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The Best, by yards and yards

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 17, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This incredible game combines the wild blood-curdling fun of "survival horror" with an unusual sense of narrative, atmosphere, and an attempt at a plot (something other than "How Will We Get Out Of Here Now? "). It goes for the lowest level of really scary details (or lack of) and highest level you can find right now of video-game "intellectual" challenge. The plot doesn't actually come off, but not for want of trying. You don't have to watch the animated dialogues over and over, the relation of action to the controls is great, and the whole package accommodates a surprising range of narrative alternatives. The designers want to entertain you, not stun you with their technical prowess (though they can accomplish that too at times).

Some people invent genres, and some perfect them --or come very very close.

silent hill

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 01, 2000
Author: Amazon User

All i have to say is this game is better then resident evil, dont get me wrong i like resident evil but this game towers over it. I think it is safe to say that this is one of the best (or the best) survival horror that exists. This game is so dark and twisted that you will not be able to stop thinking about it for weeks. So I highly recomend this game.

Silent Hill Is The Best!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 23, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Let me just say that Silent Hill is not the type of game to play at home alone with all the lights off. Silent Hill is a horror movie in video game form. The monsters (The Rabbid Dogs, Flying Demons, and Furry men) attack at ever turn, the puzzles are not as easy as some state (The piano puzzle, and the gate puzzle that leads to the giant lizard) and the theme music is unbelievably creepy on a mental sort of way because you know something is there but you don't know what. If you have to buy any video game for playsation I highly recommend this one.

Better than the RE series.....Yeah!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Silent Hill was always carrying the label of "Resident Evil copy"and I believed them,till I got to play it.The story is kind of simple,that keeps evolving as you play the game through.The story involves Harry Mason,who takes his daughter to Silent Hill,when trying to avoid a girl in the middle of the road he crashes,he wakes up and finds Cheryl is gone,where?Unknown.That is how the game starts,you have to find Cheryl.Meeting a lot of interesting characters in the way you continue for the search,then the world turns into a kind of a netherworld.You know that a monster is near when you hear the static on the pocket radio,and all you have is a little lantern,that's the part that gives you the chills,it's out there,but where?Silent Hill makes a good,I mean GREAT use of sounds that causes you to jump out of your seat that causes unexpected scares.The storyline is confusing to some,just put attention,oh,there's also 4 different endings,I just got the Greatest ending,but gave the game away because even if I played through it,every little sound made me look back...

For Those Who Prefer Intense Fear Over Cinematic Fear

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

As you could guess, being a film student and all, that I prefer slightly the cinematic fear of the Biohazard/Resident Evil series over this, much more eerie style of fear, but that doesn't mean that this game didn't scare me as much, if not more.

What's so great about Silent Hill is that the danger has a sense of reality to it, unlike in Resident Evil where you really just fight some monsters who jump through windows at you and watch some highly entertaining scenes. The fog adds a new element of fear, in which something might be out there; and with the radio, you KNOW when there is an unseen terror lurking in the shadows or precipitation. Real life is more like that: where you can't see your enemies, not where they are just big enough to withstand several direct shotgun shots.

However, enough comparisons to the horror-king series, because this game is neither better nor worse. This game is simply different. Your hero isn't a cop, and the disaster is much more philosophical and fantastic than scientific, which isn't just Resident Evil, but also Parasite Eve. This isn't as much X-Files as it is the Twighlight Zone.

The story is about Harry Mason, an average Joe, coming to the resort town: Silent Hill, with his daughter. What he doesn't realize is that at that very time, the forces of darkness are struggling, almost fighting one another. As a result, there are many dead people around, and the town itself is now pulsating with evil. Sometimes he'll leave a building, where the time of day, or the design of the town will change within seconds, right before his eyes. However, after each boss battle, all the super-levels of darkness will subside, and the daytime will come about again, where the danger is much more scarce; it's kind-of like Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (a true classic), where there are times of light evil, and times of overwhelming evil. However, unlike Simon's Quest, you cannot just wait it out.

The main point that I'm trying to make, is that this game is easily as scary as Resident Evil, but it's less in the real world; yet, it has a strange sense of familiarity to it. However, if you were brought up with the other survival horror world, than don't expect this to just me one of the better entries; this is it's own unique bloodline (well, Fear Effect was similar, but THIS is MUCH MUCH BETTER!!). I know horror players who have given up on this game due to the fact that it is too scary. I have myself, and I'm sure all these other reviewers did as well. You will too, but that doesn't mean that you won't like it.

Have you seen a little girl?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 27, 2003
Author: Amazon User

My goodness. The first trip to the town of Silent Hill. This is the first in a series of 3. This will always stand as THE scariest game of all time. This game is truly difficult to play. It is difficult not because the game itself is hard, it is difficult because merely playing this game will test your ability to cope with fear. I had to put this game down several times because I was simply getting too frightened. The gameplay is a great improvement over RE. The game is fully 3D. There is plenty of ammo. There are plenty of healing items. The enemies dont plod toward you (they run and fly). There are four different endings. One thing I was amazed at was the amount of weapons. There are three guns: pistol, shotgun, and hunting rifle. Then there are the melee weapons: kitchen knife, lead pipe, axe, hammer, katana, rock drill, and chainsaw. This is quite a take on the genre. Melee weapons that aren't worthless. The game is great considering al these things. I wont speak of the story. You will have to find out on your own. I can only say that this is one of the greatest PS1 games ever.

I was able to sleep at night after about four months.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It took me a long, long time to recover from this game. Sounds silly, since it's old, and for the PS1 with cluncky graphics, and it's just a game anyway, right?

Right?

Hey, I know that. But when I turned this thing on, it did not matter. I'd never played a survival horror game before; I bought this one on word of mouth. What I was in for, I had no idea. The plot seems simple enough: Harry is driving down the highway with his daughter Cheryl, when he nearly runs into a woman in the road and swerves to avoid her, crashing the car off the road. When he comes to, his daughter is just disappearing in the fog which you will come to find covers everything in sight. Harry, now controlled by you, follows her to a back alley, where something strange is waiting for him... There starts his quest to find his daughter... and eventually to find out who, or what, she really is.

What really makes the game unique above other fright games is the innovative way it uses the player's mind to scare. A staple of the game is Harry's radio: it makes a static noise when an enemy is approaching, getting louder the closer it gets. We don't know where the enemy is coming from, or how fast, or whether it is by air or land. We just know something is about to jump out and try to kill Harry. There goes your blood pressure. We can add to that the atmosphere of the town: we see signs everywhere of ordinary people and their lives. It seems wherever they went, they left recently, without signs of their departure. Then there are sudden crying noises, corpses, strange sounds, and messages from Cheryl pleading with Harry to help her. Except... not all of them seem to be from this time and place...

The music is superb. Volume rising at just the right moments, it's a mix of atmospheric noise and industrial crunching. Sometimes, noises in the music suggest noises of possible enemies nearby, increacing the possible fear.

The game is not perfect. It's not for those with attention deficits looking for a lot of showy "boo!" effects. The gameplay can be a little difficult at times (but then again, this is the PS1) and the dialogue is awfully stilted. But that does not hinder the game because so much of it relies on the things it gets right.

The storyline takes a bit of work. But if you search around the net or talk it over with other players, you'll probably get it. It's a little real, a little supernatural; it continues in SH3. It scared the pants off me when I played it with a friend, in daylight. It still scares me. Definitely worth a play.

The Exorcist is to Cinderella as Silent Hill is to Resident Evil

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I love the Resident Evil series. I currently have RE2, RE3, RE:CVX, and RE:4. Before I got into survival horror, I heard really good things about RE:2 so I got it for PS1(and this is in 2004) All the reviews said "Oh my gosh it's so scary" and I never played a survival horror game before so I was prepared to be scared. Well, I played it and it was a fantastic game, but not really that scary. It had its share of jumps and scares but more fun in gameplay than in scares. Now that I had a lot of the RE's I wanted to try a different horror series, so I just looked on the internet for similar games and found Silent Hill. Again, the reviews were like "You won't sleep for days!" so I tried thinking it would be like RE. Boy was I wrong.

Like you've probably already read the game relies on growing tension and fear, than on BOO!'s. I won't go over the story because you've already read it enough.

Don't judge this game until you get to the school. I thought the game was boring and stupid until I got to the school. You have to scan the whole area for 3 keys. There's the occasional zombie dog or flying thing, but really boring. And the fog is just an excuse for the ps1's poor memory. But when I got to the school, different story...

(There's a few spoilers ahead) The zombie kids freaked me out, they just like made me shudder. Then theres that growing tension like in the locker room you hear clanking and more clanking, but you don't want to open the locker. Oh, did I say it was dark, and you can only see 10 feet in front of you. The alternate school gave me the heebee jeebees. The rooms are all different, theres metal grates, tortured people. One thing that made me go whoa, was that in the regualar school, there was a picture of a door with 2 tortured people hanging next to it, but in the alternate school, it was 2 people and a real door there!

The riddles are challenging and fun too.

I don't think this game is scary enough to lose sleep over, but it definitely is the scariest. Graphics mean nothing, in case you're wondering.

Pure TERROR.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 13
Date: September 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you've been informed (like I was) that Silent Hill is merely a Resident Evil clone and decided to give it a pass...you have no clue as to what you're missing.

Put simply, the first Silent Hill is an exercise in sheer, undiluted terror. This isn't the typical "jump-out-and-BOO" cheap scare and gross-out fluff like in RE, nor even the darkly tragic and Lynchian drama/horror of the PS2 sequel. This is as nightmarish as a video game can possibly get. Silent Hill is one of the few games that establishes a unique atmosphere throughout all sensory inputs (sound effects, music, graphics, controls, everything) and then uses it to effectively warp the player's psyche, until you feel as if you are actually THERE.

The game's graphics might be somewhat lacking from a technical standpoint (especially in this age of stunning, flawless renderings with seamless FPS), but it uses that to its advantage to create a gritty, decaying, and eerie landscape. Of note is the fog (and other natural effects). It looks almost exactly like real fog, not a polygon hider, as it wafts and drifts obscuring your path. And when "night" falls, the game plunges into a truly horrifying dimension of Hell, with bloody, grotesque imagery that will give you chills long after the game is over. The monsters are twistedly creative and frightening too--zombie children, strange flying beasts, knife-wielding nurses (the hospital alone gave me nightmares for days), and other assorted freakish displays, all of them hungry for the taste of Harry's blood as he searches desperately for his lost daughter.

Especially masterful is the use of lighting. At certain points (actually, a good percentage of the game) the only source of illumination is a dim penlight. And get this, it ATTRACTS THE MONSTERS TO YOU. So naturally, you have the option of turning it off, if you wish, to take your chances stumbling around in the dark surrounded by evil things waiting to tear our hapless protagonist limb from limb. Sheer genius.

Harry is an average human being, not some super soldier or anything of the sort, and the game reflects this. The controls are clunky (Harry's a lousy shot) until you get used to them, and since this game demands spot-on timing, you WILL die many times at first. It's possible for Harry to get winded while running, or stumble and fall off of ledges. This, along with the dual shock's heartbeat/impact effect (which becomes faster and more pronounced as Harry is wounded) only adds to the realism. The weapons are fairly basic--your typical blunt object/knife/shotgun/pistol/etc. Nothing outlandish, no missile launchers or machine guns lying about (you CAN get a katana or chainsaw, which are way cool, but I'm not gonna spoil how you pick those up). The puzzles are very creative and challenging.

And the crowning jewel in this masterpiece of horror: The soundtrack. No other game I've played uses audio effects to the same extent that Silent Hill does. The music, played mostly by guitar and mandolin as far as I can tell, is ominous and creepy, and rises from near-silence to absolute demonic frenzy as you are being attacked. Harry carries a radio around with him that is often your only clue to monster activity, as it starts emitting feedback and static that will set your skin crawling in preparation for battle. And then of course, there are the beloved *random FX.* Sounds that Konami threw in just to screw with your already terrorized and fragile mental state. Children crying, monsters moaning, floorboards creaking, water dripping, random footsteps, hissing respirators, and an air raid siren that made me jump 3 feet vertical from a sitting position when I first heard it. Pavlov would've been proud.

Kudos to Konami for creating a disturbing, horrific, and darkly imaginative piece of work that ranks up there with the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and Kubrick's The Shining. Psychological survivor horror at its very best, and one of the PS1's classic releases. Purchase this, wait 'till 1 AM, turn off all the lights, crank the volume up, and relish the horror...if you dare!

Creepy- just creepy...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Silent Hill is a game based on fear. The fear of losing your child, the fear of being alone in an empty town where the streets are made of metal grating, the fear of darkness and death.

Silent Hill drew comparisons to Resident Evil, and while I can understand this, I feel that Resident Evil was centered primarily on action, while Silent Hill was centered on fear. It depends on what you like. If you like lots of guns and shooting, you won't find it here.

What you will find is one of the best (if not wholly original) stories ever to grace a video game. Play it with the lights off. It grates your nerves to pulp that way.

If you like horror movies, and I mean the SCARY ones, you are in for quite a ride with this one. You'll find yourself alone at night in an abandoned school full of mutilated children chasing you with knives. You see a nurse, Lisa, from a hospital, while she cries blood because she's "one of them..."

Add to this the hauntingly beautiful (and sometimes crazy) music, and it all becomes one big, scary expierience. Let yourself get involved with the charcters and be chilled by it- it's not something you'll forget, and one of the best gaming events I've ever seen- but only if you prefer scares and story, as opposed to shooting and bad voice-overs.

Have fun, let the heartpounding begin.

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