It's hard for me to articulate why this game is as formidable as it is. To describe the complete effect is to delve into my own personal regrets and the machinations of my traumas and go on for pages about the inherent weaknesses in our primal behavior and instinctive response to harmful external stimuli. This is at once a distortion of patriarchal establishments and institutions and also a wretchedly grim portrayal of psychological trauma. The world here is an artificially manifested microcosm of these ideas falling into gradual deterioration and acts as an encompassing amalgamation of the developer's influences. Through the presence of homage, this comes out as something dazzlingly singular for the medium. A game that progressively self-destructs alongside its broken protagonists, its mechanics deliberately clunky and devoted to inducing sheer panic and anxiety in the player. Less so consistently terrifying (though it definitely can be lol) than it is utterly consuming; its murky visual design, voice acting, and Yamaoka's crepuscular soundtrack infecting every facet of my life and coercing me to reflect on my own personal shortcomings as a person.

In one way or another I spent every waking moment in the week I played this game in 'Silent Hill'. It stands as a cruel embodiment of our fears and the insecurities that come with how we view our self-image but it is also a call for judgment for the sins we commit against each other. Very rarely does a game engage so forcibly on the lonely nature of depression or the assaulting impact that guilt and abuse can have and how these states of mind are seeded by traumatic memories. The result is a punishing and overwhelming experience that left me awake at night thinking over its thematic implications, its stilted gameplay haunting my every move during the day, and in my dreams in awe of its intricacies and how brilliantly it grounds its images and sounds into the player's conscious. Everything here is faithful to the overarching atmosphere and it's something that's made me question the credibility of a "perfect grade" for a game. For an object of beauty so outwardly flawed by design it's as luminescent as something like this can get.

ENG above; PT-BR abaixo.
THIS REVIEW DISCUSSES DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. I DO NOT MINCE MY WORDS.
ESTA RESENHA DISCUTE VIOLÊNCIA DOMÉSTICA. NÃO MEÇO MINHAS PALAVRAS.

Akira Yamaoka – Terror in the Depths of the Fog

——————————

My grandfather was a domestic abuser. He was controlling and violent. He cheated on his wife of many years, for many years. He attempted to run over his teenage daughter because he didn’t like her friends. It’s almost 30 years later and aunt still struggles in her relationship with her own children. He fills my heart with rage and I do not forgive him.

My father was a domestic abuser. He was controlling and violent. He cheated on his wife of many years, for many years, and put it on the internet. A police officer, he had a strong alibi for arriving home late (from his affairs) and attempted to strangle my mom. His only interest in raising me was my success in school, for which he wished to enroll me in a military high school. I know today that I would not have survived this, and thank my mom for impeding him. He fills my heart with rage and I do not forgive him.

Stories like my family’s are not uncommon. It takes a cursory look to find similar ones in news, in scientific publishing, in public health policies; but it takes a lot of involvement, introspection and tears to detect, comprehend and truly believe them when they’re in our communities, in the mouths of our neighbors and peers, in the beliefs and behaviors of those we love. We’re taught to respond to this shock with dismissal, to call it a farce and demand explanations for why the victims deserved what happened to them.

Silent Hill 2 understands this. It’s unafraid to discuss the pervasive nature of violence and its day-to-day reality. It’s a masterful portrayal of extraordinary phenomena that manifest in mundane lives. It oozes complexity and empathy in every second. Every single detail expresses something about the characters in a manner that makes me hauntingly uncomfortable, for I’ve met or been all of them in my life. Angela, who at her worst can barely identify who’s in front of her or what was last said in conversation; Eddie, who points to a single author responsible for his suffering, unaware of the larger material conditions that caused it; James, who’s been in my life longer than I’ve been alive and terrifies me as a potential future.

No game speaks to my reality and truth more than Silent Hill 2: of patriarchs who elect themselves arbiter and warden. No game is a better reminder of how lucky I am to not have been in the fire myself, yet simultaneously of how I’m still affected by the heat of its embers. It reshaped my preconceptions and expectations and categorically improved how I treat others and myself. I cannot overemphasize this game’s potential for sensitization and growth.

Please play it. Your life, and that of everyone in whose you participate, will be better for it.

——————————

Meu avô foi agressor doméstico. Ele era controlador e violento. Traiu sua esposa de muitos anos, por muitos anos. Tentou atropelar sua filha adolescente porque não gostava dos amigos dela. Faz quase 30 anos e tia ainda tem dificuldades para se relacionar com os próprios filhos. Ele enche meu coração de fúria e eu não o perdoo.

Meu pai foi agressor doméstico. Ele era controlador e violento. Traiu sua esposa de muitos anos, por muitos anos, e publicou na internet. Como policial, ele tinha um álibi forte para chegar tarde em casa (depois de pular a cerca) e tentou estrangular minha mãe. Seu único interesse em minha criação era meu sucesso escolar, pelo qual ele desejava me matricular em um colégio militar. Sei hoje que não teria sobrevivido, e agradeço minha mãe por tê-lo impedido. Ele enche meu coração de fúria e eu não o perdoo.

Histórias como a da minha família não são incomuns. Basta uma leitura superficial para encontrá-las em notícias, em publicações científicas, em estratégias de saúde pública; mas é necessário muito envolvimento, introspecção e lágrimas para detectá-las, compreendê-las e genuinamente acreditar nelas quando estão em nossas comunidades, na fala de nossos vizinhos e pares, nas crenças e comportamentos das pessoas que amamos. Somos ensinados a responder a esse choque com desmerecimento, acusações de farsa e a demandar motivos pelos quais as vítimas mereceram o que lhes ocorreu.

Silent Hill 2 entende tudo isso. Não receia em discutir o caráter pervasivo da violência e sua realidade cotidiana. É uma retratação mestra de fenômenos extraordinários que se manifestam na vida mundana. Transborda complexidade e empatia em cada segundo. Todo mínimo detalhe da obra expressa algo sobre os personagens de uma maneira que me assombra, pois já conheci ou fui todos eles em minha vida. Angela, que em seus piores momentos mal consegue identificar quem está em sua frente ou a última coisa que lhe foi dita; Eddie, que aponta para um único autor como responsável por seu sofrimento, desapercebido das condições materiais maiores que o causaram; James, que faz parte da minha vida há mais tempo do que eu mesmo e que me aterroriza como potencial futuro.

Nenhum jogo diz mais sobre minha realidade e verdade que Silent Hill 2: sobre patriarcas que se elegem árbitro e algoz. Nenhum jogo é melhor lembrete do quão sortudo sou de não ter sido jogado ao fogo, mas simultaneamente de como ainda sou afetado pelo calor das brasas. Ele ressignificou minhas preconcepções e expectativas e categoricamente melhorou o modo como trato outras pessoas e eu próprio. Sou incapaz de exagerar o potencial desse jogo para sensibilização e crescimento.

Por favor, jogue. Sua vida, e a de todos das quais você faz parte, melhorará.

silentchad2004:
using data mining, conventional mining, divination, and star charts I've uncovered shocking lore implications involving the 1999 teen choice awards, eddie's skull circumference, and the last herakleopolitan pharaohs that challenge everything you thought you knew about james. it all starts with the hex code for his jacket, which I'm sure many of you already noticed is #303828, a clear reference to the roland TB-303 commonly used in chicago acid house. to understand this better we'll first need to return to the topic of jean baptiste point du sable's whereabouts in 1780 and how they tie in directly with merikare of the 10th dynasty[...]

the fans:
obviously. it's soo obvious

masahiro ito:
😭😭😭

Content Warning for Attempted Suicide, Terminal Illness, Death, and Chronic Illness

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s September 2011 and I’m seventeen years old when I try to kill myself. There are two ponds near my parent’s house. It’s like 4 AM. I like to be out this early. Nobody else is awake, and they won’t be for a while. It’s like the whole world belongs to me. I wander around between the neighborhoods, along the roads, and in the fields. In ten years these will be fresh real estate properties but today they’re still farmland. This hour and a half is the only time the anxiety quells. The real world never knows peace. There’s a dread that accompanies every action and every moment; living in that house, going to school, hanging out with my friends (are they my friends? They are but I won’t be able to understand that until I’m healthier). I’ll always have to go back home. I’ll never be able to articulate what’s happening to me. The pressure is too intense. I don’t plan it, but, the pond is right there, and it’s deep enough, and early enough that no one will hear me. Not having a plan is what saves my life. Turns out impromptu self-drownings are difficult to pull off when the water is still and not THAT deep. So, it doesn’t work, and I’m soaked, and grateful to get home and hide the evidence before my parents wake up, but I don’t feel BETTER. I feel despair, still. There’s no way out. I wish I could just climb up the stairwell, out of this. I wish I had the clarity to understand what was wrong with me.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What do you even say about Silent Hill 2? To say that it’s one of the best video games ever made feels simultaneously obvious and like I’m underselling it, right? Fuckin, uhhhh, Resident Evil 2 is one of the best video games ever made. Ace Attorney 3 is one of the best games ever made. Come on! When we see people talk about old games that they like they’ll so often say stuff like “it holds up really well for its age” or some similar comment that implies that progress is the same as quality. This is, of course, nonsense. I wouldn’t say video games are better as a medium in 2021 than they were in 2001; on the whole and in the mainstream I would say they’re demonstrably worse in almost every way – how they look, how they sound, how they feel. Silent Hill 2 was a AAA game. What do we get now instead? Far Cry 6? The fuckin, THE MEDIUM? We’ve lost everything in pursuit of bad lighting and looking like a mediocre episode of whatever was popular on HBO three years ago. Silent Hill 2 looks great and sounds great and fuck you it plays great too it feels good and even the puzzles are MOSTLY FINE. MOSTLY. Listen I’m saying this is the all time best video game I’m not saying it fuckin ended world hunger.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s October 2012, I’m nineteen and I’m sitting in a business communications class when I get the text confirmation that Sam’s brain tumor is back, again. It’s not the first time, and I know that there’s nothing left to do, he’s going to die. It’s fast, untreated. He’s one of my best friends, and the only person I know from home who went to the same college as me, but we live really far apart on a big urban campus and I haven’t seen him as much as I’d have liked to. Now he’s gonna spend the rest of his time with his family back home. When I see him next it’s at a hometown charity event for his family in December. He’s unrecognizable physically, and he can’t speak. The event is at our old catholic elementary school, in the gym, where in the years since we graduated they’ve painted a giant tiger on the wall. It’s the school mascot. I feel incredibly awkward around him and spend most of the time away with our other friends. I only speak to him briefly, and when I do it’s a stupid joke about the tiger mural. These will be my last words to him. I do know this will be the case, I think. Later that month I’ll be one of his pallbearers. I spend a lot of time angry and ashamed of myself for not being better to him, not knowing how to act or what to say. I’m about to drop out of school for reasons financial and related to my mental health.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So what DO you say about Silent Hill 2? That it’s a masterpiece? That it’s the most well-conceived and executed video game ever made? That every detail of it dovetails into every other in a legitimately perfect cocktail story, presentation, and play? That the performances, cinematography, soundscape, all of it are untouchably top of their class? That when Mary reads the letter at the end I WEEP because it’s one of the best pieces of acting I’ve ever heard? That if I ever meet Troy Baker it’s ON SIGHT? These things are all true. We all know it. Everybody knows this. It’s Silent Hill 2.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s August 2019, I’m twenty-five and I’ve just managed to graduate college in time to move to a new city with my partner as she enters her third year of medical school. That’s the year they kick you out of the classroom and you start going to the hospitals to do your real hands-on training month to month. I’m job hunting unsuccessfully and we’re living exclusively off her loans, when what seems at first like a pulled lower back muscle becomes a fruitless early morning ER trip (five hours, no results, not seen by a doctor) becomes an inability to get out of bed becomes a forced leave of absence. Without a diagnosis she can’t get disability accommodations. While on a leave of absence we can’t have her loans, and in fact we have to pay them back. We’re getting desperate, thousands of dollars in debt, and I take the first soul sucking job I can find. It takes almost a full year of visits to increasingly specialized physicians but eventually my partner is diagnosed with non radiographic axial spondyloarthritis, an extremely rare condition that culminates in the fusion of the spinal column. We can treat the pain, sort of, but it’s only a matter of time until it’s likely to evolve into a more serious condition, she’ll never have the strength or stamina she had before, and the treatment options are expensive and difficult. Her diagnosis doesn’t even officially exist as a recognized condition that people can have until September 2020.

Suddenly I am a caretaker and everything is different now. Obviously our mood is stressed from the financial dangers, but she’s in pain, terrible pain, constantly for months. She can’t sleep, she can’t eat. There’s nothing I can do. It’s exhausting to live like that. She’s depressed. On good days we try to walk outside but good days are few and far between, and grow fewer over time, and her body makes her pay for the walks. She’s on drugs, a lot of them. Do they help? It’s unclear. They don’t make her feel BETTER. Nobody knows what’s wrong with her. Her school thinks she’s faking, they’re trying to concoct ways to get her kicked out. She wants to die. It breaks my heart. She’s everything to me, all that there is. She has literally saved my life. And I can’t help her. But it’s exhausting for me too. I don’t want to admit this, not even privately, to myself. It is hard to be the person who is leaned on, especially when the person you love can’t give anything back. I’m tired. I’m not angry, and I don’t think I’m resentful. But I’m tired. I feel shame for thinking about it, for acknowledging it. I know it’s silly to feel the shame but it’s there. I do find a job eventually, thankfully, but it’s still a long time before we get a diagnosis, much less an effective treatment. Even after things settle somewhat, it’s a hard year. And there are hard times to come.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ever since I first played it as a teen, Silent Hill 2 is a game that has haunted me through life, like a memory. It struck a deep chord with me when I was too young for that to be fair, too young to identify why I could relate to these people and their ghosts. I used to think this was a special relationship that I had with the game, the way you kind of want to think you have these when you’re younger, but the older I get the more I recognize this as part of growing up. Silent Hill 2 doesn’t resonate with me because I’ve encountered situations in life that closely mirror that of the protagonist. I mean, Angela’s story resonates deeply with me despite little overlap in the specifics of our family traumas. Silent Hill 2 touches me – and most of us – so deeply, because it has such a keen understanding of what it feels like to be Going Through It. It is a game that knows what it is to grieve, to despair, to soak in the fog, and also, maybe, to feel a catharsis, if you’re lucky, and you do the work.

I’ve been Angela, parts of her. I’ve been Laura too. I’ve had more James in me than I would prefer. I suspect all of us have these people, these feelings in us, to some degree or another. We collect them as we get older. That’s just part of it. Silent Hill 2 isn’t a happy game, but it’s one that Gets It, and lets us explore those spaces in a safe and cathartic way. It does this about as well as any piece of media I’ve encountered, on top of being so excellent at all the cinematic and video game stuff. But that’s really what makes it what it is. The empathy, and the honesty. I think it’s beautiful.

I was 22 when I had my first psychotic episode. I had dropped everything and moved to Austin with a girlfriend who was not a good fit for me, pursuing my dream of (somehow) becoming a professional actor. None of this was going well; the relationship and the jobs I was working were all dead ends that I wasn't really acknowledging or dealing with.

Eventually all the stress and self-deceit came to a head in a giant fight, and I started thinking things that were decidedly false. I came to believe that I was the center of a conspiracy of surveillance, Truman Show style, that was being run by my friends. Every detail that I noticed confirmed this: I saw a car make a weird U-turn which to me was proof positive that it was following me. A dump truck passed the window with a flashing yellow light; this was clearly someone trying to signal to me that they were in on the conspiracy. A cat sitting on the hood of a car must have been some kind of sophisticated spy camera.

I never experienced hallucinations, I was never violent and I didn't cackle maniacally like every single clueless, no-effort depiction of mental illness in Hollywood and elsewhere. The only thing that was missing was my capacity to critically examine my own ideas.

You know how when you're thinking super hard about something for a long time, and you finally figure it out, and you get that big rush of endorphins like "ahhhhh I finally got it." It's a great feeling, but you have to work to get there right? You have to come up with and reject a lot of ideas before you find the one that fits. Well, I was having that "ahhhh" feeling with every fleeting notion. You don't realize how many thoughts you reject as nonsense until you lose the ability to do so.

You might see a squirrel run toward you and think "Wouldn't it be cool if that was some kind of little robot?" then immediately reject that idea without a second thought. That rejection is what was broken in me; even the most momentary flight of fancy became the unassailable truth. I saw the squirrel and it was self-evident that it was being remotely-controlled as a way to keep tabs on me. Not a single thought in my mind that any of this stuff was wrong.

Public mental health facilities in Texas at the turn of millennium were about as you'd expect. I was there involuntarily and kept trying to escape, so I spent a lot of the first few days restrained (more than 20 years later I still get a panicky feeling in my chest when I think about being strapped to that bed). I was shot up with Haldol that left me a drooling, twitching mess. At no point did I receive anything resembling therapy. After a few weeks the doctor assigned to my case finally came back from vacation and I seemed fine so they basically shrugged and let me go.

"Depression with psychotic features" they called it that first time. Eventually, after experiencing more episodes and being institutionalized and re-diagnosed a few more times, they settled on the diagnosis of Bipolar I disorder and I've been stable on lithium for over a decade now. I was lucky and got basically the happiest possible outcome. I don't think that's the case for most people dealing with mental health issues, especially psychosis.

Mental health is like sexuality, in that we as a society are obsessed with it but only seem to engage with it in the most unhealthy ways. In our entertainment media, references to insanity are constant. Calling someone's sanity into question is an easy and common insult. After every mass shooting, the airwaves are crammed with politicians scapegoating the mentally ill. We're finally to the point where (in some circles) it's considered unacceptable to use "gay" or "retarded" as insults, but nobody bats an eye if you call someone "crazy" or "psycho".

But for all of that, it's basically unheard of for someone in power to say anything meaningful about mental health. When Hollywood approaches the topic, the results are universally rancid. Games tend to fall into two camps: crazy-person-as-horror-villain studio hack jobs, or autobiographical indies that actually bring some experience to the picture.

And that's why Hellblade stands out so much to me. It's not an indie; it has the full weight of a storied and talented (albeit small) studio behind it. But they've done the work to actually try to depict psychosis in a realistic way, that brings the player into the experience as an exercise in empathy, not just a cheap aesthetic choice.

It was a marvel to me how the puzzles in the game are built around seeing patterns that aren't really there, exactly like I did during my psychotic episodes. The scene where all the trees have eyes, but they're really just tricks of the light, was so incredibly true to my experience. I never saw things that weren't there; I saw things that were there but misinterpreted them in critical ways, just like Senua.

And Senua? Possibly my favorite protagonist of any game. Melina Jeurgens gives it so much of herself, and her character design is such a breath of fresh air in an industry full of gross fan service. She looks like a real person! She's still pretty, but doesn't look like a RealDoll that someone dressed up in cosplay gear.

I could only play this game in short sessions because it's so damn intense. The story hits hard, and Senua's agonizing deaths were challenging. Mechanically, the game is really quite light. Only a couple gameplay verbs are made available as the story progresses very linearly. Hellblade aims to challenge the player on a sensory, emotional and intellectual level more than a gameplay one. For me, it was deeply effective and affecting.

With the sequel on the horizon it's exciting to imagine what Ninja Theory has in store for us next. It really feels like the conversation around mental health is starting to turn; the crazies are finally out telling their stories, taboos and misinformation be damned. I love how indie developers have stepped up and started raising the level of discourse around mental health and I really hope that more and bigger studios follow suit. Fear of retaliation or judgment can make mental illness a really isolating experience. It really does feel good to feel seen, and playing a game like Hellblade is really great reminder that I'm not alone.

People keep getting mad because their Twitter feeds are filled with cubes but I 100% think that's an infinitely better state for Twitter to be in. There should be no text posts anymore, just cute art and cubes.

Rudest game of my life though. It makes me feel like a genius and also like I know literally zero words.

EDIT: what the fuck the guy who made Wordle can't be named Wardle this isn't allowed

An update: the New York Times bought it and everyone I know immediately stopped playing it. Very happy that Wardle got paid for something that really lit up the internet in a sweet, fun way for a while, but eat shit NYT.

Solid version of 'Tetris' on 3DS, while the loss of online features might hurt it today, they were a good inclusion for the time. The tuning of the game itself is pretty much perfect, presentation is solid, and it has a decent suite of modes. Marathon is rendered a bit redundant since clearing level 15 isn't the highest demand the game could ask of you, but it does unlock the standard endless mode one is after. Sprint and Ultra feel like the expected timed modes you find in any 'Tetris' game worth its salt and they're alright if a bit unimaginative. Battle and Battle Ultimate kinda suck though, the TetriBot is pathetic and doesn't hold up much of a fight at all, you're much better off doing some local play with friends for that sort of experience. The challenge modes are neat though and certainly worth ones time. Overall its fine, not as interesting as something like 'Puyo Puyo Tetris' or 'Tetris Effect' but I prefer the presentation quite a bit more over something like 'Tetris: Axis', but I suspect that title is more feature packed and therefor considered the ideal 3DS 'Tetris' release.