Tell Me About Silent Hill

What is your favorite Silent Hill game?

  • Silent Hill 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Silent Hill 4: The Room

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Silent Hill: The Arcade

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Silent Hill: Origins

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Silent Hill: Downpour

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Silent Hill: Book of Memories

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    6

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After playing a little bit of Silent Hill: Book of Memories on Vita, I haven't gone back and played any of the other games in a while. Silent Hill 3 used to be my benchmark for what a good survival horror game is: it has a great plot filled with memorable characters and enough development is put into the characters to make their situations interesting. The sounds made me feel uncomfortable, and the soundtrack was great. On top of all that, the gameplay was exciting, and the replay value was amazing (I'm looking at you, light saber and "sexy beam!"). At the end of Silent Hill 3, Heather was one of my favorite characters in any video game. I've since reserved that benchmark spot for Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (Gamecube), but Silent Hill 3 still holds a special place in my guts.



So what about you? What is your favorite Silent Hill game, or do you think they all suck? Tell me which ones I should overrun the Earth to find and why.
 
Well I've only played the first three. I enjoyed them all. I'm probably with you that I enjoyed the third the most so far. Two was great, but for some reason number 3 edges a little above that one for me. I have 4 and Homecoming but have yet to play either but want to despite hearing they're less than stellar compared to the first three. I also have the HD Collection and want to play through 2 and 3 again, but cross reference a certain backlog post around here and yeah just haven't gotten to them yet.
 
Never played them. Don't care for scary games. Though I enjoy watching people play them. I watched @Steevo play Siren on PS2, and the newer release on PS3 when we were roommates in college.
 
I also have the HD Collection and want to play through 2 and 3 again, but cross reference a certain backlog post around here and yeah just haven't gotten to them yet.
I preordered that, and it was delayed 3 times. On every delayed date, I showed up to the store to find that it was delayed again. I'm in the same backlog boat, but I've been very ready for some good survival horror lately.
 
I preordered that, and it was delayed 3 times. On every delayed date, I showed up to the store to find that it was delayed again. I'm in the same backlog boat, but I've been very ready for some good survival horror lately.

Wow that's quite a delay.

Unfortunately my time for survival horror and M rated games in general are limited with two little ones running around here, but I play some every once in awhile just not as much as I might like to.
 
Silent hill, oh the memories. I liked the game well enough, thought the movie sucked ass though.

What possessed them to do make one is beyond me.
I remember the original game pretty well, for awhile i was a bit confused by it, but then it grew on me when i figured out what was going on.
 
I hope Alien Isolation is good. It'll probably be very different from Silent Hill though right.

Shame I haven't played any Silent Hills. Dead Space 2, Resident Evil 4, and Outlast are some of my favorite games.
 
I hope Alien Isolation is good. It'll probably be very different from Silent Hill though right.

Shame I haven't played any Silent Hills. Dead Space 2, Resident Evil 4, and Outlast are some of my favorite games.

I hope colonial marines didn't damage the "ALIEN" series too much, would hate to see people ignore it just because colonial marines left a foul taste in their mouths.
 
I played Homecoming many years ago when it came out. It was very good and fun for me. I think I finished the game like 3 times. Later I played Silent Hill Downpour and it was not that good but it was ok and the downpour them was kinda cool.
 
I hope colonial marines didn't damage the "ALIEN" series too much, would hate to see people ignore it just because colonial marines left a foul taste in their mouths.

I don't think it will. Alien Isolation is completely different. I think most of the gamers who would be interested in it in the first place probably know enough about it to avoid any assumptions about its quality based on that failure AKA colonial marines
 
My choice for favorite is the original Silent Hill. Midwich Elementary School still gives me the creeps!!

I'm not sure if there are any members here who have played Silent Hill Shattered Memories for the Wii but that game is intense and has a truly fascinating and well developed story. The warning at the first of the game says that the game plays you as much as you play it (paraphrasing) and its true, it does play with your head!

Silent Hill Downpour, while fun, isn't scary and has major hiccups in the gameplay. Especially when you enter an area with a lot of interactive elements in it. The game stutters during these times. What IS well done though is 3D capability. It draws you into the game really nicely. I've played and beaten them all but the original Silent Hill is the best in the series. :)
 
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I'm not sure if there are any members here who have played Silent Hill Shattered Memories for the Wii but that game is intense and has a truly fascinating and well developed story. The warning at the first of the game says that the game plays you as much as you play it (paraphrasing) and its true, it does play with your head!
The psychological profiling during that game made the lack of combat and repetitive enemies seem worth it. I wish that more survival horror games would implement similar measures.
 
Gotta go with the original. As dated of a game as it is, it just defines everything great about the series as a whole. Or maybe I'm just sentimental for my first SH experience. Who knows. It's funny how things like the "fog of war" effect, which were originally used just because of graphical/data limitations, worked so damn well to make the environment so much more unsettling. The grotesque -- yet familiar -- surroundings upon entering the "otherworld" were typically vague, due to low-end graphics, but at the same time, I think that kind of worked in its favor. If you really want to scare someone, leave things up to their imagination. Give just enough to set the gears in motion, and let the player's mind take over from there. I think that kind of mindset, whether intentional or not, is a large part of the scare factor in these games. The soundtrack was largely lacking in "actual" music, instead opting for various unnerving noises -- sometimes subtle, and other times very prominent. But it was more than just background noise; it was suggestive, and that brings me back to the point I was just making.

...Bah, I could probably go on and on, but really, a lot of what I'm saying applies to the series as a whole, and thus doesn't quite back up my favoritism of the first game. I suppose that brings it down to the story, then. The whole "family vacation gone horribly, horribly wrong" scenario. Car accident. Well, that sucks. Middle of nowhere. Bah. But then things start to get weird... then mildly disturbing... and then, suddenly, downright horrifying. (I'm looking at you, creepy dark alleyway.) ...And then just weird again. There's a great deal of mystery in the air. Your daughter, this town, subtle hints about other matters... Facing the eternal nightmare of ****** (for spoilers' sake) just... has such a more powerful effect than the "otherworld" of the other games, I think.

The first game really just did such a great job setting the bar for subsequent installments in the series. Each title has its own merits on top of the overall Silent Hill "feel," but I just can't help but feel that the first game just... "did it right," to put it vaguely. (Sorry, I suck at pinpointing the finer details of my opinions, heh.)

I think, for the most part, I'd say the overall quality stooped a bit with each game that came out, most noticeably after SH3, but as I just said above: each game has its own merits. I've played all of them except Book of Memories (which I had no interest in, heard was terrible, and am not sure why they thought it was a good idea), and have genuinely enjoyed them all for their own reasons, regardless of any comparisons between them. I usually make a point of playing/replaying at least one of them around the Halloween season, during my "horror-thon."



On a more general note, as I consider myself something of an SH veteran, if anyone's got questions or anything about any of the titles, I'd be glad to share/discuss. ^^ Aside from Book of Memories, the only one I can't really say much about is Shattered Memories, as I haven't gotten around to completing it just yet. (Got it for my PSP and was playing it on and off for a while.) (Edit: Oh, and The Arcade. Kinda surprised you even listed it here, given the limited release/access, not to mention what a departure it was from the rest of the series' style.)
 
Edit: Oh, and The Arcade. Kinda surprised you even listed it here, given the limited release/access, not to mention what a departure it was from the rest of the series' style.
I saw it on a wiki and wondered if anyone ever played it. hahaha

But then things start to get weird... then mildly disturbing... and then, suddenly, downright horrifying. (I'm looking at you, creepy dark alleyway.)
There is a certain hospital mirror that really illustrates this the best for me in one of the games (SH3, I think?). Since that I've been extra cautious about where I decide to go before saving in other horror games, but Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem on Gamecube is the only other horror game I've played that led me through the gamut of wtf throughout the story. Aside from a few "BOO!" scares in Outlast, nothing else has really compared for me.

Would you say that Silent Hill is the best survival horror game / series you've played, or is there something else that rings louder for you (preferably on consoles that I have, PS3 / PS4 / Vita)?
 
There is a certain hospital mirror that really illustrates this the best for me in one of the games (SH3, I think?). Since that I've been extra cautious about where I decide to go before saving in other horror games, but Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem on Gamecube is the only other horror game I've played that led me through the gamut of wtf throughout the story. Aside from a few "BOO!" scares in Outlast, nothing else has really compared for me.

Would you say that Silent Hill is the best survival horror game / series you've played, or is there something else that rings louder for you (preferably on consoles that I have, PS3 / PS4 / Vita)?
Yeah, the mirror is in SH3. Very nicely done scare.

I've heard a lot of Eternal Darkness, but haven't gotten around to playing it myself. (Was considering grabbing it, since my Wii's the backwards-compatible model.) All I really know about it is it seriously fucks with your head by using all sorts of clever illusions as your character loses their sanity, from flipping rooms upside down to falling through solid floors to fake game over screens, etc. It sounds interesting enough.

Honestly, I'm not too familiar with many survival-horror franchises outside of Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Fatal Frame. There's Clock Tower, but Clock Tower 3 was a complete joke, and the series has since died out. Out of what I'm familiar with, though, I like to say I prefer Silent Hill, just because of the kind of psychological approach it takes to horror -- the kind that I prefer to jump scares and the like.
 

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