IbizaPocholo
NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
For Team Silent of Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, it made sense to follow-up on Silent Hill. It was a financial hit and received immense critical acclaim.
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Silent Hill 2 - 10 Reasons Why There's Nothing Like it
- Thread starter IbizaPocholo
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For Team Silent of Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, it made sense to follow-up on Silent Hill. It was a financial hit and received immense critical acclaim.
Maddux4164
Member
The absolute shameful thing is
There’s 0% ways in modern gaming to play it
I can buy Silent Hill 3&4 on GOG today.
I can buy that pathetic excuse of a remaster of 2&3 on 7th gen hardware
But there’s no way to play the OG and 2 on modern hardware. Correct? (Aside from mods and fan makes)
There’s 0% ways in modern gaming to play it
I can buy Silent Hill 3&4 on GOG today.
I can buy that pathetic excuse of a remaster of 2&3 on 7th gen hardware
But there’s no way to play the OG and 2 on modern hardware. Correct? (Aside from mods and fan makes)
The Fartist
Gold Member
Just for arguments sake, I think Hereditary surpassed The Exorcist. It was fucking bananas.
SCB3
Member
Wait, 3 is on GoG? I thought only 4 made it on there alongside MGS and MGS 2
On to SH2, I think that its a great game, especially for its time, but its not aged the best in terms of Story, it needed a bit more structure and reasoning behind it, but thats something to discuss in a longer format than I'm willing to give right now
GenericUser
Member
just replayed it 2 weeks ago (a casual run takes like 5 - 6 hours), still as good as I remember it. Just the best horror game by a wide margin.
MeteorVII
Member
I would agree as well. Hereditary was incredible.
I will say though, technically Midsommar was the better film (better written characters and narrative), but Hereditary was way scarier.
In terms of the absolute scariest film in modern times, I would still say it’s a tie between Ringu (original Japanese Ring) and The Babadook.
SilentUser
Member
My favorite horror game of all time, what a masterpiece. Hopefully one day there will be a new Silent Hill as good as 2 or even better.
DogofWar
Member
Definitely my favorite game ever.
I can't think of anything wrong about it. To the people who believe any AAA game nowadays has a good story. Play SH2!
In fact, this is probably the only game (or any form of media/culture) that I really love that don't want my kids to experience in the future. It is simply too disturbing and contains the absolute darkest aspects of the human mind. I was quite young when I played it the first time and when I replayed it for the 10th+ time as an adult I was even more horrified when the pieces finally came together for me.
And the soundtrack is some of my favorite music ever all genres. And my main interest is music, surpassing even video games, so that says a lot.
I can't think of anything wrong about it. To the people who believe any AAA game nowadays has a good story. Play SH2!
In fact, this is probably the only game (or any form of media/culture) that I really love that don't want my kids to experience in the future. It is simply too disturbing and contains the absolute darkest aspects of the human mind. I was quite young when I played it the first time and when I replayed it for the 10th+ time as an adult I was even more horrified when the pieces finally came together for me.
And the soundtrack is some of my favorite music ever all genres. And my main interest is music, surpassing even video games, so that says a lot.
mansoor1980
Gold Member
HeadsUp7Up
Member
When the son wakes up in his bedroom close to the end still creeps me out.
Vick
Member
Fuck that movie. I wasn't really that scared while watching it but it tormented me for weeks for some reason.
I'm not sure i'd put it over The Exorcist, but it's an insanely well crafted piece of work that could be analyzed for days.
Toni Collette was essentially my favourite actress even before this movie because of that one car scene in the Sixth Sense (wich i'm still physically unable to watch without crying) but after this one.. just wow.
Midsommar is a big disappointment though.
Naibel
Member
Nothing to add to what was already said above. One of gaming's crowing achievements, especially in terms of storytelling, with its incredible plot twist and the final moments of the game being some of the most powerful and emotional sequences ever put on disc.
The devs just knew their stuff : they read tons of books, saw tons of movies, listened to tons of music... They were, and still are, smart and cultured dudes, at the peak of their talent. I love SH3 a lot, it's a better-looking and scarier game, but it doesn't even come close of matching SH2's morbid beauty and depth. SH3 is horror perfected, SH2 is art.
I kinda want a studio like Bluepoint to remake this game, but, if the Demon's Souls remake is any indication, I start to get afraid something crucial will be lost or deeply altered in the process, be it its art direction, its plot, its oh-so-peculiar voice-cast, its soundtrack or something else. A polished remaster, like what the fans are doing with the Enhanced Edition, would be more fitting so that modern audiences can play it without any sacrifice made to Team Silent's artistic vision.
The devs just knew their stuff : they read tons of books, saw tons of movies, listened to tons of music... They were, and still are, smart and cultured dudes, at the peak of their talent. I love SH3 a lot, it's a better-looking and scarier game, but it doesn't even come close of matching SH2's morbid beauty and depth. SH3 is horror perfected, SH2 is art.
I kinda want a studio like Bluepoint to remake this game, but, if the Demon's Souls remake is any indication, I start to get afraid something crucial will be lost or deeply altered in the process, be it its art direction, its plot, its oh-so-peculiar voice-cast, its soundtrack or something else. A polished remaster, like what the fans are doing with the Enhanced Edition, would be more fitting so that modern audiences can play it without any sacrifice made to Team Silent's artistic vision.
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lunnuyu
Member
it's only 4 so far
and about the general topic, I do think too that SH2 was quite a unique game, though wouldn't go as far as saying it received "immense critical acclaim" when it was meet with lukewarm reception at first and failed to outsell the first game (one of the devs mentioned these on twitter some time ago iirc)
Torrent of Pork
Banned
Absolute masterpiece of the psychological style of horror that has yet to be topped. Dead Space 1 kept me stressed, and on the edge of my seat the entire game, but SH2 just had a sense of dread.
SCB3
Member
I see this a lot and I still don't understand, what is so scary about Silent Hill? Its creepy sure, sometimes offputting, and the lore of SH is supposed to be (your own worst nightmares) but I don't know, its just not that scary or I'm missing something.
I will agree that something like Dead Space and even Resident Evil, have that scare factor of the known unknown, a physical presence that chases you (be it Zombies, Aliens, Necromorphs for example) will always outdo psychological horror (I see Cthulu and those kind of stories come up a lot with this) that just don't do anything for me in that sense.
For me a masterpiece of Horror in games is Alien Isolation
Master of Disguise
Banned
A modern game that plays like SH2 would get absolutely hammered in the modern market. How do you take the ideas behind SH and reinvent them, or translate them? Shattered Memories is one answer. The Evil Within 2 is another. (And it owes a bit to Downpour.) The Medium is probably a third. And the PT demo was probably a fourth. Three out of four solve the "SH's combat is bad, though" problem by largely or completely removing it. Combat being a slog is the big elephant in the room that makes a lot of people with no familiarity with SH wonder what all the fuss was about.
I always thought it was weird how PT looks nothing like SH, plays nothing like SH, and was directed by a man with absolutely no grasp of subtlety or conveying subtext without immediately saying the subtext out loud in dialogue, possibly repeatedly -- and a lot of people thought it was a return to form. Silent Hill was back, baybee. This was a REAL Silent Hill game. PT wasn't actually Silent Hills, sure. (Silent Hills never got past the drinks at a bar stage of development.) But people acted like it was. Which I think perhaps points to SH and the fanbase having a bit of an identity crisis underneath the surface.
The criticisms of the Japanese fanbase (that it didn't feel like a Silent Hill game, the plot was completely inappropriate for Silent Hill, and it felt like a retcon-filled excuse to make sequels) aren't unknown outside Japan, but I think you'll probably find that a lot of non-Japanese SH fans had SH2 as their first SH game, and/or didn't approach it with firm preconceptions of what an SH game should be. A lot of SH2 fans seem to view the cult stuff as unnecessary. Purist SH1 fans viewed it as absolutely necessary, and hated SH2's whole "Silent Hill is a magical guilt trip theme park" vibe that carried over into most of the sequels.
I always thought it was weird how PT looks nothing like SH, plays nothing like SH, and was directed by a man with absolutely no grasp of subtlety or conveying subtext without immediately saying the subtext out loud in dialogue, possibly repeatedly -- and a lot of people thought it was a return to form. Silent Hill was back, baybee. This was a REAL Silent Hill game. PT wasn't actually Silent Hills, sure. (Silent Hills never got past the drinks at a bar stage of development.) But people acted like it was. Which I think perhaps points to SH and the fanbase having a bit of an identity crisis underneath the surface.
To be pedantic, Silent Hill 2 was a failure in Japan. There's a bit of a schism between Japanese and non-Japanese SH fans. Reactions were overwhelming negative, and sales were very poor, so Konami management tried to pivot Silent Hill 3 into a rail shooter in an attempt to save the series. I believe that game became the arcade game, and SH3 got made due to better reception outside Japan.
The criticisms of the Japanese fanbase (that it didn't feel like a Silent Hill game, the plot was completely inappropriate for Silent Hill, and it felt like a retcon-filled excuse to make sequels) aren't unknown outside Japan, but I think you'll probably find that a lot of non-Japanese SH fans had SH2 as their first SH game, and/or didn't approach it with firm preconceptions of what an SH game should be. A lot of SH2 fans seem to view the cult stuff as unnecessary. Purist SH1 fans viewed it as absolutely necessary, and hated SH2's whole "Silent Hill is a magical guilt trip theme park" vibe that carried over into most of the sequels.
Beer Baelly
Al Pachinko, Konami President
Finished it on 1X not too long ago, the remasters are perfectly playable.
Torrent of Pork
Banned
Perhaps scary is the wrong word, disturbing would probably be better in the way that '1408' and 'Jacob's Ladder' aren't horror movies, but they fucked with my head more than any horror movie I've ever seen.
Dive real deep into the lore of the Five Nights at Freddy's, and disregard the jump scares. It's a really sad and fucked up story.
SCB3
Member
Ah ok, then yes if SH is going for a more disturbing over scary vibe/setting them yea I agree its good at that, liike I said, I just don't find them scary
And I've watched MatPat on Five Night at Freddys, it went too far but I get what it was going for, kind of an unsolved crime kind of thing
Master of Disguise
Banned
Fans familiar with a game overestimate how much newcomers will notice what is wrong with them. Unless it's crashing or has showstopper bugs, most newcomers will assume it's meant to be that way. This is true of a lot of remasters. Fans are like, "Wow, this is... incredibly broken." And newcomers are like, "I didn't notice anything." Like how every version of Sonic Adventure that isn't the Dreamcast version is somewhere between horribly broken and a complete disaster, but those are the versions most people have played.
The devs behind the remaster were not happy with how it turned out, but Konami Japan management didn't care. They saw it as a cash grab, and this is why the team were forced to release long before it was ready, and weren't allowed to properly patch it. I believe MS/Sony were still charging for patches back then. But that's not really an excuse. The same thing happened to Downpour. The devs didn't want to release Downpour in the state they did, and only release one patch. And then cancel the PC version. But you can't argue with corporate.
SCB3
Member
I used to be one of those people, the remasters ARE perfectly playable, however, they are nowhere near the originals on some things, admittingly, SH3 isn't as noticable
Beer Baelly
Al Pachinko, Konami President
I did play SH2 on the OG Xbox and know whats wrong with the remasters but the fans exaggerate.
MeteorVII
Member
Yeah, no, sorry we are not gonna manufacture this bullshit narrative. Silent Hill 2 is ABSOLUTELY the scariest video game ever made. Being inside the dark recesses of someone’s mind and dealing with their self-inflicted pain and guilt is, by all definition; scary. It is a scary thing to experience.
It is not just simply “disturbing”. That’s a nonchalant word you’d use to describe mediocrity like the Hostel films or something. Silent Hill 2 is not that. It is fucking terrifying.
SCB3
Member
Calm down, I'm not manufacturerfing anything, what's scary to one person may not be to another, I just do not find Silent Hill scary, if you do, awesome, enjoy it
In fact I can also point to other series that's not scary to me - Fatal Frame, why you may ask? Well I do not believe in ghosts so my suspension of disbelief is not there as much as it may be towards something I do believe in - Aliens
MeteorVII
Member
Your argument is literally baseless, but ok.
I don’t think anyone here believes in haunted resort towns either...
InfiniteCombo
Banned
Hmmm. The praise for Silent Hill 2 in this thread is making me want to add it to my backlog. Have never played it, obviously. My first (and currently only) Silent Hill game was Silent Hill: Homecoming on PS3. I certainly liked the psychological aspect of it, but the gameplay was... OK.
Hopefully Silent Hill 2 plays better than Homecoming.
You have fantastic taste in horror. I agree with the bolded.
Hopefully Silent Hill 2 plays better than Homecoming.
You have fantastic taste in horror. I agree with the bolded.
mansoor1980
Gold Member
its actually a very depressing and morbid game.
SCB3
Member
How is it baseless? If I cannot suspend my disbelief for something, thats on the game 9/10 times, and Fatal Frame has never done that, it doesn't mean I don't enjoy them in fact more to the point I still believe SH2 is an amazing game, I never once said it was bad, just not scary.
It is a problem a lot of horror games have as well, some games are not just scary as even if I die, I can just come back, that jump scare, that horror that scariness? Well I now know its coming, my fears are no longer there, its why a game like Alien Isolation becomes less scary as you play, the first few hours are scarier until you realise exactly what the Aliens AI rules are
SCB3
Member
Its a great game, but don't expect to go in with all action, theres very little, a lot of the game is puzzles and riddles, which are good, some are genius (and some make 0 sense)
KOMANI
KOMANI
there's a PC version released for Windows in 02-03
SCB3
Member
Man there really needs to be a re-release and Ports of the SH collection and MGS Collection, theres just money being left there
Barry Burton
Member
In terms of gameplay, I have some issues with SH2 (and the SH series in general). But SH2's atmosphere and mood is still unrivaled nearly 20 years later. There's nothing else quite like it. Same when it comes to its approach to storytelling, nobody was doing anything like that back then and you don't really see a whole lot of it today either; certainly not from major publisher games.
DelireMan7
Member
The first is also playable on PS3 thanks to the Psone classic on PSN.
I really hope they bring the PSONE classics on the current generations (and expand the list of the games) at one point. But I think it will never happen
Chittagong
Gold Member
I think Silent Hill 2 is still today my favourite game of all time. The experience was just incredible, I am glad I was there to experience it with my wife for the first time.
And that nostalgic Yamaoka music was so good. Saw him perform it live in London.
And that nostalgic Yamaoka music was so good. Saw him perform it live in London.
SuperBabyMethod
Member
Replayed it over the summer. Still the best horror game ever and one of the best games ever made.
I thought Silent Hill 2 was a great-looking game when the trailers dropped back in the early days of the PS2 era. But when I borrowed it from a friend and finally got to play it (on PS2) a few years later, I just couldn't get into it. I disliked the controls couldn't see what was so special about the atmosphere.
I didn't find the few hours I played scary or unsettling. The biggest thing that put me off though were the controls. I couldn't get into Silent Hill on the PS1 for similar reasons.
I didn't find the few hours I played scary or unsettling. The biggest thing that put me off though were the controls. I couldn't get into Silent Hill on the PS1 for similar reasons.
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FunkMiller
Gold Member
Easily the greatest horror video game ever made.
The maturity of the concept, characterisations and themes makes everything from the same era look like it was made by children.
Even to this day, there are hardly any games that tackle the kinds of themes SH2 does.
Years ahead of its time.
And goes without saying:
#FUCKKONAMI
The maturity of the concept, characterisations and themes makes everything from the same era look like it was made by children.
Even to this day, there are hardly any games that tackle the kinds of themes SH2 does.
Years ahead of its time.
And goes without saying:
#FUCKKONAMI
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
I really. Really. Just... really, have to ask basically every single person in the world holding the bolded opinion: how old were you when you played SH2?
I delayed playing the game until 4 or 5 years ago, when I was in my early 30s, and... I saw that “incredible plot twist” coming from a couple miles away.
I knew nothing about the game’s plot, and still the content of that VHS turned out to be exactly what I had been expecting before James even crossed that lake.
And SH2 isn’t subtle with its sexual themes, either. Those “legs on legs” monsters give away way too much, too early.
To me, the final moments of the game were a long few minutes of nodding and saying “but of course” under my breath at every turn.
The game is solid (and its audio design is simply divine even today), but compared to the psychological rollercoaster that SH1 was for me in 1999, it was somewhat disappointing.
MeteorVII
Member
I was 20 when I first played it. The twist works well because there are enough smokescreens and red herrings established from SH1 that put you off from ever guessing it.
No one ever expected SH2 to be like a soft reboot of the series when it first came out, so when that twist comes and changes the entire dynamic of the town — it is pretty shocking.
Those “legs on legs” monsters are still pretty abstract. Their main distinction is that they’re mannequins; which helps hide the sexual undertones.
Frankly, as someone who played SH1 first as well, I don’t see anything special about it or any of the other SH games now (at least compared to SH2.)
The main cast were a bunch of cringey buffoons, the whole cult aspect is like the most cliche and laughable part of the series and the scares weren’t even that great (mostly due to the monsters not being as scary.)
When you turn a corner and see Pyramid Head in any of those instances in SH2, that is a “oh shit” moment. Can’t say the same about SH1.
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Master of Disguise
Banned
I wonder how many people playing SH2 in the early 2000s had seen Lost Highway. Because that's where most of SH2's underlying plot comes from. It's all mixed up with other films like Jacob's Ladder, but a man in denial, his dead wife, the idealized version of his dead wife, the VHS tapes -- it's all from Lost Highway. That line from LH sums up SH2.
"I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened."
This reddit post noted a lot of the similarities. This doesn't make SH2 bad or anything. But if SH2 were a film, its overt similarities to existing work would have dampened the "this is like nothing else" adulation at least a tiny bit.
I feel this issue has started rearing its head again because a few months ago you had people giving Bloober Team a hard time for being unoriginal with Layers of Fear and lifting scenes and motifs and stuff from other works without much context. But the problem is that Silent Hill did this pervasively. So much of Silent Hill 1-4 is the way it is because the devs saw a movie and liked the way something felt. There's a veneer of nostalgia and baby duck syndrome around certain game franchises, and a whole discussion around the impact that interactivity has, paired with videogames having different standards, and intent being attributed. A lot of SH2 fans are pretty determined that the stilted voice acting was an integral part of Silent Hill. The fact it strongly resembles Japanese -> English dialogue with those long pauses mid-sentence and erratic enunciation attempting to paper over the "This toast is... delightfully brittle." *an eternity passes* "Don't you think?" pacing is some top-tier "It's supposed to be bad." I say that as someone who defends less "slick" voice acting as lending a naturalistic quality.
begotten
Member
I like SH2 as much as the next guy, but if The Shining & The Exorcist are the two works of horror that you example as exceptions within the film genre, then you clearly don't know horror films.
MeteorVII
Member
How so, exactly?
indigo-cyclops
Member
What else is there to say? Definitely the pinnacle of horror in gaming. And that soundtrack.