Shush! its a hill (Silent Hill 2 (PS2))

Member Name: shadowhawk

Product:	Silent Hill 2 (PS2)
Date:	09/07/04 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Creepy, Gets you thinking

Disadvantages: Not too much action

Silent Hill 2

I am a big Resident Evil fan I love playing the games but when they kind of wore themselves out I needed a new challenge this is when Silent Hill series appealed to me. I didn?t want to play the original, as it would have been slightly dated by now s I brought Silent Hill 2 of Amazon, as it seemed such an amazing bargain at £5.30

--== First thoughts ==--
It came in a special edition box that folds out and is included in the box is a ?making of? Compact Disk. The holder folds in 3, this then goes into a cover it is all very dark colours, but the great thing is that it fits into normal DVD holders unlike a lot of other special boxes
The game does take a while to get swinging unlike the Resident Evil series that swings you right into things Silent Hill 2 eases you more in bringing in the concept of the game more and more.

--== Plot ==--
Without giving a single thing away which is very hard as twists and turns are all over this film. You control James Sunderland who has been brought to this strange city by his dead wife in the hope to find her he finds himself getting deeper and deeper into the weird city.
In my mind this game could really be a film if people do not mind sitting around for this long, the story is so evolving it just goes from step to step changing what you think about the city time after time.

Compared to Resident Evil storyline miles better as there are so many characters with their own personality for you to interact with. Resident Evil is also extremely predictable where as Silent Hill 2 will keep you guessing right up to the end as you do not know what is going on, as with Resident Evil you know that they are trying to escape and that?s what you have to do to succeed.

--== Graphics ==--
These are re
ally good, up to date looking and very realistic there is no edge joining that show through to talk about everything looks like it is suppose to be. A sheer delight on the eyes, really everything from the surroundings to the enemies are really good, not just the cut scenes. As we all know when games advertise games they tend to just show the cut scenes from the game but the graphics are all near enough at that level.

They have done something very smart they have added a kind of grainy effect to the graphics. It is like watching through an old or damaged television this means that they can get away with a certain degree of wrongness.

--== Silent Hill ==--
The area itself of Silent Hill (the place) is massive everything from a church to a bar giving you a lot more to explore as a whole from the original. My mate was complaining, like he always does, that you can only enter building that are relevant to the game in this big city he argues that James shouldn?t always know where he has to go. But lets be realistic the game contains a lot of enemies and not many allies to give you clues to what you have to do so if you could explore everything they would have to shave of the game elsewhere to make up for extra space needed for such a vast geographic area. Like Zelda the latest ones that really took down the graphics to cope with map expansion, ruined the game for me felt like I was playing a kids game.

Resident Evil is very direct you go from one place to another sorting out what you have to do very minimal space this makes it obvious what you have to do to progress in the game and does not leave a lot up to the imagination.

--== Enemies ==--
The first Silent Hill had weird small things and flying things, well say bye, bye to the comfort of stupid looking bad guys. Silent Hill 2 packs a punch of more human like bad guys, first type looks
like a standing up man in a straight jacket covered in raw brown bloody flesh, second two pairs of legs that are joined together that scuttle around, third being the solo survivor from the original is the nurses. They are all really creepy they look human like but not overly to be comforting, actually they are all really quite disturbing to look at. It is not just the look they move in a very weird way they twist and turn like they are struggling with every move of their body. The main boss is a slow moving bloke with a large metal case like object on his head, he might move slow but like most bosses that move slow he packs one hell of a hit with his sword, you will not have to take him on to many times so do not overly worry.

Big difference between Resident Evil and Silent Hill here. Resident Evil is all about killing the enemies that?s all you really have to do the skill lays in saving good ammo for the harder enemies. Silent Hill the bad guys do not really pay much part a lot of them are easily avoided so you do not have to bother with fighting a lot of the time.

--== Menu and Maps ==--
The game interface is not the best thought in the world you could carry as many items as you want and the navigation through the menus is risky at best. The life bar system is so confusing there is a little picture in the top right of the screen and this tells you how healthy you are, the more red it goes the worse state you are in. It is really hard to know when you have to use health-regenerating items.

James owns a little map of certain places, you pick them up as you go along, but he also does doodles on them to show you open doors and locked doors, this is very useful as in big buildings navigation gets difficult because each corridor looks very similar.

I prefer Resident Evil here for you can only carry so many items adding to the realism also health ha
s stages set and healing items do so much healing so you know easily where you stand health wise.

--== Camera ==--
This is really the only part of the game that really matters that sometimes is such a let down. The camera sticks a lot of time in a position where you cannot actually even see the character that you are playing as. But they have from time to time allow you to put the camera in a kind of chase mood just following behind James, when they jam this off it can become so annoying especially trying to control the guy.

This is just the same for Resident Evil that being poor camera angles but the big different was Silent Hill trying to combat this as much as they could possible with the optional chase camera.

--== Atmosphere ==--
And we get down to it the thing that sets Silent Hill so far above the rest the feel the emotions that go through your head when playing the game. Silent Hill is so clever everything from the weird enemies to the continual uncertainty adds to the fear you feel in the game its one scary roller coaster.

For a starters the fog that appears when you are in the city means you can not see far into the distance what so ever so you never really know what is coming up and enemies just appear from the mist as if from no where.

Mind tricks, this game plays so many on you thinking you see one thing there one second and gone when you try to get an up close look of it, never sure what is going on or what will be where so you are continually expecting the worse to be happening.

You will be scared even if you do not like to admit it, all your senses will be on edge from start to finish with this game. It is not one for the easily scared among us as every part of the game builds upon the suspense of the event before.

--== Sound ==--
This is breath taking the way the have use sound in the simp
le ways. You have weird shrieking noises when you go near enemies it is almost like a warning, its not that when it is going off you are expecting something, anything to happen right at that moment it?s the type of noise it almost seems unworldly which really adds to the mystery the mind working over time.

They have done such an amazing mind trick here, when you are running after a certain time they put a second set of footsteps in the background you stop and have a look around and it is nothing, but it keeps being nothing and you start to wonder if your mind is starting to play tricks on itself or is there something following you.

--== Gameplay ==--
To progress in the game you have crypt clues, you can pick at the start the ease of these clues from 3 settings (easy, medium, hard) as well as the difficulty of the game. The clues are really good on medium because they are hard but gettable, you shouldn?t really do it on easy then build up because you will know everything to do already hence ruining the point of the clues.

Length wise the game is a good length for the price you are paying for it, but it is one of these games that is all about the story once you have completed it you will not want to start over and do it again because you will know every thing that is going to happen.

--== Verses Resident Evil ==--
Resident no doubt is the more popular choice here having sequel after sequel going across mass format, but I think Silent Hill has shown its strength and character by the fact that the 4th is soon being realised.

For out right violence and action then Resident Evil is probably the best option, but all around game Silent Hill passes in brains needed, story line, characters, and all around scariness. Silent Hill every time for me.

--== Character ==--
James Sunderland:
The main character of the gam
e, he looks good thank you to the graphics smooth contours as well as a smooth run and walk given to him by the graphics department he looks life like. His search for something that he is not sure he can find I am sure is something we can all relate to. Also the character they have given him is very believable especially the way in cut scenes he reacts to situations going on around him.

James when he sees something he likes from Ammo to Medicine he will look at it and become fixated upon it this is how you know that an item is near follow his line of sight, no shining items made to stick right out like Resident Evil.

--== Overall ==--
The part of the best survival horror series out there, it?s a big improvement on the first but probably not as good as the third but it is really cheap you can pick it up off Amazon for a tenner easily, a great bargain well worth it for one of the best games I have ever played. The whole game feel and atmosphere beats the hell out of Resident Evil Code Veronica X and earlier, well any Resident Evil on a Playstation format.

© David Clark
(DavidJamesClark@hotmail.com)

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