Rich\'s SILENT HILL 2 PAL review.

Completed Silent Hill 2 so I thought i\'d do a review.

Its a weird sort of game. One reason for writing this review is because its one of those games that you want to chat about with fellow gamers after completing it.

You play a guy called James Sunderland who goes to the town of Silent Hill after recieving a letter signed by "Mary" the same name as his late wife who died 3 years previously. The letter says that she is waiting in Silent Hill, a town which the couple share happy memories.

Now anyone who has played Silent Hill 1 will know that this town isn\'t a nice town and that strange things happen in this town. Soon James is battling monsters and solving puzzles like any other survival horror.

So what makes this worth owning? Well in my opinion the original was one of the most sickly, chilling, scariest things I have ever seen, which includes both games and films, and for the most part the sequal keeps hold of this title. Silent Hill isn\'t like your Dino Crisies, Resident Evil and Parasite Eve type survival horrors, its much more pyscological, disturbing images, complex story segments, intreging characters and some of the most weird things you have seen litter this game. It makes it stand out as one of the more original titles on the PS2 because apart from Silent Hill no other game has tired to play with the players mind as much. An example of this is when a air raid siren goes off and all of a sudden the surrounding area changes, where once before you might have been in a abandoned hospital which seems to be about a decade old, now your in a abandoned hospital which is centuries old with old torture equitment, blood strains, wire fencing for walls, it is really quite chillin.

Konami have done a good job with the story. Some people have critised a lot of Silent Hill\'s complex story saying its too hard to understand. This is true but they have made the game so you draw your own conclusions from the events. However once you do complete the game you will find one of the story analysis documents found on such sites as gamefaq\'s very interesting to read. It just goes to show how Konami have got great game developers. Like a good thriller once you have completed the game and gone over the plot you will notice many little and big events in the game which now make sense. It will make playing the game a second time through much more rewarding.

This game has character. I\'ve already said how its very original in design and the graphics really help this stand out. Through all the distrubing images and locations the whole game has this like gritty old style horror movie appearence about it. The fog in the town is so thick its hard to see a few meters ahead of you. The darkness in the buildings help create errie shadows when your flash light passes over objects. Whether this darkness and fogging is due to PS2 capabilities (which Konami say it isn\'t) or whether it is there deleberatly, it works either way. In short the graphics are good. Konami have also done some very nice cut scenes, I just wish there was more of them because they are very good.

The sound in Silent Hill 2 is also very good. It uses a special technology to make it sound more 3d. In my opinion I didn\'t really notice this but the sound effects and music help add to the atmosphere.

One bad thing about Silent Hill 2 is that whenever I got to a new area I explored it in the same way. Checking which doors were locked, going in the unlocked ones to find items, progressing on with the game. It made the game seem a little linear but not as much as any other game of this genre.

Silent Hill 2 like most adventures on the PS2 can be completed fairly quickly. However unlike most PS2 adventures I felt it ended at a good place (without being too drawn out). I completed it in about 3 days (8 hours in game time). Reply wise theres other endings to unlock and a extras DVD. The other endings in my opinion are worth getting (I haven\'t myself unlocked them) as im interested in the story of Silent Hill 2 and I unfortunatly got the most depressing ending.

In the wake of the PAL gaming community finally getting good games and MGS 2 and FFX being released state side Silent Hill 2 has been a bit of a sleeper hit of the year (2001) which in my opinion is a shame. It can be completed fairly quickly and it is like the first game but the whole concept of Silent Hill is still very original and fresh, its the only survival horror of its kind. Its one of those games that I feel deserve to be expirenced. Many gamers have played Final Fantasy 7, at least one Resident Evil, prehaps Shenmue etc, I feel Silent Hill 2 should also be in this list.

9 / 10.

Originally posted by RichG

Silent Hill 2 like most adventures on the PS2 can be completed fairly quickly. However unlike most PS2 adventures I felt it ended at a good place (without being too drawn out). I completed it in about 3 days (8 hours in game time). Reply wise theres other endings to unlock and a extras DVD. The other endings in my opinion are worth getting (I haven\'t myself unlocked them) as im interested in the story of Silent Hill 2 and I unfortunatly got the most depressing ending.

yeah i managed to finish it in 3 days and in around the same time as you, but i managed to get the "ok" ending (leaving one)

this has to be one best horror/fear games i have played in a long while. i mean the plot was one where i actually wanted to find out what was causing all the wackness to happen.

the feal of the game was far superior to Resident evil due to the fact that you fealt that anything could happen next, and also the most terrorfiying point to Sillent hill 2 was what you didn\'t see... it was the fact that this game let you use your imagination and play on it .rather than just having yet more zombies to deal with.

Also the nice touches like the radio and torch added to the tention.

even the screen distortion added to the atmos by giving the player a fealing of decay andprimal terror of the town and its occupents.

anyho

i await for a possible release of Silent hill 3

Bump, im not going to let this thread die just yet.



S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
.
.
.





I agree with what you said 00seven. I felt the original had a more anything can happen next type of feel which helped make the game scary. I feel the sequal has this but not so much. Prehaps it was because I soon didn\'t fear the first type of monster because they were easierly beaten with the stick and nail, whilst in the first game if you hung around with them teddy bear monsters you were most likely dead.

So with this monster easily defeated I was able to walk around the apartment area of the game without too much worry of being killed.

It was only later when the nurses came that I started to fear the monsters some more. With me using the stick and nail combination I had enough ammo to disperse of any nurse monsters.

The only real monster which scared me was the "door" monsters in the hotel section of the game. these seemed fairly powerful but two shotgun shots dispersed of them.

Im not saying the game wasn\'t scary but I don\'t think it had that overall terror that Silent Hill 1 does. I felt less scared entering a basement of a building where weird noises were coming from behind the door.

Also I felt that with the game being a lot less gruesome than the first it helped make the game less evil and scary.

The game was scary but compared to Silent Hill 1 it gets the reward for the scaries game.

Although I must admit jumping down them holes and getting lower and lower and lower in the game sent shivers down my spine. The labrynth level must have been miles underground. Although according to a story guide wrote by President Evil Konami state that this part of the game is actually not a physical area in Silent Hill.

i thought this game roocked....but i found the first a bit more twisted!! the enimeies in the first were sick, the ntsc version had sorta little babys with knifes ( demo came with pal mgs) but when it finallt came over here they were more like mole people!!!


i thought it was weird as it was nothing to do with the first, as in not with sameul, but himself punishing himself!!


i still though it rocked!!! 9/10 for sure

LOL ! I just can\'t stop playing this game over and over. I got
all endings, except for the "Dog" ending. I\'ve heard that one
is hilarious. But, seeing other ppls opinions I\'m glad (I think),
I haven\'t played SH 1 before playing 2. Seems like SH1 is a bit
\'over the top\'.
Here are some of my favourite things out of SH2 :
1. Pyramid Head : he\'s my new horror gaming icon. This guy is
    gruesome, yet very comical.
2. The "Trick or Treat" radio challenge show in the elevator. The
    voice of that showhost is just the best in horror I\'ve heard.
    \'....were chopped into pieces with an axe...\' The way he says
    it is awsome !
3. The twisted/deformed architecture : If you think Toluca prison
    and the Maze are under SH Historical Society, you\'re so wrong!
    From the Historical Soc. you walk down under the Toluca lake
    Toluca Prison which is on the little island in the middle of the
    lake. At the Catacomb, after the Maze, you walk back under the
    lake south to the boatlaunch which is now a slaughterhouse.
    There you fight Eddie. So you went under Toluca lake to its
    island and back to the south shore again.
BTW today, accidently the game loaded some \'wrong\' textures !
It happened at the "Jack\'s inn Motel" The concrete floor had some
\'flesh-like\' texture. So I reloaded and it was okay again. Weird :eek:
Also, check out Eddie\'s pizza at Pete\'s bowl-o-rama ; it\'s a floating
slice of pizza LOL.
Knotter8

Well according to Konami that underground labrythn (sp?) doesn\'t exist.

Each time James goes down one of those holes hes going to a completly new section and the demons create this section as he goes along until he finally gets to where Eddie is.

Although I think the prision does exist since it is mentioned in a lot of texts.

Just watched the making of DVD. Its ok nothing special. I would have sooner had the game when the Americans got it. It also shows that the American version of the game a lot faster (PAL / NTSC Conversion for you).

Knotter if I replay this game do you think its worth using a walkthrough to deleberatly find the items for the Rebirth Ending. I don\'t think (unless they are right in front of you) that ill be able to find them without spending ages on this game, something I don\'t really want to do right now as i\'ve just finished it first time through. I didn\'t use a walkthough when I originally played the game.

Also Knotter I think you should play Silent Hill 1 its one of the most weird games ever. The story is different to Silent Hill 2 except at the end where in the hotel lobby fighting both pyrimad heads you can see the mark of Samual which is a demon person from Silent Hill 1. This shows that he is the one responsible for the strange goings on but it doesn\'t really effect the actual player as anyone who hasn\'t played Silent Hill 1 will just think the town is freaky.

I used a walkthrough for some parts, 1st time I played SH2. Shouldn\'t have done it that way. I guess I was too friggin scared
to explore places for extended periods !:eek:
I think it\'s also a shame on the devs side if it\'s true this is one of
the many Pal games which is fairly more slow than it\'s US version.
Although imo SH2 pal just \'gets the job done\' when it comes to framerate.
\'Bout the dvd making of : Sato is hilarious ! he\'s so funny. The way
he explaines everything, makes me laugh everytime!:laughing:
But that one shot were you see him in front of a mirror doing the same thing ( no not such an act  ) as James in the intro ; he IS James !
These Japanese are soooo alternative !:nerd:
Knotter8

Have you discovered that hidden thing on the DVD. If you go to biographies and then press up Silent Hill 2 will be selected. Enter that and you get some wierd movie of what looks like people playing Silent Hill 2 for real. Funny stuff.

it isnt really worth buying the walk through, to get the re birth ending you only  gotta get 4 thing, there not that hard to find, but just go to some website with someone walk through, print off where they are all are, and voila, you got the ending, and aint had to spend so much money

Oh yeah don\'t worry thats what I was going to do. I\'ve never purchased a walkthrough in my life.

The ones on the net tend to do the job nicely if I use them. I never use walkthroughs when I first play the game because im not a cheater but afterwards I use walkthroughs for further information mainly about story.