One of the most intelligent games of all time (Silent Hill 2 (PS2))

Member Name: shaneo632

Product:	Silent Hill 2 (PS2)
Date:	05/09/09 (7 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A searing probe into the id

Disadvantages: None

Silent Hill 2 may very well be the best horror game ever created - it is a breakthrough experience both as a visually stunning game, and also as an existential parable that explores family, loss, and love as offshoots. This is emotional, cerebral, extremely visceral gaming at its very best, and is the best of what is by its own merits a stunningly good series.

If you've played the first game, then you'll know the premise - a poor sap arrives at the small, desserted town of Silent Hill, where fog spreads throughout, and soon enough, they realise that it's essentially a schizophrenic town that changes between being normal and becoming "dark", where any manner of dangerous beasties come out to kill you, as well as some more disturbing enemies, such as zombified nurses. In this game, you play James Sutherland, a man who has recently lost his wife, and so he ventures to Silent Hill to get some R&R and clear his head, and also tend to a strange letter from his supposedly dead wife that told him to meet her there. Sadly, that reality is smashed near enough as soon as he arrives there, and the town becomes a manifestation of all of his fears, dreams, and desires, and has been interpretted as representing his id, the psychological construct that Freud purported to contain all of these unconscious feelings. The game also presents the best and most famous antagonist of the series - Pyramid Head, a hulking monster that seems to have a pyramid (that resembles a cheese grater) for a head, and he stalks you throughout the game with a HUGE sword.

This is a wonderfully crafted game that's visually amazing, thematically one of the most intelligent and least condescending games on the market, and inventive with a number of weird and wonderful bosses, as well as some superbly creepy atmospheric touches. A masterpiece of the survival horror genre.

Summary: Terrifying and cerebral