Silent Hill: The Arcade
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Spoiler Warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
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Silent Hill: The Arcade is an arcade game based on the survival horror series Silent Hill. The Arcade was first revealed at the 2007 Japan Arcade Operator's Union trade show by Konami. The game was eventually released in Japan in August 2007.
A rail shooter, as of September 2008 The Arcade is the only game in the Silent Hill series to deviate away from its traditional survival horror gameplay aside from Silent Hill: Play Novel for the Game Boy Advance, and Silent Hill: Orphan and Silent Hill: The Escape for mobile phones. Although unconfirmed, various unnamed individuals from Konami have stated that a port of this game to the Wii console in 2010 is in the works.
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Plot
Silent Hill: The Arcade deals with two characters, Eric Lake and Tina Townshend, who have entered the town of Silent Hill and must battle creatures in order to survive.
- The following is translated from the official Japanese website for Silent Hill: The Arcade: [1]
"In the center of Silent Hill is Toluca Lake, one of the town's main tourist attractions. However, this beautifully clear lake has another side; many deceased people sleep at the bottom of the lake. Their countless hands reach toward the surface when boats cross the lake. Perhaps they are seeking their long lost companions.
November, 1918
A very sickly girl and her mother were traveling on the boat. The girl was enjoying the sightseeing, but her mother had other thoughts.
"Hanna..." Immediately after the mother called the name of her daughter, the boat's captain witnessed a miserable end. The boat, the “Little Baroness,” never returned. The crew and passengers, numbering at 14, met a horrible fate. There were no survivors or bodies found.
1993 (75 years later)
Eric Lake, Tina Townshend, Bill, and Jessie, members of their university's occult club, head to to Silent Hill for its many stories, particularly about the bodies sleeping beneath Toluca Lake. Having a strong interest in the rumors, they took the weekend holiday and went to Silent Hill. They stayed at Jack's Inn and Eric experiences a terrible nightmare. The next morning, Eric exits the inn and discovers Bill wounded and Jessie missing. Eric and Tina search the town for answers."
Endings
- Good ending - The Phantom is finally destroyed, and Eric saves Hanna from drowning again. Both Emilie and Hanna are saved, and Eric and Tina drive out of Silent Hill with both of the girls
- Bad ending - The final boss is destroyed, however both of the girls die in the process. Eric and Tina leave the town, both with broken hearts.
- UFO ending - With the UFO ending, Eric is greeted by his Great Grandpa, who says that the UFO is his new ship, and if he wanted Emilie and Hanna they would have to chase him to the end of the universe! Eric sets off in another ship chasing his Great Grandpa, after that you see Robbie the Rabbit playing a 2d version Space Ship game, where you see Eric flying after the UFO.
Characters
Eric Lake: The main protagonist of the story. A quiet, inquisitive 21- year old college student currently studying the occult, he is a resident from Portland. As a child, he used to live in Silent Hill but moved. His parents died before him and currently resides with his aunt and uncle. His grandfather, the captain of the Little Baroness, disappeared on Toluca Lake and has taken an interest on investigating the rumors circulating around the area.
Tina Townshend: Another main protagonist of the story. An outgoing, optimistic character, she is also a college student from Portland. She takes an interest on becoming a teacher, therefore enrolled in the education club. A friend of Emily, she accompanies the gang to Silent Hill to see her. There is no confirmation whether she is related to Silent Hill 4: The Room's main protagonist Henry Townshend
Bill: A friend of Eric and Tina. At the beginning of the game he is wounded by monsters.
Jessie: Another friend of Eric and Tina that travels with them to Silent Hill. After the attack on Bill, she disappeared but Eric and Tina can find her in the hospital, after a fight with Pyramid Head in the Otherworld.
Emilie: A 9-year old girl who commutes back and forth to Midwich Elementary and is the daughter of the Historical Societies' chief librarian, Frank. A friend of Tina's, she sends her e-mails during computer class. She is seen throughout the gameplay running and surviving from ferocious attackers.
Hanna: A sickly girl who seems to be resented by her own mother. As a result, she tragically dies in the accident that occurred on the Little Baroness. She is the final boss in the game wherein she is physically transformed as a creature with only a head and tentacles. After she is defeated, she turns back to her original form and is saved by Eric before she departs along with the Little Baroness in the good ending.
Frank: Emilie's father.
Lyon:
Other people with Eric and Tina are members of the school's occult club that came to Silent Hill with them. The day after they arrived, they went missing. The player has the choice of saving them.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Silent Hill: The Arcade is similar to the House of the Dead series in which players use light guns to aim and shoot at enemies. Unlike previous Silent Hill installments, The Arcade has a multiplayer element, where each player can choose to be either Eric or Tina.
Different items can be used throughout the game:
- Handgun
- Shotgun
- Rifle
- Health Drink
- First Aid Kit
- Gold Coin (Adds 10000 points to the score.)
- Silver Coin (Adds 5000 points to the score.)
In Asia (Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan), a special E-Amusement Pass can be used, which includes Internet Ranking and allows the player to skip stages on where they had previously played.
Monsters
Raven-Bat (unofficial name): A cross between the MothBats from Silent Hill 4: The Room and the Air Screamer from the original Silent Hill. These tiny pterodactyl-like monsters seem to swarm up out of the gaping chasms that periodically litter the town. As should be expected, they can be taken out by a single hit, and pose little threat.
Split Head Groaners (unofficial name): A dog wrapped in bandages that looks similar to both the Sniffer Dogs from Silent Hill 4 and the Split Head dogs from Silent Hill 3.
Tremer: The leech-like enemy from Silent Hill 4, they have been shown to cling to both the floor and ceiling indiscriminately, and can rain down from above onto Eric and Tina. Like the Screamer, they are not a particularly threatening enemy, likely causing serious trouble only when accompanied by groups of other, more volatile monsters.
Gum Head: A common, vaguely humanoid (or at least apelike) enemy that first debuted Silent Hill 4. The design has been simplified for use in The Arcade, now distinctly man-shaped with gray skin and a speckling of darker marks not unlike the spots on a cheetah. Among other revisions in their appearance, they seem to now fight barehanded (in Silent Hill 4, they often employed pipes and golf clubs) and no longer seem to be malformed (as the Silent Hill 4 Rubber Face) or falling apart (the "new-type" Rubber Face). The official Japanese site currently describes this monster as an original creature, sharing some characteristics of its previous incarnation.
Nurse: A staple of the series, making appearances of one sort or another in almost all of the Silent Hill titles. The obscured head (and especially face) that has been a part of this creature since Silent Hill 2 returns again in a slightly different form, as their faces are bandaged up completely but they now have well-groomed shoulder-length hair. They seem to carry either a steel pipe or a pistol, and they move in odd, bounding strides, as if in some parody of a thief sneaking silently through the night.
Insane Cancer: Massive monsters resembling a highly obese human with grey, speckled skin. First appearing in Silent Hill 3, the monsters appear occasinally throughout the arcade game. Insane Cancers are always unarmed, attacking instead with their massive limbs and attempting to crush victims with their huge weight. They are deceptively fast despite their lumbering appearance.
Scraper: A hard-hitting, late-game enemy from Silent Hill 3. Themselves a smaller, less devastating version of the Missionary boss monster encountered midway through Heather's quest, these monsters resemble a man completely shielded from head to toe, with thick rubber gloves and vicious blades the length of a forearm. They are probably the least changed in appearance of the "common" enemies ported to The Arcade, their design neither simplified nor noticeably altered. The first time Eric and Tina encounter one of these monsters, it seems to be kidnapping Tina's friend Emille.
Robbie the Rabbit: An interesting addition to the lineup of enemies is Robbie the Rabbit, previously known only as the creepy mascot from the Lakeside Amusement Park. First appearing in Silent Hill 3, this creature was represented only as a costume, although examining them repeatedly would provoke the occasional unsettled comment from Heather ("Did that thing just move?"). In The Arcade, Robbie has become a monster, and now wields a variety of weapons, including an axe, a chainsaw, and, a most rarely, shotgun.
Guardian (unofficial name): This creature has the appearance of a huge Gumhead crossed with a Numb Body and a dragon. The massive humanoid creature twitches and thrashes around constantly, as if it were in pain. One of its hands is a huge axe blade which it strikes you with and another claw hand. It has wing-like skin flaps under its arms, but even though they are tiny, the creature has the ability to fly. However, it never flaps its "wings" which means the it may not actually use the flaps to fly, and uses some other method, such as telepathy, and only uses the flaps to "steer." Its face is elongated with a mouth full of huge fangs and the skin around its head is torn, revealing many black eyes and muscular tissue underneath. It also has a fleshy bulge on its chest which is seen as its "weak point." The creature knows this however, and sometimes shields it with its hand or axe. The creature is found guarding Emily, but is later revealed not to be holding her hostage, but keeping her safe from the other creatures, but it couldn't differ between them and you.
Greedy Worm: A minor boss fought before the Split Worm. Unlike in Silent Hill 4, this creature becomes hostile and tries to consume you, however it still can't be killed, only repelled slightly. After it is fought for some time, it disappears around a corner and is never fought again.
Split Worm: Unlike the previous boss fight in a series of tunnels, this creature is fought in a pool of brown liquid. It also has the ability to spit "Tremers." Otherwise, it attacks in the same way as its previous game counterpart.
Pyramid Head: Originally introduced in Silent Hill 2, this boss monster bears a stronger resemblance to his incarnation in the Silent Hill movie. Accompanied by a copious amount of Creepers (this is also truer to the movie than any of the games, although large insects like these have made appearances as enemies in the original Silent Hill as well as Silent Hill 2), he wields his signature weapon, the Great Knife, and first confronts Eric and Tina in the Brookhaven Hospital, curiously accompanied by the sound of a boat whistle, which seems to also signify shifts between the real world and the Otherworld, an event that's been signaled in the past by the sound of sirens. He is fought a second time later in the game between the Marionette and Phantom bosses. His appearance is still similar to Silent Hill 2, although he's noticeably much bigger and muscular.
Marionette: This creature resembles a giant female creature made of mannequin parts. It has long arms and legs, a human face and distorted mouth, which can spit Creepers.
Phantom: The final boss of the game, this creature is in fact Emilie but who is possessed by Hanna and her evil mother. It resembles a huge deformed severed head with long tentacles rather than hair. It can generate a huge hand from its mouth and can create multiple smaller ones from the floor. Killing the smaller ones isn't necessary, but changes the game's ending.
Levels
This level list is from a walkthrough of the game:
- Jack's Inn from SH2 and SH3
- Brookhaven Hospital from SH2 amd SH3
- Historical Society Society from SH2
- Toluca Prison, from SH2
- Underground graveyard, from SH2 before James fights Eddie
- Central Square Shopping Center, from SH3
- Hazel Street Station, from SH3
- Amusement Park, from SH1 and SH3
- Alchemilla Hospital from SHO, SH1, and SHH
- The spiral staircase, from SH4
Connection and continuity
The Baroness was first mentioned in Silent Hill 2, in a newspaper found in Toluca Prison.
Pyramid Head was implied to be only a representation of James Sunderland's guilt. The fact that Pyramid Head appears in The Arcade is unexplained. Nothing has been explained about this reappearance or his connection with the plot. His visage is still that of an executioner. Since Pyramid Head is fixed as the symbol of punishment, he could be a representation of someone else's guilt, not the main characters'.
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