This review contains spoilers
Silent Hill 2 is the greatest piece of interactive media ever created, bar none.
Team Silent produces an atmosphere that cannot be replicated with world class graphical fidelity or all the processing power on all the world's computers running at once.
The game presents a deeply tragic, human story of a genuinely flawed human being who has done a terrible thing. The protagonist could be anyone. He is wholly relatable no matter the player's background. His personal hell is broad enough and plays with the core makings of the modern man in a way that allows for the universal application of his desires and fears.
This is all brilliantly displayed in the game and its interpretation is nearly completely left up to the player. Doing so is the real achievement of Silent Hill 2. No game, in my opinion, has come even remotely close to capturing such mature themes and doing it so well. The level of design, music, art design, atmosphere, tone, everything, all works harmoniously to see this man's nightmare come to life.
The game is quite dated visually and mechanically as it certainly looks and plays like a game released in 2001. I would argue that the dated graphical makeup serves the game's uneasy tone very well. The thick fog and low polygon count allow for the character design to flourish in ambiguity but none of what I just said is original. This is a nearly universal appreciation.
The gameplay however is more contested. It's pretty awful. The combatants are spongey and very easily avoided. This does draw some tension away which is quite interesting for me to say as for the entire seven-hour duration I was constantly terrified and unnerved.
The combat is quite bad I think. So what makes this worth being a video game? This is my favorite question as it challenges what we perceive to be mainstream quality today.
Silent Hill 2 is an introspective nightmare beyond comprehension and lucid logic. The puzzles are confusing and hardly make any sense but this is consistent as the world geometry is hardly consistent at all. Characters mood's change sometimes from each inflection of vowels within words, entire sections of the map will be blocked off at one point and free to explore the next with no explanation. An entire 90-minute section takes place in what should be about 30 yards of space underground at the absolute most. This all reinforces the malevolence of the town itself as an actor in the world. There is something beyond imagination at play and no it's not the stupid eldreich God shit from the other games, at least not in my mind. This is the punishing subconscious of a man bearing the most horrible guilt. It makes no sense as our nightmares rarely do. His grief and regret are overwhelming and the overwhelming nature of these emotions often leads to such internal confusion.
Further, the traversal in Silent Hill 2, not helped by the deeply irritating camera, is brilliant. The extension of certain corridors past their natural length draws you in and compresses you with such a thick tension that it steals your breath. This is an almost unexplainable feeling best captured by the moment but it can by no means be replicated by a movie, book, or whatever else.
This game is maddeningly good. It transcends the art form like no other.
Team Silent produces an atmosphere that cannot be replicated with world class graphical fidelity or all the processing power on all the world's computers running at once.
The game presents a deeply tragic, human story of a genuinely flawed human being who has done a terrible thing. The protagonist could be anyone. He is wholly relatable no matter the player's background. His personal hell is broad enough and plays with the core makings of the modern man in a way that allows for the universal application of his desires and fears.
This is all brilliantly displayed in the game and its interpretation is nearly completely left up to the player. Doing so is the real achievement of Silent Hill 2. No game, in my opinion, has come even remotely close to capturing such mature themes and doing it so well. The level of design, music, art design, atmosphere, tone, everything, all works harmoniously to see this man's nightmare come to life.
The game is quite dated visually and mechanically as it certainly looks and plays like a game released in 2001. I would argue that the dated graphical makeup serves the game's uneasy tone very well. The thick fog and low polygon count allow for the character design to flourish in ambiguity but none of what I just said is original. This is a nearly universal appreciation.
The gameplay however is more contested. It's pretty awful. The combatants are spongey and very easily avoided. This does draw some tension away which is quite interesting for me to say as for the entire seven-hour duration I was constantly terrified and unnerved.
The combat is quite bad I think. So what makes this worth being a video game? This is my favorite question as it challenges what we perceive to be mainstream quality today.
Silent Hill 2 is an introspective nightmare beyond comprehension and lucid logic. The puzzles are confusing and hardly make any sense but this is consistent as the world geometry is hardly consistent at all. Characters mood's change sometimes from each inflection of vowels within words, entire sections of the map will be blocked off at one point and free to explore the next with no explanation. An entire 90-minute section takes place in what should be about 30 yards of space underground at the absolute most. This all reinforces the malevolence of the town itself as an actor in the world. There is something beyond imagination at play and no it's not the stupid eldreich God shit from the other games, at least not in my mind. This is the punishing subconscious of a man bearing the most horrible guilt. It makes no sense as our nightmares rarely do. His grief and regret are overwhelming and the overwhelming nature of these emotions often leads to such internal confusion.
Further, the traversal in Silent Hill 2, not helped by the deeply irritating camera, is brilliant. The extension of certain corridors past their natural length draws you in and compresses you with such a thick tension that it steals your breath. This is an almost unexplainable feeling best captured by the moment but it can by no means be replicated by a movie, book, or whatever else.
This game is maddeningly good. It transcends the art form like no other.