This thread got me interested. Which one is the best game with which to start out? Which ones are the best?
I’ve only ever played SHII for PS2.
I would reccomend it. It was fun and shit-your-pants scary at times.
The graphics were a bit dissappointing. There was so much fog everywhere that you rarely could see more that a few feet in front of yourself. Which ups the creepy factor, but could also get quite annoying.
And, as a bonus, you get to face Pyramid Head at the end - I don’t know if it’s the boss in others of the series.
My friend swears by the Silent Hill series. He says it’s some of the scariest stuff he’s ever experienced in a video game. I’ve only played Silent Hill 4 and I thought it was pretty good (not necessarily creepy, but good), but according to most SH “experts” 4 is the worst in the series.
SH2 is supposed to be the best I think. As fair warning, Silent Hill 3 is a direct sequel to Silent Hill, but SH2 and SH4 are stand alone. I don’t know anything about the recent PSP game.
Never could get into 2 the way I did with the first. The first was CREEPY AS ALL HELL, and kinda drew you in. You wanted to know what was gonna happen next, and how the story would progress. My roommate and I played this game for many an hour, with special rules. It could only be played late at night (after 10pm), with all the lights out. No other noise or distractions in the background. This helped keep the mood/vibe the game creates and made for some *very scary * moments in the game. We kept all the blinds closed. It wasn’t a rule, but after getting spooked by the game, you felt “safer” with the blinds closed. Who knows what is out there?
The graphics won’t be as good by today’s standards, but the story and creepiness level is well worth the play. I loved the opening CG scene. I got all excited in the theatre when watching a promo for the Silent Hill movie, and I recognized the opening scene within 2 seconds.
Zero Punctuation’s review of Silent Hill Origins
Stick with SH 1 and 2. I never got very far in either-- too much of a wuss-- but it’s fun to play at night in a dark, quiet place, and scare yourself shitless.
What’s also great about the series is, right smack dab in the middle of all of this soul-crushing angst and brain-breaking fear, you get these moments of complete hilarity. (I’m talking about the UFO endings, of course, and the SH2 Dog Ending. 
)
I’ve played all of them from original Silent Hill to the new Silent Hill Origins. It’s one of my absolute favorite series. It’s not necessary to start off with Silent Hill. I started on SH2 and played through SH4 before I played the first. I’ll go so far as to say that it’s best to start at Silent Hill 2 because it’s a good intro to the controls, atmosphere, and overall tone of the series. The only downside to Silent Hill 2 is that you will spend a lot of time walking, but that gives you a good chance to savor the spooky vibes anyways.
Silent Hill 3 is probably my least favorite of the series, but it’s still a pretty good game and worth the under $20 price tag you can find it for. While Silent Hill 2 almost felt to big, this game feels too compressed. You don’t get the chance to steep in the tone as much, and the plucky heroine feels a little out of place. I’d still call it overall a 7.5-8 out of ten. One of the great things about the Silent Hill series is that a bad Silent Hill game is still better than most others.
Silent Hill 4: This is my favorite game of the series. The controls felt better than the previous ones and it found the right spacing between too big and too compressed. The controls feel rock solid, something that was kind of an issue with the previous games. The atmosphere is creepy with a few actually terrifying moments. The eventual haunting of your apartment adds to the stress level without making the game impossible. The biggest downside is that the game’s connections to Silent Hill are tenuous at best. It was originally intended to be a stand alone game of a different type, but was roughly shoved into the Silent Hill universe. It works though.
Silent Hill Origins: I haven’t played this one all the way through as Smash Bros. Brawl and the NHL playoffs have been eating my free time. Not to mention it’s hard to sink into the spooky when it’s sunny and nice outside. Still, it’s a decent addition to the series. The music is perfect. The graphics are par for the series as is the atmosphere. The downside that I’ve noticed are that you don’t have total control of the camera, which is problematic when the games decision to stick to the scary camera angle makes it hard to fight the hellbeast that is trying to hump you. The controls are also a step backwards from the previous games. This is not a game to introduce yourself to the series, despite it being a prequel. It’s something to get if you like the series.
On the whole, the series is one of my favorites because of the atmosphere and story. It’s genuinely creepy in a way that other forms of media (movies, television, and books) aren’t these days. The monsters, characters, and settings are nightmarish. The story and pace are patient enough to draw you in to the story. The endings don’t feel tacked on and some are downright twillight zoney. The controls can be somewhat frustrating, but not in a controller chucking way. The replay value is also right up there if you want to get the good or comical endings.
To wrap up, I’d play them 2, 3, 4, 1, and Origins if you like the series as a whole. Other good survival horror games along these lines are the Fatal Frame series and Haunting Ground…
The Silent Hill series is my favorite next to the Fatal Frame series (that’s for another thread).
I LOVE THIS SERIES. It’s creepy, surreal, and haunting. It’s a major must for horror fans, or fans of a good, creepy atmosphere. I started with SH 2, and was really amazed that a video game can tell a story so engrossing. It made me a total video game snob, and a SH addict.
Purists like Silent Hills 2, 1, and 3- usually in that order. 4 is considered the black sheep of the series. In my opinion, 2 has the BEST story, but a few kinks in the overall game play. The story, and the little reveals you get as you keep playing build tension like a well-directed suspense movie.
Silent Hill 4 gets dumped on a lot, but I loved it. It has a great premise, and many seriously messed up moments.
I’ve only played 1 and 2, and I loved them. You know, I didn’t see this thread in the forum, but I was just thinking about the games, so I searched and here this thread is today. I think something is drawing me to Silent Hill…
In the same vein I just watched this week’s Zero Punctuation, and apparently if you can handle the gratuitous violence the first Condemned game is wonderfully atmospheric.
I played whichever one was the first one released on Xbox. Part 2 or 3, I think. Creeped the hell out of me. One thing I found annoying was that some of the puzzles seemed to require a force-approach (that is, trying EVERYTHING), rather than a logical approach (trying what would make sense.) It’s been a few years but I seem to recall having to drop a can of orange juice down a laundry-chute to force another clue out of the other end.
Okay, you’ve all sold me. I just ordered SH2. But I can’t seem to find SH1 anywhere. Is it one of those out-of-print games that goes for fabulous sums of cash, or is there a good place to find these older games?
Silent Hill 1 is a game for the original Playstation, not a more recent system, so maybe that’s why you’re having trouble locating it.
Still a quick google of silent hill 1 turns up an amazon ad to the right of the search results which when clicked yields the following
Silent Hill (PlayStation)
38 Used & new from $38.99
(196)
Video Games: See all 2 items
I don’t make any endorsement of that ad, just an example that it’s not impossible to find. I certainly would look around some more before paying nearly $40 for a used copy, but for all I know that might be reasonable for the game.
I love the Silent Hill series. The atmosphere is chilling, the puzzles are great (especially in the first one), and there’s enough content to keep you amused for days. I haven’t played SH4 yet, so I can’t vouch for that one. It’s not as good as the Resident Evil series, IMO, but it’s definitely worth a look if you like scary RPG’s.
Good rules. I played SH2 like that most of the time, and there were a few moments…oy. Scumpup, just wait until you get down into the prison basement.