Silent Hill: The Arcade (2007)

What better way to honor the most iconic town in the psychological survival-horror genre than to let players just go nuts and just unload a thousand bullets into it? Such is the premise of Silent Hill: The Arcade, an arcade-only light-gun shooter that's hilariously at complete odds with the tone and intention of its source material, yet arguably the most simple, outright fun someone might have playing a Silent Hill game. After years of searching high and low for one of these cabinets in the wild, this had become somewhat of a holy grail for this long-time Silent Hill fan. When I got a tip that there was one at the Round1 out in East LA, I made it a top priority to make the trip. Sure enough, there it was, sitting unoccupied, waiting for me in a row of similarly obscure shooters from the early 2000s. You can imagine my giddy excitement when I was finally face to face with this legendary machine after over a decade of anticipation. Whether or not it lived up to my expectations is complicated, but suffice it to say that despite the fact that this cabinet had seen a great deal of use and seemed to have been infrequently repaired or calibrated in recent years, it still managed to show me and my friend a damn good time. The game is practically just a Silent Hill reskin of a House of the Dead game - meaning gameplay consists of shooting waves of enemies, reloading, watching a horribly acted cut-scene, rinsing and repeating. You square off against all the usual suspects including Pyramid Head, the nurses, Robby the Rabbit, a giant sea monster, etc... It's so stupid. But the thing is, despite their simplicity, I love these games in all of their endearing stupidity. Having a Silent Hill game in this genre is awesome. I truly wish (like many light-gun games of its ilk) there was an easier way to play it. Emulators really just can't capture the experience and the opportunity for a Wii Port came and went. At this point, at a long shot but how cool would a VR version be? Just let me look at all that nasty grime up close, baby!