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Released on February 24, 1999 for the Sony Playstation by Konami, and
developed by Team Silent, Silent Hill features survival horror
action in a nightmarish 3D realm
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25 years after its release,
Silent Hill is pixelated, foggy,
clunky and still just as scary and effective as it was in 1999. The definition
of "turn your limitations into strengths,"
Silent Hill has aged like fine,
low-polygon wine.
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| Plus, its font game is still on point |
Silent Hill begins with a classic PS1 FMV. The player character,
everyman Harry Mason, is driving along with his young daughter, when a
policewoman on a motorcycle passes him. A few moments later, Mason sees the bike
abandoned on the side of the road, and all of a sudden there's a little girl
lying in the street. Harry swerves to avoid her, crashes, and wakes up in a
town called Silent Hill. The town, drenched in an out-of-season snowstorm and a mysterious fog, seems abandoned, except for the policewoman Harry saw earlier,
Cybil. Worst of all, Harry's daughter is missing. While Cybil goes off to figure out what's happening, Harry, with a gun and flashlight gifted from Cybil,
leaves to find his daughter...and that's when the monsters appear.
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| What is it indeed |
The player, as Harry, moves through the terrifying Silent Hill from a
third-person perspective. To use a weapon (gun or melee), the player has to raise it with the
shoulder button, then fire it with a front-facing button. However, this being a
survival horror game, ammunition can be scarce, and sometimes running, even into the unknown, is the
best option. The Playstation isn't exactly a polygon pusher, but while some
games from this generation use things like distance fog as a crutch,
Silent Hill
uses it to its benefit. Outdoor segments either take place in thick fog or at
night, but the limited visibility cranks up the tension. Seemingly anything can
come out of the fog or darkness to attack. But, what the Playstation lacks in
graphical power, it makes up for in audio, and the game uses sound to its great
advantage.
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| Hello, nurse! |
When an enemy nears, strange, staticky noises grow louder. This is
extremely unnerving and heightened by the game's discomforting soundtrack.
Composer,
Akira Yamaoka, utilizes a mostly discordant, atonal, industrial sound to
elevate the player's uneasiness. He also exercises a trip-hop influenced world
music sound in the game's intro cinematic, and in other of the game's moments that aren't supposed to be
terrifying. The voice-acting, particularly for 90s game, isn't awful, either. The overall sound design here is excellent, and for what the game needs, essentially perfect. However, it's effectiveness is most definitely heightened by Silent Hill's visual design. What the player can see might not exactly or even nearly be
photorealistic, but the pixelated griminess works perfectly for the
nightmarish atmosphere of this game. The resulting aesthetic has proved to be
timeless in the 25 years since Silent Hill's release, an execution of
visual abandonment and degradation that's wonderfully cohesive and
evocative. |
| I don't think we're in Kansas anymore... |
Walls and floors are caked in grime and dried, disgusting fluids, rust and
32-bit rot. Enemies are often gruesomely mutated facsimiles of humans that just
feel wrong, from the burlap sack wearing, child-sized, knife-welding monsters
that make strangely sexual noises at Silent Hill's school, to the hunchbacked,
tumor-ridden nurses and doctors who try to skewer the player in the hospital. The game's enemies, especially the humanoid ones, are also very frighteningly animated. But again, the sound design helps greatly. Every element of this game is designed to unnerve, including moments where
crying might be heard behind a bathroom stall, a screaming cat might jump out from a
locker, a sudden loud noise might come from the next room, etc. Sometimes Harry even gets teleported from one location back to a room at the hospital, calling into question whether what is happening is real, or just in his head. In these instances, and throughout the game, the environment
frequently changes from just a normal, yet abandoned town, to the rusted out,
evil version, which has a large psychological effect. Overall, the production
design here is one of the most frightening ever created.
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| Yeah...I think I might just turn around and go the other way... |
Silent Hill isn't perfect, though. While there's a large action
component to the gameplay, puzzle-solving is also a major aspect. Some of the
puzzles are fun and intuitive...but some of them are so obtuse, they make the Resident Evil series' more left-field puzzles seem rational. Considering a few of
these puzzles are scattered in environments with enemies that keep coming back (in some
areas, enemies are gone permanently after you kill them, but in others, they
regenerate), yet where ammunition is limited, and frustration can build (though save
points are at least prevalent). Also, the controls are in the classic,
tank-based style, which work fine once the player is used to them, but which may
catch younger players off guard. You've also got to pause to access your
inventory (weapons, health pickups, puzzle-solving items), which I think offers
a rare and welcome place of safety in the game, but which might bother some players who want a
more seamless experience.
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| Have you seen what's out there?! I don't think 15 is enough! |
Thankfully, the pros far outweigh the cons here, resulting in a timeless
experience that's wonderfully insulated and enhanced by aspects that otherwise
might be considered dated.
Silent Hill attempts to invoke a nightmare, and
that's exactly how the game feels...a delightful nightmare. The story might do
the typical "too complicated for its own good" video game thing at the end, but
its still a solid tale, with an effective payoff--and there are multiple endings
that depend on the player's actions throughout the game. And while the game may not last long, it not only ends exactly when it feels like it should, but these multiple endings, along with a "New Game Plus," mode, certainly help the game feel like a full experience. With all that value, and considering the enjoyability of its gameplay and the memorable qualities in its aesthetics and horrific soundscapes,
Silent Hill is an
effective time machine back to glorious 1999, but also a timeless and
effective source of nightmare fuel and tension--a classic.
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Not just good...GOOD+! |
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