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*Breathes a massive sigh of relief*
I've just beaten Silent Hill 2, and it is indeed the scariest game ever made. In fact, it's the scariest piece of entertainment (disturbment might be better) I’ve ever sat/played through. It's so well made, so scary, it just grabbed me and refused to let go. If you enjoy being scared, especially if you like movies like the Exorcist, you should DEFINITELY buy this game…
When I first started playing this title, me being a jaded survival horror veteran and all, I was expecting a RE level shocker game. Even after reading reviews that said otherwise, I was convinced that you couldn’t get any scarier than the "BOO!" stuff in RE, and that games should rely on setting a creepy atmosphere to be effective as horror. After a few minutes, after the main character gets a letter from his dead wife beckoning him to Silent Hill, I was proven wrong. After beating this game, I have been proven dead wrong. Dead rotting, stinking, dismembered wrong. Why? Keep reading...
Unlike every other survival horror game out there (and unlike most horror movies), Silent Hill 2 doesn't rely on cheap jump-out-at-you kind of stuff. Instead, it plays with your head. No, scratch that: it doesn't just play with your head, it destroys it. The developers have capitalized on human instinct to drive the fear factor upward on this game. What do I mean by that? Why, things we find scary are presented here 10x more scary than most of us would be comfortable with. For starters, you can never see what’s around you. Humans are naturally afraid of what they can't see, and this game is no exception. Often, you can only see what’s right in front of you, you can only see what your flashlight illuminates. The pitch darkness around you could always be hiding something...there could always be something beyond the next corner. More often than not, nothing even happens. But the atmosphere, the mood is built up to such an extent that I had myself asking: "Should I go around this next corner?" "Should I open this next door, or just save, quit, and play tomorrow?" I was also turning on an extra light and throwing a glance over my shoulder this whole game. Yes, it's THAT scary. And no, I'm not the sensitive "doesn’t like to be scared" kind of person. As I said, I'm a jaded horror veteran (movies and games alike) and I was hardly prepared for what Silent Hill 2 delivered.
The sound/music in this game is, in a word, disturbing. The ambient effects and music are incredibly well done, and incredibly scary. Early in the game, James finds a small radio. When enemies get closer, your radio begins to go on the fritz. The static noise of the radio will grow increasingly louder as the enemy approaches. And you can never be sure exactly where that enemy is, so it makes you nervous every time that radio flares up. The monsters themselves cry out the most horrifying noises I've ever heard, at times I just threw the headphones down and ran around the next corner, escaping the sound. At one point, deep underground in an abandoned prison, I was exploring a bathroom. One stall door was shut, so I knocked. No response. And just before I got to the door, something SLAMMED against the door and scared the **** out of me. It's things like that that really make this game scary, make it so enjoyable. The music is equally genius, usually it’s hardly music at all and more an incredibly eerie mish-mash of very unsettling noises that really start taking a toll on your head after only a few minutes. The voice acting is on par with the rest of the sound, with actors that nail that surreal detachment from reality perfectly, something all the great horror movies have. An impressive array of ambient noises can be heard as well, but sometimes the motto “silence is golden” is presented, with James’ footsteps sounds (of which there are many) being the only audible noise, a sort of baseline to the rest of the audio. The sound is extremely well done in SH2, it’s impossible to find a flaw.
Graphically, this game is amazing. Unlike RE, SH2 features a mobile camera than pans, zooms, and tracks to follow the action. And the camera always seems to stay focused on the action, I never had any problems with it. Kudos for taking the time to code a descent 3D camera Konami! Most of the time you are exploring confined areas and the game is only displaying what’s right around you. Which means a hell of a lot of detail can be churned out by the PS2. Every piece of grime and muck on the walls just adds to the mood, every small gritty detail is displayed. The textures are ultra-sharp and the polygonal detail is amazing. This adds a great deal of realism to the game, and makes it a great deal more frightening that anything else out there. But I have to say, it's the lighting effects that are truly amazing. Forget what you have seen in the new RE for GC, or even in MGS2. The lighting here is the most realistic ever, with shadows from your flashlight casting ultra-realistic real-time shadows on the walls. Oh, and amidst everything in this game is one big effect: noise. A grainy, noisy filter is poured over the screen making this game look like a 70's horror movie, which adds to the tension of the game. In fact, SH2 is not really a game, but can be better described as the most stylish and scary interactive horror movie ever. And I can't even get into what the monsters look like....I mean literally, I can't describe what they look like. Manikins with legs where there should be arms, stuttering masses of flesh that can best be described as undead with skin straight jackets on, dead (raped?) nurses than stumble toward you with their heads sickeningly hanging to the side (broken necks?), this game packs some real s*** in it. You really have to see it to believe it. The character models pack some incredible facial animation, coded specifically so that the characters present just the right faces to fit with the mood and storyline. The rest of the animation is mo-capped and looks very realistic, only adding to the quality of this title.
The game play is reminiscent of RE, any veteran will be used to the controls already. Survival horror newbies can adjust the controls to their liking, with a more beginner-friendly “point the control stick and the character moves that direction” scheme available. The game play in SH2 is a little more 3D platformish than that of RE however, since the camera is not static and allows for great panning/tracking shots in which u can move more freely and accurately. The action plays out similarly to that of RE, with the exception that u can move and shoot at the same time, and you can also strafe, which allows you to escape from enemy attacks if you’re quick enough
Replay is boosted by multiple endings and unlockable goodies. After beating the game once (or rather, surviving the game once) you’ll have only seen one ending; you have to play through again to see the alternate ending. The grainy filter can also be turned off, which allows you to see the true graphics underneath (which look very good of their own right), and blood color can be changed (green anyone?). Also, and this one’s my favorite, the chainsaw can be picked up early in the game for some nice slice and dicing. The attack on the saw is very slow but incredibly powerful, plus its damn fun to just crank it up and start hacking away :).
Bottom line: You MUST play this game if you like being scared. It will scare the F*** out of you, and that’s no joke. You might be thinking the same thing I did, "I’m jaded, nothing scares me" but trust me, you will go to bed with the lights on after playing this. Oh, and don’t play this game if your squeamish or get scared easily.
-- Anonym. Contributor, PGNx Media
---- Aug 28, 2002
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