Silent Hill (video game)

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Silent Hill is a video game, the first in the survival horror series with the same name. The game was released in North America on January 31, 1999, Japan on March 4, 1999, and in Europe on August 1, 1999. It was released exclusively on the Sony PlayStation. A movie adaptation based on this game has been made and was released theatrically on April 21, 2006.

Silent Hill
Developer(s)	Konami Team Silent
Publisher(s)	Konami
Series	Silent Hill
Platform(s)	PlayStation
Release date	NA January 31, 1999 JPN March 4, 1999 EUR August 1, 1999
Genre(s)	Survival horror Psychological horror Third Person Shooter Action Supernatural
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: Mature (M)
Media	CD-ROM

Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Synopsis 2.1 Endings 3 Silent Hill play novel 4 Reception 5 Influences and references 5.1 Film 5.2 Literature 5.3 Music 5.4 Commercial products and trademarks[30] 6 Censorship 7 Cast 8 Music 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Gameplay

The goal of the game is to safely guide the player character, Harry, through the dilapidated town of Silent Hill. A major threat to Harry's survival are the hostile creatures wandering along the streets and inside buildings. Another problem is poor visibility; Harry will almost always be surrounded by thick fog or darkness. He locates a pocket-size flashlight early in the game, but the light beam only illuminates for a few feet.^[1] For this reason, sound plays a large role in Silent Hill's gameplay, as the player will often be alerted to the noises enemies make, rather than the actual sight of them.^[1] Harry keeps a radio with him after picking it up in the 9 to 5 cafe (a staple of the series) which alerts him to the presence of creatures by emitting static, allowing him to detect hostiles before they can ambush him. The third obstacle to Harry's success is his own fragility; being an ordinary man, he cannot sustain many blows from enemies, and will gasp for breath when he has sprinted for a large distance.^[1]

Silent Hill is typically shown from a third-person perspective. In pre-scripted areas, the camera occasionally switches to other angles for dramatic or disorienting effect. Because Silent Hill does not feature a heads-up display, the player's current status is determined by a portrait of Harry in the pause screen. If Harry's picture is framed in green, his health is at maximum. If the image is red, then Harry is wounded and will die if he suffers further damage.

In order to navigate through a given area, Harry needs to locate a map, which is collected like any other item. Once found, the player can switch to the map screen at any time. The map interface is stylistically similar to a tourist map. Whenever Harry encounters a point of interest, he will automatically highlight it on the map with a red pen. Maps can be read while outdoors only if Harry has the flashlight turned "On". Otherwise, he will be unable to cue up the map in any place with an absence of light (as is the case in most areas).

Navigating through Silent Hill frequently requires finding keys or solving riddles to progress. Unlike future Silent Hill installments, which feature fewer boss fights and less emphasis on combat, the player regularly faces bosses in each area. Harry defends himself with a number of melee weapons and firearms, including a steel pipe, a handaxe, a pistol, a sawn-off shotgun, and a hunting rifle.

[edit] Synopsis

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See also: List of Silent Hill characters and List of Silent Hill monsters

Seven years ago, Harry Mason and his wife found a baby by the road. The couple adopted her as their own, naming her Cheryl. Following his wife's illness and death, Harry has continued to look after Cheryl. At the start of the game, Harry is driving Cheryl to the resort town Silent Hill for a vacation. A cop on a motorbike drives past his jeep. Moments later, Harry spots the same motorbike lying unattended by the side of the road. Not long after that, the jeep crashes when Harry swerves to avoid hitting the ghostly apparition of a little girl. When he regains consciousness, Harry discovers that Cheryl is missing, that the streets are engulfed in fog, and all the roads out of town are either blocked or have mysteriously collapsed into chasms. There is also snow falling from the sky, which is strange considering the time of year.^[2]

Harry catches sight of a Cheryl in the falling snow. He follows the girl into an alley where suddenly an air raid siren sounds, night falls and the area becomes covered in what appears to be blood and rust. A wheelchair and an occupied gurney are passed and at the end of the alley he finds himself fenced-off in an area littered with severed limbs and a morbid crucified figure. He is shortly ambushed by knife-wielding monsters and without a weapon to defend himself, he is quickly overpowered and loses consciousness.

Harry reawakens inside a cafe - daylight, the snow and fog having returned - where he meets Cybil Bennett, the police officer from earlier. Cybil entrusts Harry with a spare pistol. They decide to part ways, with Cybil leaving to go find help. Harry follows his daughter's trail by finding torn pages from Cheryl's sketchbook; the scrawled messages on them lead Harry to Midwich Elementary School. Before long, the environment inside the school transforms into a bloody labyrinth, similar to the alleyway from before. Though he fails to turn up any leads on Cheryl, and instead defeats a giant lizard in the basement of the school, Harry does catch fleeting glimpses of the girl he saw just moments before he crashed his jeep as daylight returns to Silent Hill.

Led by the sound of church bells, Harry enters the Balkan church, where he meets Dahlia Gillespie. Dahlia gives cryptic warnings about what is to come and then exits, leaving behind a strange artifact she calls the "Flauros". Though confused, Harry takes the item and changes his course to Alchemilla Hospital, which is located across the bridge in the shopping district.

Harry hears gunshots inside the hospital and meets another survivor inside an examination room. The gun-wielding man is Dr. Michael Kaufmann, a civilian who knows more about the demons than he is letting on. Once Harry finds himself on the "4th Floor", which does not exist on the hospital's map, the air raid siren sounds and reality shifts once again to the dark and decaying Otherworld. Inside the alternate version of the same examination room, Harry finds Lisa, a nurse who appears to be just as lost as he is. Fortunately, she knows a great deal about the history of the town, as well as Dahlia Gillespie. However, before he can get any tangible answers, Harry is transported back to the 'real' hospital and is confronted by Dahlia again. Dahlia impatiently tells Harry to stop wasting time and disappears again.

Cybil and Harry run into each other on the north side of town and discuss recent events. While Cybil has no knowledge of the alternate reality, she does inform Harry that she saw a girl "walking on thin air" towards the lake. Harry uses the sewer system tunnels and reach the resort area, where he may meet and subsequently save Dr. Kaufmann, and learn more about Kaufmann's connection to the local cult.

On his way to the lake, the Otherworld nightmare devours the town completely. Harry and Cybil regroup inside a boat at the docks. Dahlia informs Harry that the crest, which she calls the "Mark of Samael" will seal the town in the abyss once it is completed. Harry heads to the lighthouse and Cybil to the amusement park, hoping to stop the completion of the Mark.

However, they are too late. Cybil is attacked and possessed by a parasite, and Harry arrives just in time to see the young girl departing.

Heading to the amusement park himself, Harry has to fight a possessed Cybil. If the player has obtained Aglaophotis from the hospital, he can save Cybil. If not, Harry is forced to kill her. Once Cybil has either been saved or killed, the young girl shows up again, presumably to complete the Mark. However, Harry confronts her and unknowingly uses the Flauros to disable the girl's powers.

Just as the girl's powers are broken, Dahlia appears, and is revealed to have masterminded Harry's entire quest, as only he would have been able to get close to the girl, who is in fact Alessa, Dahlia's daughter. With Alessa's powers out of control, Dahlia quickly uses her own powers to escape and capture Alessa.

Harry awakes in a distorted version of the hospital, where different parts of town interconnect. Making his way to the bowels of the hospital, which connect to Dahlia's home, Harry finds Dahlia, Alessa, Cybil and Kauffman, as well as an enigmatic figure wrapped in bandages on a wheelchair.

There, many surprises are revealed and a lot takes place. Cybil, if she is alive, confronts Dahlia. The latter makes more cryptic comments, revealing that the crest Alessa was using was not the Mark of Samael, but the Seal of Metatron (or Metraton), which she was, presumably, using to stop God from being born. Despite Cybil's best attempt, she is no match for Dahlia, and she is quickly knocked unconscious by magic.

Harry steps in next to fight, demanding that Dahlia return Cheryl to him. She reveals that Harry has seen Cheryl throughout his entire adventure. Cheryl was really a part of Alessa's soul, and upon returning to Silent Hill, she assumed Alessa's 14 year old form, minus the burns. The real Alessa is the person wrapped in bandages. In order to summon her God to Earth, Dahlia sacrificed her daughter to fire, and trapped her in a nightmare to nurture the demon. However, a part of Alessa's soul escaped and became Cheryl.

Now that the two parts of the soul are together, they join to become the "Incubator", the mother of God. Then, depending on whether or not Kauffman obtained Aglaophotis, he will appear and use it to exorcise the Incubator. If he does, Dahlia's God will be born prematurely, and Harry will be forced to fight him. If not, he will have to fight Incubator. Either way, the creature quickly kills Dahlia before turning its attention to Harry.

The ending the player gets depends on whether or not Harry saves Kauffman and kills or saves Cybil.

[edit] Endings

Silent Hill has five separate endings. Achieving the best ending will require extensive exploration. Unlike future Silent Hill games, the player's overall performance will not determine which ending is earned, instead, specific events have to be witnessed to obtain good endings.

BAD ending: Achieved if Harry does not save Kaufman from the Mumblers and kills Cybil at the Amusement park. In this ending, Alessa gives birth to/becomes The God, which appears as a beautiful young woman in white robes-- Alessa's vision of what The God would look like. She kills Dahlia, and then turns on Harry. Harry fights the God, killing it after a short battle. As the God/Alessa dies, Cheryl's voice emanates from its body, thanking Harry for freeing her and saying goodbye. Harry falls to his knees in tears. The image then cuts to Harry's corpse lying dead in his crashed jeep, indicating that the entirety of the game's events were a dying man's hallucination.

BAD+ ending: Achieved if Harry does not save Kaufman from the Mumblers, but saves Cybil at the Amusement park. This ending is identical to the "BAD" ending, except after Harry falls to his knees in tears, balls of fire begin to rain down from above and the Otherworld begins to collapse. Cybil runs to Harry, pulls him to his feet, and tells him to flee, but he simply stands still in a state of shock. Cybil holds Harry as they are consumed by fire and darkness.

GOOD ending: Achieved if Harry saves Kaufman from the Mumblers, but kills Cybil at the Amusement park. Here, Kaufman appears during Harry's final encounter with Dahlia and throws aglaophotis at Alessa, exorcising The God from her body. The God appears as Dahlia imagined it should look, a giant, winged demon with the head of a goat, similar to Baphomet. The God kills Dahlia, then turns on Harry. Harry kills the God; after it is defeated, Alessa transfers the entirety of her soul into a new baby, having finally found the perfect parent in Harry-- someone who would go through Hell in order to save her, as opposed to her mother, who tried to kill her for her own selfish gain. Alessa then opens a portal through which Harry escapes Silent Hill; Kaufman tries to follow him, but is attacked by the ghost of Lisa Garland, who drags him down into Hell. Harry is later back on the streets of Silent Hill.

GOOD+ ending: Achieved if Harry saves both Kaufman and Cybil. Identical to the Good ending, except Cybil appears during the final confrontation between Harry, Dahlia, and Kaufman. After Harry kills the God and receives the new baby, both he and Cybil escape through the portal. The opening credits are then shown again, with Harry and Cybil holding the new baby (replacing Harry and his late wife holding a baby Cheryl, presumably when they found her initially).

The "UFO" ending, achievable only after completing the game with the GOOD+ ending, is an Easter egg and is not meant to be taken seriously. On the second playthrough of the game, Harry can find a channeling stone; if he uses it at certain points in the game, it will eventually summon a fleet of UFOs, out of which come a quartet of aliens apparently angry about being called upon by Harry. A meek Harry asks the aliens if they have seen his daughter, to which they reply by stunning him with a gun, in the stomach. The aliens then drag Harry's body onto one of their UFOs and fly away. This ending was so popular with fans that Team Silent included alternate UFO endings for Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3. Climax, Team Silent's successor group, also included an alternate UFO ending for Silent Hill: Origins.

[edit] Silent Hill play novel

In 2001, a radically altered version of Silent Hill was released for the Game Boy Advance. Entitled Silent Hill Play Novel, this version was a choose your own adventure styled digital graphic novel. The game contained a retelling of the original game's story through text based gameplay, with the player occasionally being confronted with questions concerning what direction to take their character as well as the puzzles which were a major part of the original game's gameplay. After completing the game once the player also has the option of playing as Cybil in a second scenario, with a third made available for download once the second scenario has been completed.^[3] An unofficial English translation of a portion of the game exists, but it is only a brief demo of the game and the project seems stagnant.^[4]

When the game was exhibited, western critics were unimpressed by the game, and criticized the lack of any soundtrack as severely detracting to the "horror" factor of the game.^[3][5] It has yet to be released outside Japan.^[6]

[edit] Reception

Silent Hill received a strong critical reception. Reviewers for Gamespot and IGN were impressed by the game's suspenseful, atmospheric approach to horror in contrast to the established action-based "making you jump" approach credited to the Resident Evil games, rating the game at 8.2 and 9 out of 10 respectively.^{[1] [13]} Edge Magazine had a similarly favorable reception for the game at 8 out of 10.^[14]

Ratings accumulated by Game Rankings and GameStats averaged to 84% and 8.8 of 10 favorable respectively.^[15][16]

Sales of the game were apparently strong enough to gain Silent Hill a place in the American PlayStation Greatest Hits budget releases.^[17] The sales threshold for inclusion in this label was originally 150,000 units sold, but by 2002 this had been increased to 250,000.^[18][19]

A 2005 article by GameSpy listing the best PlayStation games listed Silent Hill as the 15th best game produced for the console.^[20] A similar list by IGN in 2000 listed it as the 14th best PlayStation game.^[21]

Gametrailers.com ranked it as No. 1 in their top 10 scariest games of all time countdown.

[edit] Influences and references

Silent Hill alludes to a wide amount of real world items. Team Silent were avid film, literature, music and art fans. As well as referencing their favorites they also used them unsparingly in creating the plot and atmosphere of the game; which they wanted to be distinctly western.

[edit] Film

• The work of filmmakers David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, Dario Argento, Roman Polanski, Alfred Hitchcock and Alejandro Jodorowsky as well as films such as The Exorcist III, The Wizard of Oz and Village of the Damned, were all influential in different increments.^[22]

• In character names, the surname of Lisa Garland is taken from the actress Judy Garland, Cheryl Mason's first name is based on Twin Peaks’s actress Sheryl Lee, Michael Kaufmann is a combination of Troma Studios producers' Lloyd Kaufmann and Michael Herz and both Alessa (originally named Asia) and Dahlia (originally named Daria) are names derived from relatives (daughter and former wife respectively) of Italian filmmaker Dario Argento. ^[23]

• The 3 keys needed to pass through the house on Levin St. are named the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion after the characters in The Wizard of Oz.

• On the corner of Bachman and Finney is an establishment called "Metropol," this name was taken from the haunted theater in Lamberto Bava’s Dèmoni.

• At the North end of Simmons St. is "Mushnick's Florist," the name of the florist shop in Little Shop of Horrors. Audry Jr., the main character of the film, is also mentioned in the sign on the window.

• The 5 to 2 Café’s name is taken from the establishment Natural Born Killers opens in.

• The newspaper vendors in Silent Hill all display a paper reading "BILL SKINS FIFTH.", a reference to The Silence of the Lambs.

• On the side of a garage door near the gas station is painted in blood, Near the gas station is a garage door with the word "REDRUM" painted on it in reference to The Shining.

• Around town there are reproductions of the poster for Carrie and Pet Cemetery.

• "FAA," a store named after the animals rights group in the film Twelve Monkeys, lies across the street from Green Lion Antiques.

• Harry finds a chainsaw at "Cut-Rite Chainsaws," a reference to the store in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.

• Norman's Motel, it’s layout and the layout of the area near the end of the Nowhere level, are references to Psycho.

[edit] Literature

• Every street in the town is named after a writer of horror, science fiction or thriller fiction.^[24] In the residential area of Old Silent Hill the streets take their names from Jack Finney, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Ira Levin, Richard Bachman and James Ellroy. In the business district of Central Silent Hill: Carl Sagan, Dean R. Koontz, Michael Crichton, Colin Wilson and Dan Simmons. And in the resort area of South Park and Lake Side John Sandford and Kit Craig are referenced.

• Some buildings in the town also share names with authors, Algernon Blackwood‘s last name appears on the corner of Finney and Bachman, Mark Twain has a bookstore named after him on the East end of Bradbury and the establishment on the West side of Bachman takes its name from Andrew Vachss's The Blue Belle and the sign’s font is similar to that seen on the book cover.

• Written in a bathroom in the Midwich Elementary School, there are the words "Leonard Rhine - The Monster Lurks." Upstairs, the player finds a book by that author and title. This is a reference to Dean Koontz’s novel, Phantoms, where "Timothy Flyte - The Ancient Enemy" is written on a bathroom mirror and is found to be from a tabloid.

• Some of the creatures and puzzles were named or designed with the books Alessa was fond of in mind, such as The Lost World^[25] and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.^[26]

• The names originally intended for the characters of Harry and Cheryl were "Humbert" and "Dolores," the narrator and title character of Lolita. The American staff altered the names, feeling that what this suggested was inappropriate.^[27]

• In manga, the works of Daijiro Morohoshi and Junji Ito have been influences.^[28]

• Other admitted influences include the work of Robert R. McCammon, Kobo Abe, Masako Bando and Kunio Yanagita.^[29]

[edit] Music

• Portishead have posters, seemingly advertising their sophomore album, on a window in the 5 to 2 cafe.

• In the music room of the Midwhich School the sheet music on the piano is for the piece "Don't Trust Anyone Over Thirty" by The Moonriders.

• Genesis P-Orridge and one of his groups, Psychic TV, make appearances. The bridge to Central Silent Hill is named "Orridge" and the drug being trafficked in the town is called "PTV." A room in the Nowhere level contains boxes of the drug labeled as "PSYCHICK TV."

• The original members of Sonic Youth have their names in the teacher directory viewed at the Midwich Elementary school. Shortly after the level the player passes through K. Gordon's house.

[edit] Commercial products and trademarks^[30]

• In Cafe 5 to 2 there is a pinball machine modeled after and named "Medieval Madness."

• Leaving Coffee 5 to 2 a van parked there with a logo in the rear window reminiscent of Coca-Cola's.

• On a bench one can see the logo of Pepsi Cola.

• The shop called simply "8" is a graphic parody of Seven-Eleven.

• There is a bar that simply says Jim Beam, the name of a whiskey distilled in Kentucky.

• There is a upside-down poster reading "The Big Beat" and above that "Mirror," possibly a reference to the British tabloid The Daily Mirror.

• In the Mall Aiwa is parodied as "IWAI."

• The local "Burger Queen" is a reference to Burger King.

• Within the Mall there are two references to the Virgin Megastore as "Vestal Gigastore."

• The bag of jelly beans found in Alchemillia makes a mockery of logo branded Jelly Belly.

• In the convenience store around Cafe 2 to 5 are several boxes marked"Fedy-X," a reference to Federal Express.

• "Mec Burger" has a design equal to MacDonalds.

• "Virginia's Brides" is a reference to the magazine Virginia Bride.

• "Minor" beer has a logo similar to that of Miller's.

• The "UFO Ending" of the game is based on the Mars Attacks series of cards.

• At the intersection of Matheson and Bachman there is a building titled "Poston Market," in reference to Boston Market.

• On Wilson street, among the local sale of hot dogs and salmon, is Flowers on Lexington.

• The unlockable "Hyper Blaster" is a replica of the official Lightgun from Konami.

[edit] Censorship

The "Grey Child" monster went through between two (NTSC) and three (PAL) design changes before it was finally approved by censors. The North American (NTSC) edition of the game featured "Child #2' (note the single-apostrophe)", not "Child #3" as stated in the following link.^[31] Originally a faceless, humanoid monster which resembled a nude child, it was deemed too graphic for audiences (particularly in a game which forces the player to kill them). In the PAL release of Silent Hill, the Grey Children do not appear at all, instead being replaced by "Mumblers".

[edit] Cast

• Michael Gough — Harry Mason
• Susan Papa — Cybil Bennett
• Liz Mamorsky — Dahlia Gillespie
• Jarion Monroe — Dr. Michael Kaufmann
• Sandra Wane — Cheryl Mason/Alessa Gillespie
• Thessaly Lerner — Lisa Garland

[edit] Music

Main article: Silent Hill Original Soundtracks

The original soundtrack for Silent Hill, composed by Akira Yamaoka, was released in Japan on March 5, 1999 and its catalogue number is KICA-7950.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Silent Hill USA Forum
• Silent Hill at GameSpot
• Silent Hill OST at MusicBrainz
• Silent Hill at MusicBrainz
• Silent Hill at MobyGames
• Translated Memories
• Silent Hill at GameFAQs
• Silent Hill: Play Novel game images

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• Official site Masahiro Ito design monster of Silent Hill