I'm usually a sucker for Survival Horror games, and back in the PS1 days, they were ripe for the picking and full of quick scares to keep you away from your console on some nights. Fortunately, I happen to indulge a lot on the genre, and I'm always seem to be fascinated with the lore behind each game's background. While my heart and dedication started with Capcom's Bio Hazard (Resident Evil) series, it pales in comparison to the frustration and intensity I spend playing Konami's Silent Hill series. Unlike the biologically engineered monsters and zombies in the former game, Silent Hill is literally the horrors locked deep within your own psyche and person that manifest into reality thanks to the dark cult powers that still reside in the fictional town that the game names itself after. It's creepy and the stuff true nightmares are made of, and I got to tip my hat off to Konami and former developers Team Silent for making the first few games a memorable Survival Horror experience during the PS1 and PS2 gaming eras.
One of the factors that definitely made the series recognizable was the awesome score and soundtrack composed by Akira Yamaoka, who lent his talents to the entire series before departing for Grasshoper Manufacture with former Capcom employee and Resident Evil/ Bio Hazard creator Shinji Mikami. Yamaoka's style is from the Rock, Ambient, and Industrial genre of music, and it greatly influences the vibe and dark tone gamers experience in each installment of the Silent Hill series. To date, my favorites are Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3, and his work there was more than influential to get the series noticed as a cultural phenomenon, spawning a live action movie back in 2005 that even saw Yamaoka work and compose the score for. Here's my favorite track by him from Silent Hill 2 and the first Silent Hill film - Theme of Laura.
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