This the third game of the franchise that I played, yes I played 4 then 2 and now 1. Don't judge me. The core of story is rather simple, you play a character named Harry who is driving his daughter Cheryl to Silent Hill. On the winding mountain roads, he sees something that looks like girl on the road and swerves to avoid hitting her. After he wakes up, his daughter is gone. So you're goal is to find your daughter Cheryl. This is the easy to understand part of the story, the rest of it is a lot of interpretation and speculation which I liked. The game focuses more on the characters, storyline and building a tense atmosphere than action. The sound design and soundtrack are great and help to immerse yourself into world of Silent Hill. Graphics and facial expressions aren't that great and the biggest problem in my opinion is the combat, the tank controls can be really tiring but the fact that I had 190 Pistol bullets left at the end of the game (which might be the result of me just running away like the coward that I am from most of the enemies) made it a little bit easier. All the "cons" can be easily overlooked because they are just relics from the time when the game was released. Overall I really enjoyed Silent Hill and this might be my second favorite game of the franchise after Silent Hill 2 because the game teases the players imagination with grotesque images and genuinely creepy effects and slowly builds up tension and suspense that way.
The story is wonderfully crafted and the strong atmosphere are the biggest strength of this game. huge recommendation.