Silent Hill 2 Review – In My Restless Dreams, I see That Town

Let’s all be honest: Silent Hill 2 (the original) is one of, if not the best, horror game ever made. Indeed, it’s arguably one of the best games ever made, point blank. With an outstanding story, compelling enough characters, and strong visuals (for the time), but most of all, a horror game that dripped in the atmosphere and sucked you in better than even the most adept of prostitutes.

To say that a remake of this, one of the very few games that has genuinely put me on edge, interested me would be an understatement. Naturally, I was, even if I was worried about it being done by Konami and Bloober Team. Konami is Konami, and Bloober Team has been struggling to recreate Silent Hill in every game, not understanding that Walking Simulators aren’t great and that the story from the Character’s trauma only works with a good character.

Still, they didn’t write this story; they’re working with a series and game that started it. Could they get it wrong?

So, let’s make something clear: Bloober Team has made Silent Hill 2 their own. This isn’t a one-to-one remake of the original, though it remains the town we remember—or have read about in tourist guides telling us the best places to visit; that or if you’ve ever visited the Silent Hill Tourism Board, ready to make the trip of a lifetime. They have expanded everything while making the town and the game their own. The town is also larger, and you can now go into far more buildings, even ones not core to the story, with new areas added to the game, giving even more of a feel of exploration.

Exploration was always a key part of the first, despite its limited amount of “side” elements, simply due to the time it was released. Here, you can break into shops, enter several buildings once locked off, find more notes and lore about the town’s inhabitants, and sometimes extra resources. However, I won’t say it will always be to your benefit. I once went exploring and found three health potions and maybe six handgun bullets – I used two health potions and maybe all six of the bullets to get myself back out. Granted, the lovely notes about death, despair, and trying to escape the town were good reads.

You’ll also find more little puzzles, for lack of a better word. Very early on, you’ll find a mini-market; the front door is locked, but the side door has a keypad. There are spoilers here, but it’s nothing major – You can also find a corpse with a note on it. This person tried numbers 0000 to 4014 before having to run away to safety; flip the paper over, they went back and tried 4014 to 4439. Of course, that leaves 4440 to 9999 left, and you’re free to try them all; the game wants you to – you’ll find the person was very close.

I want to say that wasn’t in the original, but it has been a while since I last played it. I may be wrong. Still, things like this, an added apartment building, a music store, bars, and more, add to the feeling that Silent Hill 2 is a town that has seen better days. Much like Jaywick, the coast isn’t enough to make this a visitor’s hotspot, not when horrors brought from the worst minds roam the streets.

Now, I should clarify something before I continue. Silent Hill 2 (the original) is in my top ten “best games ever” list and at the top of my best horror games ever list. I also have a lot of nostalgia for it, and I’ve already started this review by saying what I was concerned about coming in. So let’s talk more about the town, and let’s talk about what else stood Silent Hill 2 apart, and being honest, stands this apart: Atmosphere.

The Silent Hill 2 HD Collection, released twelve years ago, failed due to its lack of atmosphere, which came from the draw-distance being pushed right back and killing the fog. It could have been the case here, but it isn’t. Another worry about modern games is that the polish almost entirely kills the jankiness that sets older horror games apart, too; I’m going to say something I didn’t think I would have said before playing this: Bloober Team have succeeded admirably.

The fog is impressive; it feels like you’re Thomas Jane, also in Maine. More appropriately, it feels like Silent Hill, and it’s very successful in continuously maintaining a foreboding atmosphere. You still have the radio to alert you when enemies are nearby, but even this isn’t the tool it once was – again, memory may be failing – but here you have little bugs that keep your radio going, helping to set you on edge further. You’re looking for something to attack you, but it’s a creeper.

Then you have the Otherworld. Adding to what is already an ominous world is just that bit extra. Here, everything is decaying, monsters are a bit more dangerous, and dear god, do I find myself on edge here. It’s no word of a lie when I say that moving from the Otherworld into regular old Silent Hill gave me genuine relief; I felt safer. I was safer, but I still wasn’t – but when a game that already has you thinking, “What’s next?” has you sigh of relief that the evil world has gone to sleep for a while, you know it’s doing something right.

I’ve mentioned that Silent Hill 2’s enemies get more challenging in the Otherworld, and that is the case, so let’s touch upon combat itself now – gameplay and movement in general, too. This takes the free-camera over-the-shoulder third-person that seems mandatory in horror games now, and I would honestly argue it’s for the better. While the fixed camera perspectives can work to add a sense of being watched (oddly, by you), a sort of detached feeling, the atmosphere is kept with the current camera, but you have more freedom to see and feel the world around you. It’s also highly responsive, and while it doesn’t have the jank in movement, you still don’t feel like a super soldier.

No, running is still a strong option when you find yourself in potential combat. Indeed, running is the option more often than not; the alternative will leave you wasting valuable resources you can hardly spare. Now, I will say that it is easier than the original thanks to the responsive controls, the handy dodge feature, and a few more resources thanks to the larger world. This is particularly true, as mentioned, in the Otherworld. Enemies not only seem to deal more damage and are more aggressive, but they also have extra attacks or at least extra effects, meaning how you tackle them has to change. It all makes combat a bit more tactical.

There’s also a feeling of weight to it. When swinging a melee weapon, from a board to a steel pipe, it feels like you’re swinging into a mass of flesh. As mentioned, you don’t feel like a super soldier. Enemies take a good number of swings to take down, and I may be wrong, but James feels like he slows down during multiple attacks, and I’ve found myself getting hit when I’ve overreached. Shooting, as well, will take a few bullets to take an enemy down, and your accuracy isn’t perfect, even within that reticle; plus, you’re going to have some human error when enemies are closing in.

However, I must admit two small things stand out as not great; sometimes, you will be grappled by an enemy and have to mash X to get away. Now, it’s far from an unusual mechanic, and you could argue that mashing a button in a horror game because you’re being that is somewhat fitting, but it just doesn’t feel like “Silent Hill”. The other, which is small, is that the game cheats – we’ve all seen it where what would be enemies are laid on the floor, seemingly dead. Some are, and others pop up. Now, I’ve played more than enough games, and I give some of them a swing to see if they’ll jump up in disgust that I would do such a thing rather than ambush me. They don’t jump up but come to life when I open a door. No, they were dead; the door is not a door of resurrection.

What this is to say is that the combat in Silent Hill 2 is genuinely great. This is particularly so when you come to the bosses, who offer a good level of challenge and are very much in keeping with the game’s theme. I will admit that my playthrough (I’ve only played through once so far, due to time constraints) has been on both normal combat and normal puzzle, so there’s a solid chance that on hard, you’ll find yourself pressed. On normal, I felt reasonably challenged, but never at a complete absence of resources due to using them all because a nurse gave me a painful priapism.

Let’s talk sexy now. Suppose you have ever had the misfortune of visiting the internet. In that case, you already know the outrage over the nurses not having double D’s like Debbie in Dallas and that Maria isn’t as sexualised. Those who care about the creator’s vision will also know that the current designs of a more appropriately chested nurse monster and a more subtle Maria are faithful to Masahiro Ito’s original ideas. I’m going to say right now, aesthetically – not just in the sense of the fog mentioned above – Silent Hill 2 is fantastic.

James, Maria, Eddie, Pyramid Head, the Mannequin. Everything looks fantastic. Of course, modern technology helps, but it’s more than that: the designs work in the world we’re presented with, and the game isn’t afraid to give you that little tease of what is to come or even what once was. A few easter eggs or bits of foreshadowing made me smile. The environment, the buildings you enter, and everything else feel like a town that was lived in and has gone to hell.

It all loops us back to the start, where I can do nothing but praise the atmosphere, which is helped by the immersion this brings. Even something as simple as when walking down the street, you can see some ammo or a health potion through a car window; smash that car window, and you can reach in to get the goodies. Other features include animations like James pulling out the map and a pen to mark a point of interest as you encounter it. They aren’t huge features, but all the small things make it believable.

Even something as small as blood appearing on James’ jacket when he’s damaged really helps. Plus, it circles back around to the combat and the exploration to find more resources, such as healing items. Having a red haze, akin to shooters, to show your damage is standard, but it can be removed. For immersion, I would.

Add an excellent soundtrack, which accentuates every part of the game, and you have something special. Which, I must admit, is what I think this remake of Silent Hill 2 is. Much like the Resident Evil remakes, this has brought a legend of the Survival Horror genre into the modern age. Most importantly, it’s done it while managing not to sacrifice what made the original great.

Silent Hill 2 will take roughly double the length of time to complete than the original, though there is an achievement to complete the game in less than ten hours. That’s your speedrun objective. My one completed playthrough took over twenty hours because I am an explorer, and I backtracked a little because now and then, the next step isn’t clear. In addition, and this is all I’m allowed to tell you, under punishment of exile to Silent Hill, additional endings have been added to the game, giving even more replay value.

So, shall I succinctly finish this? Silent Hill 2 is scary, atmospheric, polished, and fun (or as fun as a game like this can be). It is great, the best game by the Bloober Team, and proof that, somewhere in the organisation, someone in Konami knows what needs to be done, and they must be nurtured.

PC version reviewed. Copy provided by the publisher.

Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill 2 is the best game Bloober Team has made. A faithful reimagining of the original, bringing it to the modern day without losing what made the original the best horror game ever, using modern game mechanics to improve where they could, and expanding on what was already an engrossing world. Without any shadow of a doubt, a resounding success, one that will likely come as a surprise to many.

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