Who is the Man with the Name that Rhymes ?If the name don't rhyme it ain't mine.

When Silent Hill 3 was first released, even though I was a huge fan of the first two games, I didn’t buy it. I was concerned that Konami was turning Silent Hill into what Resident Evil had become. Perhaps I should to clarify what I mean.

Back in 1996 CAPCOM released Resident Evil. Self dubbed as a “survival horror” game, it could be called an interactive horror movie. The game played out in static 3rd person perspectives that gave it a cinematic feel to it. The actual gameplay was a bit clunky thanks to awkward camera angles and presumably intentional sluggish character controls but it added to the element of fear. You ever had a nightmare where you’re trying to run away from something frightful but you moved slow as hell? That’s the same feeling the game gave you when you tried to run away from enemies. It was that heart pounding feeling combined with other elements taken from horror movies that made Resident Evil a great game.

If you’re at all familiar with CAPCOM’s track record, you’ll know that any of their very popular titles immediately gets followed up with a deluge of sequels. As such, the world got more RE titles than you can shake a zombie at. While normally game sequels are just as good, if not better than their predecessors, Resident Evil didn’t fare as well. The problem is with each successive game the horror effect progressively became less. The last Resident Evil game I played was Resident Evil 0. It was terrible. With the horror effect pretty much gone, the only horror I survived was the sluggish and boring gameplay.

Let’s move back to 1999, about the time when Resident Evil started to feel a bit stale to me. Konami released a survival horror game that pushed the genre further, Silent Hill. Resident Evil used as its movie template zombie/virus/b-horror movies. When done right zombies still can be scary; the problem is that at some point they become so cliché that they lose every thing made them scary. Silent Hill on the other hand used a more diverse selection of movies for its template.

The result was a survival horror game that was more of a psychological horror than Resident Evil knew: Resident Evil used the prototypical haunted mansion; Silent Hill used an eerily peaceful city that had dark nightmarish other side to it; Resident Evil used zombies and number of large animals as its enemies; Silent Hill used horrific creatures which were impossible to compare with anything in the real world. In short, if Resident Evil was a movie like “Dawn of the Dead” then Silent Hill would be something like “The Ring.” To sum it up, Silent Hill took all the good elements Resident Evil but added a much darker and terrifying world.

So to come back to the original concern I first proposed, I’ll answer the question: Has Silent Hill lost its effect after being watered down with sequels? The answer isn’t clear cut as I would like. The next few paragraphs will sum up my collective thoughts and perhaps they’ll point more to one answer than another.

A big part of the first two games of Silent Hill was the opening story of their respective protagonists, Harry Mason and James Sunderland. They both had a simplicity to them that made the characters instantly identifiable; not many people can relate to a being part of an elite military squad, but almost everyone can relate to a person that’s looking for a lost loved one. Identifying with the game’s hero makes his quest your quest.

I didn’t find that in the beginning of Silent Hill 3. At the beginning we’re thrown immediately Silent Hill’s dark other world. We start control of our female protagonist without a clue why we’re here, what we’re doing, or why she’s armed to the teeth. Soon afterwards we find out its all a dream. We eventually do find out her name is Heather Mason, daughter to the aforementioned Harry Mason, but this starting point is more like a stumble point.

An interesting story, plot, and characters to develop through the course of the game but I don’t the game recovers from the opening. The most jarring element is Heather’s demeanor. There are times she acts like we expect some one to act in such an odd situation. There are even a few moments we can sympathize with her too. But at other times she acts as if the odd things happening are suppose to happen. It’s almost like she knows she’s in a video game, especially at some points she cracks jokes. If I saw or heard half of the things in this game in reality I can say for sure that joking would be the farthest thing from my mind.

That gets me to Silent Hill 3’s strongest point, the visuals and audio. The jump from the PS to the PS2 added much to the details of the creatures, characters, and the world in Silent Hill 2. Silent Hill 3 still has the great lighting and grainy film effect of SH2 but it goes further. The characters have a great fluid lifelike motion to them. The creatures in this world are some of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. Describing them isn’t good enough, you have to see them. If some of the things in Silent Hill 1 and 2 frightened you these creatures will terrify you.

Those familiar with the audio from the Silent Hill series know that it provides just as much as atmosphere as the visuals. Once again Akira Yamaoka has done the sound effects and music. On the music side, there isn’t too much to say. The music is more like ambient noises that create atmosphere with the occasional song played out in cut scenes. The sounds however are by far some the best work done in the series. The moans, breathing, and other noises you’ll hear will make your hair stand on the back of your neck. Like the visuals, it’s something you have to experience to get the full effect.

The game play, for all purposes, gets the job done. As I mentioned above, the appeal with survival horror isn’t the game play. If you’ve played a Silent Hill game before you should be pretty comfortable with the controls. It should be mentioned that the Silent Hill 3 team did add improvements to the formula. The biggest improvement is you can now equip an item so you don’t have to go back to the inventory menu as much for commonly used items. Also another feature I noticed was that anytime you use the movement stick while reading a description of an item it will cancel the rest of the text. Thus when you accidentally look at an object while looking for useful items you’re not stuck reading a description you’ve already read.

Looking at the game as a whole, there’s only one other glaring problem: the length of the game. I finished it in 5 hours and that’s with occasional puzzles that can take 20 minutes to figure out. That’s short, even for a Silent Hill game. The reason for this can be explained by layout of the world. In the previous two games you were put into the vast city streets of Silent Hill which you could explore. In Silent Hill 3 however, the only time you’re on the streets of Silent Hill is to traverse between 2 buildings. This gives Silent Hill 3 a claustrophobic feel that the others didn’t have. It might add to the terror at times, but it made me feel like I was stuck running through a linear gauntlet of horror levels. I think most fans of the series will be disappointed at this.

So has Silent Hill lost its effect on me? As horror show I can say it hasn’t; it’s still as horrifying as the original was to me, if not more. But as a game and a story, it has lost its effect in a few ways. If you can look past some of the disappointing game play aspects and a story that doesn’t seem as full as the last two, you’ll be stuck with quite the meaty chunk of horror. It will be short lived, but if you like the game play you can go back through the game again to acquire bonus weapons, costumes, and goodies that the series is known for. It’s not worth the initial cost $50, but for $20 it’s fun while it lasts.