Reviewed on: PlayStation 2
Total play time: 11 hr 54 min

Silent Hill 2 is a surreal and sickening experience, with some of the finest storytelling the gaming medium has to offer. There are layers upon layers of meaningful subtext and imagery, from subtle character design elements to reoccurring symbolism and narrative themes including guilt, domestic violence and sexual frustration.

There are things in this game that look like they simply should not exist. One of the greatest aspects of the enemy designs is that you can never quite tell what the hell you're looking at. Without going into much detail in order to avoid spoilers, I stumbled across a room with an enemy that had one of the most abstract yet disgusting designs I had ever seen. In addition to this, the walls in the room appeared to be made of skin, with mechanical pistons moving in and out of the walls. It was a truly strange sight that I still can't quite comprehend.

On top of this, the sound design adds another layer of terror to an already unsettling experience. You feel like you're being watched continuously, with strange growls and screams that pop up out of nowhere, voices that belong to nothing yet you feel like you're in danger regardless.

This is without a doubt one of the greatest pieces of horror fiction ever created, able to stand toe-to-toe with masterpieces such as Stephen King's 'The Shining' and Junji Ito's 'Uzumaki'.