What comes to your mind when you think of Silent Hill? Does it bring back the memories of the PlayStation? Yes, me too. The nostalgia around these retro games is just on another level. I get goosebumps every time I remember how I fancied playing the PS2! It was the goddess of gaming at the time. Not having one was keen to a sin.
The millennium came with loads of improvement in the gaming industry. Both in design and distribution. This made the industry grow faster in the United States and globally. This was the time when the games manufacturers had developed elaborate distribution networks for their games.
The PlayStation had a far more reach worldwide than any other gaming console at the time. With millions of consoled sold all over the world. This made PlayStation be among the top-rated gaming consoles in the world.
Then In Came the Silent Hill...
I’m always reminded of the P.T or Silent Hills whenever I look back at the good old days of Silent Hill. Was it ever intended to be anything more than a playable teaser? According to rumors, the demo was part of a larger farewell project. It didn’t appear to be a classic Silent Hill experience.
The narrator also adds in the voiceover that his father was boring. It’s been speculated that this was Kojima’s way of saying he was tired of working for the corporation. As intriguing as this notion is, I’m more interested in what game we would have received instead. Is it possible that this isn’t a final farewell?
Before the release of the playable teaser, a film concept or trailer had been made public. The gameplay seen in the playable teaser differs greatly from the trailer. It looked like it was taking place in a dilapidated orphanage. The events seen in the video are horrendous for the children involved. When a monster appears, it does not resemble Lisa, the alpha antagonist.
After a while, the sounds of children playing give way to the sound of horror, and the graphics become gory. When a ball rolls down a hallway, it transforms into a human head. There are numerous worms and bugs to be found, but the most terrifying of these is the monster that feeds only on children.
We ultimately venture outside with Normal Reedus’ unidentified persona to discover a brand-new Silent Hill. Modern structures have taken the place of the old stores, and the dense fog of earlier games has been greatly reduced. What are the chances that this is the same Silent Hill as before? Is this a remake of Silent Hill by Norman?
The Story Behind the Game
It is not out of the question that Norma returned to Silent Hill to confront his prior trauma, as we’ve seen with other Silent hill Characters. After the events of P.T., he might have had to spend the rest of his youth in an orphanage. In the aftermath of those events, he’d wonder why he was speared and what possessed his father to murder the entire family. Mental illness is very possible for someone with such a past and upbringing. Maybe he’ll go back to check if his recollections of the pace are accurate. With his face obscured, Norman may be hiding something. What if he was the one who murdered his own children and grandchildren? As in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Harry is shown to be a traumatized Heather in previous games. Another possibility is that Norma is returning to the town because he has a family of his own or plans to create one and fears the same thing may happen to him.
The only thing that intrigues me is what he might discover. There are a number of rituals that he could have been part of all along. Were they monsters to him, or were they human? What new information would he have gleaned about the town as a whole? We will never know the answers to these questions, and we’re no longer able to look into what exactly P.T was owing to its removal from the PlayStation store. Since fewer and fewer individuals have access to the demo, gamers must increasingly rely on watching and studying recorded clips on the internet in order to stay current. The thought of Silent Hills Without P.T is extremely fascinating, if not heartbreaking.
Background History of The Silent Hill
For gamers who love the thrill of horror movies, and didn’t mind the grotesque scenes, Silent Hill was a great choice of a game on PlayStation. And the fact that it was adopted for the PS at the time, made it portable and versatile enough to be played from many devices. There was hope for the game because around this time, Sony was really upgrading its game in the gaming console industry.
The PlayStation had just received some major upgrades in terms of features. This even made playing Silent Hill on the console more fun. The clarity and quality of the images had greatly improved giving the console a fun-to-play experience. While the same applied to another console, the PlayStation stood out from its peers because of its state-of-the-art technology and updated transitions.
Silent Hill has been adapted in many forms including video games, movies, toys, and even in fashion. Many cloth designers had had the silent hill theme. But what made Silent Hill gave tick to many gamers?
Silent Hill is a PlayStation survival horror game created by Konami’s Team Silent in Tokyo and distributed by Konami. Silent Hill: The Beginning was released in North America In early 1999. It was the first game in the Silent Hill series. Silent Hill employs the third-person perspective and 3D environments that are rendered in real-time. Gog and gloom were widely used by the developers to obscure the graphics in order to work around the hardware restrictions. Instead of playing as a hero with a fighting experience like in previous survival horror games, the player assumes the role of everyman in this one. This is what made Silent Hill unique and popular at the time. It was purely a new and well-thought concept that clicked with the gamers.
The Plot of The Silent Hill Video Game
To find his lost daughter, Harry Manson travels to Silent Hill, a fictitious US city. There, while investigating a rite to bring the town’s pagan deity back to life, Harry finds out the truth about his adopted daughter’s true origins. There are five different game outcomes based on the player’s choice, one of which is a joke.
The Silent Hill Horror Gameplay
The Player’s goal is to help Harry Mason, the game’s protagonist, find his daughter Cheryl, who has gone missing in a monster-infested town. Combat, exploration, and puzzle-solving are all part of the gameplay in Silent Hill. Silent Hill is an action game. A third-person perspective is used in pre-scripted parts, with the camera shifting for dramatic effect on occasions.
In contrast to prior survival horror games, which frequently changed camera angles, this one uses a single camera angle throughout. For Harry’s “health,” the player must go to a separate menu in Silent Hill’s absence of a heads-up display. In case you’re using a DualShock 4 controller, you’ll hear heartbeat rhythm when your health is low.
In a similar fashion to tourist maps, the player can find and collect maps of various locations. Each map is labeled with points of interest and can be accessed from the menu when there is enough light. Fog and darkness which predominate in the “Otherworld,” reduce visibility. Early in the game, the player discovers a little flashlight, although the light only reaches a few feet. To get about in Silent Hill, you have to look for items, solve riddles, and find keys.
The Storyline of the Silent Hill Game
As Harry Manson and his adoptive daughter Cheryl drive to the supposed town for a holiday, the game’s opening credits roll. He loses consciousness after crashing into a tree while swerving to miss a girl on the road on the outskirts of town.
When he first wakes up in tow, he discovers that Cheryl has gone missing. He immediately goes on the hunt to find her. The town is deserted and foggy, with unusually heavy snowfall, and he begins to have episodes of unconsciousness and run into hostile things. Meanwhile, he encounters Cybil Bennet, an officer from a neighboring town who is also looking into the strange happenings.
Dahlia Gillespie gives him an amulet she claims can prevent the evil creeping the town. Dr. Michael Kaufmann, the hospital’s director, is baffled by the rapid shifts in the community and a terrified amnesiac nurse named Lisa Garland is hiding in one of the rooms.
At some point in the future, Harry may save Kauffmann’s life, learn about the local drug trade, and come upon Kaufmann’s mysterious stash of an anti-demonic substance known as aglaophotis. Harry finally believes that the town is being turned into a nightmare by some force, which explains why most of its residents have vanished. Unless he stops the demon – the girl in the road who appears to him from time to time – Dahila warns him that Cheryl will die.
As Harry’s search continues, he comes face to face with Cybil, who has become the host of a mystical parasite. The player has the option of saving Cybil or continuing the quest. The Flauros activates and neutralizes the girl’s telekinetic powers the next time Harry encounters her. The apparition of Dahlia’s daughter Alessa then arrives, and she confesses that she tricked Harry into catching the girl.
After that, Harry finds himself back in the hospital, this time with Lisa by his side. In the basement, Lisa had a feeling of déjà vu, and when he finds her again, she fears that she is "the same as them." Lisa tells this to him. He's frightened, and she begs him to save her as blood pours down her face. The entries in her diary show that she took care of Alessa when she was in a hidden hospitalization.
The never-ending pain of Alessa's wounds worried her, and her chemical dependency on Kaufmann deepened as a result. As soon as Harry sees Dahlia, he demands to know what happened to Cheryl. He learns that seven years earlier, Dahlia performed a ritual in which she forced Alessa to bear the cult's deity. Alessa survived the ritual because her vessel status made her immortal, but her mental resistance caused her soul to be split in two, preventing the birth.
Harry learns that Dahlia has been hiding Cheryl for seven years. Harry and his wife adopted a baby named Cheryl who was one half of the duality. Cheryl returns to the hospital, where Alessa is imprisoned and in excruciating pain due to her injuries, thanks to a spell Dahlia casts to entice her back. It is revealed that the deity has resurrected and taken possession of Alessa after her scheme was foiled and her soul was reunited.
Final Thoughts
Even though the Silent Hill Game has not been as thrilling to the current generation like it was to us back in the ‘90s, I still find it intriguing. It still makes me spend endless hours trying to solve the puzzles. Plus, it would have been the best bet for the virtual world technology.
But since more sophisticated horror games have hit the market with even more fascinating storylines, Silent Hill has taken a back seat. I would love to see the revival of Silent Hill.
How do you remember Silent Hill? Was it the kind of game that you would play overnight?
