A downright creepy "survival horror" title, Silent Hill succeeds where most Resident Evil-inspired titles suck: keeping you hooked and instilling you with fear throughout the game. Players are cast as Harry Mason in his desperate search for his daughter, who mysteriously disappeared after their car crashed into a gully outside of a desolate resort town.

The 3-D environments in Silent Hill are bathed in fog or darkness, making its dismal setting all the more eerie; this also allows for some spectacular lighting effects when using a flashlight in the dark. Granted, there are some pretty coarse graphics being obscured here, but it's a fair trade-off, considering the game's short load times.

Silent Hill is played from a third-person perspective, viewed from both fixed and moving camera angles. As with similar games, the viewpoint can be awkward at times, especially during combat, which here is so clunky that you should try to avoid it whenever possible—something you should do anyway, as this isn't Tomb Raider.

Rather than resort to cheap scare tactics, Silent Hill features a gameplay twist that works very well with its limited visibility environments. Harry carries a radio with him that crackles with static whenever the game's nasties are near, and continues until they're no longer in the vicinity or have been killed off. (Enemies may require further whacking when they're down, as they like to play dead.) Additionally, the supported Dual-Shock controller pulsates in a heartbeatlike fashion whenever you're moderately or seriously injured. —Joe Hon

Pros:Suspenseful story with bone-chilling gameplayShort load timesExcellent lighting and fog effectsFive possible endings add replay valueCons:Coarse graphicsClunky combat

Syphon Filter After terrorists steal a top-secret virus, the nation's top covert agent Gabe Logan is sent to stop them and recover the virus. Guide Logan as he travels through parks, subway tunnels, a museum, and a military compound on his world-saving mission. Along the way, Gabe will face many dangerous enemies, but he can take them out with a quick shot to the head. It's up to you to save the world from destruction in SYPHON FILTER.

The truth is out there. And this game, based on one of the best sci-fi TV series in history, is way, way "out there." Despite performances by original cast members David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Mitch Pileggi, and a few other favorites, The X-Files puts the "normal" back into paranormal.

Collaboration with the TV show's creator, Chris Carter, ensures that the game attains the eerie visual quality of the show, but the lack of any tension or pacing makes one wonder why the game is spread across an unusually voluminous four PlayStation discs.

Mulder and Scully have gone missing, and as the poorly acted Craig Willmore, a local FBI agent, you must find the clues that lead to their whereabouts. Most of the game is spent aimlessly wandering from location to location, hoping to find screen hotspots that may possibly give players a clue as to what they are supposed to do next.

Conversations with others seem strangely stilted, and often the script offers up red herrings that will frustrate players who try to play the game as if it were logically designed. In a number of instances, even though you know what course of action you should take, you're forced to wait for the game to catch up with you before taking it. Unless you are a die-hard X-Files collector, there is little reason to own this game. —Jeff Young

Pros:
Lots of well-produced video

Cons:
No sense of pacingLimited interactionPoor documentationIllogical designScully and Mulder's appearances no more than cameos