Silent Hill

Silent Hill is by far the creepiest and most disturbing video game ever to grace a gaming consol. Taking you deep into the abandoned Town, the game uses amazing lighting effects and frightening sounds to play on the gamers nerve. Whether it be a sudden crashing noise, the quiet eerie sound of static, the ring of sirens, or the simple sounds of a creaking old house, Silent hill manages to find any way possible to scare the gamer... and it does it in a big way.

The story follows Harry Mason as he is driving to the resort town of Silent Hill with his daughter Cheryl for vacation. Late during a mysterious woman jumps out in front of the car, causing Harry to panic and veer offroad. His car slams into the side of a big tree, knocking him out in the process. When Harry awakens a thick fog lingers about him and his daughter Cheryl is missing. Scared and confused he stumbles about, entering the town of Silent Hill.

Everything about his game is brilliant. Instead of being a typical zombie blasting, monster smashing horror game, Silent Hill focuses on the little, more disturbing things. Take for example the most simplistic chill of the game. Harry is standing in the derelict school when a toy phone rings, picking it up he hears his daughter Cheryl crying and pleading to him on the other end of the phone. While it may sound dumb in writting, when actually viewing the sequence, you cant help but shudder at the thought of what may be happening to her. In your explorations you will come across six key lcations: the School, the Hospital, the Church, the Docks, the Amusement Park, and the Sewers, all of which have their own horrifing secrets. I myself got most creeped out in the Sewers. Imagine yourself trudging through a disgusting tunnels in pure darkness, when all around you hear is gurgling noise of a creature and your own heartbeat. And at any moment it may attack you. But from where? You can barely see anything. Belive me when I say I nearly jumped out of my skin every time a creature jumped out or sewer grating dropped out from beneath my feet.

If your looking for a REALLY good scare, rent Silent Hill, turn off all the lights, and cuddle your favorite teddy bear. It is THE best survival-horror game ever. Every town has its secrets, some are just darker than others...

I'm going to review it on 4 different parts:

Graphics: The graphics are decent. They aren't anything special by any standards, but lighting is impressive for ps1.

Sound: Sound design is excellent, and the music is incredibly scary and intense. Constantly puts you on edge.

Gameplay: It's pretty good. You walk around dimly lit areas and fight off enemies. Very scary and lots of anticipation, since you never know their location, but you know that they are there. Truly amazing.

Innovation: This is one of the scariest and most unique games ever made, and is in the top 10 ps1 games.

Think you don't find any films or games scary any more? You fancy a scare? If the answer to both of these is yes then you definitely wanna play Silent Hill! Just a piece of advice...

Don't play it alone! The atmosphere in the game, How realistic it is, and whats happening around you all contribute to the best horror game ever, and will probably be the best for a long time to go. The closest i have gotten to being this scared was playing The Suffering on PS2, But that doesn't even touch on the effect this game has on you. You'll be walking along and you'll hear footsteps and nothings there, and it will make you freeze! I've heard many a time that the character you play is not very good at shooting, but thats whats good about it. If you just picked up a gun and aimed at something chances are you wudnt hit it! Also the locations; Hospitals, Schools, Petrol Stations, Apartments, this makes you think its even more real which is the main reason i found it scary. You definitely wont find me in a deserted school any more.

This is my personal equation for the game....

(The Suffering x 100) + The Shining = Silent Hill Seriousely the jumpiness, the atmosphere, the locations all make this the scariest game of our time and even 7 years on, the graphics are still playable... My advice is to play this game with at least 2 other people.

If you do not have the game already you will find its a very hard game to get hold of! My advice is try ebay. I got it on there for £22 yes it maybe 7 years old but for how great this game is its worth every penny! Hope you find my review useful :)

This was the game that catapulted the genre of psychological horror into the video game medium. And my, oh my, what a beginning. I can't quite give this game a 10 simply because its sequel is THE BEST survival horror game ever made, but this is definitely a near-masterpiece. The fact that they were able to pull a game like this off on the PS1 is nothing short of incredible. The graphics, gameplay, story and character development all stand out; I think what impressive me the most about this game at the time, however, was the actual environment of the town itself. We don't think anything about open areas in games these days but at the time this was really mindblowing.

If you somehow haven't played this game, do not be afraid to jump in due to its age. You'll get used to the graphics in no time at all and will find yourself sucked into the game as if it was brand new.

With movie companies wanting to turn games into celluloid, why can't they do it for games that deserve such a distinction. Tomb Raider, Super Mario Brothers and what not were horrible. The industry finally got it right when they made Resident Evil. So now its time to give Silent Hill its due.

As for the game, it was one of the few that ever got my heart racing. The music added so much atmosphere to the game, and the never ending stream of bad guys made my skin crawl a few times. When I get the Playstation 2, I'm going to purchase Silent Hill 2. I highly recommend this game, and its best you get yourself the players guide.