Silent Hill 2

The Long


Pros
- Gritty and horrifying
- Excellent aesthetic
- Adheres to the "less is more" Silent Hill rule
- Story is surprisingly deep and harbors many interesting psychological elements
- Graphics still look good even to this day
- Music is excellent and horrifying
- Enemies are both creepy and tie into the psychological points of the story

Cons
- Clunky combat and controls
- Voice acting works on one level, but ultimately brings the game down
- Story takes some unexplained, crazy turns and can be very convoluted
- Some puzzles are obscure
- Has some really dark moments

Welcome back to Silent Hill

The Long

James Sunderland has a problem. He recently received a message from his wife, Mary, tell him to meet her in their "special place" in the town of Silent Hill. The problem is that Mary has been dead for years. Another problem is that apparently Silent Hill is full of crazy monsters. But we'll get to that.

The Silent Hill series of games are unique in the horror genre as they aim for more subtle, quiet creeping horror rather than being in your face about it. The Resident Evil games are clearly catering for the B-Movie crowd, and the Dead Space game are more a combination of action and gore. Silent Hill has long bouts of silence, lots of dark rooms and corridors, and a gritty camera lens over the whole thing. It isn't really the monsters that freak you out in the Silent Hill games, it's the time between monster encounters. 

Silent Hill 1, 2, and 3 are some of the scariest games I've ever played

It's a Japanese style of horror vs an American one, and I think it works on a more base level. Rather than blood and guts we have enemies that lurch about and twist in unnatural, unnerving ways. You aren't really afraid because your life (or your character's life, rather) is in danger, you are scared because the game sets up an atmosphere of dread. This is, in my opinion, very difficult to do in a video games (Super Metroid is another game that I felt did this very well) making the fact that Silent Hill 2 does it so well a breath of fresh air. Or maybe a breath of metallic, bloody air set alongside a rusted chain-link fence. Something like that.

Silent Hill 2 follows a similar formula as Silent Hill. You are essentially given the entire town of Silent Hill to explore, with its secrets, monsters, and more scattered about the town. After wandering for a bit you explore various buildings (an apartment complex, underground basement, hospital, etc.) in an attempt to find your wife Mary. Again, it's a slow burn. You don't see your first enemy or get your first weapon for at least 15-30 minutes. You don't get the flashlight until probably and hour or so in. The game wants you to soak up it's grimy, fog-filled streets, and its these moments of calm in a horror game that really leave you unstrung. Silent Hill 2 knows the fine balance between the tensions of waiting for something to happen and drawing it out for too long, and it manages to pull it off perfectly.

I have had legitimate nightmares after playing this game. 

But I'm speaking in generals here, so let's get back to specifics. Silent Hill 2 follows James as he makes his way through the town of Silent Hill, and on the way he encounters a handful of odd people who either want to help or hurt him. James is overwhelmed with guilt about the death of his wife, but he seem to not be able to recall exactly why he feels bad about it, and hopes that Silent Hill will hold the answers. He also meets a woman, Maria, who looks surprisingly like his wife, and what happens with her is analogous to what...actually that might be a spoiler. Forget I said anything.

The brilliant part about Silent Hill 2's story (and it's going to be hard to say this without spoiling the ending) is how well everything in this game fits into what happened to James with his wife. The city of Silent Hill in Silent Hill 2 is a representation of everything bad and worrysome about James as a person. After his wife died James felt sexually repressed, unable to be with another woman. Because of this, many enemies in the game are extremely disturbing but highly sexualized. One of the enemies (as seen in the background above) is just two lower halves of women put together. The nurses in the hospital, while being horrid abominations, also sports a lot of leg and cleavage despite being hideous. James is worried about no longer being a man, and also worried about betraying the memory of his wife, which means he's extremely insecure.

Which brings us to Pyramid Head. 

The now-iconic bad guy of the Silent Hill franchise

Pyramid Head is the only male enemy in the entire game [Correction: there are another batch of particularly nasty ones later on, but my comments as follows still stand]. He has (as you can guess) a head of a pyramid, which could make his shape distinctly phallic. He also carries a massive cleaver (phallic) and is completely invulnerable, essentially everything James wishes he was. In one of the most shocking, horrific scenes I've ever seen in a video game (minor spoilers here, but everybody's probably heard of this scene already), the introduction to Pyramid Head is you stumbling upon him raping two of those leg creatures I mentioned before. Yes, in a video game. And nobody apparently complained about it. Huh.

Anyway, after talking about James' sexual frustration, I think it's pretty clear where that analogy was going. The point is that there is an insane amount of depth to Silent Hill 2's imagery, and it is never particularly in your face about it (except maybe the mentioned rape scene), meaning you could play through the entire game and not get it. The game holds up either way, but its great to see video game developers trying something actually make their games have a level of depth beyond the initial layers. 

You can just...stay over there, ok?

It's unfortunate, therefore, that Silent Hill 2 has a myriad of problems to accompany its excellent batch of psychological horror. First off is the voice acting and script. While it's serviceable, I guess, and the disjointed  weirdness fits the game in a sort of "it's bad on purpose" way, I found it pulling me out from the story. There are people who will defend it to death and people who agree with me, so we'll just leave it as "If you like it, fine. If not, it's kind of a massive mess." You can still get the story well enough even if you think the script is awful, it's just a notch off.

The other, perhaps bigger issue is the archaic control schemes. Silent Hill 2 was in the era of horror games where "tank" controls were in full effect. Pressing forward on the stick moves your character forward in whatever direction he is facing, not "up" on screen relative to the camera (which is how most modern games do it). In order to turn you have to have James spin left or right and then move him forward (or find the sweet spot between forward and your direction, which makes him turn like an SUV). It's cumbersome and annoying, though I can understand this early level of hindering your controls to ramp up the tension. But even if that was the intentional point, it's still annoying .

That can't be good. 

The combat is also bland. You get both melee weapons and firearms, but neither work particularly well. James' strategy for killing things either involves auto-aiming at the nearest one and shooting, or swinging wildly in an attempt to hit it (and kicking/stomping the writhing enemy after it goes down). Again, it works in the way that you realize James is not a good fighter, so his cumbersome attacks fit the character. But it also makes certain parts of the game extremely frustrating. Since this game is more about the story and atmosphere rather than combat anyway, I suggest playing through the game on Easy. 

Combat is not a high point of this game.

As stated already, the music and graphics in Silent Hill 2 are excellent, the soundtrack being especially creepy. The graphics are excellent looking for the PS2 era (still holding up well today), and the grainy filters only make the whole thing appear grittier and darker. The music is haunting and chilling, setting the standard for the Silent Hill games having excellent sound design.

This song gives me the chills. 

Despite all the problems, however, if you have any inclination towards horror I heartily suggest getting a copy of Silent Hill 2. There's a reason many people have said it's their favorite game of all time (yes, a horror game with poor gameplay is their favorite game of all time), and that's because it does what matters exceptionally well. It's a beautiful game and a journey into the macabre and terrifying, and it is a trip absolutely worth taking.

It can be hard to get a copy on PS2 or Xbox without paying a fair amount for it, but if you have one of those dang-fangled next-gen consoles you can get the Silent Hill HD Collection coming out on March 20th (which has both this game and the also excellent Silent Hill 3) for only $40 release price. Since that puts each game at about $20 (and gives the graphics a much needed HD boost with widescreen support), that's a very good price for what is easily one of the best horror games ever made. Just be aware that you might not sleep easily after playing it. 

Were I to give it a star rating, it would be five out of five stars. And remember...

Pyramid Head knows where you sleep.