Silent Hill: The Long Analysis – The Beginning (2)

So I’m playing this game on a little TV (not a chunky CRT monitor or anything, but still not a big HDTV or anything so as to “ruin” the game’s original mood) and on an original PlayStation One! And I’ll be basing my impressions off of the PAL copy I have, as I don’t own any other regions, nor any of the other PlayStation Ones required to play games with other regions. Maybe one day. Also, I have never played through the first Silent Hill before, although I have played through 2, 4, and Homecoming, so I know what to expect from the series both on a mood and thematic level.

Anyway, I wanted to spend the first proper post talking about how the game begins, and what it does so well.

Theoretically, everyone who has a passing interest in the game knows how it begins. You know the trope, Adult Fear. Even if you don’t, there you go, I just put you into one of those TVTropes rabbit holes that last for hours.

You play as Harry Mason, a fairly average sort of bloke, just doing the best he can for his young daughter Cheryl. On the way to their holiday retreat at the pleasantly named Silent Hill, Harry sees someone crossing the road as his car approaches.

*I’ll say it again many times I’d imagine, but the cutscenes (masterfully and miraculously directed by Takayoshi Sato) are just amazing.*

Swerving to avoid the the girl, Harry crashes, and when he wakes up, he finds himself sitting alone in his car, in the middle of dense fog. He emerges from the car, and begins his adventure into Silent Hill.

The premise of the game is fairly simple, then – you are a father stranded alone in town, whose daughter has gone missing. It is a simple, compelling hook, even today. Strong stories tend to start off best when they have a strong hook or structure at the beginning. Telling a story that starts loose, with less motivation, requires serious work from the writer on other fronts, mainly the character front. So far, we know nothing about Harry other than that he is a father and isn’t keen on running people down on the street, and nothing about Cheryl other than that she is Harry’s daughter. This allows us to imprint very easily our own fears onto Harry. The Silent Hill series is particularly good at this, particularly the Team Silent tetralogy. They each start with a powerful opening hook that makes it easy for the player to begin the experience off-balance and uncertain, which is generally reminiscent of a player’s constant feeling through each of these games.

Horror as a genre often relies on mystery to construct a valuable story, and the mystery is meant to compete against the feeling of horror. It is that core struggle that often sees players through to the end that would otherwise quit the game. “Sure, I might have seen an awful, terrible monster,” you say to yourself, “but damn that cutscene/note/character intrigues me enough to risk facing another one of those awful monsters.” That’s not the only reason one might turn to horror media, of course, but it is one of the biggest reasons for me. Horror has the capability to juxtapose powerful, mature storytelling with mature and shocking imagery, which is why Silent Hill is so damn effective – it isn’t shlock horror, it’s horror with express purpose.

*The atmosphere pours off the screen, even if Harry himself is clearly a victim of ye olde Uncanny Valley. Personally, I think the Valley often works in the favour of horror games.*

As you quickly find out, Harry isn’t exactly a Jill Valentine, with a police background and a handgun to start off with. No, Harry is a man who feels like he’s never held a gun before in his life. And that’s not just down to the tank controls – Harry is slow to aim and he pulls the trigger almost with hesitation. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The streets of Silent Hill are slathered in fog (and yes, everyone says “ah it’s just a clever way to get round the limitations of the PS1 system”, and yes it is, but the actual feeling of really walking around in fog is somehow perfectly replicated with this old game. I can’t imagine the amount of time it must have taken to get that feeling just right) and you quickly feel lost and disoriented, even if the game is cleverly guiding you. After walking for a little while, you see Cheryl through the fog. She vanishes into an alleyway, and you follow.

It is here that the game really begins to freak you out. If the quiet, empty streets of Silent Hill weren’t doing the job at making you feel afraid, the alleyway is where Silent Hill really starts to screw with your head.

Cinematography through fixed camera angles. It’s something that a lot of games are missing nowadays, what with their free cameras that a player can aim around to their heart’s desire. And there’s nothing wrong with that – unrestricted freedom to look around is an indispensable tool in countless games. But survival horror as a genre has gone first person a lot of the time, and we don’t get the same feeling of auteur-ship that these early titles bring us. As you walk towards the camera in one section, the camera pulls back, and then up, so that you are basically looking right down at Harry’s head – the feeling that something is watching you is palpable.

The sharp, steep angles of the camera as you walk down the alley is just masterful. Trails of grainy, lo-res blood set the scene perfectly, and Harry’s thoughts that accompany you are just as perplexed as you are as you make your way into town for the first time. And then, utter darkness falls. Harry lights a match. “Better than nothing, I guess,” he thinks dubiously. It hardly seems to help, and the claustrophobia I felt before simply increases as now it is not just fog, but complete darkness, that envelops Harry.

A broken wheelchair lies ahead in the darkness. “What’s this doing here?” Harry asks himself. Who would abandon a wheelchair? Why would the wheelchair be smashed? Who did this? Or, more accurately for Silent Hill, what did this?

The gentle pattering of rain in the darkness seems to threaten to extinguish what fragile light you have. You have little choice but to push on into the darkness, hoping that Cheryl is down here somewhere. That adult fear is likely playing on your mind the whole time you are progressing down the tight, cramped alleyway. You are more than aware that there is only one way forward, and one way back. It is frightening to feel so closed in, so helpless so early in the game.

Despite Harry’s lack of sense – he examines several corpses and says “What the? What is it?” or variations on that line – he encounters a truly grisly sight, one that the PS1 graphics illustrate in as graphic detail as possible.