Imagine walking around a town for five freaking minutes before something happens imagine checking a couple of rooms only to find a simple piece of paper with a few nonsensical words on it and, finally, imagine what little action there is here, making you feel weak and helpless. The thing is that, depending on the player, the gameplay portion will either excite or bore to death. Is this a dream? Is this hell? Is this just the hallucinations of a man in a hospital bed? Is everything a scheme devised by a Shiba Inu (*gives high fives to Silent Hill fanatics*)? Additionally, why does everyone talk like a robot? What is this strange plane that invades the real(?) world? And, most importantly, WHERE IS EVERYBODY? Without spoiling anything, the plot is fantastic, full of symbolism and allegories even in the way the streets are named, and requires examining its finer details, and pondering on the few clues scattered around… and all this just to begin understanding what's going on. Don't expect any Resident Evil-like exposition to be found here, though. He soon wakes up, only to realise that Cheryl is missing, so he gets out of the car and starts looking for her in what seems to be a ghost town. While doing so, he almost hits a teenage girl appearing out of nowhere, and then crashes nearby, losing his senses. While not strictly a survival game, the label "survival horror" fits quite well here… but, what is that horror exactly? The whole thing starts with Harry Mason going to the mountain town of Silent Hill with Cheryl, his little daughter. Actually, his "true" defences seem to be, A: a broken radio that emits static noise when something… bad approaches, and, B: a measly pocket flashlight, which illuminates just enough to see what's up ahead, but not as much in order to see, " What the heck is that!?" He's just… a guy, and while he can pack some heat, don't expect anything fancy like dual Uzis or miniguns to appear any time soon - not to mention that, while not extremely scarce, ammo must be conserved, meaning that it's usually all about steel pipes and knives. He's just a plain, ordinary white dude nothing special about him… and that's exactly why he's great! Harry Mason is not the chosen one, a space marine, or a cyborg ninja. Which one will make people check their rear while playing? That's what Silent Hill is made of streets engulfed in an atmosphere-enhancing mist, empty apartments, pitch-black nights, nightmarish creatures, and the Lovecraftian sensation that the evil here can't be beaten by the protagonist - which leads to the biggest strength of this tale: the main lead. Think about it: an old, imposing mansion, where all sorts of baddies come crushing through the windows, versus a dark, spooky hospital, where the only sound is those of your footsteps… and the weak sound of a child crying… coming through a crack in the wall. Remove it, and all that's left is a Resident Evil clone with better puzzles and less exciting gunfights, because, unlike Capcom's jump scares, unnerving camera angles, and monstrous… monsters, Konami chose to take the everyday and the mundane, and turn it into something foreboding. The opening shows what this is all about - atmosphere. Silent Hill's intro? Pure video game art! The few scenes that lead to the very beginning of it all say what needs to be said without any needless text, and as if the hunting scenes and porcelain-like character faces didn't evoke an eerie, dreamlike aura, the fantastic composition of Akira Yamaoka will certainly create some goose bumps.
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