Feature: The Changing Utility of the Otherworld in the Silent Hill Series

I’ve posted a new feature with a lengthy title: The Changing Utility of the Otherworld in the Silent Hill Series. This article is about how the use and meaning of Nowhere, the Otherworld that appears in every Silent Hill game, differs from game to game.

I wrote this after thinking about how Silent Hill: 0rigins’ use of the Otherworld really changes its effect on the game (which I touched upon in my review). After thinking about it for a while, it seems like the effect generated by the Otherworld is actually pretty different in each of the Silent Hill games; the same basic mechanic is being used in different ways with different results. So in this article I tried to explore what some of those uses are, and how they affect their respective games as a whole.

2 thoughts on “Feature: The Changing Utility of the Otherworld in the Silent Hill Series

  1. Chris – sorry to go off topic here, but I can’t log onto the discussion board. I just sent you an e-mail explaining the whole thing and requesting help.

    As for On Topic commentary –

    Silent Hill Origins is for the Playstation Portable, so I can’t play it, at least not now. (I’ll be getting a Nintendo DS Lite soon, so I’ll at least be able to play RE and Dementium.)

    It even suffers from some of the same problems as the earlier games: the bosses are all trivially easy…

    For me, that’s a plus! I’ve never enjoyed -or been terribly good at- boss fights.

    (at least there’s no giant moths in this version).

    The moth was lame. I find a big moth about as scary as dryer lint, lollipops, or kittens.

    One thing that did suck is that about half way through the game I lost most of my sound effects permanently

    That is pretty strange. It might not bother me as much, since I’m a very visual person. I rarely turn the volume on when web surfing or looking at videos online.

    From your review, it sounds as though although there are a few minor drawbacks that overall the Silent Hill game is rather good. I wish I could get a copy.

  2. Please disregard my previous messages about not being able to log in. I now can log in – but when I tried the same password yesterday, it wouldn’t work.

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