Psychotic nightmare
Pros:
psychologically disturbing, Animation great sound, visuals,enviroments, use weapon while walking
Cons:
tons of running around, items hard to see, puzzle slow progress
The Bottom Line:
Nothing can compare to the images that are witnessed in this haunting darkness of terror
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
Eerie darkness surrounds you as the fog gets thicker and starts to swirl around almost as if its taken on a life of its own. You walk around searching around a deserved town that once was full of life by the lake by now filled with emptiness where darkness and rumble now stand. You feel the effects of the setting as you walk across and hear the sounds of glass shards and lumber and pieces of rough rusted metal beneath your feet.
Your senses become alert and your breath becomes quickened as your see graphic displays of blood, rust and decay. You hear muffled moan noises coming from all directions in the distance as well as sounds of metal and wood bang together. You feel sometime scrape the wall as feel something moist and warm by your leg. You are built up with fear and anxiety as you slowly turn around.. and enter another world of survival horror in the return of Silent Hill 2.
Silent hill 2 doesnt provide anything ground breaking in this genre but it creates more of mental disturbing atmosphere with sound as well and story thats completely unnerving and elaborate that Resident Evil has never been able to accomplish.
STORY
The game takes place in the town of silent hill and you play the solo role of James Sunderland. James is lonely and almost suicidal depressed because his wife has been dead for three years from a horrible disease. We find James on the outskirts of Silent Hill because he has received a letter that is suppose to be from his dead wife Mary telling him to meet her in Silent Hill. He doesnt understand how can happen but in his state he believes this could be possible and she could be alive. James sets forth to find his wife and doesnt care what danger lies ahead.
GAME PLAY 9.5
There are four main levels of difficulty in the game, beginner,easy,normal and hard. When you select your difficult you can also adjust how hard the puzzles are independently of the game. There is no drastic overhaul in the playing of this type of survival horror, it just uses the standard action and interesting yet sometimes annoying puzzles to solve. The puzzles seem to make much more sense that in other games and more realistic for the character of James to work with.
Exploring is the biggest part in the beginning of the game and Konami wastes no time in create its fear factor in the beginning. James is completely unarmed in the beginning and must find all of his weapons of choice. It sets up the players in the beginning by the uncomfortable settings and atmosphere. James does receive a radio and when its on, it creates a static to warn you when monsters are near by
DISPLAY AND MENUS: 8.5
Theres not much of a graphic element of the display but what there is would be contained in the main menu which is very simply constructed and easy to use. Your items that you pick up in your Journey are scrolled horizontal in the center of the screen. You can equip and examine the items and a description of each is found below the item. Instead of a heart monitor of life bar, silent hill uses a picture within a picture in the corner of your location.
It starts in a standard green color and then flashes yellow and red as you take damage. One of the biggest improvements over the other games of the genre is the huge detailed map that is provided. Not only does it provide direction, it shows you by cut scenes and markers on the map where to go. It also shows you where you have been to and marks which areas are blocked off when you run into them. You can also zoom in and out to provide even more detail.
CONTROLS 9.0
Anyone familiar with the other games of this genre will have no problems adjusting to the simple easy to use movement of James in the game. You have your run,walk and map and flashlight buttons on the pad. You have a strafe button with L button, as well as a quick turn. The great thing about the using the weapon is that you can move into a combat stance with your weapon as you walk.
You can also fire some of the weapons as you are walking which helps out in tight quarters which you havent been able to do in other games. You also have the ability to adjust the view of the camera depending upon which way you want to go. You wont be surprised by being attacked by enemies you cant see because of the camera.
GRAPHICS 9.5
I never thought the graphics in this kind of genre could be improved upon but I and everyone else is in for a treat when you put this game in your system. The textures,lighting as well as the animation are just completely amazing to watch.
The are numerous variety of textures that add so much realism to the game to generates its own fear factor that adds to the game. There all kinds of rusted metal, bump map for the scratches on walls, gritty stains of blood dirt and grime. I have never seen such rich textures in a game before.
Even more important than the textures is the lighting to so them. The lighting brings out the whole dark disturbing mood of the images that are displayed. The lighting of the flashlight reflects off all the metallic items perfectly as it washes that whole room. The animation of the characters flows very naturally and smoothly between all the characters but the lip-syncing is off and doesnt match the voice overs during the extreme close ups.
Konami does a great job at mixing between the CG scenes with the actual game scenes. The CG cuts scenes are breathtaking to watch. The layers of fog add to the eerie disturbing feeling because they swirl and move on a life of there own.
SOUND: 10.0
The major difference between Resident evil and Silent Hill 2 is that Konami realizes that sound sets this disturbing eerie mood just as much, if not more than what you see on screen. There are all kinds of unsettling and creepy noises that you hear in all directions that you cant see.
It adds to the fear especially if you have surround system thats hooked up to hear all of these sounds. All of these sounds are intensified by the thick fog that rolls in as you walking into town. You hear all kind of moans,scratches, metallic sounds to throw you off. The voice talent used for the characters sounded very believable and matched well to the situations the character were in.
PROBLEMS
While any game has its flaws, the issues I have with Silent Hill is relativity small in comparison to the what works. I had mentioned before you have to explore a lot in the game but this takes it almost to the extreme. The amount of running required for this is a little too ridlcious, when I got to town I was just tired of looking around the buildings through all of the fog.
The puzzles for the most part were challenge but they do slow down your progress quite a bit, especially when you have to open a chest with four locks. The health and ammo items that you pick up are almost too difficult to see or pick up at times, they blend almost too well with all the textures.
CONCLUSION
This is definitely more scarier with more gore and is downright more mentally disturbing that any other survival horror game out there. I never thought the bar could be raise in this kind of genre but with the amazing environments, textures and lighting, the interesting storyline and outstanding visuals this game blows everything away.
This doesnt completely change what the genre is all about but really expands on what hasnt been done. This is psychological nightmare with endless proportions so turn on the playstation, turn off all the lights, strap on the headphones because this a festival of horror thats worth every penny.
OVERALL: 9.5
