Silent Hill (Discussion)

[VenomDYOM]

 

 

Here, you can discuss about the game. Your favorite characters, scenes, music and more.

 

 

ORIGINAL GAMES:

 

Silent Hill (video game)

Silent Hill^[a] is a survival horror video game for the PlayStation published by Konami and developed by Team Silent, a group in Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. The first installment in the Silent Hill series, the game was released in North America in January 1999, and in Japan and Europe later that year. Silent Hill uses a third-person view, with real-time rendering of 3D environments. To mitigate limitations of the console hardware, developers liberally used fog and darkness to muddle the graphics. Unlike earlier survival horror games that focused on protagonists with combat training, the player character of Silent Hill is an "everyman".^[2]

The game follows Harry Mason as he searches for his missing adopted daughter in the eponymous fictional American town of Silent Hill; stumbling upon a cult conducting a ritual to revive a deity it worships, he discovers her true origin. Five game endings are possible, depending on actions taken by the player, including one joke ending.

Silent Hill received positive reviews from critics on its release and was commercially successful. It is considered a defining title in the survival horror genre, and is also considered by many to be one of the greatest video games ever made, moving away from B movie horror elements, toward a psychological style of horror emphasizing atmosphere.^[2] Various adaptations of Silent Hill have been released, including a 2001 visual novel, the 2006 feature film Silent Hill, and a 2009 reimagining of the game, titled Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. The game was followed by Silent Hill 2 in 2001.

PLOT:

Silent Hill opens with Harry Mason driving to the titular town with his young daughter Cheryl for a vacation. At the town's edge, he swerves his car to avoid hitting a girl in the road; as a result, he crashes and loses consciousness.^[6] Waking up in town, he realizes that his daughter is missing and sets out to look for her, finding the town deserted and foggy, with snow falling out of season.^[8] During his journey, he begins to experience bouts of unconsciousness and nightmares filled with hostile creatures. He encounters police officer Cybil Bennett, who works in the nearby town of Brahms;^[9][10][11] a fortune telling cultist, Dahlia Gillespie, who gives him a charm; the "Flauros" and hints at his daughter's whereabouts;^[12] doctor Michael Kaufmann, director of Silent Hill's Alchemilla Hospital;^[8][13] a nurse suffering from amnesia; Lisa Garland, who worked at Alchemilla.^[13] He also encounters a symbol throughout the town, which Dahlia claims will allow darkness to take over the town if it continues to multiply.^[14] Eventually, he realizes and explains to Cybil that this darkness is taking over the town, and is responsible for the disappearance of the citizens, and transforming it into someone's nightmare. According to Dahlia, the girl from the road is a demon responsible for the symbol's duplication. She urges him to stop the demon, because if he does not, Cheryl's life will be sacrificed to the demon. Dahlia urges Harry to stop the town from becoming a total apocalypse of demonic possession, by using the Flauros.^[15] Harry soon finds himself attacked by Cybil, who has become possessed by the girl's power via parasite implant ;^[16] the player must choose whether to save her or not.^[17]

When Harry next encounters the form of the teenage girl, he demands to know where Cheryl is but is revoked. Soon afterwards she is paralyzed by the Flauros that Harry was carrying. Dahlia appeared and revealed that she manipulated Harry into catching her daughter; Alessa, since only he could approach her apparently due to his connection with Cheryl and her reaching out to him. Alessa possesses vast reality warping powers to manifest objects into reality and used that power to previously escape a spell cast upon her by her mother to torture her within a nightmare forcing her to cry out for help from Cheryl. Together Dahlia & Alessa transport away using the Flauros.^[18][19] Harry awakens in a logicless void known only as "nowhere" and encounters Lisa again, who realizes she is "the same as them"^[20] and begins transforming; he flees, horrified. Her diary reveals that she nursed Alessa during a secret, forced hospitalization.^[21][22] and enabled Alessa's hospitalization. Feeling betrayed, he forces the deity out of Alessa, also causing her to vanish. After Harry defeats it, the deity disappears, and Alessa appears, who manifests a baby reincarnation of herself and Cheryl, gives it to Harry, enables their escape from the depths of "nowhere" and her nightmare, and then dies. In the "good +" ending, Harry escapes with Cybil and the baby. In both "good" endings, a transformed Lisa prevents Kaufmann from leaving and throws him into a pit.^[17] The joke ending features extraterrestrialsabducting Harry.^[25]

SILENT HILL 2:

Silent Hill 2^[a] is a survival horror video game published by Konami for the PlayStation 2 and developed by Team Silent, part of Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. It was released in September 2001 as the second installment in the Silent Hill series. An extended version containing an extra bonus scenario and other additions was published for Xbox in December of the same year. In 2002 it was ported to Windows. A remastered high-definition version was released for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 in 2012 as part of the Silent Hill HD Collection.

While set in the series' eponymous fictional American town, Silent Hill 2 is not a direct sequel to the first Silent Hill game. Instead, it centers on James Sunderland, who enters the town after receiving a letter apparently written by his deceased wife, saying she is waiting for him in Silent Hill. Joined by Maria, who strongly resembles her, he searches for her and discovers the truth about her death. Additional material in rereleases and ports included Born from a Wish, which focuses on Maria before she and James meet.

Silent Hill 2 uses a third-person view and places a greater emphasis on finding items and solving riddles than combat. It includes psychological aspects such as the gradual disappearance of Mary's letter, and references to history, films and literature. More humanoid than their counterparts in the preceding game, some of the monsters were designed to reflect James' subconscious.

Silent Hill 2 received critical acclaim. Within the month of its release in North America, Japan, and Europe, over one million copies were sold, with the greatest number of sales in North America. English-language critics praised the atmosphere, graphics, story and monster designs of Silent Hill 2, but criticized the controls as difficult to use although much improved over its predecessor. It is often considered the greatest horror game and among the greatest games of all time, praised for its story and use of metaphors, psychological horror and taboo topics, soundtrack and sound design.^[1][2][3][4] The game was followed by Silent Hill 3 in 2003.

PLOT:

James Sunderland (Guy Cihi) comes to Silent Hill after apparently receiving a letter from his wife Mary (Monica Taylor Horgan), who died of an illness three years before.^[16] While exploring the town, he encounters Angela Orosco (Donna Burke), a teenage runaway searching for her mother; Eddie Dombrowski (David Schaufele), another teenage runaway; and Laura (Jacquelyn Brekenridge), an eight-year-old who befriended Mary and who accuses him of not loving Mary.^[14][17][18] James searches a local park, where he meets Maria (Hogan), who strongly resembles Mary, but has different personality and clothing. Maria claims that she has never met or seen Mary, and because she is frightened by the monsters, James allows her to follow him.^[19]

Following Laura to a hospital and searching for her there at Maria's insistence, James and Maria are ambushed by the monster Pyramid Head, and Maria is killed while James escapes.^[20] James resolves to search the hotel that he and Mary stayed at during their vacation.^[21] On the way, James finds Maria alive and unharmed in a locked room. She claims ignorance of their previous encounter and discusses elements of James' and Mary's past that only Mary would know. James sets off to find a way to free Maria but returns to find her dead again.^[22] Later on, he rescues Angela from a monster; she confesses that her father sexually abused her, and a newspaper clipping implies she killed him in self-defense before coming to Silent Hill.^[22][14] He also confronts Eddie, who admits to maiming a bully, and killing a dog, before fleeing to Silent Hill. When Eddie attacks him, James kills him in self-defense.^[22]

At the hotel, James locates a videotape which depicts him killing his dying wife, and Mary's letter becomes a blank piece of paper. In another room, a final meeting with Angela sees her giving up on life, unable to cope with her trauma. She walks into a fire and is not seen again.^[23] Afterwards, James encounters two Pyramid Heads, along with Maria, who is killed again. James realizes that Pyramid Head was created because he needed someone to punish him, and all the monsters are manifestations of his psyche. The envelope from Mary disappears and both Pyramid Heads commit suicide.^[23] James heads to the hotel's rooftop; depending on choices made by the player throughout the game, he encounters either Mary or Maria disguised as her.

Silent Hill 2 features six endings; Konami has kept their canonicity ambiguous.^[9][24] In "Leave", James has one last meeting with Mary, reads her letter, and leaves the town with Laura. "In Water" sees James commit suicide by driving his car off a cliff.^[25] The "Maria" ending sees Mary as the woman on the rooftop, who has not forgiven James for killing her; after her defeat, James dismisses her as a hallucination and then leaves the town with an alive Maria, who briefly coughs, suggesting she will become sick just as Mary did, and the cycle will repeat.^[26] The other three endings are only available in replay games, including "Rebirth", in which James plans to resurrect Mary using arcane objects collected throughout the game,^[27] and two joke endings: "Dog", where James discovers that a dog has been controlling all the events of the game,^[28] and "UFO", where James is abducted by extraterrestrials with the help of the first game's protagonist, Harry Mason.^[29]

SILENT HILL 3:

Silent Hill 3^[a] is a survival horror video game published by Konami for the PlayStation 2 and developed by Team Silent, a production group within Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. It is the third installment in the Silent Hill series and a direct sequel to the first Silent Hill game.^[1] It was released in May 2003, with a port to Microsoft Windows released in October of the same year. A remastered high-definition version was released as part of the Silent Hill HD Collection, for the PlayStation 3^[2] and the Xbox 360^[3] on March 20, 2012.^[4]

Set seventeen years after the events of Silent Hill^[5] in which Harry Mason defeats the god of the town cult and is given a baby girl to care for, Silent Hill 3 focuses on Heather Mason, a teenage girl raised by Harry in Portland. She discovers that the cult plans to use her to birth their god, and becomes caught in a conflict within the cult.

Silent Hill 3 was mostly well received by critics, especially in its presentation, including the environments, graphics and audio, as well as the overall horror elements and themes that are continued from past installments. Its plot was loosely adapted into the 2012 film Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.

PLOT:

Silent Hill 3 takes place in the fictional universe of the Silent Hill series. Seventeen years before the start of Silent Hill 3, Harry Mason defeated a god brought forth by a cult of Silent Hill and at the ending, was given a baby girl to care for. The protagonist and player character of Silent Hill 3 is Heather, Harry's now-teenage daughter. Silent Hill 3 opens with her nightmare of being trapped in a demented amusement park and run down by the roller coaster. She awakens in a burger restaurant, but before she can leave the mall, private detective Douglas Cartland confronts her, claiming to have information about her birth.^[11] Heather evades him and discovers that the mall is mostly abandoned except for monsters. She then encounters Claudia, who hints that Heather will be instrumental in bringing about paradise on earth.^[11] Heather soon finds herself in the Otherworld version of the mall — monster-filled, bloodstained, and decaying — and eventually returns to the original shopping mall, where she encounters Douglas. He confesses that Claudia had hired him to find her. Heather leaves the mall and resolves to take the subway home.^[12] When she returns to her apartment, she discovers that Claudia had her father murdered out of revenge and to engender hatred in Heather. Claudia informs her that she will be waiting for her in Silent Hill and leaves.^[13]

Intent on killing Claudia, Heather resolves to go to Silent Hill and accepts Douglas's offer to drive her there.^[14] On the journey there, Douglas explains that Vincent, a fellow cultist, told them to look for a man named Leonard, while Heather learns from a memo left by her father that she is the baby left to him. Because Heather is Alessa's reincarnation, Claudia intends for Heather to birth the cult's god.^[15] Arriving in the abandoned and fog-shrouded town, Heather eventually finds a transformed Leonard in a local hospital. Revealed to be Claudia's abusive father, he attacks Heather after learning that she is not a member of the cult.^[16] Heather defeats him and eventually meets Vincent, who directs her to a church via a local amusement park, purportedly at Douglas' request.^[17] When Heather arrives at the amusement park, she finds him wounded, having tried to stop Claudia. He considers killing Heather to stop the god from being born, but decides against it.^[18] Heather reaches the church, and after Claudia kills Vincent, confronts her. Heather vomits out the fetal deity, using a substance Harry gave her before his death, and Claudia promptly swallows it; she dies after birthing the deity. Heather then fights and defeats the god.^[19]

Three endings appear in the game. The "Normal" ending, which is the only ending available on the first play-through of the game, sees Heather and Douglas survive, while in the "Possessed" ending, Heather kills Douglas.^[20][21] In the "Revenge" ending, which is a joke ending accessible by performing certain in-game actions, Heather reunites with Harry, and Harry orders UFOs to blow up Silent Hill.^[22] According to Silent Hill: Homecoming, the "Normal" ending is the canon one as one of Douglas' files can be found in the game.

SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM

Silent Hill 4: The Room^[a] is a survival horror video game, the fourth installment in the Silent Hill series, published by Konami and developed by Team Silent, a production group within Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. The game was released in Japan in June 2004 and in North America and Europe in September of the same year. Silent Hill 4 was released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Microsoft Windows. Its soundtrack was released at the same time. In 2012, it was released on the Japanese PlayStation Network.

Unlike the previous installments, which were set primarily in the town of Silent Hill, this game is set in the fictional town of South Ashfield, and follows Henry Townshend as he attempts to escape from his locked-down apartment. During the course of the game, Henry explores a series of supernatural worlds and finds himself in conflict with an undead serial killer.

Silent Hill 4 features an altered gameplay style with third-person navigation and plot elements taken from previous installments. Upon its release, the game received generally positive critical reaction, and its departure from the typical features of the series received a range of reactions.

PLOT:

At the beginning of the game, Henry Townshend has been locked in his apartment in South Ashfield for five days with no means of communication and having recurring nightmares.^[11] Shortly afterwards, a hole appears in the wall of his bathroom, through which he enters alternate dimensions. His first destination is an abandoned subway station, where he meets Cynthia Velázquez, a woman convinced she is dreaming and who is soon killed by an unknown man.^[19]Awakening in his apartment, he hears confirmation on his radio that she is indeed dead in the real world.^[20] Similar events repeat with the next three people Henry finds: Jasper Gein;^[21] Andrew DeSalvo, a former employee of an orphanage run by Silent Hill's cult;^[22] and Richard Braintree, a resident in Henry's apartment complex.^[23] All the deaths bear similarities to the deceased serial killer Walter Sullivan's modus operandi.^[24]

Henry finds scraps of the diary of his apartment's former occupant, journalist Joseph Schreiber, who was investigating Walter's murder spree.^[25] Walter is an orphan who has been led to believe his biological mother was in Henry's apartment, where he had been found abandoned after birth.^[26] To "purify" the apartment, Walter, now in an undead state, is attempting to complete a ritual, which requires twenty-one murders to be committed.^[27] Midway through the game, a child manifestation of Walter interrupts the murder of the intended twentieth victim, Eileen Galvin, and she joins Henry trying to find Joseph.^[28] At the same time, supernatural occurrences begin to manifest in Henry's apartment. The two eventually find Joseph's ghost, who tells them that their only escape is to kill Walter and reveals that Henry is the intended twenty-first victim.^[27]

Shortly after Henry acquires Walter's umbilical cord, an item required to kill him, Eileen leaves Henry and returns to his apartment, either hoping to stop Walter from completing the ritual or under Walter's possession.^[27] He finds her with Walter, possessed and about to walk into a deathtrap, and a fight between the two men ensues. There are four possible endings, determined by whether or not Eileen survived the fight and on the condition of Henry's apartment.^[4] The "21 Sacraments" ending sees Walter and his child manifestation in his apartment, while the radio reveals that Henry and Eileen have died, along with the superintendent Frank Sunderland and several others.^[29] In "Eileen's Death," Henry awakens in his apartment, and learns from his radio that Eileen has died, to his sorrow.^[30] In "Mother," Henry escapes from his apartment building, and brings flowers to Eileen, who plans to return to the apartment building. His apartment, meanwhile, has become completely possessed.^[31] "Escape" begins similarly to the "Mother" ending, but Eileen resolves to find a new place to live, and his apartment is not shown to be possessed.^[32] There is no UFO "joke ending", a staple of the series.

MORE YOU CAN FIND ON WIKIPEDIA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hill

Edited April 5, 2018 by VenomDYOM

[Edward Nashton]

This use to be my favorite video game series hands down. Now it's as dead as death itself.

 

 

 

There was a franchise here. It's gone now...

[VenomDYOM]

This use to be my favorite video game series hands down. Now it's as dead as death itself.

 

 

 

There was a franchise here. It's gone now...

I know, I still play it though. My PS2 runs 2, 3 and 4: The Room.

On emulator, PSX, I play Silent Hill.

[Banana]

I started the first one but didn't get around to finishing it. I liked it a lot, the camera is f*cked though.

[Coops95]

Used to watch my older brother play it on Ps1 back in the very early 2000's but the Driver series was more of my thing. Several years back, I've completed the first, second and Shattered Memories and looking forward to play the third one.

 

Shame what it has become, a slot pachinko machine instead of the game was a big middle finger to the fans from Konami.

[VenomDYOM]

I have completed all of Silent Hill, and replaying them now. Here's the list:

Silent Hill (4 times)

Silent Hill 2 (10 times, currently playing now)

Silent Hill 3 (6 times)

Silent Hill 4: The room (my favorite, the camera sucked, 9 times)

 

Silent Hill: Origins (7 times)

Silent Hill: Homecoming (3 times)

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (5 times)

Silent Hill: Downpour (11 times)

 

Silent Hill: Orphan (2 times)

Silent Hill: Orphan 2 (1 time)

Silent Hill: The Escape (1 time)

 

My favorites:

Silent Hill 4: The Room

Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill

Silent Hill 3

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Silent Hill: Orphan

Silent Hill: Downpour

Silent Hill: Origins

Silent Hill: The Escape

Silent Hill: Homecoming

Silent Hill: Orphan 2

[VenomDYOM]

[Deleted]

Edited March 31, 2018 by VenomDYOM

[VenomDYOM]

UPDATE:

Voting added. Choose your option, your favorite game and character! The voting will end on April third.

[Cosmic Gypsy]

1, 2 and 3 being my obvious favourites, i think i'd choose 3 as it had the most enemies and locations i still renember. I kinda fell out of love with the series after 3 because the clunky, unresponsive controls never got any easier.

 

EDIT: Come to think of it i played 4 a lot also so probably stopped when 5 came out

Edited April 1, 2018 by Cosmic Gypsy

[VenomDYOM]

 

[Deleted]

 

1, 2 and 3 being my obvious favourites, i think i'd choose 3 as it had the most enemies and locations i still renember. I kinda fell out of love with the series after 3 because the clunky, unresponsive controls never got any easier.

 

EDIT: Come to think of it i played 4 a lot also so probably stopped when 5 came out

Alright, I respect your opinion. Currently playing Silent Hill 4 on HARD mode on PlayStation 2.

Edited April 1, 2018 by VenomDYOM

[trip]

Related:

I get to drive through/around the town Silent Hill is based on(Centralia) because my wife's parents are from that area(her dad still lives out there). Yay!

[Roxie]

I played Silent hill 3 in PC, I like this game but when I got Outlast I stopped playing it
Outlast is better then Silent Hill :V

Edited April 2, 2018 by Roxie

[VenomDYOM]

I played Silent hill 3 in PC, I like this game but when I got Outlast I stopped playing it Outlast is better then Silent Hill :V

 

Hah, i hate Outlast... but still it's a game. It's your opinion.

Currently playing Silent hill 2 & 3 on HARD mode..

[Cosmic Gypsy]

I like Outlast but to me it doesn't have that horror feel, it has a few jump scares here and there and a lot of tense moments, i think jump scares are the lowest form of scare though. Whereas Silent Hill is straight up psychological horror with tons of head f*ckery and jump scares thrown in also, the whole games tense. I remember on Silent Hill not wanting to turn corners or open doors through fear of whats on the other side, would never have this same feeling with Outlast, although i suppose that's an unfair comparison as i was a lot younger playing Silent Hill.

EDIT: I do like the way you can't fight back on Outlast though. Creates a sense of urgency and panic rather than knowing you got a gun fully loaded ready to empty when needed. Even though Outlast has no weapons and no way of fighting back i still find Silent Hill more frightening/unsettling. In fact I'd say the old Silent Hill games are some of the only effective Horror genre games I've ever played with maybe the exception of Project Zero which was nowhere near as frightening.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Cosmic Gypsy

[OnceAgainYoungFitzpatrick]

Outlast 2 incorporates more psychological horror compared to the first. Although, there are still jump scares here and there.

[Cosmic Gypsy]

I played Outlast 2 demo and it was that level where you're in the corn field, i didn't feel at all scared to the point i was freely walking around in the corn without a care, didn't find that section of the game scary at all but i suppose maybe I'm too old to really be effected by a game in that way anymore. I kinda feel like Outlast 2's main selling point was someones dick getting chopped off, which is very, very lame. I'd say Outlast offers the same kind of fear factor Battlefield has when you're on foot and come up against a tank and have to quickly hide and get away from it, whereas Silent Hill is genuinely disturbing.

I do think Silent Hill PT would have actually scared me at some point. Maybe that's naive to think.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Cosmic Gypsy

[OnceAgainYoungFitzpatrick]

I played Outlast 2 demo and it was that level where you're in the corn field, i didn't feel at all scared to the point i was freely walking around in the corn without a care, didn't find that section of the game scary at all but i suppose maybe I'm too old to really be effected by a game in that way anymore. I kinda feel like Outlast 2's main selling point was someones dick getting chopped off, which is very, very lame. I'd say Outlast offers the same kind of fear factor Battlefield has when you're on foot and come up against a tank and have to quickly hide and get away from it, whereas Silent Hill is genuinely disturbing.

 

I do think Silent Hill PT would have actually scared me at some point. Maybe that's naive to think.

Outlast 2 is a 7.5 hour game and the demo was... what, 15-30 minutes long? There's a lot more to the game than that one chase section...and considering they didn't show the dick being chopped off in the trailers, I don't consider that as the main selling point either.

[VenomDYOM]

UPDATE:

Voting closed. Since we have a draw here, on the characters, choose one on the final voting.

 

EDIT: Voting will end tomorrow.

 

 

If you want to know about the characters, then click here: http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/James_Sunderland

Harrold "Harry" Mason http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Mason

Edited April 3, 2018 by VenomDYOM

[Cosmic Gypsy]

 

I played Outlast 2 demo and it was that level where you're in the corn field, i didn't feel at all scared to the point i was freely walking around in the corn without a care, didn't find that section of the game scary at all but i suppose maybe I'm too old to really be effected by a game in that way anymore. I kinda feel like Outlast 2's main selling point was someones dick getting chopped off, which is very, very lame. I'd say Outlast offers the same kind of fear factor Battlefield has when you're on foot and come up against a tank and have to quickly hide and get away from it, whereas Silent Hill is genuinely disturbing.

 

I do think Silent Hill PT would have actually scared me at some point. Maybe that's naive to think.

Outlast 2 is a 7.5 hour game and the demo was... what, 15-30 minutes long? There's a lot more to the game than that one chase section...and considering they didn't show the dick being chopped off in the trailers, I don't consider that as the main selling point either.

 

Obviously they aren't hoing to put a guy dick getting cut off in the trailers, fact is people ask if you've played Outlast 2, you say no and they immediately say something to the effect of "ahh man its mental someones dick gets chopled off it's so gorey."

 

Not just that, but for the demo of a horror game, you're probably going to choose a section of the game you deem scary, I'm guessing they deemed the corn field scary enough to allow people to form their first impressions on it.. It wasn't scary enough.

[VenomDYOM]

Voting poll closed, James won.

 

EDIT: New logo added.

Edited April 5, 2018 by VenomDYOM