The graphic engine is essentially the same of Silent Hill 2, and while this means that it is based on a two years old technology, Silent Hill 3 is still one of the best looking games on any next-generation system, a game able to reach a level of extraordinary visual strength thanks to the tremendous artists behind the game, led once again by Masahiro Ito.

The only relevant change is the absence of the wonderful prerendered CG movies that characterized the preceding games, and replaced in Silent Hill 3 by cutscenes rendered in real time. The cutscenes are actually gorgeous, and in particular character models are amazing, showing a range of facial expressions never seen in an in-game movie. Anyhow, you'll still miss the incredible CG movies of preceding games, which probably didn't make their way to this new installment to cut development costs and times.

Even in gameplay moments, the character models are among the most realistic seen in a video game, together with the amazing ones seen in Resident Evil games on GameCube, that look sharper but less realistic than those in Silent Hill 3. Built with a maniacal attention to detail, the models of Silent Hill 3 feature incredibly detailed textures, able to recreate the tiny imperfections of human skin. Particularly impressive is the work done on Heather's hair and the overall attention to the realism of every single movement. As mentioned in the gameplay section, monsters' original design for Silent Hill 3 is not as inspired as in Silent Hill 2, mainly because the new creatures have lost the human appearance of the creatures in the preceding games; the difference is even more clear when many of the tortured creatures from preceding games are reused in Silent Hill 3, making a direct comparison with the new dull monster inevitable.

The fully 3D environments are marvelously detailed, with high-resolution textures that together with the ultra-realistic, dramatic light effects, which already graced Silent Hill 2, create that strong sense of disgust and filthiness that stands behind the whole game. Stains of damp, blood, walls crossed by pulsating veins, the overall sense of dense moisture are all used to communicate in a strange, disturbing way the themes of woman's sexuality, deeply connected to the storyline. Like in preceding games, many artistic choices are really extreme, and gift Silent Hill 3 with a visual cruelty that is just inimitable. Texture animations, filters, dramatic light effects, exasperate color tones are used in concert to create the "alternate" Silent Hill; the result is an absolute sense of chaos that's almost painful for the player. The only problem is that this visual "excess", coupled with the problems with the camera movements, works against the gameplay, as we've mentioned in the previous section of this review.

But this doesn't mean that Silent Hill 3 isn't, graphically, a unique experience, a must-see game that any future developer of Survival Horror games should take into consideration.

Akira Yamaoka has become one of the few sound directors actually able to be commonly considered one of the leading minds behind a video game. If this has happened it's thanks to the marvelous work done by Yamaoka on Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2, where sounds were used as a primary force to actually add depth, atmosphere, and create that continuous sense of crawling anguish in the player.

Like in the preceding installments, Yamaoka composed many beautiful themes for Silent Hill 3, and built a multi-layered web of sound effects to support the extreme graphics of the game; metallic clangors, distant sighs, inhuman cries, insects' chirping - the overall effect is still extremely brilliant, innovative, and denotes an extraordinary creativity, even if the work done on Silent Hill 3 is not always as refined, as punctual - in its apparent anarchy - as in previous games. There aren't moments as effective as the first time you heard that strange, long metallic screeching in one of the dark corridors of Silent Hill 2, and occasionally Silent Hill 3 even relies on naïve or generic sound effects typical of horror movies, including the classic howling of wolves (or zombie dogs, I don't know). The impression, actually, is that Yamaoka added these sounds as an ironic citation from classic Horror movies.

The voice acting is just superb, on par with the one of Silent Hill 2 and of games like Soul Reaver 2. It's just too bad that cutscenes are not as frequent as in previous games, and dialogues not as developed.

Silent Hill 3 is a short game, with about 9-10 hours needed to complete it the first time. The game is way shorter than Silent Hill 2, and is even less fun and less intriguing. Anyhow, in order to get all the different endings fans of the series may want to replay the game more than once, and the extra weapons that you may unlock by completing the game can add actually a lot of fun for players who just want to sow death in their following games. Extra weapons include (skip the rest of the paragraph if you don't want to know) the machine gun with unlimited ammo, a flamethrower with unlimited fuel, and even a juicy surprise for fans of Star Wars; there are also lots of extra costumes for Heather, many of them actually very funny and well designed.