For someone who had been around the block in survival horror video games I was intrigued by this mysterious demo titled P.T. when my friend called me up and said I had to try this game. I was planning on visiting him the next day but basically my friends weren’t able to finish it because according to them it was ‘too terrifying’. I have come accustomed and numb to these frightening games because over the years I’ve played such installments as all the main titles to the Resident Evil franchise, Silent Hill 1 and 2, Dead Space, The Last of Us, Condemned, Alone In the Dark: The New Nightmare, Dino Crisis, Dead Island and Siren. So I was not scared but excited. I wanted to challenge myself and see what the big fuss was about. On a side note, I will have more posts on scary things this months as we get closer to Halloween.
Well it turns out that the PlayStation 4 (PS4) demo P.T. is actually a ‘Playable Teaser’ for a new Silent Hill game coming out next year titled Silent Hills. The new Silent Hill is bringing the talented minds of Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear Solid franchise and director Guillermo Del Toro known for the Hellboy movies, Pan’s Labyrinth and Pacific Rim together. The main character will be voiced by and graphically copied to Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead television series. I am pumped to see what this trio will bring and accomplish to the survival horror gaming genre. However, you won’t find this out until after beating this demo which is really an interactive trailer. From what I’ve experienced on this demo, the game will be original and realistically scary with paranormal elements. I hope this game is able to bring the Silent Hill franchise out of its current rut. Ever since they came out with Silent Hill 4: The Room I felt like the franchise has gone downhill.
First off, I’d like to admit that P.T. was extremely scary and that at one point I literally jumped off my friend’s bed and screamed out loud in fear. So far a game’s jump scares never has had that effect on me. And as for past Silent Hill games, this one really did a number on my mind. I was confused, terrified and felt trapped, like I could not escape from this game. In my opinion Silent Hill is the scariest video game franchise because it implements psychological horror in the best way. So let me describe my experience. My friend was on his laptop not even watching but listening as I quickly got immersed into the video game.
To start off, you wake up on the floor of this dark and ominous square room with nothing but two cockroaches and a wooden brown door in front of you. It goes from a quick cut-scene into the game-play. The graphics are so unbelievable there is no transition. I’m now standing up, in first person view without given any tutorials or any clue what the game is about. I walk forward until I enter a hallway. The game saves on the screen. The hallway is your normal inner city apartment building and the graphics are so incredible, it’s like looking through a window. I started pressing buttons to see if the character did anything else besides walk or zoom in. Apparently, all you can do is walk with the left analogue stick and zoom in by pressing in the right analogue or ‘R3’ button. You can press ‘Options’ which is ‘Start’ and adjust the screen’s darkness. My chicken headed friend had it all the way up. My friend could not even watch me play and did not understand how I was playing, I didn’t think much of it. I heard a crying baby and when I turned the corner there was another hallway with a dirty bathroom on the right, a door leading downstairs to some unknown basement and a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. If you look more intently on the dresser where the two hallways merge, there are a few black and white photographs and what appears to be a man and a woman, most likely a married couple, along with an array of candy bars, pills, a pink teddy bear on the floor and open bottles of beer and wine all over. It seems like something terrible happened here. When I walked inside the bathroom the sound of the crying baby was coming from the sink. It appeared to be a human baby fetus lying at the bottom of the sink, gross! The bathroom was filled with cockroaches on the floor, on the ceiling and even inside the toilet. Lets just say it needed a severe cleaning. Not a bathroom you’d want to get locked in, which actually did happen before I started playing. The bathtub looks like someone got murdered inside it while an odd, black hole protrudes out of the wall above the tub. So once I got out of the bathroom I was back in the second hallway heading towards the lobby. There are also long vertical window panels down the wall and numerous paintings evenly scattered horizontally. When I was in the lobby there was another dresser to my right with an old radio, banana peel, a set of keys and an old black and white photo of a couple. On my left was the front door which was locked and an umbrella hangar to its right. If you look up in the room you will notice a wooden balcony towards the dresser overlooking the lobby and a few other vertical window panels. I looked to see if there were any stairs, but there were none. My only choice was to walk through the door at the bottom of the steps.
Once I walked through that door I was back in the same exact hallway. I immediately said, “Wait, what? I was just here?” My friend then revealed that I’m in a constant ‘loop’. Everything was exactly the same. I forgot to mention that there was a digital clock to the right of me before you reach the first dresser. It reads, ’23:59′. We can only wonder when it reaches midnight. So this time the only difference was that the radio in the lobby was playing a news report about a father killing his children and pregnant wife. Meanwhile, ever so often I’d hear another voice on the radio saying, “Don’t touch that dial now, we’re just getting started.” The receiver continued muttering as I got closer to it, “Don’t trust the tap water.” Then I tried the front door again and it was still locked so I walked again through the door down the steps. Once again I was in the same hallway with the same radio message playing but this time the door to the basement was shut. Also, since I stayed longer the radio now was speaking to me, “Look behind you,” it implored me adding, “I said look behind you.” This is when I had goosebumps and chills traveling from my lower spine to my neck. I turned around and saw nothing and let out a sigh. I walked back to the dresser and noticed on the framed photograph that by the girl it said, “Gouge it out” with a large blue ‘X’ below the face. So I zoomed in until I accidentally pressed the X button on the PS4 controller which formed a bloody hole in the place of the women’s eyeball followed by the sound of a door unlocking. I turned and the door to the basement was now open. As I walked down the steps I noticed just above the door someone wrote, “Forgive me, Lisa. There’s a monster inside of me.”
Same hallway again, without the radio broadcast but as I walked down to the lobby, one of the glass panels fell from the ceiling shattering the glass just a few feet in front of me. If you decide to look up at the balcony you should spot the ghost of Lisa staring back at you with one of her eyes missing and the other shrouded in darkness while giving off an eerie haunting sound. I paced down the steps and through the door avoiding her wraith. When I first played I thought I had to get through this continuous loop until I found out later you had to collect six pieces of a photograph scattered throughout the apartment. The next loop featured a red glowing light and a refrigerator hanging from the ceiling without the chandelier as blood spewed to the floor. I thought I was going to get killed at that point, but no. The radio broadcast played the brutal murder news report once again. Descending further into the void of madness and evil, the next loop featured a swinging bloody refrigerator as it pounded against the walls above. The baby fetus was crying once again as the ghostly sounds of Lisa crept closer. During this whole time I had a flashlight on me as each loop began getting darker than the last. When I walked to the phone by the first dresser I saw on the wall next to it, saying, “hello!” As I shined the light away from it and back again, each of the letters gradually started disappearing until it only read “o!”. Then as I walked down to the lobby with the refrigerator swaying above my head there was new writing that emerged on the wall by the front door as it read, “I can hear them calling to me from HELL.” Oh boy, looks like I need to get out of that loop. As I looked around I heard a disturbing and maniacal laugh followed by the sound of something clicking off. I started hearing the ghost approach so I walked down the steps and through the door. The next loop had all its lights glowing red as I can faintly hear the sound of a distorted voice chanting some unknown language. As I turned the corner the chandelier was back but now swaying back and forth as it glowed red and creaked. The sound came from the radio of a possible demonic being talking in Latin or some form of Swedish. After a few minutes of listening, the broadcast ended with the mysterious voice repeating, “204863” over and over in different tones. Get me out of this hell or purgatory, whichever one it is. Once I stepped through this next door, that’s when things got really weird and psychedelic.
I was now only able to sprint down the hallway as my sight was beginning to blur. The digital clock now read ‘0:00’ as it reached midnight. Everything had a reddish glow with each painting on the wall replaced with eyes, twirling in orbit staring back at me. However, this time there was no crying fetus in the bathroom sink. I never felt so terrified and confused at the same time. This time the hallway seemed to go down endlessly, the hallway would be the same with the bathroom on the right and then have the bathroom on the left around the corner. There were no other doors. This is when I asked my friend to look up the walk-through. I had to find a hole in the wall by the bathroom and zoom in through it. After what seemed like an eternity, I found the small black slit and zoomed in. The view was inside the bathroom as I could hear the sound of the husband murdering his wife along with a random radio broadcast playing in the back. It sounded like the killer first tried to drown the victim in the bathtub until chopping her head off. I zoomed back out of the peep hole and saw a message above it in marker that read, “No turning back now.” Then the sound of a latch echoed as I entered the bathroom. The baby fetus in the sink reappeared and began talking. I won’t say word for word but the fetus explains why this person or possibly you killed your wife. Most likely as well as others who speculated, the husband or you killed your wife after you found out she was having an affair with her boss who then also knocked her up. So the husband went psycho after finding out the baby did not belong to him and brutally murdered his entire family. This is certainly not worthy of a bedtime story.
Once you leave the bathroom and the hallway of eyes, enter back through the basement door into what the hallway first appeared when you began the demo. Everything seems fine as all the lights are back on. The door to the end of the hallway is now closed. I was waiting around for a bit when all of a sudden my screen started to shake and distort. The demonic sound came back as it chanted the numbers ‘204863’. What could those numbers mean? The screen continued to glitch out as a noise quickly brought the screen to black. There were codes relaying on the screen suggesting I had a bug problem (the second time I played the demo it said the game cannot harm you because it’s all fictitious). However, I wasn’t sure if the demo was complete. Soon enough after it brought me back to the start screen as the 7780s Studio logo appeared. Then a phrase on the screen appeared that read, “Watch out. The gap in the door… it’s a separate reality. The only me is me. Are you sure the only you is you?” I was once again waking up on the concrete floor of the dark square room from when I first started. Except it was not the beginning because there were no cockroaches in the room and because I have my flashlight. Now is the time you can check the wooden table to your right. There is a brown paper bag with blood penetrating from the bottom. If you zoom in and shine the light the bag starts to shake and move. The bag then begins talking off a phrase with much ambiguity. Behind it on the wall are white tallied markings. The bloody bag then ends the speech with the words from the “gap in the door”.
Once you head back and through the door you’re in the final stages of the demo. You can keep walking through the loops but not much will change except for the light on your flashlight sometimes. The only light illuminating the hallway is from your flashlight and the digital clock which is set back to ’23:59′. At this point I was being told where to find all the pieces of the missing photograph. The picture that is missing is located just above the clock and to the right. As you find each piece you will notice the photograph coming together like a puzzle.
Photo #1: Located to the left of the plant near the area of the digital clock, zoom in by the floor and you’ll get an unrecognizable message in backwards.
Photo#2: On the floor just below the clock. Once again zoom in until the white message appears on the screen.
Photo#3: Right by the pink teddy bear on the floor of the first dresser on which the phone is placed.
Photo#4: This one was tough to find and I do not understand how anyone would have found it unless they miraculously stumbled upon it or checked every inch of the place. It is located on the ceiling to the right at the edge of the second hallway before it becomes the lobby. Zoom in and you will get it.
Photo#5: Walk down the stairs before heading into the next loop, turn around and shine your light at the middle section of the stairwell to the left, you will see a little piece.
Photo#6 This last one is not even in the apartment but is when you press the ‘Options’ button. You will notice in the ‘Options’ screen a bizarre x-ray of a person’s brain. Zoom in on that until a piece of paper shows as a electrocution noise will ensue followed by the unrecognizable code that appears on your screen once you resume game-play. This was the first photo I happened to accidentally find when I paused the game and played with the buttons.
Once you’re finished, a black and white portrait of Lisa will appear. It is rumored that once you collect all the photos and complete the picture, you are immune to Lisa’s ghostly haunting; you cannot get hurt nor be sent back. However, when I got to this part of the demo I did not complete the puzzle yet. That is when I had the jump scare. Not so long after you roam around the hallway you will hear the bell of the clock going off, if you check, it is now midnight as it reads, ‘0:00’. This is when the baby crying and Lisa appear. She appears in a few ways: either will be convulsing behind a window panel, floating at the end of one of the hallways, floating inside the bathroom or be scarring the living crap out of you in one of the best jump scares to date. This now leads me to the very moment I went from confident video gamer to scared little wuss. I was trying to discover the last photo when I saw the frightening apparition of Lisa in the lobby with her head cocked toward the side. In the game at that moment and now while I write this, the hairs on my arms are standing up. As I walked closer to the ghost, it suddenly came flying towards me and went through me. I did not shout but my heart began to race rapidly. It felt so real. My friend told me not to look at her so I looked down at the floor and at the other hallway. That is when in a flash Lisa grabbed me and stared right into me with her ugly dead face. I yelped and screamed so loud it shook me off my friend’s bed. The controller hit the carpet floor as it took me back to the console’s menu screen. I was so terrified I could not even watch the rest of what the ghost did to me. I did not want to continue playing. Eventually, I was able to talk myself into replaying. What actually happens is that Lisa will pick you up and throw you onto the floor and then pee on you as you drift into darkness. The worst that happens is that you wake up in the small square dark room again. You never actually die.
This leads me to the last part of the demo, trying to get the phone to ring by setting off three baby laughs. However, none of these laughs will be triggered until after the clock strikes midnight. I want to admit that I had to look up all these tricks or else I would have been trying to figure this stuff out for days.
Baby Laugh#1 Once you see the ‘0:00’ and/or hear the bell go off that is when you walk ten paces in anyone direction. You will then hear the sound of a quick baby giggle.
Baby Laugh#2 This one could be done in a few ways. First and foremost you need to plug-in the microphone into the controller jack which is located between the analogue sticks and below the PlayStation button. Plug it in and whisper the name ‘Jarvis’ a few times. This will set off the second baby giggle. The person who figured this out realized what those numbers were about. The numbers ‘204863’ is an anagram for the name ‘Jarvis’ which is most likely the name of the man or the character you play as who murdered his family and pregnant wife. The person who figured this out found the anagram to 7780 which is the mysterious name for one of the studios. ‘7780’ stands for some tree which is displayed on the menu screen of the demo before you start playing. All I have to say is “wow”. That is some ambiguous puzzle to figure out. The second way I know about is you have to get close to Lisa’s apparition when she is floating in the hallway. Then once you have her in your sights whisper “Lisa, I’m here” or repeat saying, “hello Lisa” and try to communicate with the ghost through the headset. This may or may not set off the laugh. I have only seen it work a few times.
Baby Laugh#3 The last one is incognito with the second laugh. Once you have both laughs do not move or do anything with the character. After a few seconds or so the camera will begin to shake as a third baby laugh will ensue. Once the third baby finishes laughing you will hear the phone ringing.
Walk to the phone and wait til it answers, you cannot pick it up anyway. A man’s voice will say, “You’ve been chosen”, followed by the sound of a door getting unlocked. Walk to the end of the hallway through the door down the steps until the screen goes black. Congrats you have completed the awesome but hellish demo!
This is when it shows a small excerpt related to the murder and then a teaser trailer for Silent Hills . The teaser shows a quiet Norman Reedus walking down a decrepit and dark street while shining his flashlight. The screen goes white as the title comes up for Silent Hills while the theme song plays in the background. And boom, there you have it!
I won’t reveal what happens in the earlier loops; that will be up to you to play and see. Please play this demo, it is unlike anything you will ever experience. It brings an atmosphere of creepiness and claustrophobia while also playing tricks on your mind between giving you a sense of security and then impending doom. I had to look behind me a few times to check if there was a menacing ghostly Lisa apparition. This demo is so expansive that everyone claims to have a different experience than another each time. I advise you either to play P.T. with friends or alone in a light up room or else you will be shitting your pants, literally and figuratively in no time.
If you don’t feel like going out and buying a PlayStation 4 today then watch this full ‘P.T. Walkthrough’ without any distracting commentary below. Enjoy.
Media Is Punk 