this isnt cliche scary...
You play as heather, a teen girl. Surprisingly she is not an overexagerrated female character with big boobs and skimpy clothing, she is actually very casual and covered up, unlike most game girls. Heather is being stalked by some sort of crazy woman that thinks she is a prophet, or at least carrying a prophet in her stomach. I wont go that far into the story but its very wierd.
Silent hill has been known to be a "strange scary." Its not like resident evil were you are afraid of something popping up out of nowhere and killing you. Its more like "wow, WTF?". Seriously the game is freakishly wierd. The monsters are freaky looking but they act more freaky instead of dangerous, they make wierd noises and move very strangely.
Silent hill 3 is not a game were you wanna have fun(like mario, or halo). Silent hill is a game where you wanna get scared the hell out of yourself, and it does that perfectly. This game isnt cliche scary, even your character doesnt act scared(wierd, how would you act if your in a fleshy building with lots of freaky monsters???). Silent hill takes the gold medal for scariness over any horror game, or even horror movie.
Silent hill 3s graphics are phenominal. The characters have facial depth and great textures(they look better than most next gen games). The environments are all 3d(people think they are prerendered, but they just look really good). The enemy monsters are all fleshy, veiny, and blobby looking and are well done. This games graphics are ahead of its time. Its great this game focuses on graphics so it can show us its ugliness in high detail rather than jags and angles.
Silent hill doesnt have sound(though it does have an awesome rock opening song). The majority of the game you hear a very very strange and eery noise in the background. You hear strange howls, and strange bangings that never make you feel ok in a room. Even a room with no monsters feels very unsafe and scary. The voice acting in this game is also very great. The actors arent special but are good. The monsters make the freakiest noises, down to cracking, slushing, and stuff that just makes your skin crawl. Sound in this game is freakishly beautiful.
SIlent hills gameplay is very basic. You walk around and solve puzzles(mostly very hard). You find some weapons and destroy monsters. Then you witness some of the story(which is really great).
There are flaws in silent hill but they are forgivable. The camera in this game is fixed(but it gives the game a more scary feel). The enemies arent hard( you could just swing a few times and they die, and it takes them a while to kill you). Theres backtracking, and a lot of it is due because your lost(most of the time youll get lost because you cant find the puzzle, it gets irritating but it doesnt last forever.......not all the time). Well those are the major flaws, but arent very major.
This game is a very scary game. If you have a weak stomach, stay away from this game. This game is more scarier than horror movies(all of them!!).