[Intrepid Homoludens]

Konami has released a playable demo for Silent Hill 3, allowing you to try out this imminent PC conversion of the third title in the popular horror series. The massive demo lets you play a good portion from the full game. Update: This is in fact a multilinguage demo and you can choose between the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Japanese and Chinese.

Silent Hill Multilanguage demo (468.7 MB)

Full details, including system requirements, Gamer's Hell

[Kolzig]

Hmm, I haven't never really played Silent Hill games, but aren't they something like Resident Evil, but done better?

I'm going to try out this demo.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Kolzig

Hmm, I haven't never really played Silent Hill games, but aren't they something like Resident Evil, but done better?

They're only similar in theme and category. The RE series gives you cheap 'BOO!' type scares, fun campy gameplay, horribly conceived puzzles, and forgettable stories and characters.

The SH series offers a deeper, psychological horror, oppressive atmosphere (sadness, loss, insanity, helplessness), complex characters, challenging gameplay (shoot, hit, or run?), badly conceived puzzles, severely enigmatic but complex, organic, and open ended stories, and disturbing adult themes (murder, sex, child abuse, occult worship, torture). Oh, and the SH series has superior graphics and production quality over the RE series or any other survivor horror titles, IMO.

[DustCropper]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

They're only similar in theme and category. The RE series gives you cheap 'BOO!' type scares, fun campy gameplay, horribly conceived puzzles, and forgettable stories and characters.

The SH series offers a deeper, psychological horror, oppressive atmosphere (sadness, loss, insanity, helplessness), complex characters, challenging gameplay (shoot, hit, or run?), badly conceived puzzles, severely enigmatic but complex, organic, and open ended stories, and disturbing adult themes (murder, sex, child abuse, occult worship, torture). Oh, and the SH series has superior graphics and production quality over the RE series or any other survivor horror titles, IMO.

Do I need to have played the previous games to enjoy this one?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Ultimately, no. But if you had played the first and second games, your overall experience will be far more rich and dimensional. SH1 is arguably the best of all 3, SH2 acts as more of a thematic bridge, and SH3 clarifies SH1's story and sort of provides some resolution.

[Kolzig]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

They're only similar in theme and category. The RE series gives you cheap 'BOO!' type scares, fun campy gameplay, horribly conceived puzzles, and forgettable stories and characters.

The SH series offers a deeper, psychological horror, oppressive atmosphere (sadness, loss, insanity, helplessness), complex characters, challenging gameplay (shoot, hit, or run?), badly conceived puzzles, severely enigmatic but complex, organic, and open ended stories, and disturbing adult themes (murder, sex, child abuse, occult worship, torture). Oh, and the SH series has superior graphics and production quality over the RE series or any other survivor horror titles, IMO.

Ok, that is just what I had thought about RE and SH.

Great, I had a problem with my download, got to go get it again...

[Pappapisshu]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

SH1 is arguably the best of all 3, SH2 acts as more of a thematic bridge, and SH3 clarifies SH1's story and sort of provides some resolution.

Yeah. I wonder where the forth game will be heading, story-wise and so on...

On a side note, I find SH2 the best of the three (well, I have really only played the first two so...). It's one of my absolute favourites.

[Chrille]

SH4? Is capcom publishing the SH series?

[davez82]

any major diff between this and ps2 vers? if it is good im thinking of getting the ps2 version cause my ps2 is collecting dust.

[Kolzig]

Now I tried the demo, and this game surely is way better than Resident Evil series.

The feeling was really scary, great use of darkness and little light. It has true horror inside it, and the amusement park is a great setting for horror game.

The graphics were quite astonishing, everything was quite dark textured and the fog effect looked good.

I couldn't get quite far in the demo at first try, I died in the third room or something...

I had a problem with propably my mouse and the game. When I clicked my mouse, my desktop started to interfere with the game, and had to do alt+tab everytime that happened.

[Henke]

468.7 MB!!!! OMG!

[Igor]

I just downloaded it (468.7 MB!!!!... huh...). Anyway, must say the conversion from PS2 is great! If PC SH2 somehow didn't look as good as on PS2 (textures worked much better on Tv screen), it seems SH3 will look almost the same as on console.

Kolzig- the part that is in demo, is one of the hardest... also, if you die a few times (in full game), you unlock the "beginner" action level- that option turns the game in almost pure adventure.

[Nellie]

This is the first time I've ever played any game of this style. Interesting experience.

Firstly, I was a bit disappointed because I didn't find what I've seen of the demo scary yet. I reckon this is because it provides me with no sense of context whatsoever - I have no idea of who I am, what's going on, or what's at stake, I'm just randomly wandering around a dark fairground battling fleshy monsters. Perhaps with some story build-up I'd be crapping myself.

Also, I'm a little confused that the camera seems determined not to let me see what my character can see. Almost walking down some gaping hole in the floor, or having some huge monster suddenly walk on to the screen very close to me, when my character could clearly have seen it coming a mile off, is not helping my sense of immersion.

But hey, it's early days. I'll play some more and see what I think at the end. Now if only I could remap these blimmin' controls...

[Royal Fool]

The pyramid head in SH2 is still bothering me... I'm stuck and too afraid to go back to it.

But this SH3 port is shaping up very nicely. Now if only Konami would remake SH1 for PS2 (And do a PC port while they're at it), that would be fantastic!

[RemiO]

The demo is a part of the game that wasn't even supposed to be playable, it was only included as a tutorial level late in development. The game starts getting really scary about ten minutes after the demo. The camera angles are also a little off to make the game more tense, though admittedly it worked better in SH2.

[pleto4_ryan]

I had this instict you were to be the first posting it trep

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English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Japanese and Chinese.

Never in Greek...

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468.7 MB!!!! OMG!

I agree... i am gonna have to wait a magazine to publish it
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The SH series offers a deeper, psychological horror

http://www.reallifecomics.com/daily....11-00000-00000

http://www.reallifecomics.com/daily....11-00000-00000

[Henke]

Hmmm the camera worked much better in SH2 then in this demo. I can also see pixels despite that I have somewhere around 1600 in resolution. I hope they will get the game fixed until it's released.

[Firefoot]

I had it in my hands yesterday... but was not sure to buy it... so I'll definitely try the demo out... 468.7 MB is the largest demo I ever downloaded... but luckily I have cable (if Chello works along this time... )!

[RemiO]

Originally Posted by Henke

Hmmm the camera worked much better in SH2 then in this demo. I can also see pixels despite that I have somewhere around 1600 in resolution. I hope they will get the game fixed until it's released.

Apparently you need to increase the texture resolution also. Or so I've been told.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Good lord, I've had this demo in my drive for weeks and I finally finished it! Beautiful, beautiful looking game. The graphics somehow resonate with an underlying psychological force, that's the only way I can convey it. I turned the noise filter off and discovered the graphics to be texturally rich. The character modelling is obscenely well done, crisp, humanistic. Of course, as with any survival horror game, there are annoying problems:

• Weapons handling - character reaction time is so f#&king slow! And why do you need a separate button to 'ready' your weapon when you can simple press action and the character should automatically fire or strike? I also noticed there was no reload button.

• Camerawork - I'm sick of these insulting 'artistic camera angles' where half the scenery is obstructing your view and you can't see your enemy. I hate it when they trash gameplay for aesthetic rationalizing bs. There's plenty of room for good expressive views and angles, but NOT while I'm trying to defend myself against 3 or 4 monsters with little health left!

Anyway, I'm getting the full game, of course (like I planned all along). It's so beautiful and enveloping.

In my current state of mind, I'm am in a very thirsty mood for adventure gaming that involves a lot of exploring and puzzlework and don't give a damn about FPSs or action/adventures. I've decided to restart Silent Hill 2 but at easiest difficulty and hardest puzzle level. It's the closest I'll get to an adventure game until I get to buy BS3 and Uru (which won't be for another 2 weeks).