A PSYCHOANALYST'S DREAM
Also for: Windows
The town of Silent Hill, where your deepest emotional scars manifest around
you, is one of the original horror locations of the Playstation ecosystem. Every visitor experiences the place in their own unique way, resulting in monsters tailor-made to inflict the most possible trauma. Silent Hill 2 is the best story this place has yet generated, a
psychoanalyst's dream, where every bit of imagery, and every puzzle theme, is a clue to
the enigma that is the protagonist's ailing mind.
Although his appearance suggests otherwise, James Sunderland is
a disturbed human being, judging by the creatures he conjures. Demons in straitjackets, nurses in revealing outfits, mannequins
with an extra pair of legs where their torso should be - these are the waking
nightmares that haunt him. When combined with the dour state of the town
itself, it doesn't paint a pretty picture.
Drawn there by the contents of a letter from his wife, who died from a disease three years before, James is full of
questions and doubts throughout the game. She couldn't really be alive, could
she? He investigates the old places they visited on a previous vacation,
jogging through run-down streets and searching buildings for any trace of her.
This time, the city looks like it's been abandoned in a hurry. Cars are left
everywhere, most buildings are boarded up and scrap litter the streets. No-one
has tended to this town in a while. A thick fog dampens everything, making it
hard to navigate the labyrinthine road network. Many paths end in large, impassable
scaffolding and some are cut short by bottomless chasms. The town appears
open, but you soon realize you're being led down a linear path. Silent Hill might be a living, malignant entity, and that's one of the scariest insights.
Other people are visiting as well, equally hounded by their past. You meet
them repeatedly; Eddie, Angela, Maria and Laura, all differently affected - or
seemingly unaffected - by the town. As you talk to them, the dialogue often
seems detached, which might be an effect of alternate realities. Their version
of Silent Hill looks and behaves different from yours. Maria is of special
interest, an enchantress with an uncanny resemblence to James' wife. She seems
to be the only source of color in the game.
This is a remake of the 2002 game of the same name. It's very respectful of
the original story, all the while putting its own spin on events. It never sidesteps the original entirely, only extends it. For instance, numerous
buildings that were boarded up in the original are now open for exploration, allowing you to stock up on ammunition, health and
weapons. This faithful approach is a relief, especially since the original game has one of the most
uncompromisingly evil storylines in gaming. Even as its traditional
survival-horror gameplay has grown stale, the story affirms its position among
my favorite games of all time.
In this reimagining, Bloober Team gives it the
Resident Evil 2-remake treatment, updating it to a third-person camera
with over-the-shoulder aim of your gun. The experience feels less
bewildering than the original from a navigational standpoint, and the
combat - albeit not great - is significantly improved. Unfortunately, it's
also too prevalent for my tastes. A lack of enemy variety soon makes the
combat a bit repetitive, and the jumpscare of a mannequin lying in ambush
gets aggravating.
Burdened by realism, James moves and aims like an everyman, which heightens
the tension in tight situations. You can conserve ammo through headshots or by
crippling them momentarily, followed up by a few melee attacks. By smashing
windows of stores and cars you can rob a place for supplies. No-one is there to object. And ever so
often, you'll find a new, more powerful firearm. James turns his head to look
as he gets close to anything interactable, a subtle way of helping you miss as little as possible.
Enemies spawn at every possible location; they lurk in the darkness of the
interiors, they patrol the streets, and later on they even climb the walls.
Your radio emits white noise as they draw near, which is a superb way of
raising tension while it also serves as a gameplay function. It is the icing
on the cake that is sound design. The ambience constantly torments you with abstract,
metallic humming. Smashing an enemy with your pipe is done with a satisfying
squish. The resulting atmosphere alternates between depression and oppression,
between eerie silence and noise, and the fine voice performances
channel resignation and desperation.
And the enemy design remains intact from the original; the twisted sexiness of
the nurses and the leg mannequins, the toxicity of the straitjacket patiens.
Pyramid head is one of the classic antagonists. A force of pure violence
against female figures, he's also dead set on punishing James for unclear
reasons. Concealed behind his huge, red, pyramid-shaped helmet, he's the most
disturbing enemy to look at. Another late-stage boss fight, involving the side
character Angela, claims the prize as the most disturbing enemy to think about.
Following a trail of leads gets you though a series of increasingly corrupt
locales, like an apartment complex, a hospital, a prison and beyond. In
between enemy encounters, you read up on the town and your personal history
through weird notes. Strange puzzles - often involving looking for notes and
out-of-place objects - and lockboxes also give vague hints of the reasons
behind James' anxiety. These puzzles are of the kind that are confounding at
first, but gets obvious as you keep exploring and find certain items.
At set points, the wet blanket of fog gives way to the dread of darkness, as
you enter the otherworld. These transitions are almost unnoticeable. You suddenly realize you're stuck inside a pure nightmare, as the enemies get more
numerous and tougher. Visibility is reduced to the mere cone of your
flashlight. Inspired by Jacob's Ladder (the 1990 horror-thriller
directed by Adrian Lyne), these segments have a stygian quality to
them, of rusty steel fences intertwined with fleshy substances and dream logics.
Alternating between the real town and the otherworld, Silent Hill 2 settles at
a slow, tormentuous pace. It's hard to keep playing for long sessions, as it
takes a toll on your mental health. If depression has a face in gaming, it's
Silent Hill 2. It feels a bit meandering at times, particularly a maze-like
section closer to the end, where it also goes overboard with loud audio
design. Some puzzles also caused me some grief, as I misunderstood the simple
premise of what they were about.
As a piece of art and a psychological horror story, I prefer the original
PS2-game. It's better paced, with significantly less (albeit worse) combat.
And the weird acting is even more detached, making the dialogue almost
surreal, which improves the otherworldy aspects of the game. The confusion of
the fixed camera angles, always making it hard to nagivgate, steeps that game
in a feeling of constant dread.
But as a video game, the Silent Hill 2 remake is a clear improvement. The
combat is smoother and the levels progress more intuitively. Excellent cinematography and disturbing visual design captures the alienation of the place. It's a tale of
depression set inside a town that seemingly wants to push you over the edge. James has the aura of a defeated man from the outset, and he
wears his green jacket like a war veteran. His fight is behind him, and he's
ready to face the consequences. I'm thrilled a new audience will get to lead him down this road.
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