[Infernal Mass]

check it out, i know it's like 2 weeks old but..oh and i'm gonna start a new game of Silent hill 1 tonight in preperations for the new game.

Silent Hill 3: Spoiler-Free Post-Game Impressions
Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 by AndrewV
First: having completed the game, I would recommend that folks planning to pick up Silent Hill 3 in a few weeks go replay Silent Hill 1 right now. I really, really recommend series fans replay Silent Hill 1 before Silent Hill 3. Really! If you don't have the time, then at the very least check out President Evil's informative, spoiler-free plot FAQ. But if you've been meaning to replay Silent Hill 1 for a while and haven't gotten around to it yet, now is the time. Ahem. Having Silent Hill 2 save data on your memory card opens up a few in-jokes and easter eggs, but there are no real narrative hooks to the second game.

Overall, the game is stupendous. You play a Silent Hill game for one reason: to be scared out of your wits, and Silent Hill 3 is perhaps the most frightening yet. I say perhaps, because it's a different kind of terror than the first two games. The first game had an austere purity to its scares, with little of the narrative or reasoning directly explained. It was based on the unexplained lurking horror of Lovecraftian renown. The second game upped the stakes significantly with the addition of a strong personal, psychological element. The scariest thing in Silent Hill 2 wasn't the town itself, but the people in it. The third game combines the tone and feel of the first game with the stronger emotional intensity of the second.

But even then, it's slightly different. A thoughtful British soul at GameFAQs has transcribed the informative commentary (NOTE: the file is SPOILER FILLED, please do not read it if you haven't finished the game!) from a Making Of DVD. This spoiler-free quote from the developers does as good a job of summarizing the differences between the two games as any:

"The feeling of fear prevailing in Silent Hill 3 differs from that of Silent Hill 2. In Silent Hill 2 we tried to create a sense of fear sustained by silence. That silence lying within each individual which is progressively transformed into anxiety. It was a kind of fear that built up little by little. Gradually it escalated into horror. For Silent Hill 3, a different approach was used. We wanted to create a more violent, direct feeling of fear. Something shocking, to contrast with the atmosphere in the previous title."

Don't worry: the game hasn't devolved into cheap monster-jumps-through-window style gimmicks, a la Resident Evil. It's a more subtle "shocking" and "directness" than that. In fact, in execution, the game is fairly identical to the first two titles. The horror still builds and unfolds slowly, but the cumulative effect is slightly different. The difference is in the emotional goals of the two games. In Silent Hill 2, the player's feelings build towards a dull dumbness of fear ... the "silence" mentioned by the developers. The player is literally too scared to move or continue on to the next room. It cultivates a fear of action, leaving the player helpless and uncertain of what to do. In his fright, he wishes to do nothing. In contrast, the pieces of Silent Hill 3 build slowly towards a sort of incoherent panic. The tension rises bit by bit, threatening to boil over, leading the player towards a point where he or she snaps and goes on a blind, unthinking rampage of running and shooting in cathartic self-defense. Silent Hill 3 cultivates a fear of inaction; the game's scenarios push the player towards a violent, panicky response.

Much of this increased "violent, direct feeling of fear" comes from the stunning graphics. Silent Hill 3 doesn't have the most technically impressive or artistically inspired graphics I've ever seen; I could think of a number of games that outshine it on both counts. What it does have is the most effective graphics I've ever seen in a game. Everything about the graphics engine is laser-focused towards scaring the living shit out of the player. And it works really, really, really well. Silent Hill 3 has a number of cool, never-before-seen graphical effects designed especially to scare the living shit out of the player. A number of these effects don't start showing up until near the midpoint of the game. I'd recommend staying away from reviews, even "spoiler-free" ones, once the game is out -- these special graphical effects, though not plot-related at all, will still have their impact lessened if you know they're coming. The music and sound design is up to the series' usual impeccable standards. Silent Hill 3 adds a number of vocal tracks, and they fit into the extant soundscape nicely.

The one disappointing point about the game for me -- and it's a fairly major one, unfortunately -- is the story. I vastly preferred the intense, personal psychological horror of Silent Hill 2. That game also had an absolutely classic endgame scenario that has yet to be equalled for pure, abject terror. The plot of the third game is fine enough ... I just felt that Silent Hill 2 was a major leap in a great new direction for horror titles, and Silent Hill 3 is a shaky step back towards the expected.

But it's clear enough from the differences that the designers weren't just hoping to remake Silent Hill 2 with a new story, and the game succeeds well enough on its own merits that it really doesn't make sense to compare the two games directly. They're different games with different goals, and the story of Silent Hill 3 is aiming for a different sort of fear. The title is still packed to the gills with horrific monsters and locations, special terrifying set pieces, and creepy narrative twists. What's not to love?

Overall, personal preferences mean that Silent Hill 2 is still my favorite game in the series, but Silent Hill 3 is still a fantastic addition, absolutely worth playing and replaying (there are a ton of secret endings, weapons, and costumes). Well worth discussing, too -- I look forward to hashing out What It All Means with my U.S. friends in a few weeks when it finally arrives in America.