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Scary & Fun -- but a little frustrating at times

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

When "Resident Evil 2" came out for the Playstation, I was all over it. As a fan of horror films, I thought the blend of horror and video games was the ultimate. And then I found the "Silent Hill" series, which is more challenging -- and thus, more rewarding -- than its predecessor.

I read tons of reviews for both Silent Hill 2 & 3, and figured that, based on those reviews, the Second one was better because it was longer and more challenging. So I got a copy of it and was immediately sucked into the mysterious and frightening world of Silent Hill.

This game is so scary at points my 22-year-old girlfriend couldn't watch me play it anymore. "It's too scary," she said, and turned away to read a book or something. Meanwhile, I was trapped in the sprawling, foggy and spooky atmosphere. The graphics aren't as good as later Playstation 2 games -- because the world is so expansive, they used little digital bits instead of smooth building textures. This adds a grainy quality to the visual look of the game, which actually enhances the mood and makes you feel like you're watching some forbidden snuff film. Other games -- such as "Manhunt" -- have tried to copy this look, but "Silent Hill 2" has the gameplay and panache to back it up, whereas "Manhunt" was a pointlessly brutal and ultimately dull game.

There are a few problems with this game, however. The controls are awkward and take some getting used to. Just play for a half-hour and you've got them down pat, but every time you walk away, you've got to reaccustom yourself to the controls. In addition, the puzzles and plotline become complicated at points. I played for 4 hours my first night having this, and then didn't play again for a couple of days (hey, people have to work you know). When I returned to the game, I had no idea where I was supposed to be, and was forced to look at on-line guides to point me in the right direction. Then I played for another couple hours and haven't been at it since. When I return, I'll have to reacquiant myself with my surroundings, and that is a little frustrating. I hate the idea of having to "cheat" by looking on-line for information, but the game doesn't offer any alternatives.

The health meter was an issue for me at first, too. There is no on-screen health meter, so after getting knocked around by baddies for a while and not knowing when I was going to die, I suddenly did. You have to continuously check the Pause screen to see how you're doing health-wise. This can be a little frustrating and awkward, causing breaks in the action and temporarily halting the tense and grimy atmosphere the game works so hard to establish.

Overall, the game is a worthy addition to any horror fan's collection. The puzzles are challenging and rewarding -- I enjoy figuring them out. The battle scenes are fun as well, with good detailed gore and spooky monsters that will stick in your cerebellum for days afterward. "Silent Hill 2" is the type of game you'll want to plop down and play for half a day straight, and since most of us cannot do that, the jerky start-and-stops make it a little difficult to get back into.

You WILL be Frightened!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The town of Silent Hill is a fog blanketed, run down resort town. It is also you,James Sunderland, and your late wife's "special place". After recieving a letter from beyond the grave calling James to Silent Hill, you take over and try to figure out just what is going on.
Unfortunatly, Silent Hill is not the happy town of memories James remembers...

Silent Hill 2 has a storyline completely seperate from the prequel. This means having the first Silent Hill title completed is not entirely neccesary.

Those of you that scare easily, do yourselves a favor and rent this one, you won't make it all the way through to the end. This game is one of the most genuinely frightening games I have ever played. Resident Evil's "boo" scare tactics can't hold a candle to the dark and intense atmosphere created by this game. The monsters are disturbing and will appear at random.

On the topic of graphics, this game leaves only a little to be desired. I enjoy the grain effect and find that it helps to set the mood well, but it also will blur an already difficult to see hallway or fog filled street. This is only a minor qualm however. On another note the character animations are all fantastic, except for thier mouths. They seem altogether too large for thier faces. At a particularly intense cinema I almost laughed at the sight of a character appearing to look like Pac-Man.

Now the best quality of the game would have to be the sound. A radio will emit static when a monster is close by, but instead of help it makes me even more jumpy. The sound effects in the background can be discerned from far away. I can hear off in the distance the sound of heavy feet clanking against an iron grate and it is enough to make you turn the light back on. Background music also sets the mood. Often it will be completely quiet except for the sound of James breathing. Others, an unsettling tune will blare as a warning of something bad to come, and sometimes music will play for no reason at all.

All in all the game was a fantastic addition to my Survival horror library. Even with its minor graphical flaws and the fact that dedicated players will finish in about ten hours, the game was fantastic.

Silence the critics

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 13, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Confusion is criticle to maintaining Silent Hill's atmosphere, so those complaining that the story is confusing, knock it off, it's meant to be.
There are a lot of questions I'd like answered, but thankfully Konami has created a game that leaves you walking away just as disturbed as confused. The only game that could surpass Silent Hill in the disturbing arena is Silicon Knight's forth comming Eternal Darkness.
Silent Hill 2 addresses the complaints I had about the first one, the option to have a point and go there control style is there. So I just go, no pivoting! The problem is that the camera was not designed for this control method, and so it has a few quirks. Nothing too drastically bad, but it really needed work. It's sadly not as disturbing as the first one though, it seems that Konami has bent to the will of irresponsible parents blamming games for thier kid's problems and toned the game down dramatically from what it was. Over all though the game is still a good renter.

The reason I recomend renting this is because there is a director's cut in the works for XBox that is comming out soon. It will have much more material than this one, and while I hate it when people do director's cuts it's nice that Konami announced that they were going to do this in time enough to stop me from buying the PS2 version. I'll be able to get the definitive version right off the bat, rather than wasting my money on an incomplete game.

INCREDIBLE, MUST BUY GAME!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: February 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is indeed the SCARIEST game I've ever played, and I don't get scared easily by things like video games or movies. This is indeed right up there with Resident Evil as one of the best survival games ever created.
In SH2 you control a man named James Sunderland, who's wife Mary died three years ago but yet he recieves a mysterious letter from her telling him to come back to Silent Hill. Once you arrive there it's up to you to explore the town and find out who sent the letter, why, and the truth about Mary Sunderland. The graphics in this game are a kind of grainy but it looks like it was done on purpose to give the game that horror feel, even though other effects like fog, lighting and shadow were done with flawless precision. The music is excellent, and the enemies are creative. What I also liked about this game is the replay value, b/c on top of the Sunderland story, you can also play as a character in the game named Maria in a sub-scenario. There are also multiple endings depending on how you go about things and various difficulty levels. I've honestly never felt more hooked to a game simply b/c I wanted to know how it all ended, the story is incredibly gripping. The best thing about this though is the detail put into this huge town, even the most pointless of rooms are made with such precision detail. In most games like Resident evil you don't really get to go outside and are pretty much trapped in one area, in SH2 the town is yours for the exploring and things like cars,traffic lights, stores, etc are all there. It's just amazing how much work went into creating the town.
Even though I gave the game 5 stars b/c it truly deserves it, the game isn't perfect. The #1 factor I had a problem with was the controls. They are nowhere near as crisp and responsive as those in Resident evil and were overall a little sloppy but tolerable. The other down factor is the voice acting, although I have heard A LOT worse (i.e. Resident Evil 1), and it seems as though they do try hard, it comes off a little unbelievable and cheesy, they almost make the character look stupid. A third (and I'm kind of stretching it here) is the weapons and fighting scenarios. Your basic weapon is a hand gun, and most enemies (except for the bosses) can be defeated with this easy, giving things like the hunting rifle, shotgun, and huge blade no real fun factor, it's also very hard to run low on ammo and health kits, giving the game grade D on challenge.
These are minor hindrences, and don't effect the game hugely at all on a whole, it's still very fun and will have you picking up the controller again and again. To any fan of action/adventure game...

Brutally Honest Meditation on Moral Decay

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: January 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This Konami game, which has become a new classic since its 2001 release, is tied with Square's Final Fantasy Tactics, Silicon Knights' Eternal Darkness, and Konami's own Shadow of Destiny, for the distinction of being the most literary video game of all time.

The foggy atmosphere and desolate aura of the New England resort town of Silent Hill, which has inexplicably become a ghost town by the time that protagonist James Sunderland visits it in desperate hopes of discovering a reincarnation of his dead wife, reflect the foggy confusion of James' own mind, and the curse lingering over the town allows it to conjure personalized avatars to haunt those who enter its boundaries with a guilty conscience. In trying to discover the truth about his wife's death, James will therefore encounter physical manifestations of psychological phonomena related to his regret over how their relationship unfolded while she was still alive, along with four other travelers who are lost in their own nightmarish versions of the town. If this summary seems to place the plot dangerously close to horror cliche, the execution of the story, realization of the town's creepy atmosphere, and final resolution of the plot prove that this game is an original work of art. Inspired less by Stephen King than David Lynch, whose film "Lost Highway" featured a defeated man creating an alternate self-identity which allowed him to become the hero of his own story, until the dangerous re-invasion of reality, Silent Hill 2 is a character study masquerading as horror, and the true horror is not the grotesquery of its monsters or grimy corridors, but the reality, and the commonality of the profoundly oppressive and inhumane events which haunt the characters' backstories.

This might be the only game that is painful to play by design rather than as a biproduct of ineptitude. The arduous, repetitive combat, slow-paced "action scenes" and excessive empty distance between places of significance combine with the headache-inducing dissonant soundtrack to make the player every bit as anxious as the protagonist, and if one is to accept that any form of stimulation, not just positive stimulation, validates the quality of a work of art, then it follows that Silent Hill 2 is an incredible success. Form echoes content, as the game itself is as sadistic as its characters. Its goal is not to challenge the player to overcome its trials, but to challenge the player to experience it, and one ultimately walks away from a day in the life of James Sunderland with a newfound appreciation for one's own life. Unless, of course, one has just lost a spouse.

take a deep breath... it's only a game....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

At the time of this writing, I am at the beginning of the game, inside Blue Creek apartments, but I felt compelled enough to write the review as it stands now.

Pros:
This game is genuinely terrifying (I call this a pro because that is the entire purpose of survival horror--to scare the pants off you). It is unlike any other game I've ever played, and reminisent of every nightmare I've ever had. There is actually a time during the very beginning of the game, before you get a flashlight, that you have to walk down a completely black corridor in an abandoned apartment building, away from the sole lightbulb that greeted you at the entrance. You are literally steering yourself in the dark. You can't see where you're going at all. You can see a vague outline of James (your character) but that's it. It was at this point, walking away from the lightbulb and watching the entire screen plunge into black, that I actually stopped the game and put in the happiest, cheesiest CD I could find on my stereo for background noise. If I had "If You're Happy and You Know It" or the Barney song on CD I would have played it at full volume, without hesitation. Anything but that silence in the hallway.

I can't stress enough the amazing weight of this game, in terms of scare factor and its amazingly realistic, chilling atmosphere. Konami deserves an award for the twisted creativity of its game developers and its amazingly accurate understanding of human fear. We fear what we do not understand, and there is much you will not understand about Silent Hill 2.

As for the characters, the animation for them is also top-rate. I was actually quite grateful for the clumsy dialouge and voice acting that other reviewers complained about --- it gave me an opportunity to laugh, because you won't be doing much of that as you play this game. Try to hold your stomach in during the scene where James meets Eddie. Those vomiting sound effects are all too real.

Another ingenious idea: You make choices throughout the game that effects which of the several endings you recieve, which includes examining the objects in your inventory. This will become MUCH clearer once you begin collecting the stranger objects...

Cons:
The mystery surrounding this game is more confusing than rewarding a lot of the time. I actually had to go online and look for a walk-through after my first attempt to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do failed. What's also frustrating about this is that your "quests" overlap each other --- meaning if you flub on one task, you can't complete another, and retracing your steps is near impossible sometimes. Paired with the fog and darkness, this makes the gameplay especially challenging, even on the easy level. If you go at it without help, I guarantee you will be wandering aimlessly around the scene at least once, unless you are very experienced and possess "gamer's intuition." I'm working on that.

If this is your first time playing an RPG or survival-horror game, I highly reccomend at least skimming over a walk-through, to avoid the hundreds of un-openable doors, dead-ends, and daunting confusion.

I am eagerly anticipating the rewards of my "hard work" (I promise I'll go at it alone the second time around!) when the game is over and the secrets of Silent Hill are finally revealed.

2 warnings: If you have heart trouble, I suggest you either skip this game altogether or play it at a low volume. This won't help if the phone rings or your pipes creak and you jump out of your skin. Also, this game will effect you mentally, and will maybe even give you trouble sleeping. Take breaks, and try a funny movie or stand-up comedy with ALL the lights on! No one will fault you for it.

Great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: January 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I love this game because it has a great story and it looks beautiful. I love that it has so many endings - up to 6, depending on which version you have. Some people dont like that you have to collect so many items and solze puzzles and stuff. Well, I liked it. Most of the puzzles are easy and none of them are very hard so if you cant do them then youre a moron. I think the people that didnt like this game were expecting something else when they got it. Resident Evil, perhaps? Well go get RE then. SH2 is scary because it creates a scary atmosphere. I dont mean to generalize but it seems like most of the people who hated SH2 are below normal intelligence. Maybe because most of them are little kids. At any rate, this game rocks.

Slow, tiresome and overrated.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: November 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I gave this game all the second chances I could to let it hook me, I really did, but it failed. Why?

THE BAD: Slow gameplay (walk around huge areas for hours looking for tiny pieces of info, intermittently bashing creatures ad nauseam). Repetitive. Delays with the animations (esp. when fighting). Terrible camera angles.

THE GOOD: Gorgeous game, great mood and best sound yet on PS2. That, however, does not a great game make. Maybe I'm not the genre's biggest fan, but the "find the key to open the door to fight the monster to get another key" style of gameplay is TIRED.

Finally, the next generation of games!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: September 27, 2001
Author: Amazon User

We've have been hearing a lot lately about the next generation of games. Finally a game comes out that really feels like the next generation of games. If you have played the original Silent Hill you will remember that the games isn't as much "shock" value as the Resident Evil series, meaning that it relies less on the jump out and startle you then RE does. Silent Hill develops a feeling of dread, with errie music, cryptic characters and dark visuals.

Well I am glad to say that this one is no different, except the fact that it's done with superb graphical quality. The game opens with a brief opening sequence, then control is given to the player. When you first get control of James your first reaction may be, "this is the game?" Meaning that you may be stunned to see that the graphics are really that good in just the normal part of the game.

But graphics don't make a game right? Right, this is more than just a graphic wonder for the PS2. It's also your own personl horror movie. The game has a grainy look to it, kind of like an 8mm film I have been told. With music that sets you on edge with the feeling that something is going to happen, even if it doesn't. The lighting effects are not to be matched by any game, as least any that I have played so far. But it's where Silent Hill combines all it's fine qualities together that make it a great game. It succeeds where the original succeeded, it has the ability to draw you in and give you a feeling of dread. But that won't keep you away, it also succeeds in being fun at the same time.

If you did not play the original Silent Hill I would still recommend this to people who enjoy the Resident Evil type games, you would be hard pressed to find one that is better.

Parents be advised, this is a very graphic and distrubing game (hence the "M" rating it received), please do not buy it for your children.

So are we finally seeing the next generation of games? I think so. If this game is an indication of games to come, then I believe I will be a happy gamer.

Disturbing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I rented this game thinking itwas going to be amazing. I began playing and i was more than let down. THe entire opening is you running for like 10 minutes strait and you have no weapons and have no monsters to fight just mindless running through the fog. But then you run into your first monster and boy does it only get better from there. The graphics in this game are amazingly detailed at certain points, they get lazy on the cut scenes, half of the cut scene with be great glossy cgi animation but then it will transition into gameplay graphics which are still good but not as good. The overall feel of the game is reminiscent of resident evil, only this is true survival horror. The fog on the streets in the gamer is n ways good but for the most part is not very nessicary. But the darkness in the buildings definitly is. You cannot see more than five feet in front of you and then you have the psycho radio that goes bezerk when a monster comes onto you. The whole thing is just stairt up freaky. THe monsters in the game are bizzare as they come. They mostly all seem to have originated in the hospital accept for the hangers which really are piontless. BUt be warned the first nurse will scare that ... out of you. As for the story...well i dunno really it has many twists and turns in it that kind of mess with you actually everything in this game will mess with you but the ending really ties everything together but if you get a[n] ... ending like i did then alot of questions are left unanswered. Overall this game is an expirience and I haven't played anything even close to as good as this for playstation 2 yet. This game defienitly deserves to become a movie which hopefully it will but until then im content with this superb game. Oh yeah and play this game with either headphones on or with a surround sound system at one o'clock in the mornin and try and say you werent scared out of your mind.

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