In a change from the norm (or Harry or James), this time around you play as a female main character. But calm those rampant loins boys (and girls) because Heather (that's you that is) is a teary-eyed, depressed looking and completely unappealing blonde girlie who stumbles and moonwalks her way around the shopping mall from hell. I say unappealing, but if you thought dopey-disaster-attractant-blonde-bimbette Kim Bauer was the best thing about the second series of 24, then Silent Hill 3 might be just the thing for you…

   

Heather wakes up from a nightmare set in a monster-infested funfair (that you play through) to find herself in a coffee shop in the middle of a big shopping mall. Now in an even dopier state than normal, she's approached by a stranger who tries to warn her of something. She decides to lose him by going to the ladies room, and then climbing out the window into a back alley. She finds the entrance to the street blocked by a van so wisely re-enters the mall via another door. That's when things start to get weird - monstrous creatures are everywhere, the mall is falling apart and seems to be smeared with brown gunge (I'm too nice to say sh*t) and everyone (human, that is) seems to have disappeared.

SH3 is played from a mixed set of cameras that'll sometimes see you running Heather away from the camera and sometimes toward it. To confuse things further you can also fiddle with the camera and change it around - supposedly to get a better view of things, but I reckon it'll just confuse and disorientate you - I've got quite a good sense of direction but I still found myself setting off the wrong way (when I thought I knew where I was going), or constantly checking the map to make sure. To add to the navigational problems, Heather is sluggish to control, and runs slower than Jimmy Saville (even slower if she wears the body armour).

   

As I mentioned earlier, far from teasing and scaring you with indefinite glimpses of creatures in the distant fog, SH3 tends to use dark rather than fog to hide the shockingly poor draw distance, and throws you into the action and shows you the most common creatures from the start (and then disappointingly uses them over and over again until they lose any impact or scare factor that they may have initially had). I didn't really think this was in the spirit of the series and also found that the same four noisy, bizarre and yet completely unscary creatures kept reappearing time and time again (there's nothing in the game as scary as old pyramid head). Thankfully, when you kill them (whether it's with a knife, a club or a firearm) they don't respawn, and nicely the bodies stay there so you know where you've been.

I'm sure there are gamers out there hungry for another fix of Silent Hill that'll enjoy this, but I found it to be a disappointing and slow-paced plodder of a game with little in the way of frightening moments, and the only dread I felt was purely from the yuckiness of many of the environments and the clunky, aged control system. Silent Hill 3 shows none of the innovation or imagination of new boys Project Zero or Eternal Darkness, and feels like a strictly by-the-numbers sequel - we needed more than a few new weapons and outfits. Disappointing.