James Sunderland will not be going to outlive this.
By the tip of his journey via Silent Hill, every little thing can be chaos – his thoughts and even the world round him, a violent cacophony of anguish.
However to start with, it’s silent. The form of quiet that’s deafening, the place you hear your pulse in your ears, and each tiny sound turns into the worst factor you may think about.
Contains spoilers for Silent Hill 2
The opening hour of Silent Hill 2 is – with out query – the scariest factor I’ve ever performed. Which, taken at face worth, may appear a bit ridiculous. Your purpose is just to navigate James via a dilapidated residence constructing. At most, you’ll face 10 enemies all through the constructing’s three flooring, however they hardly pose a menace; they’re simply averted or killed. Gameplay primarily consists of strolling as much as every door within the constructing and attempting to enter; most of the time, they’re locked. There’s a boss battle on the finish, nevertheless it’s on a timer; you may simply run round till it ends. It’s tedious by design.
And but, it’s that rattling silence that wears on you as a participant. The vacuum of sound leaves sufficient room that you simply begin to think about listening to issues – or worse, the sport has random sound results that mess with you, similar to whispers in rooms which will or might not play, relying in your playthrough.
Inside this silence, I began to turn into my worst enemy. James’ footsteps appeared like anvils falling on the wood flooring. I imagined he was strolling too loudly. That somebody would hear him and are available after us – a mechanic that doesn’t truly exist within the sport. Within the moments Silent Hill 2 decides to interrupt the silence – whether or not through the sport’s rating or, heaven forbid, a monster’s footsteps or cry- I used to be so on edge that I’d usually pause the sport after which work to construct up the braveness to proceed.
Visually, the sport performs related methods. For one, the residence is capital-D Darkish. You’ve a flashlight, however past that slender cone of illumination, the remainder of the hallways would possibly as properly be the limitless abyss of outer house. Seeing the faint actions of a monster proper past the sunshine’s cone of imaginative and prescient, simply barely discernable, is sufficient to make my blood run chilly. That this isn’t taking place repeatedly – it’s a sport with a variety of downtime in comparison with, say, Resident Evil – makes every time there’s something at midnight all of the scarier.
After all, the residences are stuffed with very overt, graphic visible scares; for instance, Silent Hill mainstay Pyramid Head’s introduction is right here. The scene is so horrific that I can’t describe it in a family-friendly journal. However the normalcy of those residences is the scariest component of all the sport.
One of the simplest ways to consider the gameplay in Silent Hill 2 is to know that it’s, in actual fact, the narrative; the world is a visible illustration of James’ psychological well-being or lack thereof. By the ultimate third, the world has wholly fractured; the structure and stage format not make sense, because it mirrors James’ guilt.
However to start with, in these residences, James continues to be considerably oblivious to why he’s in Silent Hill. As such, the residence format is sensible. It appears like an residence constructing you lived in sooner or later. Architecturally, there are few surprises. However the lack of humanity makes the entire thing really feel unsuitable.
Let’s return to the silence. Think about strolling down a hallway in any residence constructing – what do you hear? Televisions, folks speaking, the sounds of transferring round past the doorways. You hear life. While you take away these sounds we’re accustomed to, when a spot synonymous with being full of individuals abruptly has its humanity taken away, it not is sensible to our brains. You don’t want 100 monsters to make this residence scary. All you want is the eerie void of humanity. It’s the identical motive it’s scary to be inside your work workplace alone – this house wasn’t constructed to be empty. And when Silent Hill 2 lastly decides to interrupt that silence with an precise scare, your nerves are already so frayed that it barely has to do something to interrupt you utterly.
It’s, actually, a masterclass of horror, working on a number of ranges to place you, the participant, on edge. Most significantly, it’s refined. Many horror video games – Lifeless Area and Resident Evil are prime examples – function on excessiveness. That method is just scary to some extent. I’ve at all times thought the scariest components of these video games had been the primary half-hour after which no second after. Quite the opposite, Silent Hill 2 makes you wallow in silence and dread in order that by the point it lastly breaks in its closing third, and the entire thing turns into a cacophonous nightmare, the sound is overwhelming. It by no means gave you a second to get used to its scares, so when it turns to extra, you’re not ready, accustomed, or jaded by it.
Silent Hill 2 is basically inaccessible now – no less than via authorized means. You may play the HD remaster, however technical points have brought about the fanbase to largely disregard it. Unique copies can value upwards of $150. However I genuinely can’t advocate it sufficient if you may get your arms on it. There’s actually nothing else prefer it. Bloober Workforce, developer of Layers of Worry, The Medium, and so forth, is creating a remake. There’s loads of motive to be cautious; the developer has a nasty historical past of dealing with delicate tales, and Silent Hill 2 is stuffed with troubling themes that require a cautious hand. However, every time that’s launched, hopefully, it can provide new gamers a glimpse of the unique’s horror.
Simply don’t lose your self within the silence.
This text initially appeared in Subject 360 of Sport Informer
