By Sam Graham
Talking about this game is like slacklining on garrotte wire
in the middle of a Eastern European minefield. One move and I'm fucked, and even if I survive, I'm still in Eastern
Europe. It's a number 3. That dreaded entry that's always a binary
outcome. There are no 3's that are 'just
alright'. Alien 3, Mad Max 3, Terminator
3, Dead Space 3, Van Halen III, love' em, or hate 'em, but you can't just be on
the fence.
3 is where the creators have to make a big choice: change the
format or do what they've always done. For me the most logical setup goes like this:
- - The original. Lays the groundwork.
- - Retreads the original, but builds and develops the premise.
- - Changes the format.
Harry Potter got it smack on when they decided to stop being
so Scooby-Doo. Fuck knows what you're
supposed to do with 4. Well, Fury Road I
suppose.
Silent Hill 3, made by Team Silent before Team Silent
were just lamented words on some dude's CV, was in the unfortunate spot of
following what is still ranked as the greatest horror game of all time. No easy feat. Still, the Jason Newsted of horror games tried its best. For many it's a welcome addition to the
original 4. For me though, it's the
bastard offspring conceived from a drunken tiff at the Konami office party.
Heather is the main heroine. She's plucky and feisty in all the ways the Japanese love their underage
girls to be. She sports a body-warmer
(showing my age not calling a gilet), an Aaron Carter haircut, looks a bit like
Ellen Page, and has just enough freckles to make you want to not let the damned
creatures smash her into a wet mess.
After having a nightmare about Silent Hill's theme park,
Heather wakes up at the mall and gets apprehended by the monsters of Silent
Hill and stalked by PI Douglas Cartland doing his best Mike Hammer
impression. It's worth noting out at
this point that a good half of the game isn't even set in Silent Hill. Rather, the next town over. Eventually poor old Heather finds her way to Silent Hill for
proper and bumps into some pretty odd folk by the names of Claudia and Vincent
(played by the nowt-knowing Kit Harington in that absolutely God-awful piece of
fucking dog-shit film Silent Hill: Revelation).
Twists and turns aside, turns out Heather is the reincarnation of Alessa
Gillespie: Chief MC of Silent Hill's ghastly turn. Oh and Harry from SH1 got the good ending
after all, because he raised Cheryl 2/Alessa 3 as his own, renaming her Heather
and introducing her to a bottle of peroxide. Claudia et al want Heather to come back home so she can become the
mother of God and screw the world up more than Donald Trump and the Catholic
Church ever could. Heather decides she'd
rather not live in this horrific nightmare world, so she shoots God in the
face...'Murica.
If that sounds weird and disjointed to you, it's because it
is. First play through I had no idea who
anyone was, or what was going on. The
whole 'mother of god' thing from SH1 was hard to follow at best. Besides Heather, the characters are cut-out
cliché's. Claudia talks like a 1st
year English Lit student who's just discovered Dorian Gray, and Vincent comes
across as a middle-class paedo. The
biggest insult in SH3's story however is
that they murder Harry Mason. The
original gangsta from SH1 bites it off-screen like a chump at the hands of some
generic blob monster. Bitch, he killed
God. Shot her in the fucking face with a
hunting rifle. Heather drops to her
knees and cries, and does so for all of us who feel that Harry's awesomeness
was mopped under the table, never to be discussed like your parents'
infidelities. Isaac Clark wouldn't be
subjected to this kind of cheap bullshit.
Being a direct sequel to SH1 was a strange move. A backstep really, considering the accolades
number SH2 got without referencing any of the cult goings on. In Silent Hill 2, the evil came from James. The town was a conduit for the repressed
emotions he carried. It became his own
personal hell, designed by his own subconscious to inflict a more intimate
level of torture. In Silent Hill 3 a bunch of robed baddies want to make a
monster. Oh, and they pissed off a
psychic lass. See what I mean?
The cult stuff served in the original, because it needed some explanation. SH3 was just nonsensical. They'd already set up the town to be an evil town that preys on the weak and the wounded, but they didn't carry it on. Even SH 4 is about the cult again. The cult was just nonsense in SH3 though. The majority of the game didn't even have a plot. It was just 'get to the next cutscene where they explain nothing'. SH2 made it all about James. You are James, so you get invested in his story. In SH3, you're as confused as Heather's haircut. In SH2 you go to the places Mary and James spent time together; places that had resonance in their tragic tale. In SH3 you go to a theme park, a building site, and a hospital, just because.
The cult stuff served in the original, because it needed some explanation. SH3 was just nonsensical. They'd already set up the town to be an evil town that preys on the weak and the wounded, but they didn't carry it on. Even SH 4 is about the cult again. The cult was just nonsense in SH3 though. The majority of the game didn't even have a plot. It was just 'get to the next cutscene where they explain nothing'. SH2 made it all about James. You are James, so you get invested in his story. In SH3, you're as confused as Heather's haircut. In SH2 you go to the places Mary and James spent time together; places that had resonance in their tragic tale. In SH3 you go to a theme park, a building site, and a hospital, just because.
There are some positive elements to the game. The look of SH3 is on par with SH2, and some
new elements certainly do send a chill up your spine. One room has a massive two-way mirror in
it. All looks fine until Heather's
reflection stops moving. You try to
leave the room, but the door's locked. In that instant, it's shit-your-pants time. The reflection starts to rot and becomes
drenched in blood and all the sickness of the town. Finally you can leg it, but stay too long and
real Heather dies from the reflection's sickness. A nice allegory for her dual nature as
reincarnated Mother of God and sassy teenager.
Another section has you run down a long corridor to find a lone wheelchair basking in the light of the doorway next to it. Facing it, as though somebody's just got out of it and entered the room. This scene was first used in the 2001 psychological horror film Session 9, which I'd recommend to anyone. If not for the slow-burn plot, then for David Caruso's hammy acting. There's a subplot regarding a character called Valtiel. He pops up every once in a while in the background and looks like a plastic army man after too long under a magnifying glass and all he does it turn cranks and cogs. Supposedly he's Alessa's protector, but he's not very good at his job. He could just stop all the monsters trying to kill her, but where'd be the fun in that?
Another section has you run down a long corridor to find a lone wheelchair basking in the light of the doorway next to it. Facing it, as though somebody's just got out of it and entered the room. This scene was first used in the 2001 psychological horror film Session 9, which I'd recommend to anyone. If not for the slow-burn plot, then for David Caruso's hammy acting. There's a subplot regarding a character called Valtiel. He pops up every once in a while in the background and looks like a plastic army man after too long under a magnifying glass and all he does it turn cranks and cogs. Supposedly he's Alessa's protector, but he's not very good at his job. He could just stop all the monsters trying to kill her, but where'd be the fun in that?
All in all though, the design lacks innovation. Sure, it looks cool, but apart from the
aforementioned scenes, it's a lazy retread. In SH2 the monsters were designed to be part of James' torture and
repressed emotions. In SH3 they look
like walking cancer. Oh you could argue
that the dogs with the split down their heads could represent duality, but most
of the beasts are massive, shambling things that look like meaty bollards. It tries to have its own main monster in the
form of Robbie the Rabbit – a rabbit teddy that looks like he doesn't mind when
the painters are in. The problem here is
that it doesn't do anything. They litter
the amusement park, but they are nothing but scenery. What a robbery. I wanted to blow the Energizer Bunny away.
SH3's main issue is that it plays it safe with story and
design. Afraid to veer from the path SH1
set it on. History rewards a risk
taker. SH2 may have raised the bar a
little too high (the entire franchise, possibly the entire genre, is still
under its shadow), but its lofty concepts imbued the franchise with a high-brow
expectation. I honestly believe that if
this game was SH2, then the 2 we got came after, it'd have been much better
received. As it is, in this genre,
Silent Hill 2 is the king. Following in
its footsteps, Silent Hill 3 is the guy left to clean up Silent Hill 2's spunk
off the wank booth windows.
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