Top 5 Reasons Why 'Resident Evil 6' is a Train Wreck

Dear Capcom, You Can't Please Everyone, 
so why not just make a game that appeals to your own fan base and not another genre's?

While it is understandable for a video game company to attempt to create a product that sells to the broadest audience as possible in order to make the most money, what Capcom did with "Resident Evil 6" is a dismal attempt to make a game that panders to several audiences that exist outside of its survival horror niche.



Contrary to what many in the gaming industry may believe, producing a unique game that isn't like all of the currently popular titles on the market is what makes a game title sell so well. That is why the original “Resident Evil” was successful in the first place, and why the franchise is suffering now. Unfortunately, Capcom didn't care about the playability of "Resident Evil 6," they only care that it sells enough units for them to make enough money to appease their share holders. This oversight has caused what has been lauded as the biggest, most epic Resident Evil game ever, to be received with less than glowing reviews from the gaming community.

For a while now, the game industry as a whole has noticed that action games with strong online co-op modes like "Call of Duty" and "Gears of War" are selling like hotcakes, and they want in on that cash cow. So they make their own version of the games and try to present them like they are something new and interesting, which makes the game format even more of a commonplace experience, which in turn spawns a teeming mass of cliches the likes of which the video game world may never recover from.

Such is the case with the Resident Evil franchise. Instead of letting a PR department create ads that gained the interest of the “Call of Duty” and “Gears of War” crowd, Capcom decided to make RE6 like those games, which caused it to stray even further away from its survival horror roots than it already has and stumble drunkenly into the cardboard cutout world of online co-op war games. Yay.

Capcom: "Listen sweetheart you're here to pour drinks and look pretty, so how about you shut your mouth and add the co-op to my horror war campaign? Everyone knows that survival horror is too small of a niche market for this big guy, and this guy needs to make the most money he possibly can. By ripping off 'Call of Duty'."

RE Development Department: Throws drink in Capcom's face. "Do it yourself you jerk."

The depressing thing is that this is the release of the biggest game in Resident Evil history. It had over 600 people working on it, and yet it is unpolished, and lacks uniformity of design and clarity of plot.

Talk about too many chefs in the kitchen. This game clearly suffers because of it.

Me too Leon. Me too. If by fat juicy steak you mean a good Resident Evil game.

There are so many things wrong with "Resident Evil 6," I could write a book about them, but I won't. Instead I've compiled a list the top five reasons why the game is so bad.

5. Shoddy Game Mechanics

"Resident Evil 4" was a near perfect video game. It had the correct balance of action and horror and a combat system that worked like a dream. If you shot a bad guy in the leg, he stumbled or fell down, allowing you to run up and take him out. The game mechanics were so good that they actually allowed the player to plan her attacks and create strategies for killing different bad guys. You could jump over and climb up just about any obstacle you can across. Unfortunately, this aspect of the game, which made it the most fun to play, was ignored by game developers that worked in "Resident Evil 5," and "Resident Evil 6."

In RE6, the game is set up so that when you run up to a table or other waist high obstacle, you can push a button and leap over it. But the command prompt to do so appears at random. It'll flash on the screen when you walk past it, but if you back up to get it to appear again so that you can indeed leap over the obstacle, half the time it doesn't even appear. This isn't the only command prompt that works intermittently. The combat triggers for instant kills and attacks appears only when it feels like it, which is usually not in your favor, but in the monster's.

When you are tackled by a monster, you have to waggle your thumb stick around and around until you break free. If you do manage to break free, you receive damage from the monster.

Add to that an overabundant amount of quick time events and you have one frustrating game on your hands. Any time the camera zoomed in and focused on something in the environment, I began to tense up and wait for the damned prompt to appear. It became a chore, instead of a random, in-your-face holy crap moment during intense action sequences.

Leon's campaign in particular is thoroughly over-saturated with quick time events, to the point where it feels like every single time the camera shows you something, you need to frenetically mash a series of buttons and triggers or you die and have to start the level over again.

The only game mechanic that they got right is the non-player A.I. The non-player character buddies that run along with you on your journey through RE6 are better than the insufferable one from "Resident Evil 5." At least they get out of your way when you raise a weapon and go to shoot something, and they don't steal any item from you when you pick it up. Man is that Sheva selfish!

Speaking of items, why the additional step for the healing green herbs? 



What possibly made the game developers think it's a great idea to make it even more of a hassle to use them by picking them up, going into the inventory, combining them together, and then putting them into "pill" form so that you can shake a container of Tic Tacs into your mouth whenever you're injured? That is something that I'd really like to know.

Oh No! Helena is hurt? Here, have a Tic Tac! It's minty freshness will restore your health bar!

MMMMmmmm... Tic Tacs. 

*Sigh*

Yeah, I know, the health restoration system in Resident Evil is far from realistic, and I willingly went along with the whole green herb + red herb = more green herbs that remove poison and restore your health, but health tablets? That is where I draw the line.

4. Stupid Camera

One of the most noticeable things that should've been polished prior to the game's release is the camera. The camera is far too close to the character's shoulders, so much so that you cannot see what is happening directly behind you.

The camera in RE6 creates huge blind spots for the players, such as this one.

Where's Leon's left shoulder? What is standing directly behind him? The world may never know.

The area where the camera really sucks is when you have to run a character up a flight of stairs. Playing the game then becomes a dizzying, nauseating experience that gives me flashbacks of watching "Cloverfield" in the theaters. Half the time when I approach stairs my character decides to turn himself around and head the other way, even though I haven't moved the direction of the control stick is facing, which by the way, was a problem that the original "Resident Evil" title had. And it was something that had long since been fixed.

Now, it could be argued that the game developers were trying to maintain the crappy camera angles that existed in the original titles of the franchise, but I really don't think that is why the camera sucks so much. I think that it's just because it's a crappy camera that wasn't fixed prior to the release of the game. There's no excuse for it, especially with the graphics engines available today, and the sophisticated technology that the current gaming platforms use.

The camera in RE6 is frustrating to work with, and I found myself constantly fighting with it so that I could see what was going on around me in the game. I've been told that this is partially because I play the game like a moron and can't direct the camera properly, which may be true, but I know that I'm not the only one that has that problem because it was announced last month that there will be a patch to fix the camera in "Resident Evil 6" released sometime in December, 2012.

3. What Character Development?

While I did find the idea of old school Resident Evil characters interacting with each other, the cut-scenes were short, with staccato bursts of dialogue that just barely covered what was happening. For instance, during Leon's campaign, when he runs into Chris and Piers, the tension between Leon and Chris is palpable. It's also the only scene where Chris doesn't act like he is emotionally retarded.

Chris' campaign starts with him suffering from memory loss and in a drunken stupor in a bar in God knows where. Even with him starting out as a drunk, Chris' character still comes off as stiff, and bad with communicating his feelings, to the point where he is unable to tell Piers anything, other than the fact that he doesn't remember.

So... Chris, how did you develop amnesia? Did you have an accident? Did your mind purposefully hide the events away from you because they were too painful to deal with as a means to cope with a terrible tragedy? Or, is this yet another flimsy attempt at giving your character more depth? You tell me.

Oh wait, you can't. Because you don't like to talk about your feelings, let alone anything remotely personal that happened to you in the past. Ugh...

While Chris may have lost his men, his persona stake in the game just doesn't feel as urgent, or important (at least from an emotional standpoint of the player) because he isn't out to save anyone. His is more of an internal emotional journey, and unfortunately, this is Chris Redfield we are talking about. Mr. I-Can't-Talk-About-My-Feelings, not even with you Sheva, so leave me alone! Baaaaawww!!

Piers comes off as a Chris fan-boy who gushes over him any chance that he gets. There really isn't much to his character either, other than the fact that he's a B.S.A.A. agent.

Overall, Leon is the most emotive of the characters, and has the most emotional investment in the plot. It's personal to him, he had to shoot his close friend, the President of the United States, to put him out of his misery, and now he's out to help his new partner Helena rescue her sister. His personal investment made me care about what was happening to him, and wondering just how he is going to karate kick his way out of the current mess he is in.

Sherry seems to just be there to do her job. She has a personal history with the B.O.W.s (Her father William Birkin worked for Umbrella as a head scientist and created the G-Virus) and she is a survivor of the Raccoon City Incident. While she does remain loyal to Leon, who helped her escape Raccoon City, their cut-scenes are rushed and she doesn't seem to care overmuch about him and his well being. Either she is as emotionally cold as her mother Annette, or she just wasn't written very well.

Jake too, suffers from thin character development. While he is the brooding son of Albert Wesker (We-e-e-esker!!!), his attitude and amazing Olympic-class acrobatic abilities are not very convincing. He is supposed to be a cold blooded mercenary from the "wrong side of the tracks" working for the bad guys, and all he gets to do is run away from monsters and rescue Sherry a gazillion times. Of course, Sherry really didn't need rescuing because the G-virus mutated her and gave her a healing factor* like Marvel Comics' "Wolverine!"

*er... I mean, her magical "accelerated healing" ability.

A healing factor, seriously? That's the best you could come up with for Sherry? What's wrong with you guys?

Unfortunately, the cut-scenes in the cross-over sections of the campaigns are the best parts of the game.

2. Ridiculous Monsters

Overall, each campaign of RE6 has it's own feel, it's own combat system, and it's own monsters. Many of the monsters that show up in Chris' and Sherry's campaigns seem to be shoddy rip offs of other monsters from "Resident Evil 4," Code Veronica, and "Resident Evil 5." 

Resident Evil has had more than it's fair share of weird monsters, but RE6 seems to completely jump off the bandwagon. Gone are the mutated animals, the hunters, the lickers, the Tyrants. They are replaced with sub-par Bandersnatch rip-offs, Tyrant-cyborgs, and giant monstrosities that are several stories high. It's as though the art department took their inspiration from "Gears of War" and "Dead Space," instead of following the visual aesthetic of the previous games in the series.

Here we see Chris Redfield pre-steroid abuse fighting a Bandersnatch from "Resident Evil: Code Veronica."

Here is Chris during his steroid abuse at the night club.

Here is an alcoholic Chris Redfield post-steroid abuse fighting a long armed J'avo. 

I didn't waste any bullets on the first one that showed up. I cut sliced it to death with my huge knife. Cause I'm old school like that.

Both versions of long armed monsters are ridiculous, and annoying to fight. But they are nothing compared to the pain in the backside that is the Ustanak. 

I mean come on, a cyborg Tyrant? Why does it need to be a cyborg with detachable limbs that can be interchanged with others? Wasn't Mr. X and the Nemesis proof enough that a killing machine could be made by simply mutating someone into a hulking monstrosity? Why does it need a machine arm with a claw hand? Every time I see it I think of the little three-eyed green aliens from "Toy Story."

The Ustanak is a towering monstrosity that chases Jake and Sherry throughout their entire campaign. It's just one endless chase scene broken up by fights with the locals that both outnumber and outgun them. 

The fact that it is an unstoppable killing machine that literally chases Jake and Sherry across Edonia is not just ludicrous, it's annoying. The non-stop Ustanak boss fight with Leon and Sherry, just plain silly.

The worst thing about all of the enemies in "Resident Evil 6" is that they are bullet sinks. It takes far more shots to stagger an enemy, if at all, and usually it takes over 10 bullets just to kill one guy. Talk about overpowered, the enemies in RE6 are far too resilient, which makes combat both tiresome and irksome. The boss fights in general are often far too long, with the boss coming back over and over and over again, to the point where you're left screaming at the TV "Just die already!"

It's like the game developers couldn't figure out the game play pacing and second guessed themselves, which led to them doing the exact opposite of what they should've done. That, combined with a camera that you constantly have to fight with, pop up combat cues that don't always work when they should, and random quick time events that are sorely over-used, and you have a recipe for disaster, or, at the very least,a video game that is a torturous chore to play through, instead of a fun way to pass the time while scaring yourself silly.


1. Lack of Cohesive Plot and Vision

Resident Evil has gone from a slow burn story full of creeping dread and terror where characters had to investigate and solve a mystery to a game with holy-crap-that-was-fast! action sequences that are used as a crutch to hide the fact that there is little to no plot development occurring in the game.

There is also a lack of exploration. There was a time when you could click on just about anything in the environment and the character would comment on it. For such a small thing, this feature truly added depth to a game by providing the character's opinions on things. There are boxes and tables blocking your path that your character should very easily be able to leap over, and doors that are locked that should be simple for experience veterans of Raccoon City.

With all the potential story telling and drama of dealing with biological terrorists, I think that the Resident Evil team really missed the mark with this one. Sure, there are three different campaigns that intersect at certain moments, and we get to see the big names of the franchise talk smack with one another, but over all, there really wasn't much to tell as the game can be summarized as," Hey these terrorists did bad stuff, let's get 'em!" The End.

Capcom seriously needs to take a few lessons from 343, the team behind "Halo 4," and up it's ante by utilizing the back stories of the previous games and CG movies and making a cohesive over-arching plot about a bio-terrorism conspiracy to topple governments in order to create a new world order under the Neo-Umbrella banner.  Or at the very least, give their megalomaniacal bad guys a bit more panache and depth of character. I for one am tired of the vaudeville mustache twirling villains that Capcom keeps throwing at us. Give me a bad guy with a personal stake, one that firmly believes that he is doing the right thing, and that by eliminating world governments and creating a world where death is no longer the end of life, he can make the world a better place. A motivating factor other than greed would be nice too for a change. Just saying.

'Silent Hill: Revelation' Review

"Silent Hill: Revelation" is a continuation of the first "Silent Hill" movie, and unfortunately, it pales in comparison to its predecessor. The ending was good though, with a monster fight that would make most Silent Hill fanboys have a geek-gasm over.

The first Silent Hill movie had it's tense moments, some of which I found to be absolutely terrifying. That is also why I was excited to see the second movie. But, in the end, "Silent Hill: Revelation did nothing for me in terms of emotional involvement. It wasn't scary in the slightest. I felt nothing for the characters as they ran their way through the gauntlet of the weird crazy monsterville that was strangely overpopulated for a ghost town.

And I know that I wasn't too into it when my SO Shane Strange kept looking over to me and asking me if I was OK or, "What's Wrong?" I think I must've been sighing in disgust at just how terrible and forced the first half of the movie feels. The beginning was rough and hard to watch due to pure cheesiness of the lines and the rushed dialogue.

Like the first Silent Hill movie, "Silent Hill: Revelation" heavily relied on exposition to relay the backstory, during which a character narrates just what happened prior to the start of the movie in a flashback. In this instance, the events that Harry narrates could have been the actual beginning of the movie, with Rose delivering Sharon to him before being sucked back into Silent Hill. But nooo, we need to hear Sean Bean's dreamy voice for 10 minutes straight.

During one such exposition sequence we learn that Christopher Da Silva (Sean Bean) has changed his name to Harry Mason and is on the run from the police. His daughter Sharon, now Heather Mason, was returned to him by the ghost of his dead wife, Rose.

Heather believes that she lost her mother in a car accident, and doesn't remember anything that happened prior to her being brought back to her father. How convenient...

Heather has been having nightmares for years now. She writes them down in a notebook and when she leaves, her father rips out the pages and stores them in a wooden box that is carved with strange arcane symbols. Yep, that's not suspicious at all.

Now, it's Heather's 18th birthday and she is going to a new high school, again. While on the way to the bus stop, she starts seeing strange things on her way to the bus stop. Then a detective in a doofy crushed fedora hat, Douglas Cartland, shows up and asks her weird questions about her past.


Why is that stupid private investigator wearing a ridiculously floppy fedora that was too big for his head and practically covered his eyes?

He tells her point blank (yeah, so much for subtlety) that he was hired by a cult and that they are looking for her and know where she is.  Alarmed and probably creeped out by the guy, she runs to the bus stop and gets on.

At school she makes a speech telling the stupid kids to shut up after they pick on her about her old worn out clothes. Soon after, Heather begins to hallucinate and watches in horror as the school transforms into the nightmarish Otherworld. When the vision ends, she bumps into Vincent and leaves school early.

Heather calls her father to tell him that she was spotted by a detective and he agrees to meet her at the Happy Burger in the mall. While at the fast food emporium, she watches a girl's birthday party take place, when all of the balloons suddenly read "Happy Birthday Heather." The food that people are eating turns into bloody raw meat in one of the goofiest scenes in the whole movie. The Happy Burger scene in particular was just bad. Heather begins hallucinating that people at a birthday party are eating raw meat and getting blood all over their faces. And that, was stupid. Not scary, just contrived.

For the most part, Heather's hallucinations were well... kind of dumb. They really didn't fit the feel of Silent Hill at all. Like this guy, who I have dubbed Thumb-head, because his face reminds me of a thumb for some reason.

Speaking of contrived, all of the dialogue, in terms of words used and the writing style, was strangely anachronistic and out of place. People living in modern times do not use the terms "my love" when talking to each other, especially a married couple who's relationship is broken (ahem, Rose and Harry, I'm talking about you). It would have made sense for the cultists from Silent Hill to speak that way, seeing as how they are completely cut off from the world and living in an apocalyptic hell-hole, but not Harry, Heather or Rose.

The first part of the movie is very slow and uninteresting. It's not until Heather and Vincent are on their way to Silent Hill does the pace pick up. But even when she is in Silent Hill, there are sequences that just don't make a lot of sense, such as when Heather is walking through a hallway in the asylum on her search for Leonard and the inmates (real people, not monsters) all reach out to grab her.

Doesn't look like her path is impeded to me.

She says, "Someone help me," and just like when Rose utters those words in the first movie, Pyramid Head appears. But this time, he just pops into view, nothing heralds his arrival, and Heather slips into a convenient hiding hole while he chops off the inmate's arms. 

Heather then walks away down another hallway connected to her hiding spot, which makes no sense. Upon seeing how easily she escaped it's clear that she truly wasn't in danger at all. Sure, she was being groped at, but there weren't so many hands outstretched in the hallway to block her passage completely. And she really didn't need Pyramid Head to show up at all, as all she had to do was hop down into another passage and go on her merry way.

Unfortunately, the monsters that she runs into in Silent Hill are a bit on the ridiculous side.

The Missionary in particular reminds me of a Clive Barker Tortured Souls toy that my SO Shane Strange gave me for Christmas about a decade ago called Camille Noire.

And that's the weird thing. A lot of the monsters have a more sleek design that border the sadomasochistic feel of the Cenobites from "Hellraiser," as opposed to the strange weirdness and twisted, bloated monstrosities of "Silent Hill."

Here's the original Missionary from "Silent Hill 3"

One could argue that the reason why Leonard and the missionary were streamlined was to differentiate Claudia's monsters from Alessa's horrific creations, and I do sort of see that, but, at the same time, they just didn't do much for me in terms of being scary. But maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm jaded. Or quite possibly,  it could be that the only original monster in the movie that was interesting was the spider made out of mannequin parts.

One thing that I did like about the movie was the implication that the demon nurses were making the monsters, and that they made the Missionary. The X-rays on the walls of the hospital room they are in shows her skull with the saw blades sunk into it, and a dog as well (even though there were no monster dogs in the actual movie, which is disappointing).

The only thing about this movie that makes it worth watching is the monster fight between Pyramid head and the Missionary. That scene is good, and impressive, and led to a strong ending for the film.

Fans of the Silent Hill franchise will notice Easter Eggs in the movie such as Travis Grady, the truck driver, appearing to give Heather and Vincent a ride out of town.

"Silent Hill: Revelation" isn't the best video game movie, but it isn't the worst either. It's sort of in the middle of the two. It suffers from plot holes, poor pacing, and sub-par acting. Even the big name actors such as Carrie-Ann Moss and Malcolm McDowell lacked the on-screen presence that I've grown accustomed to seeing from them. But then again, I do have high standards for horror films.

I will say that the monster fight at the end of the movie make the price of a ticket well worth the trip, but don't pay for the 3D version, just go 2D and call it a day.

Let's Play 'Silent Hill' Part 3: The Nightmare Realm of Midwhich Elementary School

When we last left off in Let's Play Silent Hill Part 2, we had solved the clock tower puzzle and had just entered the Nightmare Realm of Midwhich Elementary School... man is this place creepy. You just never know when something is going to lunge out of the darkness and try to chew your ankles off.


Stepping through the entrance reveals the Nightmare Realm version of the elementary school. The foggy day time have been replaced by the oppressive pitch black darkness of night, the environment has visually changed to a more brutal, cold place filled with industrial clanking sounds, rusted chain link fences and tougher, more aggressive monsters. In the courtyard a huge magical symbol has been drawn in blood on the sidewalk. It's the mark of the demon Samael.



Harry always seems so confused by things.

Speaking of confusing, in the Nightmare Realm of Midwhich school, different doors will be locked, sections of the hallways are now blocked off by chain link fence and there is a new enemy to contend with, the giant cockroaches. The hallways of Midwhich are now darker, with Harry's flashlight illuminating only what  is right in front of him.

Outside the storage room, Harry has no choice but to run through the labyrinthine hallways and use the unlocked doors to get to the far north school room. Inside the classroom, there are several cockroaches, that are just a minor nuisance and easy to run away from. Exiting through the second door of the class room to get around the demon children and avoid having to confront them is the best course of action to take, so that is what I did.

After going through the double doors in the courtyard, I grabbed the ammo and first aid kit in the hallway, then entered the left room, which is the storage area. Inside, there are decapitated dolls crucified on the chain link fence walls, and a bright pink rubber ball sitting on what appears to be a gurney from a hospital.

This is the second time that eerie hospital imagery is used to horrific effect to add to the unsettling mood of the game.

After getting the pink ball, I left the room and ran past the two demon children that are now hanging out in the hallway. With the school now having locked doors where there were none, and doors that won't open at all, Harry has to run an obstacle course through the school in order to get the items he needs to leave the building.

The double doors at the end of the hallway are locked, so I had to go through a long classroom with giant cockroaches scuttling along the floor and out the side door into the next hallway. The next classroom has an open door, and inside are several long tables shoved together in the center of the room with a picture key card on one of them.

Gee, I wonder what this will do Harry. Let's go find out!

I picked up the card and inspected it. It has a picture of a key on it, and images that resemble the large painting that Harry came across in the room next door to the infirmary, near the reception area of the school.

At this point, it's time to return to the front entrance of the school by exiting through the door that leads to the adjacent classroom. Running through a classroom with scattered chairs lying about, I exited through the southern door into the hall and entered through the gray double doors to reach the front hallway on the first floor, and then ran back into the infirmary to save my game on a red notepad. While in the save point room I also picked up a health drink and a first aid kit.

The next room on the left was originally was the school entrance lobby. Now it has a wheelchair and several demon children in it. Yay.

After killing the two demon children, I took the ampoule from the wheelchair and then returned to the reception area, which now looks like the painting that used to be there with a grotesque corpse hanging on either side of a three windowed door.

It's interesting to see how the three windows on the door match the three squares on the picture card. I like that sort of visual clue and it's grotesque symmetry for some reason.

Examining the door will reveal that there is a horizontal slot in the center. I used the key card and shoved it into the slot to unlock the door. Entering the door leads to the other side of the hallway. I went over to the girl's bathroom as it is the only one that is unlocked. Exiting the girl's bathroom teleports Harry to the second floor, in a section of the hallways that he can't reach otherwise and access the boy's bathroom.

See the blue "Notice" sign? It says that "Hell is Coming." Is it a warning from Alessa?

Entering the boys bathroom on the second floor, I picked up several boxes of handgun ammunition, which will be needed for the boss fight. Afterwards I returned to the girl's bathroom and teleported back to the first floor.

Entering the boys bathroom on the first floor, one of the stall doors is closed. Examining the door will show a corpse crucified on the wall with the words written in blood "Leonard Rhine: The Monster Lurks."

This is thought by many to be an homage to a scene in Dean Koontz's "Phantoms" where the phrase "Timothy Flyte- The Ancient Enemy" is written on a mirror with lipstick.

In "Phantoms" Timothy Flyte wrote a novel titled "The Ancient Enemy" that catalogs the mass vanishings of people in different parts of the world. These strange incidences were caused by an amoeboid shapeshifter that attacks towns that are built over the ground where it is hibernating. The creature consumes life forms and can perfectly mimic them, similar to the monster in John Carpenter's "The Thing."

In "Silent Hill" the town is consumed by an unspeakable evil (Alessa) and transformed into a hellish landscape that creates monsters that mimic people's darkest fears.

Just like the pterodactyls that were inspired by creatures from "The Mist" by Stephen King, some of the monsters in "Phantoms" may have been used as inspiration for some of the creatures in "Silent Hill", such as the killer moth, which reflects not only Cheryl's interest in insects, but the overall theme of metamorphosis that is prevalent in "Silent Hill."

And now you know.

Beneath the decomposing body in the bathroom stall, there is a shotgun. Since I missed getting the good pipe and am stuck with the useless rusty pipe that does less damage, picking up the shotgun sounded to me like a great idea. You never know what you will encounter in Silent Hill after all.

Leaving the bathroom, I entered the teacher's room and made my way to the second room through the adjoining door. In this room there are several tables shoved together with blue telephones sitting on them. If you recall, blue is Cheryl and Alessa's color-- it's the color of their dresses and one of their symbols in the game.

         

Blue is also one of the symbols of the Virgin Mary, who is thought to be the mother of Jesus Christ, or God, depending on who you ask. Whether this symbolism was done on purpose or not, it is remarkable to note that one of Alessa's role in "Silent Hill" is to give birth to a god-like figure that will bring paradise into the world.

Just as you go to leave the room, the phone rings, even though it wasn't connected to anything. Spooky.

After the phone call from hell, I wandered up to the roof, where there is a rain gutter, a bloody stone bench and a water tower. Near the bench is the drain pipe hole of the gutter. There is a key in the drain, but Harry can't quite reach it.

Hmm... Looks like we have ourselves another puzzle to solve Harry.

By placing the pink ball in the drain hole located in the corner nearest the water tower, you will block it. Turning the valve on the water tower will cause water to flow out of it and into the drain.


Guess what happens next? That's right Harry, the key flows down the drain, even further out of reach than it originally was. I guess the man never heard of using a metal coat hanger to fish something out of a drain before...

The gutter drain leads down to the courtyard, where the clock tower is located. The key is on the ground near the bottom of the drain. After picking up the key and running away from the three demon children that were harassing me, I went through the double doors, back into the hallway and then over to the locker room where the cat scare occurred during the normal stage of the school.

Here the floor is covered in metal grating and the rattling locker where the cat was has blood dripping out of it. Fortunately, the locker is empty, well, except for all that blood...

This time the jump scare in the locker room is caused by a dead body falling out of a locker when you go to exit the room. There is a key on the body- the library reserve key.

Hey, I like books. What could possibly go wrong in the library? Let's go!

After navigating the labyrinthine hallways, I found the library and made my way inside. Upon closer examination...

What? What do you mean there aren't any useful books! There's one right there! Stupid Harry...

Heh.

On the shelf in the Library Reserve room there is a book titled "The Monster Lurks." Hmm... Let's read that one shall we?

It says:
Chapter 3: Manifestations of Illusions

...Poltergeists are among these Negative emotions, like fear, worry, or stress manifest into external energy with physical effects. Nightmares have, in some cases, been shown to trigger them. However, one such phenomena doesn't appear to happen to just anyone. Although it's not clear why, adolescents, especially girls, are prone to such occurrences.

After picking up a health drink, it was time to go through the door to the Library. With the radio bell ringing incessantly thanks to a squeaking ghost child, I found another open book on a shelf. This one reads:

Hearing this, the hunter armed with bow and arrow said, "I will kill the lizard." But upon meeting his opponent, he held back taunting, "Who's afraid of a reptile?"

At this, the furious lizard hissed, "I'll swallow you up in a single bite!" Then the huge creature attacked, jaws open wide. This was what the man wanted. Calmly drawing his bow, he shot into the lizard's gaping mouth. Effortlessly the arrow flew, piercing the defenseless maw. And the lizard fell down dead.

It's from a fairy tale that Harry read when he was a child. It's also foreshadowing the boss of Midwhich Elementary school, and how to defeat it.

Now we're off to the south side stairwell and down to the first floor. In the hallway there are cockroaches and demon children, which I ran past to the best of my ability, *ahem* but not without being attacked by the ankle biters in the process. Oops.

Upon reaching the chain-link gate with a golden handle, I unlocked the door and entered the hallway. Then it was a quick jaunt back over to the infirmary to save my game.

After the save, it's back to the stairs and down to the basement of the school. In the storage room, I picked up shotgun ammo and an ampoule, then I went to the boiler room.

Inside the boiler room there are two red valve wheels and a creepy turnstile gate. Harry has to move both of the wheels in a certain order to get the turnstile barricades to move and create a clear path for him to go through. Past the turnstile is a hallway that leads to an elevator that only goes one way: down to hell.


Soon, Harry finds himself in a large room surrounded by looming darkness, and he's not alone. The fire light coming from a spiky death pit reveals a giant monitor lizard, also called the "split head lizard" by fans, that is the game's first boss.

Lumbering around the strange contraption at the center of the room is the giant lizard that was foreshadowed in the fairy tale passage that Harry read in the library reserve room. It walks around the room in a weighty gait and it's great head splits open, much like a sandworm from "Dune." If Harry is too close, he is eaten. The only way to kill the beast is to shoot it's open mouth with a shotgun.

On a side note, the weird spinning ball at the center of the room located beneath the flames reminds me of the giant sphere in the engine room of the Event Horizon.

In "Even Horizon," the sphere was a gravity drive that folded space to jump the ship from one point of the galaxy to another. Unfortunately, it traveled through hell to get there.

Now, the first time I ever played this game, that damn lizard gave me one heck of a hard time. But now I know better. I kept my distance, running ahead of the thing as much as possible, and only stopping once it started to open its giant maw.

The lizard does lunge towards Harry, but this is a pattern that is easy to learn and apparently it doesn't do much damage when it does hit you. The trick is to walk backwards while it comes towards you and to shoot at its head to get it to open its mouth. Then it only took two good shots into its gullet with my trusty shotgun and it was finished!

Ha! Take that stupid lizard. That'll teach you to mess with Harry Mason! 

Soon after defeating the lizard, Harry has a vision of Alessa running past him and then disappearing into the darkness. She leaves behind a silver key that will open the door in K. Gordon's house, through which is the only path to reach the other side of the town.

The darkness has lifted outside, and it is once again day time shrouded in a thick heavy fog.

Comforted by the sight of sunlight, I picked up the key and made my way through the now normal halls of Midwhich school and out into the streets, where in the distance, there are church bells ringing.

Up Next: Let's Play Silent Hill Part 4: On the Path to Alchemilla Hospital!