# Silent Hill = one of the best survival horror series



## Sniperfox (Dec 21, 2008)

I love getting the piss scared out of me, and I love video games. For a really long time I couldn't find a game that scared me all the way through it. I've played Dead Space & Condemmed both of those games were well done and creepy but there is one game that scares me more than any of those and its Silent Hill. Silent Hill does one thing a lot of horror games failed to do and that is not make things jump out at you but make the atmosphere really creepy. Silent Hill 2 in my opinion is the best one of the series. I have never played three or five but I have played one, four, and orgins. Silent Hill 2's story is well writen, I am scared almost all the time when playing it and the music is some of the best in video games. The combat can suck but it just helps to make it more creepy. I have beaten Silent Hill 2 a total of 10 times and it still scares the piss out of me.


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## Verin Asper (Dec 21, 2008)

meh...I say Top Notch...but not best for that one doesnt exist yet


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## Laze (Dec 21, 2008)

Possibly my favourite videogaming franchises ever; sadly the games have taken a dive when it comes to quality, but I think Silent Hill 2 is one of those special games that affects people on a certain level. It's hard to put my finger on, but everything in that game just seemed right.

I was also studying Media at the time of it's release, and I'm pretty sure I used it in quite a few essays of an analytical nature... Â¬_Â¬


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## mottled.kitten (Dec 21, 2008)

I agree that Silent Hill is the best--unreasonably creepy, amazing OST... except for 5. Wth happened with 5?


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## Sniperfox (Dec 21, 2008)

mottled.kitten said:


> I agree that Silent Hill is the best--unreasonably creepy, amazing OST... except for 5. Wth happened with 5?


 
Silent Hill 5 was not devoleped by the same people that made 1,2,3, & 4


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## Laze (Dec 21, 2008)

Haven't actually got myself a copy of Homecoming yet; not out in Britain yet. I was tempted to import, but I was unsure if the PS3 was region free, like the PSP seems to be yet most of the manuals seem to state that it isn't. Weird.

Is it better than _0rigins_, anyways?


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## mottled.kitten (Dec 21, 2008)

I haven't played Origins, but Homecoming was like... not even close to the other SH games. It was more like RE. Also, it doesn't follow the original storyline (Harry, Alessa, et cetera), which is a bummer personally...


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## Laze (Dec 21, 2008)

mottled.kitten said:


> Also, it doesn't follow the original storyline (Harry, Alessa, et cetera), which is a bummer personally...


 
Neither did Silent Hill 2, hehe.

I wouldn't bother with 0rigins, funnily enough, it twisted my arm into buying a PSP. If I still had my PS2 at the time I would have just waited for the inevitable console conversion. But the issue of it being a SH game that can be finished in less than 4 hours would still remain.

Granted it was kind of entertaining to be able to hurl portable television sets at Bubble Headed Nurses. And some of the enemy design was rather cool. Though the rehashing of what is essentially another Pyramid Head is a tad shameful; and I know he makes a bit of a cameo in Homecoming too, tossing all the wonderful denotation within SH2 on it's back.

0rigins also has what appeared to be a fursuit to unlock, if you finsihed the game without saving. Which is... Odd...


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## mottled.kitten (Dec 21, 2008)

Yeah, I didn't like 2, either. xD

3 pleased my fangirldom the most.

I liked Pyramidhead--he scared the crap out of us until we realized that you can hear him like an hour before he gets to you... and even after he loses his sword he's still slow enough to walk around and escape. =\

It bothered me a lot that 5 had PH in it--wasn't he supposed to be a direct representation of James?


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## mottled.kitten (Dec 21, 2008)

Laze said:


> 0rigins also has what appeared to be a fursuit to unlock, if you finsihed the game without saving. Which is... Odd...



You couldn't mean... THE BUNNY SUIT?!


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## Laze (Dec 21, 2008)

mottled.kitten said:


> Yeah, I didn't like 2, either. xD


 
Ah, I didn't mean to say I didn't like SH2. I loved it an awful lot X3 SH3 wasn't bad either; I'd often laugh out at heather's rather sarcastic outlook to most situations - stroppy cow, hehe. I started losing interest round about the time The Room came out, sadly.



			
				mottled.kitten said:
			
		

> You couldn't mean... THE BUNNY SUIT?!


 
Nope.

Dog suit. 







Technically, it's known as the _Daredevil Outfit _[considering you get it for finishing the game with no saves], probably links into SH2's Dog Ending *somehow*. There was quite a few unlockable suits, granted half of them weren't really worth it. You even got one that gave you night-vision.

In a game which has you cowering in a corner in the dark with only a pathetic flashlight to help produce some kind of spooky ambiance - they give you night-vision?


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## Nocturnowl357 (Dec 21, 2008)

ahhh the memories of my brother and I playing through the series.

I've seen them all but just recently actually playing them. Just 1, origins and the room are left to beat.

And laze: you could boost the brightness which makes the flashlight useless.


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## pheonix (Dec 21, 2008)

Sniperfox said:


> *I love getting the piss scared out of me, and I love video games. For a really long time I couldn't find a game that scared me all the way through it.* *I've played Dead Space & Condemmed both of those games were well done and creepy but there is one game that scares me more than any of those and its Silent Hill.* *Silent Hill does one thing a lot of horror games failed to do and that is not make things jump out at you but make the atmosphere really creepy.* *Silent Hill 2 in my opinion is the best one of the series.* I have never played three or five but I have played one, four, and orgins. Silent Hill 2's story is well writen, I am scared almost all the time when playing it and the music is some of the best in video games. The combat can suck but it just helps to make it more creepy. I have beaten Silent Hill 2 a total of 10 times and it still scares the piss out of me.



Reading the bold text made me lmao, the underlined bold=you're an idiot for thinking that.


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## DragonRift (Dec 21, 2008)

*Silent Hill*'s also my favorite survival horror franchise.  A damn shame they had to let it go to an American development team.  *Homecoming* had the familiar atmosphere and it looked GREAT... but the writing has definitely gone way downhill.  At least the voice acting was a HUGE improvement.  While I liked the idea of the hero being able to have more attacks, they killed the suspense by making the monsters infuriatingly aggressive, making you dread every encounter.  The severe lack of health items didn't help matters much either.  Those goddamn Schisms made me HATE the new melee combat system with a passion.

My main gripe is that ever since fanboys would not SHUT UP about how much they want to have Pyramid Head's babies, not only Hollywood gave in to bring him back into the picture, but so did this latest entry.  They took someone who was supposed to be a more of a personalized demon to James Sunderland, into basically the Jason Voorhees of Silent Hill.  His cameo in *Homecoming* was flat-out pointless.


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## Nocturnowl357 (Dec 21, 2008)

DragonRift said:


> *Silent Hill*'s also my favorite survival horror franchise.  A damn shame they had to let it go to an American development team.  *Homecoming* had the familiar atmosphere and it looked GREAT... but the writing has definitely gone way downhill.  At least the voice acting was a HUGE improvement.  While I liked the idea of the hero being able to have more attacks, they killed the suspense by making the monsters infuriatingly aggressive, making you dread every encounter.  The severe lack of health items didn't help matters much either.  Those goddamn Schisms made me HATE the new melee combat system with a passion.
> 
> My main gripe is that ever since fanboys would not SHUT UP about how much they want to have Pyramid Head's babies, not only Hollywood gave in to bring him back into the picture, but so did this latest entry.  They took someone who was supposed to be a more of a personalized demon to James Sunderland, into basically the Jason Voorhees of Silent Hill.  His cameo in *Homecoming* was flat-out pointless.



holding back the fanboy arguement but isn't he called "boogie man" in HC?

The executioner of the order dress like pyramid head.


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## DragonRift (Dec 21, 2008)

Nocturnowl357 said:


> holding back the fanboy arguement but isn't he called "boogie man" in HC?
> 
> The executioner of the order dress like pyramid head.



Well, he was just "called" Pyramid Head in *Silent Hill 2*.  Of course that's not his real name, but James referred to him as that.  Monster, boogeyman, demon.... it doesn't change the fact that they're bringing the same character back, when he doesn't belong there.

It'd be like Sephiroth making a cameo appearance in *Final Fantasy IX*.


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## Nocturnowl357 (Dec 21, 2008)

DragonRift said:


> Well, he was just "called" Pyramid Head in *Silent Hill 2*.  Of course that's not his real name, but James referred to him as that.  Monster, boogeyman, demon.... it doesn't change the fact that they're bringing the same character back, when he doesn't belong there.
> 
> It'd be like Sephiroth making a cameo appearance in *Final Fantasy IX*.



heck im not one to argue. i agree that the whole PH in HC was stupid. then again the whole game coulda been better off as something else instead of a silent hill.


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## mottled.kitten (Dec 22, 2008)

PH being in anything but SH2 is fanservice. He represented the darker, repressed side of James.

SH2 was my least favorite game in the series, not counting Homecoming (or Origins, I never played that either), because I loved SH1 so much and when we played 2, I was like, wth this has nothing to do with what happened in the other one. 3 fixed it for me, and 4 (the room) won just for being flat-out creepy (a hole in your bathroom that keeps getting bigger!?).

It's not a bad game on its own (SH2), but as a part of the series, I could do without.


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## DragonRift (Dec 22, 2008)

mottled.kitten said:


> SH2 was my least favorite game in the series, not counting Homecoming (or Origins, I never played that either), because I loved SH1 so much and when we played 2, I was like, wth this has nothing to do with what happened in the other one. 3 fixed it for me, and 4 (the room) won just for being flat-out creepy (a hole in your bathroom that keeps getting bigger!?).
> 
> It's not a bad game on its own (SH2), but as a part of the series, I could do without.



Wow, really?  Aside from the first game being the scariest for me, *SH2* was probably the most emotionally driven chapter in the series.... at least to me anyways.  I loved it for the pure and simple fact that much of the story rode on James' sanity breaking down further and further as he eventually understood all what had happened to his wife.  Even the good ending was borderline heartbreaking.

James was all alone when he entered... and he was still alone when it was all over.  To me, he's the most tragic character in the series.


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## mottled.kitten (Dec 22, 2008)

DragonRift said:


> Wow, really?  Aside from the first game being the scariest for me, *SH2* was probably the most emotionally driven chapter in the series.... at least to me anyways.  I loved it for the pure and simple fact that much of the story rode on James' sanity breaking down further and further as he eventually understood all what had happened to his wife.  Even the good ending was borderline heartbreaking.
> 
> James was all alone when he entered... and he was still alone when it was all over.  To me, he's the most tragic character in the series.



Tragic, sure... but the monsters simply lacked the "something" that they had in the first. They also derived from the first when they made it as if James was creating the monsters, et cetera, where originally it was created by the resident ghost, Alessa. Two had no continuity with the first--that's my beef with it. As I said before, I like it as a game, just not as a part of this series. I appreciate the symbolism a lot more now that I'm older; the mannequins, Pyramidhead. But the simple fact is that I play these games not to cry, but to be freaked the f*ck out... and 2 did not deliver.

Also, it was rediculously short... I think we beat it in like three days or something.


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## Wolf-Bone (Dec 23, 2008)

When I'm tripping out on weed and/or shrooms, there's certain parts of Silent Hill games where I have it saved on separate memory slots just so I can experience those scenes. Like the part in SH4 where Joseph is hanging from the ceiling upside down talking to Henry. I'll just walk around that black and white version of the apartment with all the candles cuz it looks so trippy. Other times I'll just go to where Henry discovers and enters the hole for the first time and stare down the hole for like an hour or zone out to SH3's load screen music. I still need to get a Ouija board so I can seance to that shit.


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## mottled.kitten (Dec 23, 2008)

Wolf-Bone said:


> I still need to get a Ouija board so I can seance to that shit.



I think 3 has my favorite soundtrack... but I like to spirit-talk in silence   With a tape-recorder


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## Laze (Dec 23, 2008)

Actuallt, just a quick thought.

Has anyone noticed the odd lightgun game about? Uninspiringly enough, named _Silent Hill: The Arcade_?

A friend I know in London said he came across a cabinet and had a pop for me; apparently Pyramd Head is in that too. Getting about a bit, isn't he?


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## Armaetus (Dec 23, 2008)

Great series, I was slightly disappointed with 4 and 5 but I liked the first three the most. I should go and grab Origins for PS2 when I have the money for it.

5's combat system was nice without having to use the same attack all the time but what bothered me was the limited health and ammo pickups in the game and the Order soldier opponents later in the game. They can dodge and block like you can and combo your ass into the red if you aren't careful. What I did like was the checkpoints just before a boss.


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## ChapperIce (Dec 24, 2008)

I love these games but I'm sad to say I'm too scared to actually play them ;___; If someone would sit with me while I play I'd be fine, but no one ever stays so..I never bother.. 

It took me friggin' ages to get past the troll in the first Harry Potter game I'm a friggin' huge coward ;___; 

I watched the movie, though, no problem..games scare me more because it's like it's actually happening to ME since I'm controlling someone, not..just watching it happen.  I know about the games from reading about them though and it KILLS me not to be able to play ;___;


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## Not A Fox (Dec 25, 2008)

Silent Hill 2, amazingly, was a masterpiece in story telling and - for a Japanese game - had excellent voice acting and dialogue. There were times where it was still sub par, but still manyfold better than its peers (Ace Combat 5 comes to mind fairly quick).


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## FoxyAreku (Dec 25, 2008)

pheonix said:


> Reading the bold text made me lmao, the underlined bold=you're an idiot for thinking that.



ITT: People who call others idiots for having their own opinions.
Not everyone has the same taste in games!


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## Sniperfox (Dec 26, 2008)

I guess some of you didn't agree with me on how good Silent Hill 2 is but the last time I played SH 1 was a couple years ago and I never played Silent Hill 3 or 5. Silent Hill 4 was really good it was just going through the same levels twice and that some of the enemys really don't die that made me go away from it a little. Maybe I should play all the silent hills and play them in order to get a better view on the series.


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## Lobar (Dec 26, 2008)

pheonix said:


> Reading the bold text made me lmao, the underlined bold=you're an idiot for thinking that.



For thinking he enjoys the Silent Hill series?  You're a douche for wandering in here just to shit on someone else's game preference.

Don't be a douche, be a dude.


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## Nocturne (Dec 26, 2008)

Silent hill is my favorite survival horror series.  The best of them was definitely Silent Hill 2, the story telling and overall design were my favorite of the series.  Not to mention one of the only main characters in a video game that inspires actual empathy.


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## mottled.kitten (Dec 26, 2008)

Nocturne said:


> Silent hill is my favorite survival horror series.  The best of them was definitely Silent Hill 2, the story telling and overall design were my favorite of the series.  Not to mention one of the only main characters in a video game that inspires actual empathy.



Wait, you feel sympathetic towards James? I hope not--murdering and raping your sick wife is not usually something that wins sympathy. o___o


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## Lobar (Dec 27, 2008)

mottled.kitten said:


> Wait, you feel sympathetic towards James? I hope not--murdering and raping your sick wife is not usually something that wins sympathy. o___o



SH2 kinda resembled a lot of the old classical tragedies that way.  Read Oedipus Rex sometime - it's about a guy who unknowingly kills his father then sleeps with his mother.


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## Wolf-Bone (Dec 27, 2008)

wait, how did James rape his wife?


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## Laze (Dec 27, 2008)

Wolf-Bone said:
			
		

> wait, how did James rape his wife?


 
I thought it was Angela that was raped, or assaulted some way when she was younger?


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## mottled.kitten (Dec 27, 2008)

Who is Angela?

As I understood it, Silent Hill in 2 was caused by or representative of the main character's (James) repressed memories, and in it Pyramidhead was representative of James. The first time you see PH, he is apparently raping a mannequin monster (or two)--this is meant to infer that James raped his bedridden wife before (or after?) he suffocated her. The entire game is filled with symbolism--for instance, the look-alike of James's wife, (maybe that's Angela?) who keeps dying.

To Lobar-- James was aware of what he was doing... it wasn't done while he was sleepwalking or anything. He did it consciously... only repressing the memories later, after he'd realized the severity of what he'd done. I acknowledge the poetry in the story, but I don't exactly sympathize with James.


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## Laze (Dec 28, 2008)

mottled.kitten said:


> the look-alike of James's wife, (maybe that's Angela?) who keeps dying.


 
Nah, that's Maria.

Angela is that other mental case running about.

I'm posative that at some point in her life she was abused by her Father, that's why later on in the game she was having a bit of a dickie fit in a room with an Abstract Daddy and eneded up wailing on it with a TV set - killing it. To be fair, I don't remember too much about why she's actually about and what her real link to James actually is. I mean, you got the kid running about who apparently shared a hospital space with Jame's wife, you got Eddy who's pretty much an antagonist and then there's Angela who pops up every so often - flips out - and then leaves.

I remember when you see her in the hotel for the last time, and everything is on fire and she just utters: _"It's like this all the time for me"_ or something along those lines which really made me feel rather uncomfortable.

And to be fair on James, Mary _was_ dying of a terminal illness, and in my eyes at least he let her go out with some sort of dignity as apposed to curling up in ball on some hospital bed in a rather pathetic fashion. It's the old Euthenasia debate, only seen from someone's point of view that gave it the go ahead. Not like he did it with mallicious intent, which you can sort of link back to Eddy, being some kind of Bizarro James. What with his whole: _"Killing a person ain't no big deal!". _How he goes around popping a few people off just out of spite, where James actually killed the love of his life to end the current suffering she may have been going through on this mortal coil.


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## mottled.kitten (Dec 28, 2008)

Agreed, Laze; he ended his wife's suffering. I agree that when there is no quality of life, it's up to the person who is dying to make that decision--not anyone else's (unless they are physically unable to make the choice, that is, like if they're so far gone...). Mary was obviously not willing to go--or not ready, as was evident just from the messed-up video tape. Also, I thought they mentioned that she was "getting better"?


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## Laze (Dec 28, 2008)

Unsure, I'm gonna have to give the game another playthrough. I haven't touched it in years T_T

It'll have to be PC copy though as the PS2 is _long_ gone, hehe.


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## mottled.kitten (Dec 28, 2008)

I haven't played it since it came out (hence my fogginess...). I'm not sure I even have it anymore... haha xD... The PS2 is the most recent console I own... so I still have a lot of old, old games.


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## Not A Fox (Dec 29, 2008)

Played it recently enough to have an informed opinion on this:

I don't get where the rape thing is coming from. 

James doesn't strike me as the type. That, and it hasn't been implied in the game at all (That scene in the apartment complex? just a random shock moment).

Pyramid Head is / symbolizes the Executioners of Silent Hill's past, and thus acts accordingly.

Angela is a case of severe childhood abuse in general and is only a possible rape victim. Her father was a drunkard, as the news article found before the table boss battle hints at.


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## Laze (Dec 29, 2008)

NAFFY said:


> Pyramid Head is / symbolizes the Executioners of Silent Hill's past, and thus acts accordingly.


 
I thought Pimmie had more of a link to James guilt for actually offing his wife, whether for good or for bad. That's why he kept on murdering Maria. Well, I say _keep on murdering _she only died twice if I remember correctly. Once when you finish the hospital, and once again near the end, just before you have to fight two Pyramid Heads.

You could argue that it couldn't be this, as there is more than one, but saying that we've pretty much agreed that the game is knee deep in denotation and you pretty much take whatever you see fit out of the game.

Thanks for clearing up that stuff about Angela, I knew it was something along those lines.


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