First my background with these two series. Resident Evil i have extensive knowledge of just from watching my friend playing it, i used to love watching him play it (yes you hear me right, watching), just because of the plot and the scare factor in some of the less noticeable encounters**(an example at the end of the post). Since watching him play through most of the series, i decided to pick it up myself and go through it, many hours of fun there.
Silent Hill i actually played through on my own in a pitch black room (because someone told me it was a scary game, and its more entertaining for me like that =p). I was quite disappointed though, not only could i predict everything but the ending, but it failed to 'scare' me at all (talking about SH1 at the moment), it's been a while since i played the first one so i can't remember specifically what about it i didn't like. Also as a note i completed SH 1 and SH 2 while renting them for 2 days, which doesn't say much about its longevity. I've played through most the series in a hope that they'll get better, which they do... but only marginally. As a note, i have played the whole series, along with the whole RE series.
Now for the comparison. While i think some of you are being a bit naive by saying resident evil isn't a survival horror where as silent hill is, i'll admit that the storyline differences make them quite different games. Like i mentioned in the previous paragraph i could pretty much predict where the SH storyline was going, i could also do it to a lesser extent in some of the RE games (although i'll concede some of them have really obvious polt twists). The actual game play is what, i believe, sets these games apart more-so than the storyline. Why do i think this? Well i'll tell you now, i never got bored running around in RE however i was always getting bored (and frustrated) with the general game play in SH. The larger fights in RE were truly entertaining, just trying to figure out how things die was fun. I can never get bored of shooting zombies in the leg (in RE:4) and having them drop to their knee's and then shooting them in the face at point blank. Also the mine launcher was thoroughly entertaining, especially when you use the chick as bait (when you unlock the full suit of armor for her), pin a few mines onto her and watch the zombies explode
. I could never find things like that to do in SH, which was a bit disappointing.The whole psychological storyline thing in SH, that you all keep raving about, isn't really anything new and was better done in The Suffering (released after SH), in my opinion. A good storyline is extremely important in games, and both SE + RE both had good storylines, but they're useless without the gameplay, which i think RE did much much better.
I'm a big fan of Survival Horror (should be called Action Horror) games, but i was extremely disappointed with the Silent Hill series as a whole.
This is, of course, my opinion, you can argue with me all you want but it won't change the opinions posted in here.
Sorry for any typo's made in the post, I'm pretty tired
**and by less noticeable i mean things just randomly jumping out at you.. a good example of this is the first time i actually played a RE game (Nemesis) when you're running down one of the many streets and its all quiet, you go into some building pick up some items and come back out and the street is filled with zombies, but the bit that got me was one springing out from inside a car. Another one to note is in RE: 4 when you can hear the dogs feet tapping on the floor in one of the mazes, then two of them jump through a hedge at you... fantastic fun watching people jump from those type of things
