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One of the best in the series though to some it might seem a bit short

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I found this gem in a pawn-shop. By that point SH 3 had become difficult to find. It seems like all these games have that defining fault. (Luckily I'm getting an X-box 360 about the time SH V hits shelves). Regardless I'm sure you've heard many things both good and bad about this one when in comparison to SH 2.

Well the truth is I'm not a SH 2 fanatic. I actually liked James alot, and yes his story was interesting but what some people termed "gradual build up of suspense" I thought was boring as I explored a town that was in many ways a bit too open ended. Yes, SH 2 is longer than SH 3 (I own it too) but does longer always equate to better? I suppose that depends on who you are.

The truth is I'm a lover of the first game. Alot of fans say it was too
"cult influenced" but when you think about it the monsters were STILL generated by someone's nightmarish delusions and it was still far more psychological than it was cheap shock thrills. (Not that there is anything wrong with the later either mind you. Yes, I do like RE as well.)

SH 3 is a little piece of black sunshine in many ways. First of all it is the first time a girl protagonist is introduced. I've heard many debates about Heather. You either love her or hate her. But before you past that judgement you should get to know her. Yes Heather is a wise cracking loner. She does not hang out with gaggles of giggling girls her age. She doesn't like being followed and yes, she has major "trust issues". If she was like this for no reason I could understand the angst of gamers. But as it stands she has a VERY GOOD REASON for being as paranoid and aloft as she is. The only man she can trust is her dad and when you find out who she was in the past you can forgive her for being abrasive. SH 3 does much to prove "human beings" are the worst monsters and not even Pyramid head can compete with the scum baggery of certain individuals out there.

The game is definetly a roller coaster ride. Your dream sequence in the amusement park is scary enough to make you question playing further. Right from the beginning you are dropped into the jaws of hell and they bite down hard.

SH 3 does mess with you. For example there are parts in the game you "almost" feel safe. No monsters around and you can hear comforting muffled human voices on the other side of the walls. You actually start your true journey having over slept in a mall that has closed down around you. Their is a very subtle anxiety about trying to make your way out of a building past closing time. Its' not you fear monsters or irrate security guards. It just feels creepy being in a place that normally bustles with activity after everyone has gone home.

In the first area Douglas a concerned detective and a strange woman named Claudia make their appearances. Douglas is hired by Claudia to take you back to your "home town" under the suspicion you have been kidnapped. Actually it gets sloppier. Your father killed someone in self defense and you have both been on the run awhile making your situation questionable. Apparently your "happy home-life" has not always been so happy.

Of course being Heather you don't trust Douglas the middle aged gruff cop movie reject nor do you trust Claudia even though she claims you used to be friends that grew up together. Like a typical teen with angst issues you set out on your own.

From here on out there are things worth noting. The first is the graphics in this game are darkly beautiful and filled with ambient atmosphere. Truth be told this is the best looking SH out there. Secondly the creatures are bigger and meaner. Some fans liked this...others did not. Regardless the strait jacketed spinning pendulums with their whirling blades and the fat grotesque insane cancers add a sense of claustophobia and impending doom when you are sandwiched in close quarters.

The enviorments are also worth complimenting. The subway, church, and lake side amusement park haunted house come to mind immediatly and throughout the game alot it divulged about your past as well as that of "The Order" everyone's favorite group of resident crazies.

Claudia and Douglas are interesting enough but when you meet Vincent your really in for a mind freak. Vincent is almost too genial and polite making you think a cackling insanity is being held down just beneath the surface. He even makes you question if the "monsters" you have been slaying are actually real people and it is obscure to figure out which side he is on.

As the game progresses these people fall into the roles of "watchers" "antagonists" and "supporting friends" but I will not give away anymore than that. Regardless the point is the side characters are well defined and intriguing which has always been a trade-mark of the SH mythos.

By the end of the game I was endeared to Heather alot. She was not perfect but frankly I get tired of perfect anyway. She was not "super model beautiful" but yet she was cute enough to be that girl next door you might have had a crush on. Heather is "one of us" the normal people and in that lies her charm. She is acessible and you could imagine hanging out with her doing stuff you'd do with your friends. Though she gets scared she is brave and dedicated. While her laugh sounds more like a whimper when confronting various monsters at least she trudges onward and once you DO earn her trust she's there for you through thick and thin. Females really don't have many good role-models in gaming so in that regard Heather is a breath of fresh air. She dresses plain and her cleavage is not about to bust out of her shirt.

I should mention the game-play is a bit smoother compared to SH 2 but not much. The combat system in SH has never been deep but if you could multi-hit combo creatures through walls it would defeat the aspect of being a normal smuck amongst terrifying circumstances. As before you get an assortment of melee weapons and a few guns. As before you can stomp creatures on the ground though some of them will try to latch onto you. Beat the game and you'll get a few nifty items that pack alot of punch or are blatantly ridiculous fan service.

The only negative gripe I have with SH 3 is not so much it is a bit linear (I don't mind that) but that it only has 2 endings. Ok 3 if you count the usual UFO parody ending but compared to SH 2 its' like they made a sub-way sandwich with less meat. It still tastes great but it is definetly not as filling. For some this will hurt the re-play value.

Regadless if you can pick up this game. I don't exactly know how easy it is to find but it is likely one of the better installments in the series.

My First Horror Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

And I don't think I could have picked a better one to start with. I started off quite irritated at the control scheme, but after getting used to it the game gets much better.

The puzzles are generally smart and varied and have three difficulty settings you can choose from (easy, normal, and hard--hard sometimes taking exceptional amounts of thinking on your part or ousdie knowledge of things like Shakespeare's works). The story draws you in and I always wanted to see what happened next.

But what makes the game is its atmosphere. Everything's dark and grainy and eerily quiet. The monsters don't jump out at you, they stay well back and wait for you to come in range, but you never want to. They're all sick abominations of things you could see in everyday life--pairs of pale, veiny legs with single red eyes, dirty, pipe-weilding nurses that drag themselves around the hospital, and trampling, cancerous masses of humanity that lie on the ground in wait until you approach.

And it's not just the monsters that get at you but everything in the game. You'll swear you saw a shadow dart across the room at points when there really is nothing there. The music tightens into haunting notes of urgency and finality as you approach the various evils of the game with only a pair of legs to run with and a gun, often with not nearly as many bullets as you'd like.

The game isn't really about shooting but about avoiding. You'll be glad you could shoot at many times, but real manstoppers like the shotgun you need to use sparingly as some enemies will laugh off everything else--not literally of course, there's no laughing here.

I could go on and on, but suffice to say--I really love this game. I've played games that were more fun, but never one as atmospheric and engrossing. You can't miss it.

Now I need to play Silent Hill 2...

A good sequel.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 17, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Years after the original on PSX, Konami finally gave us a direct sequel, though we don't know that until a while into the game. Heather Mason is a teenage girl who seems to be having a normal day at the mall, when suddenly she finds that things have turned a bit weird. An old guy named Douglas keeps showing up and bothering her, but even stranger are the creatures inhabiting the place.

At first I wanted to hate this, because to me, Silent Hill is about bumbling middle-aged men who don't know how to handle weapons, but Heather won me over in the end. It was also nice to see it attempting to tie up some loose ends in relation to the original game, which is my favorite game ever.

The monsters here are mostly pretty well-done, though I think I prefer the ones in SH2. Heather isn't too bad with her weapons, though she runs like a girl. This made me yell at the TV through the whole game. The scenery really stands out here, it is all very well-done. The voice-acting is pretty good for a videogame as well. A worthy sequel, but doesn't quite live up to its predecessors.

I know, another positive review, but hear me out

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

It's rather hard supporting and recommending a form of media that's all ready been supported and recommend and at times it feels rather guilty. Sometimes I wonder to myself if I'm being too much of a 'fanboy' about a game series I enjoy and recommend to others that have been all ready recommended to others on a constant basis. I really have to consider what it is I speak of, though: when it's a series like Silent Hill, then I have to consider that not everyone started playing the games since 1999 and there will be a lot of newcomers who will jump for the latest game first as their introduction to the series. Then you have to consider the fact that the Silent Hill series is undeniably starting to fade into nothingness the moment the developers decided to use the series as mop for collecting money stains on a greasy floor. So, with that image in mind, I feel that I need to recommend this game for newcomers and those interested in horror gaming alike.

Now I'm not going lie to you all and say this game is a flawless masterpiece. Silent Hill 3 does have some criticism and negative feedback that need to be realized:

For one, the combat is stodgy. By this I don't mean the combat downright sucks or is broken, because it doesn't. What I do mean however is that it's nearly impossible to fight anything fairly in the game.

Enemies run the gamut of overly strong to neigh-invincible and some of them are so cheap you'd think their attacks were encoded by Tecmo or something. Most the enemies require half a dozen bullets to take down and I thank the gods that there's actually a shotgun in this game because without it you'll be forced to either gun down enemies that inch closer to you when you hit them with your pistol, enemies that can take up to ten hits in the head with an enormous maul before dying and creatures that pretend they're dead after you hammer them with hits. Then there are the enemies that fly around using non-sensical means that slice at you if you get to close to hit them and speed up and hit you from far away when you shoot them once with the pistol and bosses that can block certain attacks including bullets! None of this helps with the flawed blocking method that lets you block for about one second, either.

Some of the characters have a few nasty little nit-picks about them too. For one, the protagonist can be a little exasperating at times when she decides to be snide and witty around others and the fact that she doesn't trust a single person and takes her almost two hours to actually sympathize with anyone feels a bit dour. Plus, I still don't know why she had to wear a mini-skirt and Go-Go boots for this. Sure it looks nice, but we should be hot and bothered about the internal aspects of a female character, shouldn't we? I mean, the legs aren't supposed to be the best thing about them, right??

Every other character has some form of stereotype tied to them as well. One of them is just about the biggest detective stereotype I've ever seen in a game whose only lacking stereotypical attribute is complaining about or having problems with shaving. The antagonist would've been pretty original had the developers not needlessly given her an English accent and when you consider that you end up hearing a her closest relatives AMERICAN accents, you can't help but wonder what was going through their heads. Then there's the supposedly greasy Johnny Depp look-alike who fills out the niche of Survival Horror game and 1980's film stereotypes that have any and all intelligent males wearing glasses be snide, evil jerks.
I'll also agree, the dialogue is a little questionable at times, but this only really refers to the exchange of dialogue between Heather and the Johnny Depp guy. Beyond them, every other interaction is pretty solid.

Plus, I don't mean to spoil the game for anyone, but I really have to rip out on this game for its sense of replay value. Some of the objects you unlock in this game really serve no purpose, although one of them is key to advancing the game a bit... but only barely. Most of the items you do unlock that aren't weapons are only purposeful by an aesthetic level and are totally useless to unlock now that the internet is available. And when you do unlock new weapons, the game flips you off in that classic Resident Evil 2 way (if you've played the game and unlocked those weapons, you'll know what I speak of).

So all ready the game has its issues... but really, consider just how bad these issues are compared to others.
For one, it's pretty amazing to realize that you're playing as a snarky teenage girl who can actually recite a verse of Shakespeare (Macbeth) compared to the game's sequel where you play as a high school graduate who processes information slower than tortoise's trundle. Also, considering that she's inexperienced in combat, she's pretty good with a gun for her age.

I know this sounds weird, but I really like the memos of Survival Horror games you read during the game. Sure it might break the flow of the action a little to read them, but most of them are written with so much personality and flavor sometimes it's hard not to read them; they actually help suck you into the game's setting because they feel realistic at times. This was the last Silent Hill game developed by the original team - Team Silent - that had this attribute; they didn't even try making the memos believable in the sequel after this. This was also the last Silent Hill game that Team Silent worked on that actually had legitemite puzzles and good ones at that; nothing better than a brain teaser.

Finally, consider where the series is going: compare the charisma of the characters from Silent Hills 1, 2 and 3 to the latest two 4 and Origins and tell me which set of characters would you rather root for. Being able to identify with the main character is not only key in any story, but it actually establishes atmosphere in a horror story: the less you feel for or identify with the character, the less you want them to survive and they become the equivalent of the one dimensional characters that die around them.

Overall, I like this game; it shows effort in its crafting and that's what counts. It might not have tried anything new and its flaws are rather broad, but it's too hard to detach from my heart. On a personal level, I actually bought this game out of depression and anxiety and playing it was so much of a relief that it brought some genuine happiness my way. This might've helped me in overlooking all the characters flaws and design issues, but even today I can't help but want to jump into the screen and give Heather a big ol' hug... and maybe buy her a soda.

An experience I will never forget.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is a Brilliant game and one of the best games I have ever played. A master peace from start to end

Brilliant

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Why the hell not???

buy it.
i was a solid resident evil fan. id been playing since the very first one came out back in 96.
i noticed silent hill for myself with the release of the sequel, but never paid any attention to it.
years later, after the release of "the room", i pick up this one.
my first silent hill, i was amazed at what i had been missing out on.

+'s
-------
Good graphics.
Good storyline, easy to follow even for new players.
Actually pretty scary.
All around bitchin.
Mine actually came with the soundtrack, which is surprisingly good [and im a musician].

-'s
-------
There is no room for exploration, its pretty straightforward. [this is my main negative. i am the type to go around and try every possible door in the entire game [[even if i have to backtrack to do it]] and 9 out of 10 doors are locked or inaccessable. it became very annoying knowing that there were only 1 or 2 doors tops that i could go through at any given time.]
A bit short.
Final boss battle could have been better.

i was VERY pleased with this game, and i was left wanting more of the series. i plan on buying 2 and 4 very soon.

Great Secuel

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

A comeback to the old silent hill we all love a story that answer a lot of questions from the first silent hill.
Sequel to the first game and lightly related to silent hill 2, excellent dark atmosphere and deep story.
Has some replay value but the game wont last too much, but if you are fan of the first or second game, this is a worth purchase to complete the series, the 4th silent hill its not related to the main story so I suggest to skip it and wait for the silent hill 5 for the ps3.

Scary as hell!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This installment in the series is absolutely frightening! I haven't been this freaked out since the first time I played the first game. It is also much more difficult then the previous games, so get ready for repeating a lot of areas, because you will die fairly often. The weapons are pretty fun, especially the katana. The story, as usual, is incredibly confusing and vague. Of course, that's part of the mystique of these games. For any fan of the survival horror genre, I wholly recommend this game.

Nice Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The bonus part (after you kill 333 mosters) is so funny ^_^
Nice backgroud music.

wowzaaaa!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: May 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

this game actually made me jump and i like yelled out at one point. the storyline was twisted and i found myself trying to connect the dots in the shower lol. the graphics are amazinggg
and the music scared me, i mean cant get any better than that!! oh nd the seller was good! fast and pretty :)

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