SILENT HILL 3 (PS2, XBOX)


Evil Hill meets Silent Dead. Sorta...

By MARTIN KINGSLEY

"I'd like to begin with a history lesson. No, sit down, it'll be good, trust me.

"Sit down. You move the knees, sort of lower yourself, we call it 'sitting'…Oh, look, just forget it."

*Empties .45 into specific audience member*

"Right, now that we have that settled, I want you to draw yourselves back, back into the mists of time--"

The year is 1980, and the cinemas are full with sweaty teenagers chomping highly suspect popcorn and drowning in rivers of carbonated, caffeinated soft drink. Then the twinned, off-red curtains squeak and rattle their way from the cynical view of above-mentioned teenagers and the battered lights sputter to a lower level of illumination, as we're treated to a view of a misty old forest, where strange and malevolent beasties (or at least, the POV cam) lurk. Then the title card: "Evil Dead, directed by Sam Raimi".

Ah, yes, Evil Dead, the trilogy that reinserted the word "groovy" into my vocabulary. Oddly enough, the first sentiment most people share with me when first watching Evil Dead from the lofty heights of 2003 is: "DAMN, but he was young!"

They are, of course, talking about Bruce Campbell and his rather heroic chin. Spawning two sequels, numerous action figures, two games and a rather successful episode of the Canadian CGI series Reboot, not to mention a fan base that spans the world across, you could say that the trilogy is rather popular. In fact, it made Bruce Campbell's career as a B-movie actor what it is today.

End history lesson.

Anyway, the reason for bringing up Evil Dead will be explained later on. For now, let's just concentrate on what we have in front of us, which happens to be the third (and possibly last) instalment in Konami's spectacularly popular Silent Hill (SH) series.

A direct challenger to Capcom's also very popular Resident Evil (RE) franchise, Silent Hill pulls away from RE by focusing more on the characters than the action, achieving with some writing on a wall what Resident Evil achieves with a pack of zombies and a shotgun.

Implied threat, implied meaning, can sometimes be both scarier and more evocative that explicit detail.

For example, take Silent Hill 2, arguably the series' pinnacle: The whole game focuses around James Sunderland's dead wife, and you get the impression that most of what we perceive to be the evil of Silent Hill may purely be within James' own head, a sign of his growing insanity impinging on the real world.

Unfortunately, Silent Hill 3 (SH3) fails to reach the lofty benchmark set by its predecessor, instead leaning further towards Resident Evil territory than ever before, clearly suffering from a severe case of 'sequelitis'.

Let's get the plot out of the way first of all: You play a young girl, who keeps having strange dreams and is being followed around by a creepy alleged private detective.

This is where my first problem begins, namely that the plot employs some really cliché story points. For instance, you then meet up with a woman with witchish powers who starts spouting prophetic nonsense about you being the "chosen one" before promptly wandering off.

It gets better later on, but for Silent Hill aficionados, the opening hour of play will most likely leave a sour taste in the mouth, especially, especially the opening dream sequence. Just think Stephen King's It and you're almost there.

Now, my second problem lies in enemy placement. Too many, too close together.

In the original SH games, you would only ever face between one and three enemies at a time. Now, you can be facing as many as five, and will usually end up running out of ammo and have to stab them to death with your switchblade, which can take nearly 5 minutes to do with some enemies, all while avoiding the attacks of the other creatures.

My third and final problem with SH3 is pretty plain: Script. To be honest, it sucks.

Some of what the main character says has no relativity to the situation and in really bad spots she tends to suddenly develop a case of the stupids. Just listen to the exchanges between you and the private eye and you'll get my point.

In all honesty, I'm forced to conclude that it's a direct translation from the Japanese text that causes all these screenplay-related non sequiturs. This in itself is odd, because Silent Hill 2's script was almost flawless. Possibly an example of going back to the well one too many times, methinks?

Not that it's all bad. Konami have finally implemented a semi-controllable camera that replaces the totally automated one of previous excursions into the Silent Hill universe, allowing for choices between set viewpoints, 1st person 360-degree still camera and over the shoulder 3rd person tracking camera.

In other words, you finally have the ability to see just what the hell keeps on stabbing you in the neck and, more importantly, where it is in the room so you can empty a couple of clips into it.

Also on the upside is the inclusion of logical puzzles and lots of 'em. This has been my only actual gripe with the SH series (the Resident Evil games as well), and it's nice to see that someone, somewhere in the Konami complex has seen fit to actually design puzzles that don't require the use of obscure and arcane objects found in the weirdest of places.

For instance, an early one is a good example: You see a key, stuck under a collection of open-slat crates. You can't reach in far enough to get it, so you go to the bakery and get a pair of tongs, returning to the crates and grabbing the key with your newly-acquired bread retrieval tool.

Now, if SH3 had been developed in 1997, we would have had to go and get the blue key, then use it to open a broom closet, get a bucket, stand on the bucket, put on a pair of high heels, jump up and down on the spot and then hopefully break our necks.

Another positive is the amazing visuals on display, definitely an example of the pinnacle of VFX, and at some points approaching the polygonal complexity of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which is no mean feat considering the hardware used to produce said movie; also, all the cutscenes are rendered ingame, instead of being separate CGI sequences.

The level of quality found in the visuals also goes for the audio, which takes full advantage of surround sound and generally helps to freak you out that little bit more.

Now, you've probably read all this, said, "Yep, we get all that, but what we really want to know is: What's with the Evil Dead reference, sonny?"

OK, the reason I made an Evil Dead reference is because I believe there's a connection to be made here between the Evil Dead trilogy and the Silent Hill trilogy:

See, it's widely agreed that, of the three movies, number two was the best, simply for the reason that the first was a tentative excursion into the horror genre, and lacked the cinematic oomph the experience with the camera brings.

Number three is considered to be more of a dress rehearsal for Raimi's immensely popular Hercules and Xena television serials, with his wacky Three Stooges-style of humour way out of place in a horror flick.

As such, that leaves Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, which benefits from a more experienced Campbell, a medium range budget that didn't allow anyone to get too exorbitant, and a less wary hand with the direction. All three seem to parallel Silent Hill to a fault.

Silent Hill 1 tapped into the emerging survival horror vein, successfully enough to generate both large-scale sales and interest in a sequel. SH2 improved on its forefather in every way, shape and form.

Three, however, has enhanced a few select sections of the gameplay, but has, in my humble opinion, strayed away from the core ideals of the series, wandering into the well-worn territory of Resident Evil and Dino Crisis. Ah, well, cest la vie.

Anyway, I'd still recommend Silent Hill 3 to you anyway, simply for the reason that it's Silent Hill…and replaying the game over gets you multiple endings and, of all things, a lightsaber. That in itself is a reason for recommendation. Can you say "Darth Vader Impersonation?" I can.

ORIGINALITY 80%
SOUND/GRAPHICS 95%
PLAYABILITY 75%
ENJOYMENT 75%
OVERALL 80%