Playstation 2 Game Review: Silent Hill 3

The storyline of Silent Hill 3 begins 17 years after the first Silent Hill . You assume the character of Heather Morris, one of the main character in Silent Hill . For those who still remember the original Silent Hill, Heather Morris is the daughter of one of the most important characters in the game. The setting is in Heather's home town where she is again confronted by eerie and mysterious creatures.

This third installment in the series did not greatly depart from the gameplay and control of the original game. There are puzzles to solve, rooms to unlock, monsters and creatures to kill and destroy or run away from. Control-wise, it's pretty much the same as the previous two Silent Hill games. You still use the PS2 controller's D-Pad for character movement. The responsiveness of the character to controls didn't quite improve as well. For a third game in the series, Silent Hill 3 should have introduced more new things and features. Unfortunately it did not. Probably because Silent Hill 3 was probably being targeted to be the last game for the Playstation Two. The game did not offer that much room for replayability. No varied endings and was restricted to a linear progression type of game.

Now, this is one area where Silent Hill 3 excelled. We're not saying that Silent Hill 3 has the best graphics engine of all the Playstation 2 games. Certainly not. But for a horror-suspense type of game, Silent Hill 3 was able to pull out some good scare when it comes to rendering horrifying creatures. The game's cut-scenes were well done and put the PS2 graphics engine into good use. The game also employed real-time change in environment which added to the suspense factor. Overall, Silent Hill 3 gets our good grade in the graphics department, although most of the time the sceneries are too dark, but well it's a horror-suspense game anyway.

In the sound department, Silent Hill 3's musical score suits the eerie and mysterious mood of the game. The sound effects are as realistic as they can get. And this is one of the game's major strengths.

Silent Hill 3 is the last game of the franchise for the Playstation 2 console. If you have played the first two games in the series, we don't know any reason why you wouldn't want to grab a copy of this game. It's definitely a game for solid fans of the series, but other players who have not yet played any Silent Hill game will still find it an entertaining horror-suspense game.