Silent Hill
Dark atmosphere, religious icons and symbolism, subtle references to the horror masters of various ages, Konami first entry into the survival horror genre proved to offer something different from the standards set by Resident Evil. Instead of jump out scares, Silent Hill relied on psychological terrors. Team Silent realized from the start that the more effective weapon to evoke a person’s worst fears is their own imagination. Monsters don’t have to be seen or actually show up as long as the game makes you think they’re there and could show up at any moment. Not to say that you spend the entire game not seeing a single monster, they definitely make their presence realized by assaulting you from the land and air.
I would try to describe these creatures but, there’s nothing really comparative about them. There are enemies that look like pterodactyls (spelled that correctly on the first try!), some that look and move like gorillas, enemies that look and move like dogs and some that resemble little kids (more on these later). All have a skin-like appearance, very red or peach. Some enemies in the later stages are almost completely invisible.
The levels deserve a special mention because they are well-chosen. Middle school, hospital, sewers, abandoned amusement park; these are all examples of settings we are familiar with as human beings, but not when they’re presented deserted and transformed. This is a clear example of taking the familiar and making it strange, which is a common tactic in the horror genre, but is always effective.
The middle school is one of the first levels and has an enemy population that is made up of tiny enemies that resemble middle school students with butcher knives. That’s really unnerving to think about, running around a middle school trying to keep these things from killing you. They lumber around, making little squeaking noise and lunge at you.
Something that has been tradition in the series is a hospital level. The nurses in these levels have probably become the second most famous enemy from this series (pyramid head being the first) mostly from their Silent Hill 2 counterparts being overly sexualized. Not so here. You’ll find a mixture of nurses and doctors in this hospital as they all are hunched over with what looks like a tumor growth on their back. A nice touch which was probably lost in the American demographic is the inclusion of a fourth floor. In Japan, there is a superstition surround the fourth floor in hospitals (so much so that I think they intentionally always stop at 3 floors) since the word ‘fourth’ in Japan is pronounce the same way as ‘death’. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a fourth floor in the hospital in Silent Hill. It doesn’t show up right away, you have to select the other floors and see that there’s no way to progress through the game before the fourth floor elevator button shows up. It’s a nice, subtle touch.
Speaking of subtly, this game plays host to a lot of horror movie references. Everything from Rosemary’s Baby to the Little Shop of Horrors has at least one instance of being honored by this game: whether it be the street names or little Easter Eggs. The only famous horror movie I didn’t find a reference for was the Exorcist. Or maybe the idea of a possessed little girl was the reference, but even then, I think that’s more akin to Rosemary’s Baby since it was a cult that drove the evil into the girl, not the evil itself.
Harry Mason, your main character, controls like rhino on roller skates. Many times I’ve resorted to yelling profanely at my television screen in some vain attempt to maneuver him away from smacking into a wall and get the heck away from all the enemies. Mixing in all those enemies, controlling Harry, dark areas and some nice lag can make you forget all about being scared and confront being overly annoyed.
The plot will definitely take you a few times through to comprehend, mostly because nothing is spelled out for you, but in a good way. Having elements being explained how removes any sense of uncertainty and mystery. Once you put logic or reason to something, it ceases to be scary or interesting. So I consider it a good choice for Konami to leave players in the dark (pun definitely intended). Depending on your actions during the game, you can achieve one of five different endings, most of which just determine what final boss you meet and the final scene, but there’s not a lot of contrast, except for one of the endings, which was probably intended as a joke, but makes just as much sense as the rest of them. All you need to know is this town is more than your average tourist getaway.
Silent Hill 2
This game is what story-telling is all about. The characters, the story, the atmosphere, all are excellent. James Sunderland receives a letter from his deceased wife from a town they spent a lot of their time in, Silent Hill. But this isn’t the same Silent Hill that Harry Mason ran around in. No, this is a more subtle Silent Hill. The whole town is coated in a thick layer of fog. This creates the atmosphere of uncertainty. Every noise you hear is not immediately accompanied by a source. It leaves you wondering what’s out there and let’s your imagination create the terrors. That’s not to say the game is one big tease, you see monsters. But these monsters aren’t zombies or dinosaurs or some genetically mutated abomination, these monsters are the most well-designed monsters in gaming. Every single one of them is symbolic to your character’s troubled mind.
I’ll start off with the executioner himself (or rather themselves since there’s two), Pyramid Head. Not all of his appearances are out to antagonize you. He’s meant to symbolize oppression and judgment. In the past, the executioners put to death those who were convicted as witches. There are some heavy, sexual overtones in the game which mostly make you feel really uncomfortable. Some encounters he’s chasing you around with the biggest meat clever in the world, it grinding slowly against the ground as he pursues you, some encounters he’s violating one of the other enemies in the game. Even the other enemies don’t feel completely natural. They’re more like mannequins. And of course there are the sexy nurses with the cleavage. I’ll make a note to point out this is the ONLY instance in the Silent Hill series where they’ve been appropriate.
You start to get the feeling that James is creating all these terrors himself during his plight to find his dead wife. Along the way you run into 4 different characters. All of which see either slightly off or are not exactly experiencing the same town you are. You have the little girl, Laura who acts like the town is just simply deserted, Eddie, who is first met throwing up in a bathroom next to a room where someone has been murdered, Angela is always tensed up and submissive, almost childlike and Maria could be your dead wife’s twin as far as looks go. Maria deserves special mention because of how she plays opposite James, even having to be escorted for a short time. James is clearly attracted to her, but still has the strong desire to find his wife. Maria seems to enjoy teasing him around and really wants him to abandon his quest and just stay with her. And thank god, this is one love interest that doesn’t feel shoe-horned into the plot for the sake of padding. There’s a reason Maria is in this story, and it’s a dang-good one.
The graphics are splendid. Sure there might be some long stretches where nothing happens, and the game chugs a bit during the foggier areas, but it’s all about atmosphere. It’s all about the isolation. You feel alone. There’s no security or means to confine within in this town (unless you count Maria’s supple… support). All of which is perfectly accented by Akira Yamaoka mastery of the effects of sound and ambient noise. Everything just fits so well into making you believe this story is really happening, and you’re a part of it.
The combat is clunky, but this is another good example of your character being an average person and not Rambo. Although a normal person should still be able to swing around a nail-board without smacking themselves in the face, which James might have trouble with.
Silent Hill 3
I’m a little confused by Silent Hill 3. Instead of having a person wander into Silent Hill searching for someone, the town actually comes to the character first. Heather is your normal teenage girl who is stereotypically found in a mall. Suddenly the world changes from the casual atmosphere of shoppers to the degraded, rustic look of Silent Hill’s nightmare world. This raises a few questions. How far is the town willing to go to get to someone? Can the town actually stretch its influence beyond its own borders and infect the rest of the world? None of these issues are addressed, which is good, but I wish they could’ve expanded on this a little more.
Silent Hill 3 is a direct sequel to Silent Hill 1, which leaves Silent Hill 2 to take place in its own little dimension. It’s interesting though, because when Heather finally makes it to Silent Hill, it’s the town found in Silent Hill 2. This is probably because the town itself is rather huge, and Silent Hill 1 merely took place in one part, whereas Silent Hill 2 was located in an adjacent location. As far as story goes, this game doesn’t do much to expand upon the legend of the town, but more of some of the characters and events that happened within it. It throws characters related to people from the first game as well as all new psychos like Leonard. All of which helps layer on the fact that this town brings out the evil nature in peoples’ souls.
There are some neat scare-tactics in this game, a haunted house, a room designed specifically to get yourself locked in, some of the same areas from the 2nd game that have transformed. All of which are rendered beautifully. Silent Hill 2’s graphics were something to behold, and Silent Hill 3 somehow improved on them.
Combat was refined a little more. You got more of a weapon selection, like a submachine gun and a light saber which only provides more awkwardness in a game that’s already unsettling enough.
There is one event near the end of the game that’s really disturbing. It happens between Claudia and Heather but I care not to describe it. I’ve never seen it in any form of media, movie or book alike, and it shocked me.
The levels in this game, abandoned amusement parks, your standard hospital level, sewers… basically all the levels you’ve seen in the other games are gone over with a few being completely original areas, mostly found in the last part of the game. Ultimately, the game serves to give some closure to Silent Hill 1, as if to point out which ending event was the true one. It’s almost an unnecessary game, but they improved on the formula enough to justify the release.
Silent Hill 4: The Room
The Room’s biggest accomplishment is making the player suffer one of the worst inventory systems ever conceived. You have a limited number of items you can carry around, but you also need to lug around a lot of items for puzzle solving. Did any designer think that one all the way through? Another layer of stupidity is slathered on when the game introduces limited stacking ammo. Sounds dumb? That’s because it is. Mix that in with the inventory system and you have the most horrifying part of the game. So yeah, some idiot game designer decided that ammo will only stack up to a certain number, let’s say… 12 bullets per stack. So now you’re lugging around all those stacks of ammo, your collection of puzzle trinkets and a whole lot of contempt for this game.
One of the strangest things about this game (and that’s saying a lot) is that you never actually go to Silent Hill. You go through 4 levels with your apartment room acting as a hub for them all. The game sucker punches you in the face by making you go through each level twice, once when its ‘normal’ and again when it’s in ‘nightmare’ mode (as if this game wasn’t already in nightmare mode). And to make sure the nightmare levels are extra nightmare-ish, you have to escort around a female character, and not let her die. Basically it’s this part of the game that determines what ending you get. It wouldn’t be so bad to drag her around if the unbeatable phantoms wouldn’t show up. They cannot be killed, but they can be restrained with some special items, but they are annoying.
Combat received another upgrade with the addition of a charged attack, which is what you get when you hold down the attack button and release. It’s actually worth it to use sometimes, especially when trying to defeat the final boss. And I do have to mention the final boss because, for once, it’s not some spirit or demon that you fight, it’s a human being. I find this to be a more believable and more effective which makes for a more meaningful encounter.
The subtle of this game is The Room because you’re main character, Henry Townshend, cannot leave his apartment due to it being mysteriously chained and bound at the door. He can yell and scream all he wants, but there is no way to get out except by travelling through the hole in your bathroom to get to the game’s levels. Over the course of the game, your room will slowly be possessed by ghosts, which you have to ward off with various items, like candles. It’s a nice touch considering the first half the game lets you believe that this is a haven for you.
The game does a good job with atmosphere and characters once again, but the gameplay is just not there. It’s still worth looking at, considering I managed to buy it for $10 new when it was close to being first released, so I’d imagine it’s even cheaper now. One thing that people might notice is a lack of boss battles. It didn’t strike me until I fought the first one, which is near the end of the game, but I never imagined a game without boss battles. It’s weird to think about considering they’ve been such an integrated part of gaming for the last 25 years. It just shows the creators had enough sense to not force anything into the game that wasn’t necessary; they just made some bad decisions along the way.
Silent Hill Origins
This was the only Climax Studios Silent Hill game I played, since then they’ve release Silent Hill 5: Homecoming and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Basically Team Silent (the Japanese dev team) decided Silent Hill had gone on long enough, but Konami decided a western developer should get a crack at it, which usually spells trouble for any series. And like Americans tend to do, they messed it up. Gone are the great characters and great story lines and what’s left is merely an imitation of what the series formally was. In Origins you play a truck driver who had no business being in the town in the first place, but soon realizes he too has a troubled past which he needs to work out. The problem is: the game / the town / the enemies / the story weren’t really built around this. There are hints here and there with the levels and some notes you find, but the enemy designed don’t reflect what I would consider a personalized hell for him. It’s actually brought up really late in the game what events took place that were so bad, but it was never a part of the over-arching story. In Silent Hill 2, you were constantly looking for clues where or how your wife wrote you a letter. In this game, you’re just kind of wandering around like an idiot instead of running out of the town and never coming back. Nothing is really solved by him coming to the town.
The combat takes a turn for the worse by including weapon degradation, but you can pick up a new weapon at almost every turn. The idea is, instead of a few weapons that can be used many times, you get a bunch of weapons that can only be used once or twice. I’m not really sure what they were thinking with this. Maybe frantically throwing stuff at enemies is supposed to make combat more of a desperate struggle, but I just kept thinking of how your main character could hold all those items.
As far as levels go, there’s nothing special. I think I liked the theater the best because it seemed creative how you managed to get to the boss area by way of the stage. Other than that, there’s nothing special. You go to a mental hospital which has a connection to you, yadda yadda yadda. Move on already.
My biggest complaint is the developers never took the time to understand what made the series great. They figured they could copy success by copying the game, but there’s more to it than that. Silent Hill from 1 through 4 were all smart games (well maybe not 1 and 3 with the amount of doofus cult-driven characters that run around) that all did one thing very well. Whether it is the story, the atmosphere or always the soundtrack, it was something that kept you playing. Silent Hill Origins does nothing well enough to warrant its existence. Being a prequel game almost means nothing. You see some characters from the first game, but they’re completely useless and only stay around as far as the opening.
Despite the newer games, this is my favorite survival horror series. There’s just so much to chew on with these games (1 through 4). They really put some effort into making them consistent yet different.
No comments:
Post a Comment