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Silent Hill 3 - Weltall - 5th August 2005
SILENT HILL 3 REVIEW
By Ryan
[bq]Silent Hill 3 is a direct continuation of the story we first saw in the first Silent Hill. Seventeen years have passed since Harry Mason traveled the hellish nightmares of the town and stopped the cult religion native to the region from calling forth its God.
Heather Morris is just your average seventeen-year old girl. Out one day at the mall to do a little shopping, she stops for a meal. Afterwards, she falls asleep, and begins to dream... a dream of a hellish place that resembles an amusement park. She finds herself packing several weapons, and looks at them incredulously, wondering why she has them in the first place. Seconds later, she finds she is not alone, and she finds why she has weapons... the place is crawling with terrible monsters that defy description and are all after her.
Awakening from her nightmare, she leaves the restaurant and calls her father. As she leaves, she is accosted by a shady man in a cheap hat and a trenchcoat, a man who calls himself Douglas Cartlandt, a detective with some information she might find useful. Wanting no part of it, she escapes the detective and begins to wander through the mall, but something's wrong. The place is deserted, so she thinks at first, until a gory mess leads her to a fashion boutique, and a face-to-face meeting with the monster from her dreams. Heather's nightmare is coming to life. [/bq]
Graphics: 10/10
[bq]The Silent Hill series has always been impressive graphically, but Silent Hill 3 may very well be tops among them, and most other games on the console to boot. For the first time, the entire game is displayed with realtime rendering, and the results are arguably as impressive as the FMV found in Silent Hill 2. The characters are exquisitely detailed, and the movements, especially in the face, are astounding in their realism. You could play the game without reading any text or hearing any dialogue, and just through the facial expressions alone, you can easily discern the emotions that a character is feeling onscreen. Monster design has taken a definite turn to the scary this time. Silent Hill 3's monsters are arguably the most freakish, imposing, and intimidating monsters in the series. Even the longtime veteran will jump when suddenly boxed in by a trio of Closers, seven-foot tall nasties with a long reach and a dangerous attack.
The environments are more detailed than SH2, and much more polished. You have the option of using the noise filter, but its use is no longer necessary to fully appreciate the graphics. Silent Hill 3 is definitely the bloodiest and goriest of the series, and the alternate Otherside versions of the locations you see are beautiful in their hideousness. In some places you will see neat effects like bleeding walls, and on higher difficulties, the environment will suddenly change into a gory, scabrous pulsating mess that does you some serious damage if you stop to admire it. One part in particular takes this to the extreme, where the decay is so malignant that you can barely tell you're in a human-built structure at all. Even the more normal enviroments are something to gawk at, full of detail despite always being cloaked in darkness.[/bq]
Sound: 9/10
[bq]The radio is a longtime holdover, and it makes an appearance in Heather's adventure as well, though it's not quite as useful as before. Most of the monsters make very distinct sounds, and unlike in past games, it's almost more frightening to just leave it off and rely on their noise. Most of the monsters are quite noticable, and some of them are just outright loud (pendulums). There are some audio moments though that are just fantastic, for instance, near the beginning of the game in the Mall, you run from a trio of Closers down a long, dark, bloody hall, and all around you hear the terrifying howl of the double-headed dogs and it freezes you solid, until you remember you have three vicious Closers at your back.
A new copy of Silent Hill 3 will include a free copy of the Official Sound Track, featuring twenty-five songs from througout the game. SH3's soundtrack is considerably more vocal than 1 and 2, but while there is a fair share of the creepy ambience the series is so well-known for, it's not quite as good as that of Silent Hill 2. The vocal tracks themselves are quite good, though admittedly, it took me awhile to grow to accept the idea.
The voice acting, though not surperb, is quite good, and the trend is improvement in the series. There are times when the writing slips and the dialogue just sounds unnatural, and times when the voice talent themselves just overdo it, but overall, it's a very passable effort, and very fitting. Heather's voice actress in particular, (Heather Morris, after whom the character was named) being forced to convey quite a bit of emotion, does a spectacular job. Three of the characters are part of the Order, and at times they really over-do the pious act. It's as much the writing, and it's integral to their characters', but near the end, Heather tells Claudia to "Shut [your] stinking mouth", and I couldn't help but echo the sentiment.[/bq]
Gameplay: 10/10
[bq]Silent Hill 3 is definitely the most action-oriented game of the series, with a far heavier emphasis on combat. Whereas Silent Hill 2 was basically a story about a man looking for his wife, full of interwoven complexities, Silent Hill 3 is quite a bit more straightforward in most aspects. There are many more monsters to get in your way, and they are considerably faster and more dangerous. Controls handle much the same as ever, with the Resident Evil tank-style movement in place, augmented by a poorly-implemented 2-D, Metal Gear Solid style control scheme. Heather wields many weapons familiar to Silent Hill veterans, such as the shotgun and steel pipe, with several that are anything but, many of them being unlockable. SH3 is also arguably the most difficult game in the series, especially when you consider that the difficulty levels go far beyond just Hard Mode. Defeating the game once opens Extreme difficulty, and each successive completion opens new levels of Extreme difficulty, all the way up to the nigh-impossible Extreme 10.
A long staple of Silent Hill gameplay is the puzzles, and like Silent Hill 2 before it, SH3 has selectable difficulty options regarding them. However, there is a far greater distinction in this game between easy and hard. Some of the puzzles and riddles on Hard Riddle Mode are fantastically difficult, requiring an almost insane amount of abstract thinking and stone cold logic. One puzzle in particular requires the player to have at least understanding of several William Shakespeare plays... and after you figure out which plays you need to know, the game throws in a numbers game in the same puzzle to further frustrate you. Another requires you to discern a four-number passcode by reading the macabre description of a person mutilating his lover's face. These, and more, are truly the riddler's joy, and if you can complete them without cheating, you ought to check in with your local MENSA chapter.
In addition to having to worry about your health, Silent Hill 3 adds additional stress in the form of a stamina rating. Almost any action you take depletes your stamina, be it running or using weaponry. Running out of stamina is hardly a good thing, for it decreases both the effectiveness of your combat and it slows your movement. It can be restored by standing still for awhile or by using health items. Speaking of items, the menu screen in this game is similar to the past two, but more streamlined. Instead of one enormous selection area for all items, they are now divided by event items, weapons, and supplies, making the task of finding a particular item much less of a hassle. [/bq]
Overall: 10/10
[bq]Silent Hill 3 is a very worthy addition to an incredible series, though this one is much better enjoyed after playing the first Silent Hill. It's quite a change after Silent Hill 2, but is a great game nonetheless, and in both gameplay and aesthetics, is one of the true gems of this console generation. An absolute must for fans of the genre. [/bq]
Silent Hill 3 - UltraMarioMan - 13th August 2005
Quote:These, and more, are truly the riddler's joy, and if you can complete them without cheating, you ought to check in with your local MENSA chapter.Crap!