Over the last couple of weeks I have either watched or played a number of movies/games related to or comparable with Silent Hill. This evening, I watched Silent Hill:Revelations. Given the lengthy nature of the rest of my post, I shall keep my thoughts on this movie short. Don't watch it - it's crap
Ok, it has a couple of passable bits, but mostly it's crap.
However... I also recently completed one play-through of Silent Hill:Downpour. This is, I believe, the 8th silent hill game. That's a lot, I think you'll agree. Most franchises die by the time they reach their 3rd or 4th outing. Resident Evil, a notable exception, is up to 7 games now. As it happens, straight after I finished SH:D I popped in RE:6 and started playing. It's been sitting on my shelf for a couple of months now, and I was keen to get started on it. I love the RE games, and have played through all of the previous 6 games (resi 6 is actually the 7th game in the series, thanks to the unhelpfully non-numerical RE:Code Veronica.)
This immediate transition from SH to RE drove home a number of points which I had previously been aware of but had never really crystallised in my mind till now.
Essentially, RE is a game for kids. Silent Hill...well, I can't think of a game less suitable for kids.
The problem is, Resident Evil is no longer a survival horror game. It's just not scary any more. The main character in resi is, by the time of RE6, about as hard as Rambo. In the opening 5 minutes of the game he survives being shot at by a helicopter, rescues a damsel in distress and subsequently flies his own heli down the street, bounces it off a moving train, survives the ensuing crash with nowt but a scratch, and then proceeds to mow his way through a zombie horde. All this before the opening credits roll.
Contrast with SH:D, in which our protagonist, in the same style of pre-credits playable scene, is taken from his prison cell (in flashback) and told to head off to the showers, where he meets a fat man clad only in a towel - a fellow prisoner who clearly expected to be alone. Our "hero" then proceeds to beat the fat man to death, knifing him for good measure. The game then cuts to the present, where the protagonist is being transferred to another prison. He's led out of jail, transferred onto a bus, bus drives off through the countryside, bus crashes, and now you, the player, have to do a runner. At this point the player doesn't know much about the character (and I ain't about to tell you), but it immediately makes you wonder who the protagonist is, and if he really deserves saving from all the monsters.
Speaking of which, in resident evil 6, the zombies are coming outta the walls. Tons of the buggers. It's dakka dakka dakka right from the get-go. You do kinda run out of ammo, but only because there's so many of them. Its not a huge problem, though, because you can beat the crap out if them with your fists and feet anyway. In comparison, in SH:D you actually go the first 20, 30 mins of the game completely monster free. Despite this, it's still extremely tense, mostly thanks to good sound design and visual effects. And when the monsters do arrive, they're a serious problem. Even 1 monster can kill you if you're not careful. 3 or 4 of them together will almost guaranteed do you in. There's also the fact that your weapons (for example, a fearsome lamp shade, or maybe a mighty half brick) break after you've whacked a couple of monsters with them. Another rather effective technique the game uses to keep you on your toes is the weather. Sometimes it's relatively clement. Of course there's the usual SH fog to contend with, but you can just about make out the sun shining through the haze. But sometimes it starts to rain. This is Bad. Because the heavier the rain gets, the more aggressive and plentiful the monsters become. If it gets as bad as a full on thunderstorm, you had better get the hell indoors or you're dead. The game is full of this kind of technique for keeping a player always under pressure and looking for/remembering escape routes. In resident evil, you're hunting zombies. In silent hill, you're being hunted yourself.
Gameplay aside, though, I think the real difference between the two games lies in the story and characterisation. Now, I haven't finished resi 6 yet, but having played the previous ones I'm willing to make a stab at the plot. There was a zombie plague. Probably some evil corporations fault. Our hero can save the world, but must first travel to a secret lab, a spookie mansion, and maybe some city streets. There will be grenade launchers and green herbs involved somewhere along the way. Silent hill, otoh, well, where to start? Every SH game is different. The only thing they have in common is the setting, which, helpfully, changes slightly for every game. This is because the whole concept of SH is that the protagonists are manifesting their own personal hell for themselves. I think that's what really makes this game shine - there's a huge amount of symbolism in every aspect of the game, and finding out what makes the protagonist tick is what keep you playing and wanting to see what happens next. Why do the monsters look like they do, why is it always raining, and just what is that wheelchair doing on the garage roof? In a resi game there wouldn't be a reason for any of these things other than "it looks scary", but in SH by the time you finish the game you want to play it again so you can spot the references to the characters psyche scattered around the game.
Overall, I guess I just wanted to say that I think SH:Downpour is one of the smartest, scariest and best produced video games I've played in years. It's rare for a book, movie or game to leave me thinking about it afterwards, but SH:D has really set my mind a-churning. If you have the inclination, I'd strongly recommend you pick this game up. Just don't play it in front of the kids. Or wife. Or, anyone, really...