Your Silent Hill Experience/Impression

[sjrathbun812]

I've never played Silent Hill. I've only seen reviews and react videos.

Let me tell you though, I don't blame people from being freaked out by it. It scared me just watching other people play it, and makes me never want to play it myself. I still have a certain amount of phobia of the dark, as childish as it sounds, and I experience night terrors seemingly once every week. These night terrors consist of me hallucinating and seeing stuff in my bedroom that isn't there, which often results in blood curdling screams. It's no fun when it happens, but it's nothing serious and it's not like I harm myself or other people. Plus it never lasts very long and I generally snap out of it after a moment or two of calming down. Then I go back to sleep.

But the last thing I want is to start hallucinating and seeing Silent Hill creatures creeping about in my room. In fact, seeing Silent Hill footage for the first time, I had trouble sleeping at night. Thankfully no night terrors, though.

Despite this, I hear some instalments in the series were praised for their story, and I do like a good story. As well, even though the game is a horror game involving scary stuff and violence it includes puzzles that you have to figure out. This I also like.

Still... not sure if it would be the smartest thing for someone like me to play Silent Hill. I definitely scare easily, and it could have a negative effect on me psychologically.

What about you guys? Ever played Silent Hill? What's your experience/impression of the games?

[UAZ-469]

I'm too much of a pussy to play real horror games, but I actually like to watch Walkthroughs (Without the player's voice, of course) of them, akin to movies. It's just as thrilling for me and not annoying like watching LPs.

Already had my fun with a playthrough of Silent Hill: Homecoming, but - and that's actually important - the player was quite bad at it. He didn't die, but had clearly not fully grasped the combat system, just spammed the attacks and used healing items like no tomorrow. And I'm sure that if I wouldn't be a coward, I would have played better.
Just like a lecture: The book can be a masterpiece, but if the reader slips up all the time, it effectively ruins your enjoyment.

In the end, even if you don't dare to play a horror game by yourself, you could also go to YouToube for a playthrough with no commentary and a good player.

[Sylono]

I played like thirty minutes into Downpour, man what a shit show. So I started my experience with naked fat guy stabbing, then tried to save a cop, who dies anyway... even though the other option was "Let her fall". Then I got through a motel and rummaged to peoples things, got a prisoner killed by a monster because I thought I was saving a woman in the basement of some place, then finally couldn't figure out where to go after that.

I recommend SH2 though.

[Snys93]

Silent Hill and Resident Evil were among my first gateway drugs into the survival horror genre. Theres not quite the feeling of being defenseless and running for your life...in a game that is.

[Naza Sutera]

Sweetheart...

Sweetheart!

I played almost all of the Silent Hill games. The ones I couldn't finish were Silent Hill 4: The Room and Downpour.

Lemme clock the T on Ms. Silent Hill 4. First of all, it started off cute. You are trapped in an apartment with the door chained up from the inside and no way out, and a hole in the wall of your bathroom appears and it leads to the Otherworld. For the first half of the game, your apartment heals your health when you return to it periodically from the Otherworld...

Spoiler

...Then the shit gets fucking haunted. It starts with the apartment losing its healing effect, then ghosts come out of the walls and wierd shit starts happening. The ghosts in the apartment actually do bodily harm to you in the apartment, it gets ugly, scary, and no longer safe. There are items you can use to exorcise the ghosts, but the items are hard to find and the ghosts don't always stay away when you get them out. This motherfucking shit caused me to have a panic attack and ragequit the game. It pulls a slick move on you by creating a safe and secure place for you, only to take it away and have it literally turn on you.

One thing that will help a little, if at all: in the apartment otherworld, there will be some cryptic dirt queen (who you will meet later on afterwards in the game) who offers you a doll. 1) Do not listen to anything this ho is talking about, and 2) do not take the doll. I repeat: do NOT take the doll. It will only make things worse.

Now lets do like Michael Jackson and Diana Ross and ease on down the yellow brick road to Ms. Downpour...

...Ms. Downpour. Downpour was cute, it gave me what I needed in terms of what I expect from Silent Hill. It was a step up from Ms. Homecoming, though Ms. Homecoming wasn't that bad, in my opinion. I suppose that after Team Silent dissolved, Konami was just experimenting or whatever. But I digress. But, um... Like I said, it was okay. I didn't master the correct rules of engagement in terms of attacking enemies ("spamming attacks" as UAZ put it) and wound up accidentally chucking my melee weapons at the monsters while trying to attack, and running for the hills as a result.

A little tip:

Spoiler

STAY YOUR FUNKY MONKEY ASS OUT THE STREETS. THE POLICE CARS ARE A FUCKING SET-UP. DON'T FALL FOR IT. FUCK THE POLICE. NO, MA'AM; NO, GOD.

Cause, bitch, when I saw the police car patrolling the streets, I thought it was, like, actual help, because, its the police! They're supposed to help! But was I in for a surprise. I run up to flag them hoes down, right? The police car disappears into thin air, and a bunch of monsters come from far and wide to eat my intestines. I did enough "spam attacks" to whoop they ass, but still, I was mad as fuck. This shit fucking set me up!

There are also a lot of side-missions to do. One of which fixes the problem I was just talking about.

But the reason I couldn't finish is...

Spoiler

...There is this part that takes place after you leave silent hill. After you get to the boat, the bitch who fell in the chasm tracks you down and shoots you. Her shooting you transports you to some kind of otherworld prison, and you are no longer in the town of Silent Hill. There is this part where you are being chased by this black hole thing that is trying to suck you into oblivion. But the thing is chasing you through this maze. So, you have to figure out this stupid-ass maze while this black hole thing is running after you. And it's like, you have to run down the exact correct hallway, down to the exact correct door, at the exact correct time. And you can't figure out what the actual fuck because you can't slow down and think about where you are going and what you are doing...

...So then I was like phuq this dum shyt, I'm finna play Mario Kart, and I never got past that part.

But anyway, that has been my experience with Ms. Silent Hill. It's a very good franchize, but it does a few tricks to you psychologically, which is really what makes it good.

[UAZ-469]

Watching a walkthrough of Silent Hill: Downpour and please don't think wrong of me, but I actually find the screams of Murphy and some monsters very funny.
I know it's supposed to be terryfying, but I guess, it's Narm at its finest.

But I really enjoy the mind screw the otherworld puts the player through. Nonsensical and deeply disturbing level-design? Waterslides seemingly stretching for miles? Randomly ending up on top of a clock tower? Awesome!

Though I also see what you mean with that Maze, Naza: It's basically just running forward and hoping you go the right way, otherwise you will be running in circles forever.

[Terramax]

I was a huge fan of the series for the first three installments. The 4th title failed my expectations (rumour has it that it was originally developed as a spin-off, but quickly repackaged as the 4th entry after Konami feared it wouldn't sell without brand recognition).

I owned the original not long after it's original release, after being blown away by the demo that came free with Metal Gear Solid. I then got the 3rd title shortly before SH2.

The 3rd was my fav, but as time when by, I've leaned more towards the original installment. Somehow the inferior graphics make the game the scariest in the series and more timeless (the first title is supposed to be set in the 1970's, or so people theorise).

Since Konami outsourced the series to western developers, the series took a quality nosedive.

My advice to anyone is to focus on the first three installments.

[Vy'drach]

Only actually completed the first one but it didn't actually scare me. I have an issue with actual combat based survival-horror games where I approach them like this:

I beat EVERYTHING to death. When I saw a monster I went charging at it like 

Pipe is bae and then mistress hammer. Finally, after hitting ammunition cap for handgun, I used it down to 30 rounds, then hit the cap again.

The symbolism of the series, even the later ones, is good, however. One of the recent ones, I think Downpour, reinforced an idea put forth in 2, which is that Silent Hill isn't necessarily as bad as it can be since you can get out, it just won't let you until you make the right choices and face your actions.