Have you seen a little girl?

I need to pass the time till Silent Hill Homecoming comes out, so I will make an entry on one of the five main games in the series and why it kicks MAJOR EFFING ASS ALL UP AND DOWN THE BLOCK. It's milkshake brings all the other survival horrors to the yard. If any of you guys are afraid to play these games or something, these entries should hopefully help you TRUMP THAT FEAR AND GRAB SILENT HILL AND MAKE IT YOUR BITCH. It's totally worth it.

And if you're still too scared, then I can invite you to an AIM chat and basically youtube/explain/gush the whole series to you. For reals. The storyline/characters/blah blah = jafkj;ksfjdaklsjf;sjfsjlfsf;sdafjyesssssss.

(SIDE NOTE: all the music is done by AKIRA YAMAOKA and he's an EFFING GENIUS. And he gets even more amazing with each game.)

LET'S BEGIN WITH THE FIRST ALMOST A DECADE AGO!

GAME: Silent Hill
PLATFORM / YEAR: Playstation / 1999
SAMPLE MUSIC: Killing Time - Akira Yamaoka
GAME TRAILER: HIT IT! (omg the lizard at the end nooo!)
FAVORITE CHARACTER: Tie! Harry and Cybil.

WHY THIS GAME IS BADASS: When horror/survival horror games were all "BOO I JUST JUMPED OUT AND SCARED YOU LOL!", this game decided to slide into the scene with a story of a man looking for his daughter after they both got into a pretty nasty car wreck. Sure, it had it's JUMP OUT AND MAKE YOU PEE YOUR PANTS MOMENTS (hell, cat in a locker D:), but it also had it's moments of absolute dread -- where you knew something was there and you didn't know what it was and your imagination was running wild and it was ten times worse when whatever was back there actually showed itself (Cybil on the carousel made me hide behind my couch and continue playing by peeking around it from there, I'm not kidding).

The flashlight/radio static combo was a double punch in the gut, especially in the dark, cause the game would warn you with the white noise and then make you flail around madly with your flashlight to find the source. Hell, even when you were outside in the daytime (foggy as all get out though, natch) -- when that white noise started it was time to flail around madly cause you didn't know whether whatever effed up pink and bloody piece of walking meat was gonna come bounding at you on all fours or swooping at you from out of the sky.

Yeah, looking at it today, the graphics aren't great, the voice acting is a little deliciously cheesy and the controls take a little getting used to, but whenever I see that little brat Cheryl running off and Harry Mason flipping his shit and going after her into the dark, only to be molested by gray, slimy children things with knives -- I get a happy shudder. Cause it's time for YAY A BIG SCARY ADVENTURE and BATSHIT CRAZY PEOPLE KEEPING LITTLE BURNED GIRLS IN THE BASEMENT. You just get roped into this series, and no matter what ending you get (HELLO UFO ENDING LOL), you feel like you accomplished something -- even if Harry Mason ends up back in his jeep with his bleeding head wound pressed against the driver's side window. For real.

And you know with drugs (white claudia), a cult (oh oh oh them!), keeping little burned girls in the basement, torturing mentally-fragile hospital staff, letting your nurse friend get mutant-molested and then shutting the door on her, fighting a lizard that opens his mouth the wrong way and just plain telling people, "MY NAME IS HARRY MASON. I'M IN TOWN ON VACATION~" that any other game that follows this one with the words SILENT HILL in the title are gonna be one hell of a bumpy ride.

MOST UNSETTLING MOMENT: Tie between Harry Mason shutting the door in Lisa Garland's... face, and watching Cybil Bennett stand up from her spot on the carousel and jerk and spaz her way over to you.

MOST PRETTY DAMN GORGEOUS MOMENT: Harry and the baby. <3

PLAY ITTTTT.

ALL YOU CARE ABOUT IS THAT DEAD WIFE OF YOURS~

(Subject line = best spoken line ever.)

This is my favorite video game in the history of M-EFFING FOREVER. PLOT! VILLAINS! CHARACTERS! CONTROLS! MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC!

GAME: Silent Hill 2
PLATFORM / YEAR: Playstation 2 (later Xbox) / 2001
SAMPLE MUSIC: Love Psalm - Akira Yamaoka
GAME TRAILER: HIT IT!
FAVORITE CHARACTER: Gonna have to go with James. XD

WHY THIS GAME IS BADASS: I don't even know where to begin, dude. James Sunderland is kind of a doof and he gets a letter from his wife that's like, "HEY I'M IN OUR SPECIAL PLACE, IN SILENT HILL. YOU SHOULD COME MEET ME THERE OR SOME SHIT." And James is like, "wait, my wife died three years ago, what?" So he jumps in his car and goes to OUR FAVORITE TOWN!

What follows is a physical romp through a forest, a town, an apartment building, a strip club, a mental hospital, a town at night, a labyrinth and a hotel -- and a mental romp through two completely effed up men, one overly-bitchy/apologetic woman, a snarky little brat and a pretty skanky/sexy woman who looks like James' dead wife. ALSO. PYRAMID HEAD. HOT NURSES. SQUEAKING ROACHES. I KNOW THAT THING ISN'T TRYING TO EAT MY FACE!

I always have the weirdest urges while playing this game. Sometimes I want to stop and let Maria get stabbed by Pyramid Head. Sometimes I wish James would SAY SOMETHING in the strip club (LOL YOU WORK HERE, AMIRITE?), or Maria would TOUCH HIM more than through the prison cell bars (I mean, you think he would want it -- and could make her do it, right?)... Sorry Aeris Gainsborough (re: the end of Disc 1 of Final Fantasy VII), this whole game got more emotion out of my then you ever could. :P

But really, whereas most horror games (even the first Silent Hill, to a certain extent) contain fighting (ZOMBIE NINJA HORDES! LOOK OUT FOR THE MONSTERS! OH NOES!) fighting FIGHTING!!1, Silent Hill 2 was (and still is) the best psychological horror game. When you're playing it you kind of get this hollow pit in your stomach and by the end, once the whole tale unravels, you're kind of like, "DID I REALLY FIGHT ANYTHING AT ALL?" None of the endings are super overjoyous and HAPPILY EVER AFTER, but do you really expect them to be after a main character has been through so much shit?

MOST UNSETTLING MOMENT: James entering that apartment and seeing Pyramid Head for the first time in action -- when he goes and hides in the closet and Pyramid Head approaches it and just hovers, skafjl;sjdfakfjd. I think this ties with when James finds Maria in her prison cell in the labyrinth. Her face and that song. That part gives me effing nightmares. WAY TO RIDE THE FAILBOAT, JAMES.

MOST PRETTY DAMN GORGEOUS MOMENT: Like I've said a billion times, hands down, James Sunderland watching him and Mary's videotape from their trip to Silent Hill in Room 312 of the Lakeview Hotel. Everything about it, from the camera angles to the music to the utter and complete DEFEAT on James' face = BEAUTIFUL. ARE YOU HERE TO DELIVER SOME FAIL TO ME, MISTER FAILMAN?