Silent Hill

The original Silent Hill is an extremely influential game that is hard to play 20+ years after its release. Sometimes it's still stunning, but most of the time it feels clunky. However, I do not regret that I finally played and finished it.

Silent Hill was probably the first (and only come to think of it) game that I yearned for, rushed out and bought, and then wasn't spectacularly let down by once I plugged it in. This is not to say that every game in my life has been a disappointment, but for the most part I don't actually get physically excited by a game's existence before I buy it. It's more like "eh, I think I will probably like this" and then find I am either pleasantly surprised or resignedly dispirited. This game was different.

I first became aware of Silent Hill via a non-playable demo on a magazine disc. It was a short video with chilling music and unusually for a person not easily swayed by these things, I was completely sucked in. I watched it three times in a row and got an internal twinge. I had to get this game into my life.

Finally the game found its way into the shops and praise the patron saint of game development, it was an absolute gem. I loved the atmosphere, I loved the puzzles, I loved the whole psychological brain-fuck thing. At no point is the game a chore, and there is a good balance of action, thinking and storyline. In some ways Silent Hill restored my faith in games and rekindled my interest.

Still unrivalled, better than the sequel. This game doesn't skimp on the oppressive atmosphere. In Resident Evil you dreaded opening doors because of the tedious cutscenes, here you dread opening doors for fear of what's on the other side. Graphics only matter in the first five minutes of gameplay, but even as a relic it's still a milestone. I played it when it came out with a friend who refused to pick up the controller. The school level was terrifying... It was one of my favourite playthroughs in my life.

The intro, I mean the whole first half hour, couldn't be more classic. At the time, it felt "movie-like", which is commonplace now but not at all then. With great ingenuity they designed a three act nightmare that is still perfectly playable today. It really refined Resident Evil in a much more interesting direction. The voice acting is restrained but effective, and the plot is carried with sort of a graceful simplicity until the confusing climax.

The sequel would recycle everything it could while trying to go in all directions at once, losing the pure focus of this groundbreaking game that genereated a whole new wave of quieter survival horror. A genius concept, but the franchise was already on the way down.

The first Silent Hill game was a game I had been meaning to play for a long time. I consider 2 and 3 to be amongst my favourite games, but I really need to be in a particular mood to really appreciate the living nightmare that these games force towards the player. They definitly arent fun games (not in the same way that a resident evil game can be), but their industrial surrealistic atmosphere, tight cinematics and solid survival horror gameplay do make for some very memorable times.

Playing the first entry really made me realise how damn influencial it is to all survival horror that came after. The PS1 visuals with low poly models really add a lot of creepiness to the setting, as well as the short cinematics. The visuals combined with the game's incredible art direction makes its locales extremely memorable. The fog covering everything further than 10 meters acts both as a technical crutch, but it also makes you always on edge while transversing the town, with enemy presence being felt first sonically and only then visually.

The story of the game is great. Harry Mason represents the sort of goofy character stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time, and this is only amplified by the very awkward voice acting in the game. Most characters are very one dimensional, but it works in the setting of the game, and it keeps things mysterious right up to its ending. It works well enough into encentivizing the played to explore off the beaten path to learn more about the world.

The gameplay itself could be divided between combat/avoiding enemies and puzzles. Compared to resident evil, the focus is higher on the puzzles, with more cryptic solutions.
The combat itself is solid enough to the most part, but its where the game feels undoubtedly dated in some aspects. Its hard to manuvre the world both because of the lag when starting movement as well as its tank controls. It doesnt help that most interior spaces are very tight, and often with multiple enemies, so resorting to combat really is the safest and easiest option most of the time. Enemies go down easy, aiming locks up to the closest enemy, and their AI is very simple, and ammo is plentiful for the most part (and enemies wont return after you killed them). The only downside of killing enemies is the possible lore implications. But hey, getting to Cheryl is all that matters.
The puzzles really are cryptic at times. Most of the times its just a matter of getting object A to place B and combining the two, but there are a few that involve finding button combinations. I feel that some of the issues lie in the english translation that makes things unecessary hard. Fortunatly there are plenty of guides for the game, and I didnt find that using a guide at moments took away from the enjoyment of the game.

The game is over 20 year old by now, and definitly clunky in a few spots. I feel like 2 and 3 masterfully improved its formula with more memorable stories, characters and soundtrack. Even then, the foundation set in this game still provides an excellent survival horror experience, for those that prioritize atmosphere, art design and puzzle design over everything else.

Whilst it's beginning to show its age, Silent Hill remains a series staple. It's perhaps the most deeply unsettling and eerie of all the games, thanks to its carefully-curated atmosphere, excellent direction and superb soundtrack.

SH1 is one of the most important video games ever made. With Resident Evil 1 it basically invented the survival horror genre. It is still very scary to this day and is an undeniably immersive experience.

However, I can't pretend for one second that younger gamers will latch onto this game, or ever actually finish it. I personally think the game does suffer from the limitations of its time to the extent that, when played on the original PS1, performance issues combined with the grain filter can be headache-inducing. Emulating the game on PSX makes for a better experience, although that's not how the game was intended to be played, so I'm still going to dock some points for that. Overall, this is still a masterpiece, but it is very much a product of its time.