Survival horror is my absolute favourite genre in gaming. Whenever a new title has me crawling through spooky spaces, surrounded by all manner of killer ghouls with limited bullets, there’s a good chance I’m going to play it.
My house is filled with horror memorabilia, from both videogames and films. A seven movie A Nightmare on Elm Street marathon is my idea of a good time.
I love horror.
But that hasn’t always been the case. When I was a kid, I was a full-on scaredy cat. I couldn’t handle horror films. At the age of 11, I went to a birthday sleepover party where all the cool kids were watching Halloween H20 and it gave me nightmares for months.
Any kind of scary flick was a no-go for me, but for some reason games were ok.
LET’S GET SCARED – Horror Games
I played Resident Evil 2 and quickly became obsessed. That game terrified me, but I liked it. The adrenaline hit of having to run past a horde of zombies, because I didn’t have enough ammo to take them down, was a total rush.
I thought I could handle this whole horror thing now. But then Silent Hill 2 showed up and I was never the same. Not only did it put me back in my place (I still have the occasion Silent Hill themed bad dream), but it opened up my mind when it came to horror.
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In contrast to Resident Evil 2, you weren’t a cop with a rocket launcher, you were James — just some everyday dude with a plank of wood.
This wasn’t what I would call action-horror, this was a straight up nightmare.
SPOOKY HILL – Silent Hill 2 on PlayStation 2
I was drawn into the mystery of this fog-filled, deserted town Silent Hill. What the hell happened here? Then the creatures start showing up; an alarm sounds and you’re drawn into another dimension that feels like you’ve stumbled into a scene from a Saw film.
I was completely enamoured by this game. Silent Hill 2 changed my life, and I absolutely blame it for my horror infatuation today.
The Silent Hill franchise never quite hit the highs of its second instalment, although that didn’t stop me from playing each and every one of them. But after Hideo Kojima’s Silent Hills never managed to manifest, we had no Silent Hill for a decade — a whole 10 years!
In that time, if a game even remotely came close to looking like a Silent Hill rip off, I’d play it.
I even rushed out and bought a PS3 one day not too long ago because I woke and up and wanted to play the ported, Silent Hill HD collection.
Then, finally, Konami announced they were going to release a BUNCH of new Silent Hill games, including a remake of one of my favourites of all time.
I was over the moon.
Nevertheless, I have been really, really, really looking forward to this game. So, let’s talk about it!
WELCOME HOME – Graphics and Feel
Stepping back into the town of Silent Hill through this beautiful 4K lens just about brought a tear to my eye. Bloober Team hasn’t cut any corners bringing that glorious PS2 game into the modern era.
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I worried a little with the thought of seeing Silent Hill 2 in crisp graphics; part of the terror in the original game was what you couldn’t quite make out. The developers did a hell of job working around these hardware short fallings. But this new game looks amazing. The use of fog is on point. It makes you feel claustrophobic, even when you’re standing in the middle of an empty street in the middle of the day.
You wanna talk about real claustrophobia? Try walking down any of the dark hallways in this game, your weak flashlight only illuminating a few metres in front of you. The light falling off into complete black. You know you’ve gotta go forward to advance, but, man… you really don’t want to — there could be anything in those shadows!
The thing that has always made any Silent Hill stand out is its atmosphere. There aren’t many other titles that have been able to capture the perfect mix of intriguing, dreadful and “What the hell was that!?’ moments that this little town has. That’s in no small part due to the incredible sound design.
THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF SILENT HILL – Music and Sound Design
Thankfully, original composer Akira Yamaoka is back with another compelling score that, at times, feels like you’re walking through a metal workshop and at others like you’re sitting in a cosy café listening to a beautiful acoustic set. The former producing an unsettling ambience that even the shrillest violin would find hard to replicate. The softer renditions provide a brief respite from the hellish world around you in more intimate moments.
But God, when Yamaoka’s sounds are mixed with the world of Silent Hill 2, it’s about as close to perfection that sound design can be.
Creeping your way through any of the horrifying locations in Silent Hill, you’ll be exposed to all manner of creaks, thuds, screams and the occasional bass build up as you approach anything significantly spooky.
I’d highly recommended that you wear headphones while playing this game to get the full experience, but a good surround sound system will also do the job. That way you can freak out as something scuttles behind you. I had one instance where I was wandering the dark halls of an abandoned hospital and could hear a creature on the other side of the wall. It never actually eventuated to anything, but it had me on edge, constantly waiting for whatever it is to jump out.
The monsters in Silent Hill are nightmare fuel.
BOO – Monsters, Puzzles and Gameplay
Silent Hill’s nasties have always been pretty damn original. You won’t find traditional monsters in this town, no, sir. No zombies, werewolves or vampires. These creatures look like they’re straight out of hell.
Faceless nurses, crawling meatbags, hanging cages with huge lips and of course Pyramid Head. They’re all the more terrifying because you can’t relate it back to a recognisable evil.
The first time you see any of these horrors, it’s just that: horrifying. It takes a moment for your brain to comprehend what you’re looking at, and even then, you’re grasping at the limits of reality.
If I have one gripe with Silent Hill 2 though, is I would love to see more of these hell spawn! That initial counter with each baddie will live rent free in my head for years to come, but once you’ve figured out their pattern, it’s pretty easy to take them down. After that, they start to not seem so threatening anymore. Of course, you can just up the difficulty but a little more variety wouldn’t go astray.
Besides this, I feel the difficulty is perfectly balanced. You can separately choose how hard you would like you’re combat and puzzles to be. Playing on the standard option, as I did, felt challenging enough, but I was never stuck for long. The puzzles still had me scratching my head at times, but the answer was never too far away. It was comforting to know I could just knock the puzzle difficulty down to easy if I wanted to keep moving.
MEMORIES – Narrative
The plot of Silent Hill 2 offers all the ambiguity and metaphors of a David Lynch film, where I feel that each player will experience it in their own unique way. But on its base level, it has so much heart. James has received a letter from his dead wife, instructing him to come find her in Silent Hill, a place they holidayed once when she was alive.
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You can’t help but feel for this poor bloke, clearly grieving and grasping onto any hope of spending just a little more time with his loved one. Bet he didn’t expect to go through hell, but that’s love for ya!
RESTLESS DREAMS – Conclusion
It has been an absolute treat returning to Silent Hill 2. Bloober Team have treated this remake with patience and care, making this nightmarish masterpiece accessible to a modern audience — it’ll scare you more than any ghoul would ever dare try.
Now if you’ll excuse me, in my restless dreams, I see that town… Silent Hill.
Silent Hill 2 is out now on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam, it retails for $99.95.
A review code for Silent Hill 2 remake was supplied to Quest Daily
