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Ponty Praises: Silent Hill 2 (2001)

The Portly Politico47 Comments

As much as yours portly loves Halloween and horror movies, I’ve always been too easily spooked to hang with the real test of horror fandom:  survival horror video games.  They’re games I love to watch other people play, but I’m too chicken to dive deeply into them myself.  Not since the old Alone in the Dark games, which were scary even with (and, perhaps, because of) their blocky, polyhedral graphics, have I braved the hair-and-blood-pressure-raising of this fascinating genre (other than a bit of Alan Wake at my younger brother’s urging; a great game worth raising one’s hackles over).

So it is that I have—shamefully! disgracefully!—missed out on the exquisite Silent Hill franchise.  Fortunately, my braver brother-from-another-mother across the pond, good old Ponty, has delivered up the vicarious experience that yours portly craves—and fears.

One other note—this review is riddled with Amazon affiliate links.  If you make a purchase through any of these links, I receive a portion of the proceeds, at no additional cost to you.  I’m required by the Amazon apparatchiks to include that little disclaimer.

With that, here is Ponty’s review of the early 2000s classic Silent Hill 2:

Silent Hill 2 (2001)

Platforms:
Playstation 2
Xbox
Microsoft Windows

8 [15 by the time you read this review —TPP] days ago, the remake of Silent Hill 2 arrived by post. I’ve installed it but we haven’t played it yet; we’re saving it until Halloween. That said, I’m itching to try it. I’ve been excited about this ever since I found out they were releasing it for the PS5. The 2001 original is a classic, flat out one of the best titles I’ve ever played, and the idea of seeing it updated for new technology – improved graphics, the possibility of new surprises – has had me on tenterhooks. I’m very much hoping that it’s still kept the majority of what made the original so great. The story, the soundtrack, alternate endings. I don’t mind if the controls have altered – there are easier ways to negotiate than inverted – but as for the rest of it, I’m happy to revisit Silent Hill 2 as I remember it.

Konami, the game’s developer, has a big job on its hands. Capcom, who developed the remakes for their own survival horror classics, Resident Evil, did a great job for the first and second games and that’s what I’m looking for in this instance. Capcom’s remakes took everything that was brilliant about the originals and added tweaks; to the first Resident Evil, as well as improved graphics, they created new enemies. The Crimson Heads, zombies you’ve already put down, are reawakened, they grow claws, move a lot faster and are tricky to put back down. This reaction video pretty much echoes Tina’s when the zombie she’d put down earlier reanimated and came charging after her:

The game also introduced Lisa Trevor, who had originally appeared in letters, as a twisted character, one to certainly avoid.

Everything that was superb about the original was left in the remake with a few interesting and surprising additions. The same can be said about the remake for the second game. Updated graphics and the addition of new baddies, this time in the form of the plant zombies. With the right weapons, they’re not too difficult to take down but as with every puzzle, it’s about trial and error; when you first encounter them, you don’t automatically know what to use. They’re pretty unsettling but nowhere near as unnerving as Mr. X. In the original, he doesn’t pop up half as much as he does in the remake. Also, when you’re in different sections, in the first game, you can’t hear him thumping around in rooms above or around you. In the remake you can and it’s pretty chilling.

This is a guy you don’t want to put down until the end. Up to then, it’s a case of avoid and survive.

This is what I’m hoping Konami does with the Silent Hill 2 remake – take the best, give us a few surprises but maintain everything that made it what it was.

If you’re a gamer and haven’t played this, let me take you back to 2001 and the introduction of one of the most immersive games you’ll ever play. Certainly one of the most emotive titles.

Silent Hill 2 PS2 Box Art

James Sunderland receives a letter from his wife, Mary, drawing him back to a place they both found special – Silent Hill. The problem is, his wife is dead. Confused, grieving, James returns to the town and finds Maria, a woman who strongly resembles his late wife. While searching the town and avoiding its tortured, twisted, and brutal denizens, James must find answers and revisit his past.

As with all Silent Hill games, the themes are very much on the surface. Guilt, grief, love, anger. The town itself offers a mirror to the characters who enter it. You’re stuck until you figure out why you’re there, what you’re after, who you are, really. However, it’s a journey of discovery, for you and anyone else you meet along the way and the denizens of Silent Hill all tend to reflect what is beneath the surface, the pain your façade can’t reflect or doesn’t want to. The stories, the narrative, the journeys are a lot more substantial than what you first see and that’s what draws people towards these games. They’re more akin to books than interactive movies. Once you start, it’s hard to put down.

Considering when this game was made, the development is superb. Behind a moving story lies a dark, open world environment in which the ending will change depending on the actions you take during the game. I’m not talking solely about how you negotiate a puzzle or defeat an enemy, literally every decision you take from start to finish, step by step, will effect the ending of the game. Straying too far from other characters or plodding along by their side will alter the end. If you’re a hundred percenter, like me, you’ll want to know what happens in each scenario when the credits roll but achieving it is much harder than you think. I very much hope that this aspect is in the remake.

While the graphics are not top draw, they’re still effective. The mists that engulf you when you enter the town, the shadows that draw through and around them, make an open space feel eerily claustrophobic. Even during daylight hours, the fog provides a depth which always makes the coming darkness feel like seconds away. It’s a great tool to have when you’re negotiating the streets. Escaping the outdoors, the narrow hallways of the buildings don’t offer much respite and the characters you meet along the way add more to the mystery than revelation. And then there is the presence of an impenetrable denizen, a muscular brute wearing a large metal pyramid shaped helmet and wielding a knife that’s a little too big for slicing bread. He appears intermittently, either to halt your progress or to kill you but he is ruled by the supernatural laws of Silent Hill and when night turns to day, he’ll fall back into whatever unreality he came from. Still, when I first came across him, in a room no bigger than a pantry, it was rather unsettling:

For a decent size game, you don’t come across too many characters but that’s rather the point. Human psychology only allows for so much and since this is your story, James’s tale, there will only be so many inhabitants equipped to allow the narrative to evolve. Even so, Eddie and Laura, both runaways, offer different character arcs, while Angela, a young woman searching for her mother, is on a similar trajectory to James. Regardless, the connections are easy enough to spot when you dissect the themes.

The soundtrack for this game is one of its highlights. It’s very eclectic, using every tool, as it were, in the box but for the main, it’s a perfect mixture of delicate and pounding piano and rhythmic percussion. As far as providing a composition that works beautifully with every scene, every step of this journey, it’s as immaculate as you can get. We’ve had the soundtrack to it for years and it works effortlessly away from the game as it does in narration. You can picture sections of the game or you can follow your own journey with it. Akira Yamaoka really got the pulse of this story and provided a soundtrack that was built to last.

The only drawback, for me, was that it didn’t contain the mooch-around-town music. I loved the simplicity of those pounding pianos. It makes you realise that you’re never safe.

In shy of a fortnight, the curtains will be drawn. With hope, it’ll be a dark and dismal day and the only light will come from the screen. Dark, faded, muted. We’ll finally be entering Silent Hill, rediscovering its horrors under slightly different circumstances. Will it be as atmospheric as the original? Will it still tingle the spine? Let’s hope so.

47 thoughts on “Ponty Praises: Silent Hill 2 (2001)”

  1. I was planning to review the remake of Alone in the Dark. We bought it for 2 reasons; the first because David Harbour takes one of the playable characters and secondly, because Tina had played the original and enjoyed it. As it is, neither of us enjoyed the game. Too disjointed, a story that seemed to be going everywhere and nowhere. I may review it in the future but neither of us feel like playing it again at any time soon.

    One game I will review at some point though is the excellent Silent Hill: Downpour which, surprisingly, received mixed reviews on release. I love that game nearly as much as I love this one.

    Thanks for the intro and thanks for letting me post here. You’re a star. 🙂

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  2. Laughing out loud … I’m not ashamed to share with you what a light-weight I am: there is a simple game called Plants v Zombies. I used to like to play it throughout Halloween season. I never played it as a video game, rather, it would come up on the internet in a ‘game house’ type site. In case you’re not familiar, this is the link for the video game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XENla8M3910.
    One night, I woke out of a sound sleep because of a dream … in the dream, all I could see was trousered legs and black shoes walking toward me. Never played the game again. LOLOL!!!

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  3. I haven’t much of a clue what you are talking about PD, never having played a computer game ever, but it was interesting and very well written.

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  4. I used to Play Alone in the Dark. Very creepy and I enjoyed playing. But I could never complete the game.

    I have enjoyed watching someone play Silent Hill. Very atmospheric. But I hadn’t played it myself. I don’t think I have ever watched anyone play Silent Hill 2.

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