Let's Play: Silent Hill

Guess this is as good a time to start as any. Off we go...

For the shake of sheer perversity, I've decided to start the game on "Hard", instead of my preferred method of starting an easy game and then working up through the levels.



Welcome to beautiful Silent Hill, folks! Weather is expected to be mostly foggy, with spells of falling ash and occasional periods of suffocating darkness. Enjoy your stay!



As the game begins, Harry has just crashed his SUV after being startled by the appearance of a teenage girl who is the exact double of his adopted seven-year-old daughter(it's a little complicated). Now Harry wakes to find himself stranded in this strangely deserted resort town, with his daughter nowhere to be seen.



This is what's stopping us from just getting the hell out of here, by the way - a zonking great wall of impenetrable rock. Never mind, let's take a look around see what else we can find...



It's a convenience store, and it's open! However, the game doesn't want you to go there yet, so if you try and enter, Harry will suddenly hear footsteps and go racing off in the other direction.



Harry spies the distant figure of a little girl who bears a striking resemblance to his daughter. But when he calls out, she immediately runs off into the fog, forcing you to give chase. Evidently, Harry has never seen Don't Look Now, or he might be a little more cautious.



"Cheryl" leads us into a gloomy alleyway(who am I kidding, the whole place is kind of gloomy) and promptly disappears again. Note the ominous warning sign, a little hint of what to expect later on.



Somehow, I don't think Jesus can help us with this one.



As you progress down the alley, you'll notice it's getting rapidly darker, and at the same time Akira Yamaoka's music is getting increasingly noisy and threatening, indicating some very bad shit is about to go down.



Things just get more and more disturbing, until finally...[tbc]*

It's what you're going to look like in approximately thirty seconds time, unless you turn around and start running right n...oh, too late!



You have been eviscerated by a gang of mutated razor-clawed dwarves.

You are dead.

Would you like to play again(y/n)?

(To be continued, when I've got time...)

This is the only other "let's play" thread in which i've never beaten the game being played (the other is X-com). Back when Silent Hill came out I just assumed it was some crappy Resident Evil rip off and never bothered to even give it a rental (my mistake). All the other threads I follow for the tingly nostalgia feelings they produce, but i'm generally curious/interested in seeing where this and the X-com playthrough take me.

I am looking forward to seeing where this thread goes.

I fully believe this is a game that will flourish as an LP thread. Less folks played the original than its sequels and the game's atmosphere is ripe for screenshotting.

Go Silent Hill 1!

Yeah I am actually going to follow this one as well.

All the other LPs I've played and/or beat, never played this one though so I'm following but won't be commenting as I have nothing to contribute... But I look forward to seeign what this game is all about.

I was just reading a Silent Hill 2 LP the other day, since I'm too much of a wuss to actually play the game. So this is pretty timely!

I notice this is the PAL release of the game. The alley creatures are the clawed things instead of the grey children found in the American release. Also, I don't think Harry says "Jesus" in the American version.

Anyway, this is my favorite Silent Hill. To me it's the creepiest, and the load of horror movie/book references hidden throughout are great.

I'm excited about this, since it's the only Silent Hill (on consoles) that I haven't played. I did read a synopsis before playing 3, but I'm quite curious about the imagery in the original.

This is correct, the grey children were taken out of the European version altogether. I think the rationale given was that incidents like the Dunblane shootings were still fresh in people's memories at the time, and thus it might seem insensitive to release a game in which you have to go through a school blasting child-like creatures with a shotgun.

I'm interested in this LP. I only beat this game once, where I wandered aimlessly and spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the hell I should be. And every time I got to a new event, I got a "Man, you're slow"-ish message. Dunno if that would have happened anyway, but I didn't feel like playing the game again to improve.

Are you planning on imposing any other challenges or restrictions on yourself, besides Hard Mode?

Good question. I was thinking of doing a "melee weapons only" run, but there are certain places where guns are your only option(the school basement boss, for example), which would make that kind of game impossible. To be honest, I think this difficulty level is probably challenging enough when played without the bonuses you get from beating the two previous levels first. So I'll probably just stick with a normal game.

I'm actually tempted to try that, just to see if it CAN be done. Probably be stuck on the lizard forever.

I'm dying to see where this thing goes... any idea on when it'll be updated?

Soon! I started doing an update this morning and then lost it in a browser crash. Guh.

There's is an option in the "secret" menu to change the blood colour, but it's set to red by default.

Anyway, on with the game!

Previously on Silent Hill:
Our Hero, Harry Mason, met his untimely death at the hands of a mob of mutant midgets. But all is not quite as it seems...



Harry wakes in a nearby cafe, with a severe headache and a surprising absence of stab wounds. But wait, isn't that Cameron Diaz dressed as a sexy policewoman?



No, of course not, silly! It's plucky local gal Cybil Bennett, who's just dropped in from the next town over to investigate strange goings on in Silent Hill, and is now trapped here with us. Lucky her.



As a(vaguely) interesting sidenote I remember reading somewhere that in an earlier version of the game, Cybil was going to be playable character in a separate scenario(a la Chris & Jill in Resident Evil), but the final game was scaled back so only Harry's scenario was included. There's a few clues to suggest this within the game, but further proof is the Japan-only "Silent Hill Play Novel", a GBA release which included different scenarios for Harry and Cybil. There's a translation on Gamefaqs if you're curious.

Anyway, a conversation ensues which ends with Cybil determining that you are a complete wuss and giving you her gun.



Ow, I seem to've been poked in the eye by a big signpost with "MASSIVE FORESHADOWING" written on it. What could this mean?



Cybil goes off to pursue her own investigation, leaving Harry to resume the search for his daughter. Finally you're back in control again, so it's time to collect the goodies helpfully left behind on the counter-top. There's some health drinks, a town map, a flashlight and a kitchen knife. The knife is the archetypically useless survival horror weapon, but we'll be getting a better melee weapon very soon.



Now, remembering to equip the gun *first*, it's time to leave the safety of the cafe. But no sooner is your hand on the door, than a shrill ringing noise begins emanating from the tiny portable radio you decided not pick up earlier on. Get used to this noise, as you'll be hearing it an awful lot.



Uh?



SHITTING HELL!



We'll be forced to use five of our precious bullets to take this bastard out, after which Harry will finally suss out that something's not quite right here. As ammo is pretty scarce at this stage, we're going to spend a lot of time running away from things from now on.

The diner scene is brilliant. After picking up the knife on the counter, you can actually see the flying-thing flapping around outside for a just a split-second before the camera changes angles.

I love this creepy-ass game.

It's like directly out of The Mist.

Man, you ain't seen nothin' yet. This game references/pays homage to/shamelessly rips off so much popular horror fiction that it's downright adorable.

Yes! I tried and failed to get a screengrab of that. It's one of those neat little things you almost always forget about until it's too late.

God, those sewers. That section really bothered me for some reason. I remember having a lingering sense of claustrophobia afterwards which was hard to shake. Interesting to see if the effect is still the same this time...

Well, I know that the producers of the game have said they were drawing on The Mist for insperation and that the streets are named after famous horror writers.

I remember playing the OPM demo of this game way back in the day, downstairs in my basement rec room, alone, at night, in winter (there's something about cold that aids creepy). After getting part way into the hell school, I had to turn it off. I just couldn't handle it anymore.

I've also noticed that the school seems to be the breaking point for folks who refuse to continue playing/watching the game.

Of course, it is the first instance of reality shifting into "industrial nightmare" mode, so that's probably a lot of it. Or maybe it's the large, pitch-dark hallways with herds of knife-wielding midgets. Brr.

I stopped at the school when I rented the game years ago, too. I've since bought and beaten the game, but still.

Study, Dammit!

The "Study, Dammit" poster in the diner is based on this real poster. That's Stephen King posing with the shotgun.

You can see it in the screen shot where Harry is examining the notepad.

I wonder if that alley scene IS a reference to Don't Look Now? After all, in the other version, you really ARE attacked by what might be midgets with knives...

Welcome, watchers! When last we met, young Harry had woken up safe and well after his alleyway encounter, met a nice lady who gifted him with a mighty weapon and was rather surprised by the appearance of a flying reptile. And now, the quest continues...



Harry wants to go back to the alley to look for clues, but we have a couple of errands to run. First, we're going back to that convenience store we saw at the start of the game.



Caution, team! Another of those Flapping Bastards(do they have an official name?) is snacking over in the corner, but if you're careful it won't notice you. These creatures are best avoided in general, as they attack quite viciously and you don't want to be wasting time and health fighting them unless it's unavoidable.



Inside, there's some health items and a save point. If you get a Good+ ending, a very exciting extra special bonus item can be also found here. But not yet. Now, exiting the store and heading left(run to avoid the monster), head all the way to end of Finney Street, to the point where the road ends in a gaping chasm.



In the boot of this police car is the "Key Of Lion", the first of three keys you'll need to open the back door of the house in Levin Street. There's a map in the house itself telling you where the keys are, but we're going to save time by picking them up beforehand.



Next is the Key Of Woodman, which is behind this gate in the alley between Finney and Matheson.



Sadly, you never get to find out who was playing b-ball with a severed dog's head. It probably just seemed like a cool idea at the time.



Ellroy Street seems like another dead end at first, but this handy tree branch looks as if it might lead somewhere.



Now we're all keyed up, it's time to head back to the alleyway off Finney Street that's marked on the map.[tbc]

Looks like they're called "Night Flutters."

And man, that bit with the basketball hoop is such a great minor expression of the hellishness of the town. The series could use more of those.

Flapping Bastards is a fine enough name for them.

Yeah, it seems like the atmosphere of the series changed after the first game, doesn't it?