Silent Hill 2

Feeling guilty after such a long hiatus of not posting, I sat my butt down last night and cranked through Silent Hill 2. I heard that the second installment to the Silent Hill series was suppose to be the best and a must for any horror game fan. I’ve got to say, after plowing through this I’m a little unsure how to rate my experience. On one hand, the game does a great job at enveloping you in this dark, mystifying world; on the other, it adheres to one of the most asinine plots I’ve ever come across (top ranked is still Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty - an ending that continues to hurt my head today). Let me just get through my praise of the game before I explain its complete and utter downfalls.

For this being an early release on the PS2, Silent Hill 2 does breakdown a few walls in terms of establishing such a captivating ambiance. No matter where you are, it’s always dark and foggy - and at times claustrophobic. Maybe it’s just because the games of previous consoles just couldn’t provide the graphics and sound necessary for these attributes, but SH2 truly established the main archetype in a scary video game.

... and honestly, that was really my only enjoyment out of the game.

Just about everything else (controls, riddles, story) made no sense and didn’t work. Lets start with the controls. They’re clunky and confusing at best causing your character to stumble around into walls like a moron. If you ever play this game, it’s essential you change your control type to 2D-mode rather than the default, 3D-mode. These titles don’t really stand as good descriptions of what each control mode offers. All you need to know is that 2D is much more user friendly. And while your perusing the options menu, you might as well check the auto-run feature - why walk when zombie-demon-monsters are nipping at your heels? Combine these issues with a camera that’s constricting, always seeming to want to look in the opposite direction of your enemies, and you’ve got a frustrating platform here.

The game's main focus, aside from trying to survive demon attacks, is to solve seemingly ridiculous riddles in order to progress further in the story. A typical ploy in any game, and fun... when done right. What makes it right? When it makes fucking sense. Most parts of game just involve you finding keys for certain locked doors. Sometimes, though, you'll have to collect and assemble the strangest set of items. A wax doll, bent needle, and a human hair (one that was precious enough to be locked away in a treasure chest?) are meant to be combined to pick out something from a shower drain. No sense. I'm just glad I had a walkthrough for part of this.

Now as for the story, it starts off well then goes south from there. After receiving a letter from your dead wife, you - Jams Sunderland - return to your old make-out spot in Silent Hill in hopes of finding your beloved deceased wife, Mary. When roaming through the town, which essentially resembles ground-zero at Hiroshima, you bump into four other characters which help carry along the plot - in a sense.

The first is Angela who’s a woman you meet in a cemetery looking for her mother. She’s like you - a foreigner to the town - but seems to pretty much stay out of your hair as she struggles through her own problems. In the end you find out she murdered her father who molested her as a child, then ascends a burning staircase to kill herself. It doesn’t have anything to do with your story. I guess the game was just showing how this place forces everyone to face their demons.

The next character is Eddie - another poor bastard facing down his demons. He’s fat. He’s scared. He’s a moron. And he eventually goes crazy - blabbering about murdering a dog or something - which leads you into a gun fight with him. You eventually kill him, thank God.

At one point, you come across a little girl in the game named Laura who seems to be good friends with Mary. She keeps alluding to the fact that your wife might still be alive, which, of course, causing you to chase her. The weirdest problem with this character is that she’s completely oblivious to world around her. It’s like she doesn't even recognize that there are monsters lurking around every corner... let alone the mystery of how she’s never hurt even when running around unguarded.

The final character in Maria. I’m a little confused at how to describe her. She’s suppose to be the spitting image of Mary, which causes a lot of confusion for both you and James. What’s more is that she dies in at least three different occasions. By the final sequence, I think they made her out to be the devil or something. I don’t know. Maybe she’s the town’s method of forcing James to face his past? - his dark past turns out that he killed his wife after she was suffering from some terminal illness.

After looking online for some clarification on what the story was all about I found out that there were a total of 5 different endings. The main one, LEAVE (the one I earned), involves James having one last heartfelt talk with Mary who forgives him for killing her. James ends up walking out of Silent Hill with Laura by his side. It’s a really boring ending. I checked out the rest of the endings online. IN WATER has James driving his car into the lake killing himself, and REBIRTH has James taking Mary’s dead body in a boat out onto the lake.

The last two endings are “joke” endings - apparently a running gag planted in every Silent Hill game. I’m not even going to explain these endings. I’ll just end this blog allowing you to watch them for yourself: DOG and UFO.

Why couldn't these be the main endings?