HEAR YE!!! HEAR YE!! I must admit, I try my best to keep up with the newest releases. I know that more people will stop and listen to the ramblings of a madman atop a soapbox when he’s talking about the newest Resident Evil game. Alas, I frequently get the itch to go back and play older titles, especially when a sequel or remake has been announced. Like the one Blooper Team is working on for Silent Hill 2. In my restless dreams, I see that town: Silent Hill. I knew it was time to cross Silent Hill 2 off my gaming bucket list.
Our story begins with James Sunderland. He’s come to Silent Hill looking for his wife Mary. Unfortunately, Mary was sick and died three years ago, but James has recently received a letter from her saying she’s waiting for him in Silent Hill. With an air of apathy surrounding him, he ventures into Silent Hill with the hope of seeing Mary one last time. He finds the town almost abandoned with the exception of monsters mindlessly wandering the foggy streets and the ill-lit buildings. He is forced to go deeper into the ominous town to see if Mary is truly waiting for him.
Along the way, James meets a various cast of characters who don’t quite seem to see the same monsters as him. In the graveyard, he meets a woman named Angela who is looking for her mother in Silent Hill. James then bumps into Eddie, a guy who has a suspicious case of being near people who have been killed. Through various encounters with these characters, you slowly piece together their backstory and the haunting reasons they seem to be drawn to the dark town of Silent Hill. James eventually meets Laura, an eight-year-old girl who doesn’t seems to be afflicted by terrors similar to James, but is also looking for Mary as they spent time together in the hospital. Finally, James runs into Maria, a woman who oddly resembles Mary, and seems to take devilish delight in tricking James into thinking she is Mary. These characters all work together to weave a harrowing tale of sorrow, grief, and pain.
The story is definitely Silent Hill 2’s strength, but other aspects of the game have not aged well. The tank controls, for starters, feel like they’re from a bygone age. For those unaware, tank controls are a third-person control setup that you turn in place rather than strafe when you move left or right on the analogy stick; similar to a tank as the name suggests. I know some people prefer the nostalgic charm of tank controls, but I have no wistful recollection of this era of gaming. Even when I feel like I had a handle on the tank controls, I still found myself running into walls or backing up when I meant to move forward. I certainly appreciate being able to try the game with its original controls, but I won’t shed a tear when tank controls don’t make it into the remake.
Another aspect of Silent Hill 2 that has aged like milk in the sun is combat. I’ll admit the white noise that would play on my radio whenever an enemy was near, did make the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. The creature design with their grotesque features and eerie sound effects was also haunting. Unfortunately, the rather basic combat was a set reminder that I was playing a twenty-two-year-old video game. I am acutely aware that you don’t come to Silent Hill games to be a combat powerhouse with the likes of Leon Kennedy or Issac Clark. I am quite alright with James having a cumbersome melee swing, but as soon as I start swinging at a monster, the fear starts to fade away. In Dead Space, from the moment the nercomorph bursts through an air vent until my giant metal space boot stomps the life from it, I am completely unnerved. I never get that sense of dread with Silent Hill 2.
Instead, the combat only evokes one emotion in me: frustration. Not the same frustration one gets from trying to tackle a Dark Souls boss, but one from feeling like you don’t have the tools to tackle the problem ahead. I never felt Silent Hill 2 had a good answer for dealing with numerous enemies. Due to the tight spaces with various locations, I found myself frequently cornered between multiple enemies unable to do anything except take hits and chug health drinks like a frat boy chugging beers on Friday night. Now I must make it clear that I am not advocating turning James into a melee powerhouse like Kratos or Bayonetta, but I think expanding his move set would allow combat to still feel like Silent Hill’s brand of unease while having some options to be creative. Something like a block that can reduce incoming damage or a shove to help create space would allow enemies to be more aggressive without being oppressive. This is certainly an area where Blooper Team could make some improvements.
The other half of the gameplay is various puzzles that you will need to solve to unlock the way forward. Some range from solving the game’s riddles to searching for items scattered across the town. I did find most of the puzzles that do require a degree of thinking to be well designed like the clock puzzle in the apartment building. The key hunting aspect, on the other hand, is a common staple of the survival horror genre as it forces you to explore the dark dreary corners of the world. This works perfectly fine in Silent Hill 2, but I do agree with the criticism that it seems silly to use some wax, a lighter, and a horseshoe to craft a new handle for a trapdoor. However, I wouldn’t say any of this needs to be changed. The bizarre moon logic certainly fits with Silent Hill 2’s weird uneasy sense of otherworldliness that’s draped over the town like a thick fog.
This eerie atmosphere is what sets Silent Hill 2 apart from the other survival horrors. The crushing isolation coupled with the blinding fog perfectly captures that feeling of being lost in the woods. The droning rumbles within the town making every hair on your neck stand at attention. Coupled with the third-person camera that refuses to behave and you will get the feeling that you’re being stalked through the sleepy town. However, Silent Hill is patient and content to let you question every shadow you see dancing in the light. Even the enemies roaming the street in Silent Hill are frequently compared to animatronics with their jerky motion. Personally, I think the enemies are the townfolks of Silent Hills and James just hallucinates them as monsters as part of the town driving him mad. That’s the beauty of Silent Hill 2, it is subtle in a way you can draw your own conclusion on how the town is torturing James. If Resident Evil is made to be similar to a traditional slasher film, then Silent Hill 2 feels to be in line with David Lynch’s filmography.
What never ceases to amaze me is just how uncomfortable the hallways in Silent Hill 2 made me. Even with no enemy in sight, a sense of dread washes over me as I look down those narrow dark passages. Just gazing down those pitch-black halls feels like you’re about to be swallowed whole; as if the walls will start collapsing inward at any moment. I pray for mercy for anyone foolish enough to play Silent Hill 2 while suffering from claustrophobia. So often I felt I would become afflicted with the same phobia.
Silent Hill 2 isn’t just sporting an oppressive atmosphere; the game can scare you when it wants to. On numerous occasions, it scared me so bad I could feel my soul leave my body as I was paralyzed in fear. Most memorable moment was in the prison bathroom. One of the stalls to the bathroom was closed so naturally I walked up to interact with it. James knocked on the stall door and the game responded by saying nobody was there. I walked away to only have the sound of a demon thrashing against the walls of the stalls pierce through my headphones. I cannot recall a time I had jumped so high. Silent Hill 2’s uses of atmospheric unease and sparing use of jump scares, make it that more terrifying when it finally does decide to pull one out of its back pocket.
As I roll credits on Silent Hill 2, I couldn’t help but appreciate the calmer melancholy tone that most games shy away from. I can certainly see why most fans of Silent Hill 2 aren’t in love with the idea that Blooper Team is in charge of the remake. They certainly weren’t my first choice. I applaud their effort with their latest title The Medium, but I still feel like it is too much to ask this studio when they have struggled to grasp subtlety. My top choices would go to Kojima Productions or Remedy Entertainment. Both PT and Control weren’t afraid to let subtle moments just sit and marinate with players; a foundation that Silent Hill is built on. Blooper Team just haven’t made a title that shows they can handle that. I am certainly willing to give them a chance, but I have more faith in No Code, the team working on Silent Hill: Townfall, being able to capture the elements that made Silent Hill 2 great. Until then, in our restless dreams, we will see that town: Silent Hill.
