Hey all today I'm going to look at a horror classic. Silent Hill for the playstation. This game was a response to the highly successfuly Resident evil. However unlike resident evil this game is all about tension subtley and psycological horror rather than jump scares. The game starts with you Harry Mason waking up after a car crash in Silent Hill. You quickly learn that your daughter Cheryl is missing and so descend into the hellish fog filled streets of the town in search for her. You will soon pick up a pistol, flashlight and a town map this is still a survival horror game after all.
So this brings us to the core game mechanics.

Firstly you will find it damn near impossible to navigate the town without reffering to your map this has helpful markers showing you where you must next head. You will however find yourself reffering back to your map every 10 goddamn minutes for the entirity of the rest of the game.  Secondly your flashlight whilst obviously useful to light your path will expose you to enemies so as you progress through the game you will have instances in where keeping your flashlight off will be of a tactical advantage to you allowing you to slip by certain enemies un-noticed. However by doing this you will be left literally in the dark with nothing but the sound of howling,moaning and creeking of the enemies sending shivers down your spine as you attempt to navigate stealthily past them.  Thirdly you will find a radio which emits static when enemies are near which sounds like a heap of gravel being put through a blender which really provides a sense of unease as something creeps towards you from out of the fog. Fourthly you will soon find the game is all about locating certain items to help you progress through the levels. Primarily you will be looking for keys, you will find these by navigating to the marked areas on the map and exploring them. You will then need to solve riddles and experiment with combining objects at specific points in the game in order to progress.



silent hill rubber ball

Some of these puzzles are bastard hard. For instance one of the games most challenging puzzles while have you decoding a complex riddle in order to learn what notes to play on a blood stained piano. Personally I found sequences like these where not possible to complete without some kind of walkthrough. Anyway let's move onto the weapons. Silent Hill only has a limited assortment of weapons. Such as the knife, steel pipe, pistol, shotgun and hunting rifle. And out of those you will probably find yourself conserving shotgun and hunting rifle ammunition for the toughest enemies and boss battles.



silent hill piano puzzle

Harry is kind of dousche when it comes to combat as he does not know how to handle the weapons. The melee weapons he flails around in some vain attempt to hit the enemies. and the ranged weapons that is the guns he often can't hit anything from more than four feet away. But this is kind of the point, Harry is an ordinary guy and will have to really on blind luck and careful timing to survive the enemy encounters. The level design of silent hill is as you would expect you must explore the town and it's interior areas such as schools,hospitals, churches and so on in search for your daughter. When outside you can't see more than ten feet in front of you from a thick fog so you are always wary. Inside you are often exploring narrow corridors or small rooms in total darkness. So you are always on edge as to what might be around the next corner. You will also come across a lot, and I mean A LOT of jammed doors. The game knows how to build tension masterfully for instance when you explore the local school you will find yourself wandering corridors  in darkness with nothing but freakish burnt children to greet you and ghosts lurking ominously out of sigh pushing books out of desks and onto the floor.