection between the god-forsaken town, her past, and her inner fears. With enhanced graphics detail, a more complex storyline, and even more grotesque monsters than the previous games, Silent Hill 3 promises to be the best horror adventure ever.Silent Hill 3 continues the series’ trademark brand of psychological horror and terrifying gameplay. As a teenage girl named Heather, players must explore and unravel the mysterious connection between the god-forsaken town and her inner fears. The game features enhanced graphical detail, a more complex storyline, and even more grotesque monsters than the previous games.
Rating:  List Price: $ 19.99 Price: $ 110.00 |
(out of 165 reviews)
Review by M. Errington for Silent Hill 3
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I notice a lot of people have already reviewed & rated this game despite having not actually played it yet. I do own it (i live in the U.K. where it was released on May 23rd) & it’s excellent. It’s extremely similar to the 2nd game in terms of graphics & gameplay, which is a good thing as the 2nd game was extremely well done, & is one of the only truly scary videogames i’ve ever played. Part 3 lives up to this as well, offering a similar experience to the 2nd game, only with brand new characters, storyline & puzzles. A mention must go to the graphics. Like the previous game, they’re excellent, with some brilliantly atmospheric lighting & shadow effects, which really help to suck you into the game. It contains some pretty gruesome images & the soundtack is designed to really amp up the tension. If you compare Resident Evil to a George Romero zombie flick then this can only be compared to something Clive Barker would have come up with. To sum it up, if you’re a fan of the series, you’ll love this, if you didn’t like the first 2 games, then you won’t like this one either. If you’ve never played a Silent Hill game, give this one a try, it’s well worth it.
Review by D. K. Malone for Silent Hill 3
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I’ve been playing the Japanese import for a couple of weeks:
First, the bad news.
- SH3 is short. Shorter than SH1 and SH2, at any rate. Both SH1 and 2 took me almost exactly 10 hours to complete my first time, according to the internal game clocks. SH3 took me 5 hours and 52 minutes. (Some have said that this is because SH3′s internal game clock behaves differently, pausing at any time a cinema plays or the menu is opened. This is true of SH3. However, after personally testing the games myself, I have found that it’s true of SH2 as well. SH3 is simply a shorter game.)
- SH3 is constrictive. You’re never really set free to explore a huge deserted town as in the previous two games. For most of the game you go from one enclosed location to another. The mall leads to the subway, which leads to the sewers, which leads to an office building, etc. When you finally do get out in the open, if you try to wander away from your goal and explore the town, your character will automatically stop and turn around and say “I don’t need to go this way.” This is really lazy design. Having the freedom to explore the empty town until you hit a physical road block of some kind was a hallmark of the previous SH games. Not so in this installment. Disappointing. This is surely the primary reason behind SH3 having a shorter play time. I definitely spent a few hours in SH1 and 2 exploring all of the streets and back alleys, checking every dead end for ammo and health items.
Now, the good news.
+ SH3 is scary. REALLY scary. I thought SH2 was quite mellow compared to SH1, more of a slow burn with a growing sense of dread rather than the aggressively oppressive atmosphere of the first game that got right in your face from the very beginning. SH3 returns to the original’s oppressive style and ups the ante a notch or two.
+ Fans of SH1 who were disappointed that SH2 had no direct connection to it will be pleased to know that SH1 and SH3 are very closely connected.
+ Bosses are back, after a hiatus of sorts in SH2.
+ (or – ?) SH3 is the most challenging SH yet. Monsters are aggressive and harder to kill. Ammo is very scarce. You’ll want to rely on melee weapons usually and save ammo for bosses.
+ Lots of different monster types. Lots of weapons. Lots of unlockable bonuses. Lots of replay value.
If you can get past the short length and constrictive nature, it’s a great and worthy addition to the Silent Hill series.
Review by Anthony J Sasso for Silent Hill 3
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Silent Hill 3 manages to be brilliant, horrifying, and somewhat of a let-down all at the same time. This is kind of hard to put into words… I have been hooked on and in love with Silent Hill since the instant I layed my eyes on the first game’s preview as it played on a TV in Gamer’s Paradise so many years ago. The overwhelming nostalgia and sense of eerie contentment that I experience while playing these games are beautiful and unequaled in their glory. Silent Hill 3 – even with breath-taking graphics and brooding dread extremely prevalent – left me wishing it turned out better. This game is basically a graphical redux of SH2 with a storyline that progresses where the original SH left off. The gameplay is also a bit more linear than SH 1 and 2. Not as much exploring to be done. Which is a damn shame, really. Just more monster killing and puzzle solving. – Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great game… it just doesn’t really add any major boons or benchmarks to the series’ overall marvel. – Not really breaking any barriers, so to speak. Che Disgrazia! ** It is a game worth buying, though. It IS Silent Hill and it is well worth the replay time. Loose strings from the first game are finally tied off, and we get to see our dear Silent Hill play host to a whole new batch of wicked abominations. Disturbing imagery is not in scarce supply, and the enhanced, built-in surround sound toys with your mind and raises those little hairs on your neck. Once again this is a game that has to be played in the dark with the TV volume cranked. It’s the only way to enjoy the full sense of terror and chaos that the game is trying to provoke. That being said, I must attempt to close. – Silent Hill 3 is worth the cash. If you’re a newcomer to the series this game will blow you away, because, after all, it’s creepy as hell. But if you’ve played through the first two releases and are hoping for a major leap, prepare to be a little dissapointed. Scared… but a little dissapointed.
Review by Acid Jane for Silent Hill 3
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I had just beaten Silent Hill 2 when I found out they were going to release SH3. I was beyond excited. This game has got to be the strangest and most imaginative thing I’ve ever played. It’s not as creepy as SH2, but what it lacks in creepiness it makes up for in weirdness.
I can’t even begin to recall what was going on, there are so many instances where I was blown away by how eclectic the concepts were that I was proud of the creative team that put it together. The mirror room alone would be enough to make me buy this game. I mean really, what in the hell? I was just running along, minding my own business and I step into that! Many times during game play did I have to sit back a reflect on what had just happened. Quite impressive. I loved the random rooms that had nothing to do with anything except to just creep you out and leave you asking yourself “what the hell?” Like the room with the strange “sour” smell wafting around and the black curtain in the middle. Nothing ever happened there, they just wanted to let you know that something was expired I guess.
The whole game was just alive. It had a pulse for god’s sake. The walls seemed to be breathing and looking at you as you wondered around looking for the room with the guy with his blood let so that you could fill up your plastic bag with his blood to make a sacrifice and move on. Simple as pie! Everything was just so ridiculously weird like that. Fer god’s sake! And while your nearing the end everything just gets out of control and the trippy, symmetric wall shows begin. I mean really, could the atmosphere of this game get any more absolutely insane? There are so many worth while situations to mention: the carosal with all the bloody horses; the fairy tale monster; the countless bottomless pits everywhere; the haunted mansion; the friggin’ wheel chair scene; the subway; the amusement park… it was all very interesting, believe me.
The sound was great, fantastic even. Definitely responsible for all the tension in the game. Graphics were great too, of course there was a lot going on with them. I’ve never seen so much detail put into a game. The only big downfall was the superbly crappy ending. Seriously disappointing. I think that they must have so much going on that they just don’t know how to end these games. SH2 was in about the same boat. I haven’t gone back yet to replay it for some different endings, but the one I got was pretty sad. But it was worth it, I look forward to playing it over again. They’ve started on SH4: The Room and it looks like it’s going to be excellent. I haven’t been let down yet.
Review by Felixpath for Silent Hill 3
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First I played Silent Hill 2, and it was one of the best gaming experiences I’d ever had — so I rushed out and bought Silent Hill 3. Now that I’ve finished it, my final verdict is: Very good, but somewhat lacking. The third installment in Konami’s groundbreaking survival horror series has better graphics, more monsters, a more coherent storyline, a better combat system, and more interesting environments — and yet, it doesn’t quite live up to the overall experience.
The thing is, Silent Hill 2 took a break from the mythology-laced storyline of the first game and went off in a totally different, Freudian direction. I found this change to be bold and fascinating. Silent Hill 3 gets back on track; our protagonist is Heather, a cheerful girl with strangely haunted eyes. She’s at the mall on an errand for her father and everything seems normal — except for her nightmare about being killed by a speeding roller coaster in a dark, twisted amusement park. Heather’s day goes downhill from there; a detective named Douglas starts following her, claiming to have important information about her birth. She gives him the slip….but suddenly, the lights dim and the bustling mall falls eerily quiet. Where did everyone go? And why is the mall now crawling with horrifying monsters?
Here we see one of the game’s biggest problems: considering that it’s a Silent Hill game, it takes a awfully long time to actually get to the town of Silent Hill. The first half of the game chronicles Heather’s attempts to make it home and evade the creeping nightmare world that follows her everywhere she goes. In the process, she starts to come to grips with the truth about who she really is. The religious cult that inhabits Silent Hill wants Heather for reasons I will not reveal, and two cult members — the zealous Claudia and the enterprising Vincent — are both trying to manipulate her for their own ends. The game’s “shocking twist” is one that anyone familiar with the Silent Hill mythos will see coming a mile away. Still, the storyline is one of the game’s strongest features, fleshing out Silent Hill’s history and creating a complex and likable heroine.
It’s in the technical details that Silent Hill 3 doesn’t fully succeed. First, the game is too short and too linear. I finished it in just over six hours, which was disappointing. In Silent Hill 2, I loved being able to explore the town. In this game, as previously noted, it’s a long time before the action shifts to the town itself. When it did, I was briefly ecstatic (The fog! That creepy metallic throb on the soundtrack!), but my enthusiasm faded once I discovered that you can only explore a small corner of town; the rest is blocked off. The other environments (which include the familiar Brookhaven hospital) are similarly limited. When you finally visit the creepy amusement park from Heather’s dream, the game designers waste the opportunity to give you a large, rich environment to explore — you don’t even get a map, that’s how linear it is. Aren’t these games supposed to have endless replay value? The only reason to replay Silent Hill 3 is for the usual unlockable items and secrets. (Which, I hear, include a “Sailor Moon” outfit for Heather….please, say it ain’t so…)
Overall, I think this game tries too hard to be bigger and better. Yeah, the graphics look great — the “dark” areas are a nightmare of bloodstained walls, rusted metal, and ghastly forms squirming behind oily steel grilles, and one room in Brookhaven hospital provides one of the freakiest moments in the entire series (it involves a large mirror and an oozing bathtub). However, I found that the slick graphics lessened the atmosphere of horror; the muted look of Silent Hill 2 was far more sinister. There’s a whole rogue’s gallery of monsters to fight, but the creature designs, while disturbing, aren’t really scary. The infamous Nurses have been given a disappointing makeover; now they just look like ordinary women having a particularly bad day, and the fact that some of them wield pistols only makes them more annoying to fight. Speaking of fighting, the combat system has gotten a major upgrade; Heather can even wield a weapon in various ways. I don’t buy it; Heather’s mad butt-kicking skills and the unlikely selection of weapons she finds seems a little too Hollywood. (A submachine gun is one thing, but a katana?!) Both the action and the soundtrack are dialed up several notches, and that’s bad. Once again, Heather gets a handy radio that crackles with static when monsters are near, but Silent hill 3′s beasties make such a racket that the radio is almost redundant. The best analogy I can think of is that Silent Hill 2 feels like a quiet little indie film, while Silent Hill 3 is like an attempt to remake the indie film as a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster.
I’m not saying that Silent Hill 3 is bad — far from it. The graphics are very impressive and vivid. The plot is nicely structured and will satisfy anyone who enjoyed the first game. The voice acting is better too, although it’s anyone’s guess why a native of Silent Hill would speak with a British accent. The puzzles are fun as ever. A happy(ish) ending is easy to achieve, and easter egg hounds will be pleased to know that this game, like the first two, has a UFO ending. Yes, Silent Hill 3 is a worthy entry into a standout series and many people will consider it the best of the lot. I just think that it tries too hard to be scary, when the previous games proved that less is more. Silent Hill 2 was a bold and visceral tale of terror, but with this follow-up, it seems like the creators have lost touch with their nightmares.