Its unforgettable landscape and horrific features spawned an entire franchise of films and video game sequels. While the horror video game is well-known, its true story and real location is rarely recognized. In , Christopher Gans adapted the game into a psychological horror film with the same name. Right as the two arrive, they are involved in a car accident, and Sharon goes missing.
As ash and fog rolls over Silent Hill, Rose searches for her daughter only to discover that the town is overrun by demonic entities, a cult, and shifts between dimensions. The success of the original film spawned a sequel in titled Silent Hill: Revelation, which was based on the third game in the series. Similar to the Resident Evil franchise, Silent Hill made its mark in horror history as a classic video game and original film concept.
While the environment of Silent Hill seems as though it could only exist in nightmares, it is actually a very real place with a devastating history.
Remarkably, there's already been a patch for the US PlayStation 3 version, which apparently does very little at all our UK version hasn't asked to be updated thus far and, certainly, the notion of introducing a frame-rate cap shouldn't be too difficult - after all, it's already present on the Xbox version of the game.
The games feel worse to play than the PlayStation 2 originals. In the case of the PS3, it's a rare example of an HD remaster that feels worse to play than the original. The real question though is just how nobody at Hijinx HQ noticed this glaring difference between the two SKUs before gold masters were sent off.
It's also equally difficult to imagine how most of the other glaring bugs made it through the quality control mechanisms of both Konami and the platform holders. It boggles the mind how the PS3 version's hard-drive-induced frame-rate drops, along with sections of out-of-sync audio, could have made their way into the final game in the first place.
The lacklustre implementation of the fog in the two games is a little more understandable, but only up to a point. Transparency effects on the current-generation consoles are relatively expensive to implement.
By comparison, the PS2 is a bandwidth monster, with the benefit of operating at a much lower resolution. That said, we have to remember that GPU resources elsewhere are hardly being taxed - these games utilise low-poly models by today's standards and the original textures would need to have been crammed into just 4MB of video RAM. Also, with a set 30 frames-per-second performance target on at least , it's difficult to imagine that there's anything other than a surfeit of rendering time considering the relatively basic level of the visuals on offer here.
Complaints have been levelled at Konami that the development studio tasked with carrying out this HD remaster doesn't have that much experience with high-profile Xbox and PS3 projects, and there's certainly a feeling that the power of the current-gen platforms isn't being tapped that much here: the notion of PS2-era games requiring a 4GB mandatory install on Sony's current console rings alarm bells, and when compared to the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection in terms of frame-rate and image quality, the technical inadequacies of these Silent Hill ports are swiftly brought sharply into focus.
In the past, we've raised concerns about the lack of effort being put into some of these HD ports. Sometimes the quality of the original assets just isn't good enough for an HD presentation, while on other occasions the original games have simply aged very, very badly and simply can't compete with modern games. With titles like the recently released Devil May Cry: HD Collection, there's the sense that very little effort has gone into the conversion work and the games simply deserved better treatment.
But with Silent Hill HD, we see something arguably worse: a port that doesn't play as well as the original games. Digital Foundry specialises in technical analysis of gaming hardware and software, using state-of-the-art capture systems and bespoke software to show you how well games and hardware run, visualising precisely what they're capable of.
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Xbox quietly updates a handful of fan-favourite games. Before she can leave, however, she encounters a private detective named Douglas Cartland. Revealing he was hired by the Order to locate her, Heather thinks him a stalker and flees. While wandering the depths of the mall, Heather comes across Claudia Wolf, a priestess of the Order. At a point prior to the events in Silent Hill 2 , Walter Sullivan , once raised at the Wish House Orphanage , goes on a killing spree, murdering ten people before killing himself.
Four years after his death, a victim, killed in a style mimicking Walter's, is found. At least seven others would follow. Henry Townshend , living in Room of the South Ashfield Heights apartments in the city of Ashfield , finds that his apartment door has been chained shut from the inside, and he cannot escape.
Alex Shepherd finds his hometown Shepherd's Glen corrupted by unusual paranormal happenings. After being ensnared by bizarre incidents, he comes to Silent Hill to unravel the truth behind the Order. In the years estimated two or three decades since Silent Hill , Central Silent Hill has undergone much change:. Some of these changes may be attributed to the power of Silent Hill warping the layout of the town, so Central Silent Hill and its map seen in Homecoming should not necessarily be accepted as the finalized version of Central Silent Hill.
Downpour is not set before He enters the town, hoping to avoid being caught near the crash. He explores Silent Hill, trying to find a way to escape; however, he must first confront his past before the town releases him. Meanwhile, a corrections officer, Anne Cunningham, goes through her own journey of self-discovery while seeking revenge on Murphy.
The game takes place in an easterly part of the town, where there is a mix between forests and great ravines, and buildings and subways. Murphy can travel quickly through town by utilizing subway tunnels under the city. The first encountered is Hillside, which is primarily a residential area. Murphy can also complete 14 sidequests hidden throughout the town, which unlock clues revealing some of Silent Hill's history.
Maria's Monastery resembles the hospitals from one of the previous Silent Hill games. Jack Stanton and Jillian Conway are a day outside of Boston when the pair stop at a filling station for gas and restroom breaks. Before they can get back on the road, however, they are ambushed by the O'Conner Brothers and fellow hitman Jimmy Shea , hired by Finn Conway to bring the two back to Boston.
The filling station owner, hearing the commotion, kills both O'Conner brothers. However, Shea escapes with Jill and takes off for the nearby town of Silent Hill. Outside of town, Jimmy had been set upon by a pair of wolves and Jill is nowhere to be seen. When Jack's car runs out of gas within Silent Hill, he takes a pistol from the trunk and sets off to find his girl.
Back in Boston, Finn is growing worried about the lack of communication with his lackeys and sets off to see to this bit of business. Before he can act, a monster bursts through the bowling alley wall.
Having killed the offending creature, Jack is chastised by a shaken Jill, dressed as nurse. While Jack had seen a monster, she did not. Running off, saying there is someone she needs to help, Jack gives chase, only to come across a girl named Sara Linwood tied to a cross and surrounded by monsters.
Killing the monsters, the pair become traveling companions. Sara explains that she had been with her parents when she heard a siren, then only black. Soon, Jack and Sara run across the pair of creatures Jack had taken for wolves. Looking for shelter, the enter Brookhaven Hospital.
It falls into place; Jill must be inside. Fleeing the scene, Jack is assailed by visions of his past, his final illusion being Digger , his boyhood dog. Unable to bear the guilt, Jack pleads for it all to stop. Sara, appearing behind Jack, tells him that stopping it all is his choice.
Kneeling on the sidewalk, Jack attempts an apology to Sara for what he's done to her family. Rather than forgiving him, Sara just tells Jack that he passed the point of apologizing a long time ago. Saying he knew that, he tells Sara to step back, because things are about to get messy. Jack then shoots himself in the temple. The town of Silent Hill was re-imagined in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories , which is set in a separate continuity from the main series.
Geographically, it appears relatively similar to Paleville from the original Silent Hill and it most likely also has a South Vale counterpart, though it is unseen in the game. The western area is primarily residential, and the eastern area is primarily business; a single bridge known as the Dixon Bridge connects the two districts. At the very northwest area located next to the Caldecotte Pond is a vacation spot with woods and lodges used for picnicking and camping. Because of the present-day setting of the game, buildings and locations seen throughout the game are more modern than in the original Silent Hill.
The town also has its own train railway system, known as the Freight Railway. The exact location of this Silent Hill is unknown; however, there are subtle hints and clues that suggest where it may be located:. Having always been thought of as a place with unexplained powers, it was for this reason that the Native American tribes came to the area to begin with.
With the arrival of colonists and the plague that followed them, this strange presence was seemingly warped and strengthened. This warping and strengthening would occur again and again over the next four centuries until the immolation of Alessa Gillespie, which acted as a catalyst for the town's power, causing Silent Hill to begin attracting or "calling" to people with darkness in their hearts.
It's uncertain if the town is truly sentient or if it merely acts as a mirror for people's delusions, fears, and vices to take shape. During a conversation with Bobby Ricks , Murphy Pendleton offers the idea of hotwiring a boat rather than painstakingly locating the keys to the boat; Ricks tells him this is impossible.
He implies through his dialogue that the town has some ability to mess with reality and will create situations that will force an individual to continue along a designated path that the town appears to have decided. While Ricks never gets the chance to further an explanation, it can be inferred from his dialogue that the town, either through sentient control or due to other reasons, will hold a person inside the town until they have finished what they need to do to properly escape.
If the endings of many of the Silent Hill games can be believed, successfully coming to terms with or dealing with the problems the victim of the town has, they are then allowed to leave, often with a new revelation about their life.
This is related to "Full Circle". Notes in Origins suggest that the town is particularly attentive to individuals with particular mental walls or afflictions. Lakeview Hotel in the Real World. The least-explored world, ironically, is the real world of everyday life. It seems safe to assume that this is where the original, uncorrupted town of Silent Hill truly exists in a state of normality.
It may be the version of the town experienced by Laura in Silent Hill 2. In Silent Hill 4: The Room , it's possible to see the real world of Ashfield from the windows and the front door peephole of Henry's apartment, as the player can see a large, busy avenue from the bedroom window, and neighbors passing by. The most frequented of Silent Hill's worlds is the Fog World. With an unnatural fog rolling into town off of Toluca Lake, the streets of Silent Hill appear abandoned.
Cars may lie wrecked along the side of the road, while buildings stand vacant and dilapidated. The most abundant form of life around are monsters, who roam about unhindered.
Many doors found throughout Silent Hill are broken, preventing access to a great many of the buildings there. This may be a result of the town, leading those who come here to their fate, whatever it may be.
In some instances, snow seems to fall from the sky or ash, as in the film and Homecoming. It has been demonstrated that the Fog World is, more or less, uniform between character perceptions.
Michael Kaufmann in Silent Hill makes reference to the snow being an oddity, given the time of year. Another peculiarity lies within how many streets come to abrupt, unnatural endings. During the course of Harry Mason's visit, the roads fall away, replaced by bottomless chasms. However, during James Sunderland and Murphy Pendleton's visits, most of the streets are instead boarded up in an almost man-made way, with high walls covered in tarp, and in many cases, actual road blocks and wooden boards.
The final and most dramatic world of Silent Hill is the Otherworld. Appearing different to each individual, the Otherworld can be seen as a symbolic manifestation of a person's psyche. For example, as generated by the mind of the badly injured Alessa Gillespie, Silent Hill has become incredibly dark and industrialized, with structures being composed of fencing, metal plates, fans, and piping.
Smokestacks, windmills, and corpses also lend to the appearance of this world. Blood covers most things, if not everything, in this twisted world.
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