Silent Hill 2

Review

by Jon Thompson

The original Silent Hill was the first game to challenge Capcom's Resident Evil series in terms of showing off what a survival horror game could be. Konami did its best to bring some real horror to the genre, mixing up gruesome monsters and a heavy dash of the occult to create something that felt quite different. Silent Hill 2 suffers a bit from being too close to its predecessor in terms of gameplay, but it does manage to scare up enough dread to be a worthy game for fans of the genre.

The atmosphere of Silent Hill 2 is not quite as thick as it was the first time around. The world shifting used in Silent Hill is scaled back here, and only happens a couple of times. Even then, the change isn't quite so significant and disturbing as the first time around. Some might argue this more subtle approach might be preferable to the "corpses hanging in cages" motif of the previous game.

The overall sense of urgency and fear has also been greatly reduced thanks to the game's lower difficulty. There's always plenty of health and ammo scattered about, and there's no equivalent to the skinless men from the first game who would pursue you with such veracity that you couldn't help but be fearful. Most of the creatures you discover are easily dispatched with a few bullets, and you'll never run low enough on ammunition to worry about shooting them instead of fleeing.

Even the puzzles are relatively simple to solve, although there are a few clever tricks up the title's sleeve. Mostly, however, the game falls back on the "scavenger hunt" feel that survival horror so often relies on. Despite their simplicity, many of the puzzles are at least interesting in their overall design, and the game's quick pace actually becomes a positive as you play through it more than once.

Combat is a bit of a drag, with no real skill involved other than pressing the attack button over and over. It is usually more advantageous to run away from common enemies and save your ammo for the big guys. The bosses are little more than eerie set pieces, since most can be easily beaten with a barrage of gunfire.

Graphics are a mixed bag. The volumetric fog effect looks amazing from a technical point of view, but often it feels like too much by drowning out all of the surroundings. And the graininess of the visuals, done to increase the coarse tone of the game, seems to hinder the visuals more than it helps. The overall design, however, much like the first Silent Hill, is quite well done and detailed, with an impressive. There are everyday objects scattered about to give the town a real sense of having been lived in, and then abandoned at a moment's notice.

The sound of Silent Hill 2 is excellent, with ambient noises and wicked screams that will send chills up your spine. While the sounds are often kept to a minimum, and you'll often find yourself playing in silence, those noises and music tracks that are present only serve to enhance the dread that permeates the game.

Even though it might not be quite as intense and certainly emanates an entirely different mood, Silent Hill 2 is worth the ride due to a compelling storyline that is easier to follow than the first, with a more direct narrative and defined endings. There will still be plenty to guess and decide for yourself within the plotline, but the game gives you enough to chew into. In addition, big fans of the first game will be pleased to find that there's a lot more to learn about the sleepy little town of Silent Hill and its twisted history. It will take a handful times through the game to gather all of the information that it has to offer.

Silent Hill 2 feels a bit rushed, and although it might not live up to the dizzying horror of the first game, it packs enough of its own punch to make it a worthy sequel. Fans of that first game or anyone who's looking for a good scare on the PS2 should give it a try.