In the first Silent Hill we followed Harry Mason as he explored the increasingly hellish eponymous town in search of his lost daughter. The second edition was not a traditional sequel, and all but ignored the story of the first game as the protagonist searched the same twisted town for his dead wife. Fans of the original cried out and Team Silent heard them. Silent Hill 3 doesn't just follow the story of the first game; it follows its style and very successfully returns to a more violent form of horror with an exploration of the cult that began it all.

When you first start the game a warning flashes on the screen saying that the game may contain violence or cruelty. There is no may about it; this is a very, very dark game and people should take its Mature rating seriously. The regular town of Silent Hill would be enough to make a horror game for most people, moving through dense fog as your radio crackles a warning about the monsters that lurk just out of sight. However, that's just not enough for a Silent Hill game, and as you play you'll frequently visit the monstrous Otherside, a twisted reflection of the areas you have visited where the walls move and bleed, the floors are replaced by rusty metal grating, and the monsters are tougher than ever.

This time around we are following Heather, a teenage girl who wakes up in a mall restaurant after having a terrible nightmare about an amusement park filled with monsters. Heather is very different from previous Silent Hill protagonists; she's younger, faster, and more likely to cop an attitude than sadly accept her fate. The near photorealism of the graphics helps to flesh out Heather's character as you watch horror, disgust, and anger flash across her tired, freckled face. They also help establish the other characters you will run into, from the eerily calm Claudia to the almost manic Vincent. The superb creature animation really brings the monsters you face to life.

While there are some sudden jump moments meant to give you a cheap thrill, the Silent Hill series has always relied on a combination of horrifying environments, a truly creepy soundtrack, and great audio cues to create a feeling of persistent dread. Even if Silent Hill 3 had been released using the engine from 2 it still would have looked good next to other titles on the Playstation 2. Instead, a whole new graphics engine was created and the quality of the environments and characters rival those of Final Fantasy X. Composer and all-around genius Akira Yamaoka also returns in Silent Hill 3, bringing incredibly moody ambient sound to the game. From Heather's footsteps to the disturbed grunting of the Closers, the sound is inspired and extremely effective. Songs with vocals also make their first appearance in Silent Hill, with a powerful female voice and emotional lyrics that fit the tone of the story being told.

People either love or hate the way survival horror games are controlled, with some people having nightmares about fixed cameras and extremely slow reactions. The controls in Silent Hill 3 are the stuff sweet dreams are made of, allowing you to modify almost everything. You can choose from 2D or 3D movement control, swing the camera around to look down hallways and see what is coming for you, or even zoom in, a useful feature that unfortunately is not documented in the manual. That's not the only level of customization available to you, either. As in Silent Hill 2, you may independently select how difficult you want the action and puzzles to be. Choosing Easy mode for action doesn't mean you become a total powerhouse, though; ammo and health are still scarce enough to keep you on your toes, especially in the beginning. Similarly, Hard puzzle mode won't leave you scrambling for a guide; the puzzles are far more intuitive than the ones you usually find in survival-horror games. The game also has far more rewards for completing the game and restarting than you usually find in this genre. Heather has several unlockable outfits and weapons and new modes, such as Extreme mode, become available if you complete the game again and again.

Like most strongly story-driven games, this is not a long game, and most people will finish in about 7 to 10 hours. However, it gives you lots of reasons to pick it up again and again, chief among them being the extremely well-realized story and the amazing atmosphere of dread. Silent Hill 3 is a tense, powerful game for mature gamers only.