Hey look! I’m not dead!

It’s vacation time. Where do you want to go? If you’re thinking somewhere tropical, maybe you’d enjoy the Bahamas. If somewhere quiet and full of nature is more your thing, you could try the mountains. If you enjoy walking through an endless see of falling ash and running from distorted monsters with no hope of ever returning home, then Silent Hill, West Virginia is the way to go. But really, what the hell kind of person would want to go to Silent Hill?

With the Christmas season drawing near (it’s already December?), I originally was going to choose a merrier badass for this week. Merrier made me think of snow, snow made me think of falling ash, and bam. Silent Hill time. Silent Hill 3 to be specific.

Heather Mason is a girl living a seemingly normal life, until she wakes up in a mall restaurant only to have a stranger tell her that he knows about her “past”, and to suddenly have monsters appear out of nowhere throughout the mall. Instead of curling into the fetal position and sobbing (which I totally would have done. Have you seen those Silent Hill monsters? Damn.), she manages to find a handgun and kill herself a few monsters. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t completely confident, but hell, better than I could do. She meets a white-haired woman in the center of the creature-infested mall who, at this point in the game, just sounds bat-shit crazy. While Heather is left wondering what the hell is going on around her, she takes an elevator that leads her to the Otherworld and a giant Split Worm. If you don’t know what a split worm is, here’s a good explanation — it’s a giant worm, that’s split. Good? During my intense and in-depth research into the Silent Hill games (ha), I found out that the Split Worm is symbolic of Heather’s true self and her reason for being alive in the first place (no spoilers this time, so you’ll have to find out what that is yourself).

I hate worms. And I hate symbolism. Put them together and I’m just not a happy camper. Put them together and make me fight it and I’ll probably punch you in the face and run away.

After the Worm is killed, Heather returns home, only to find that the psycho bitch from the mall has killed her father. So instead of giving up and becoming a one-woman sobfest for the rest of her life, she grows some balls (metaphorically) and travels to Silent Hill, where she faces countless monsters and even more psychotic people.

Silent Hill 3 is definitely my favorite of the series so far. Not only is it terrifying and ridiculously fun to play, the storyline is incredible. If you have a PS2 (which I hope all of you still do), go out and buy this game. You won’t regret it. Heather Mason, although at times she can be a whiny teenager, is certainly a Badass of the Week to me. Except for when she cries. She does that a lot. Geeze.

Have any good ideas for Badass of the Week? Let us know in the comments!