SILENT HILL 3

'''Silent Hill 3''' is the third installment in the ''Silent Hill'' survival horror series. The game was released in mid 2003 for the Sony PlayStation 2 and was ported to the PC later that year.
The game is a direct sequel to the first Silent Hill game, staged seventeen years after the game's events.^[2] This entry is centered on a teenage girl named Heather who is drawn into Silent Hill's bizarre reality after being haunted by terrifying dreams and must enter the town itself to uncover a disturbing connection regarding her past and fate. She ultimately discovers she is a part of the plans of the town's cult and becomes caught in a conflict within the cult itself.

Contents

Plot

Endings

Reception

Cast

Music

Sequels

Influence

References

External links

Plot

After playing through a brief dream sequence at a Silent Hill amusement park, the player is introduced to the game's protagonist, Heather, at a "Happy Burger" restaurant in a shopping mall. Before she can leave she is confronted by a private investigator named Douglas Cartland who tells her he has information about her past. Heather evades him, escaping through a window in a ladies' restroom, but upon reentering the mall she discovers it mostly abandoned except for bizarre monsters. During this a priestess of Silent Hill's resident cult who identifies herself as Claudia, tells Heather to "Remember me, and your true self as well," and that she will lead "them" to Paradise "with blood stained hands." Heather, suddenly in severe pain, collapses and promptly enters a "nightmare" version of the mall. She returns to the "normal" world after a boss fight with the "split worm" creature, finding Douglas again and extracting from him a confession that he had been hired by Claudia to find her.
Heather leaves to take the subway home, finding more monsters and another "nightmare" world on her walk back. She also encounters a man named Vincent, apparently with some affiliation with Claudia (despite his dismissals of her), and leaves him after getting no answers on what is happening. After finally arriving home Heather discovers her father has been killed by a monster under Claudia's orders, her motives being "Revenge for 17 years ago" and to "fill [Heather's] heart with hatred." Claudia also tells Heather that she "will birth a God and build an eternal Paradise." The priestess leaves Heather to fight the monster as a boss, telling her that she will be waiting for her in Silent Hill. Heather subsequently resolves to go to Silent Hill, intent on killing Claudia, and accepts Douglas's offer to drive her there.
Before the two arrive, Vincent leaves Douglas a message telling them to look for a man named Leonard Wolf and Heather reads a memo left by her father before his death. The memo briefly recounts the events of ''Silent Hill'' and reveals that she is the matured second Cheryl Mason. Harry, her father, is left in the game's "Good" endings, thus explaining why Claudia is seeking Heather to birth the cult's God (Heather being the reincarnation of ''Silent Hill'' 's Alessa Gillespie).
Upon arriving in Silent Hill, which is once more abandoned and shrouded in fog, Heather checks Brookhaven Hospital for Leonard Wolf. She contacts him via telephone, where he reveals he is Claudia's father. He disapproves of Claudia's actions to rebirth God, like Heather, and initially agrees to help her, offering the use of an artifact later identified as the "Seal of Metatron." When the two meet, however, Leonard, who takes the form of a monster, tries to kill Heather after discovering she is not a cult member. Following his defeat Heather acquires his seal and leaves to meet Douglas again. Instead she meets Vincent, who a mostly unconnected cutscene has revealed is a rival of Claudia within the cult's leadership, and receives instructions allegedly from Douglas to head to "The Church" via the Lakeside Amusement Park to find Claudia.
Upon Heather's arrival the amusement park regresses to a nightmare world in much the same form as her dream at the beginning of the game. She finds Douglas, wounded after an encounter with Claudia, but decides to carry on regardless. When she finally reaches the Church, Heather attempts to talk Claudia out of her plans, pretending to be completely under the influence of Alessa's personality and memories, to no avail and collapses in pain under the pressure of holding the God in her. Vincent, who has also made it to the church, attempts to reassure Heather that the Seal of Metatron will prevent the God's birth, but at the three character's final confrontation Claudia dismisses the seal as useless and stabs Vincent, apparently fatally.
In order to progress beyond this point, the player must use the pendant item Harry left Heather, which contains a sample of aglaophotis, Heather swallows the sample and proceeds to vomit out the God. Horrified, Claudia swallows the God's fetus and births it herself, leading to the final boss fight between it and Heather.

Endings

- The default ending for ''Silent Hill 3'', and the only ending available on the first playing of the game, is the '"Normal"' ending. Heather revisits Douglas at the amusement park, and after briefly pretending to be possessed and about to kill him she insists the detective call her by her birth name of Cheryl. This is also the only ending discussed in the Konami guide ''Book of Lost Memories''.^[3]
- After the game is finished once, a "point" system is enabled, in which they player collects "points" by killing creatures (10 points each), taking damage (1 point per attack), and forgiving the "confessor" in the church (1000 points.) After 4000 points have been achieved the '"Possessed"' ending follows, in which it is revealed that the wounded Douglas has been murdered, apparently by Heather.
- After acquiring the unlockable "Heather Beam" weapon and killing at least 30 creatures with it the '"Revenge"' ending is enabled. This ending is a continuation of the "UFO" endings of the previous games and it has Heather arrive at her apartment to find Harry Mason alive and drinking tea with the aliens while ''Silent Hill 2'' 's James Sunderland hides behind a curtain. Heather tells Harry of what has happened, and the enraged protagonist of the first game takes a fleet of UFO's to Silent Hill and blows up the town.

Reception

''Silent Hill 3'' has received positive reviews since its inception, garnering an 84% at Game Rankings for the PS2 version^[4] and a 70% for the PC version^[5]
Overall, PlayStation Magazine gave ''Silent Hill 3'' a 7 for "good". Their article in September 2003's issue praised the game for staying true to the series and found only a few compromising points, such as the "inopportune" camera angles that occurred at "inopportune" times. Their first playthrough took only four hours which they found disappointing, saying that it left the storyline feeling rushed. They hailed the game as being the most lush and refined of the series on Playstation for the time though, and said that it was "...worth the trip for fans of the series and the genre."

Cast

★ Heather Morris — Heather/Cheryl

★ Richard Grosse — Douglas Cartland

★ Donna Burke — Claudia Wolf

★ Clifford Rippel — Father Vincent

★ Matt Lagan — Leonard Wolf

★ Lenne Hardt — Confessor

★ Mike Matheson — Borley Mansion Guide

★ Thessaly Lerner — Lisa Garland (uncredited)

Music

Main articles: Silent Hill 3 Original Soundtracks

The original soundtrack for ''Silent Hill 3'', composed by Akira Yamaoka, was released in Japan on July 16, 2003 and its cataloged number is ''KOLA-038''.
The song "You're Not Here", the song used in the game's introduction sequence, was included in the PS2 port of ''Dance Dance Revolution Extreme''.[1] It is also included in the ''Silent Hill Experience'' UMD media pack[2] and is featured in the 2006 film adaptation of the first game.

Sequels

As of 2006, one sequel title exists, with the second to be released in 2008 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

★ '' (2004)

★ ''Silent Hill V'' (2008)
Additionally, a prequel will be released on the PlayStation Portable.

★ '' (2007)

Influence

★ Like all ''Silent Hill'' games, ''Silent Hill 3'' makes reference to ''Jacob's Ladder'' in terms of physical and psychological horror effects (head shaking, red light, et cetera).

★ In one part of the game, Heather travels down a hallway and finds a lone wheelchair at the end. This is a nod to the horror movie Session 9, to which the creators of the game were fans of.

References

1. Silent Hill 3
2. http://www.translatedmemories.com/bookpgs/Pg08-09AlessasHistory.jpg
3. http://www.translatedmemories.com/bookpgs/Pg70-71SH3Ending.jpg
4. http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/561292.asp?q=Silent%20Hill%203
5. http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/914765.asp?q=Silent%20Hill%203

External links

★ Official ''Silent Hill 3'' site (Konami Europe)

★ ''Silent Hill'' series (Konami Japan)

★ ''Gamespot''

★

★

★

★ ''Translated Memories''