Silent Hill 2, first screen, by Kate Glasheen.

My favorite horror game.  I was in college when I got this, and at any given point 5-10 people would be watching me play this. Point is, I was never alone, but that didn’t stop me from being so terrified from the experience that I had to read a drug store romance novel at night to calm down enough to sleep.  It was called, “Spirit’s Song” and starred a man named Jesse Yellow Thunder.

[Josh says: Silent Hill 2 is the greatest.  I remember starting into it for the first time some evening in maybe 2002, my wife watching through the first three hours or so before heading off to bed, and I was sitting alone in the dark living room at night and making my way into the hospital and OH MY GOD THOSE NURSE THINGS WANDERING OUT OF THE DARK and I just had to call it a night right then and there and pick it up in daylight. 

I’m a big horror fan, but most of it doesn’t actually get to me at a gut level; somehow, Silent Hill 2 did.]

Silent Hill 4: The Room, The Room/The Otherworldly Room, by tuckermonticelli.

[Josh says: despite it’s weird pedigree as a not-Silent-Hill game that got rebranded later on in production, I actually liked this entry in the series a fair bit.  The weirdness that came with the different design process added a little bit of life to the format without feeling like it completely lost the plot, and they got the creepy tone more or less right.  A lot of memorable bits, and, yeah, this damned room. 

I’ve been pretty frustrated by later franchise entries, but I’m pretty excited about the upcoming HD rereleases of SH2 and 3.]

Silent Hill 1-4, Town of Silent Hill, by tuckermonticelli.

Silent Hill, Nowhere, by grem.

Map of the Nowhere area of the first Silent Hill. This part is characterized by its “twisted dimension” aspect, and there’s no in-game map… So it works as a very, very rough walkthrough as well.

I started playing this game since I was 8 or so (what?), and I’ve beaten it several times once I was able to endure it (believe me: not easy at all. And the school still freaks me out to this day).

I didn’t mark out all the jammed doors, I can’t remember that much, heh.

It’s been a few years since I played it last, getting all endings (but not that elusive 10 star ranking), so I might be wrong in some parts. SH is a great game, and even with its primitive 3D engine, I can play it again any day.

Even with the superior graphics and sounds from the sequels, this entry is still the one that scares me the most.

[Josh says: fantastic, grem.  Really love this memories-as-walkthrough approach.  I’ve loved the Silent Hill games for a long time; SH2 in particular left a really deep impression on me back around 2002 or so.  I just recently started playing through it again, and boy does the PS2’s graphical output look kind of sad these days but it still gets me right up on edge and shouting at the screen and cursing the door that I can’t QUITE trigger before the evil nurse monster gets a hit in.

Did y’all know about the whole Silent Hill HD thing?  They’re rereleasing SH2 and SH3 in a modern engine at 720p with some new voiceover work as well.  I’m excited to see how it turns out; I’m not always big on retreads, but in this case I’ve been pretty let down by the actual new releases in the franchise so giving some love and care to prettying up the titles that actually really shone the first time around seems like on okay move.]

Silent Hill, Hospital, by Karl Mattson.

For my money, the best part of the best game ever is the hospital from the original PSX Silent Hill. Depicted here is the lobby on the first floor. There are no enemies here, just a creeping sense of dread, darkness, and silence. And that one doctor guy with the suitcase. Maybe a weird, sexy nurse, too.