*** THE CASUAL GAMER ***
| Main | Rating: Commendable |
Silent Hill 2
Need to take a mad piss? This game's got you covered.
Silent Hill 2 is the sequel to Konami's morbidly facisnating entrance into the horror genre, Silent Hill. This game contiues the tradition of the first installment, combining a captivating story with disturbing sights and sounds.
Silent Hill 2, much like the original, does a good job of replicating the experience of a great horror movie. It has pretty realistic graphics, making everything more believable and intimidating. The monsters are a blend of humanity and nightmare, making the player dread confrontation. Silent Hill itself is also straight out of a bad dream: Fog blurs your vision, buildings and roads are run down or destroyed, and unsightly stains fill rooms. The atmosphere of the game is developed very thoroughly, with every detail properly executed.
Although the scenery is done brilliantly, the story is the meat and potatoes of this game. It starts with the main character, James, looking for his dead wife in Silent Hill. He had received a letter, supposedly from his wife, just a short time before the start of the game. The plot begins there and gets more and more wicked as the game goes on. It is a deep storyline that really draws you into the game, motivating you to explore further into Silent Hill to investigate. The only problem is that the story is pretty complicated, and there are mulitiple endings, so one play through the game may not clarify the plot sufficiently.
With the story and the atmoshpere of the game being so rich, it is a great disappointment that the gameplay lacks the same touch. The core gameplay consists of figuring out puzzles and giving random monsters a beat down. The puzzles are pretty good, some are even quite cool, but the fighting seriously sucks. You get a mild array of weapons to dispatch your foes, but none serve up anything worthwile. Most fighting goes something like this: See monster, run up to monster, give monster huge beating with stick. It's either that or just simply run past the monsters. It is not really fun at all. I think Konami should rethink the style of combat in these games. They should either make it more fun to kill monsters, like with decapitations or dismemberment, or simply remove the fighting altogether. Just make the next one a scary themed puzzle game. Or just leave in the boss fights, but do away with the boring drones. You get the picture; something extra is needed to spice things up.
Silent Hill 2 is a quality horror game that exceeds in story and presentation but lacks in gameplay. However, the experience of the game as a whole makes it worth playing for fans of the genre. If you like the first one, be sure to check this one out, too. But if you thought the first one was all schoolhouse stalking and confusion, or you like to run and gun in action games, or crave the assault weapons of Resident Evil, you may want to rent first or just watch a friend play it.