To this day, the original theme accompanied by mandolin is one of the most beautifully haunting songs I’ve encountered in the genre. I still recall being taken aback at first by the warning that flashes up every time you boot it, which reads: “There are violent and disturbing images in this game.” Naturally, as a young male, this meant I absolutely had to play it as well as show it to all my friends. I had played games such as Resident Evil prior, so the concept wasn’t entirely alien to me, but there was something distinctly different about the game. My first exposure to Silent Hill was in grade school via a demo disc which accompanied the original Metal Gear Solid on PS1. Games like Silent Hill, on the other hand, take it a bit further I think. It’s easy enough to grasp why people love conventional horror: by exposing the brain to fear in a controlled environment, we can enjoy a flood of adrenaline, endorphins, and dopamine. Silent Hill 2, in particular, is predominantly an exploration of the main character’s psyche. It’s not necessarily about the evil forces you’re physically confronting but rather those we struggle with internally. While I have a separate love/hate relationship with that series, why I specifically want to focus on Silent Hill is because it aims to tell a much more intimate story. Silent Hill, as you probably know, falls into that second category of survival horror – a genre I think it’s fair to say was first popularised by long-running franchise juggernaut Resident Evil. In the latter, however, you’ll more commonly find yourself in the shoes of an average person with no special abilities and with limited resources to survive the arduous trials ahead.
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In the first type of game, you’re not necessarily going to be disempowered while playing but rather placed into a series of horrific situations. However, for I want to discuss, I’ll keep it relatively simple. Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive, and we could break the genre down much, much further. There are primarily two different types of games: those which set out to increase adrenaline by frightening players using scare tactics, and those which are much more slow burning and aim perpetuate feelings of anxiety and dread. When examining horror, I think there needs to be a clear distinction made when it comes to video games. As an insatiable fan of horror, this is something I wanted to better understand about myself, and to do this, I delved into one my favourite survival horror series, Silent Hill, to find out why exactly I enjoy it so much. However, for those of us who love it, why exactly do we enjoy artificially inducing feelings of fear, shock, and disgust? It sounds like a terrible idea and yet it’s an activity millions of people around the world indulge in every day, whether it be through film, television, books, and, of course, video games. First of all, it’s likely going to be something you either love or you hate – there isn’t often a middle ground when it comes to the genre, and especially with games, given the participatory nature of the medium. Horror as a form of entertainment is a fascinating and bizarre construct.