In my Restless Dreams...

Needless to say, Silent Hill 2 is a classic in every sense of the word. Defining what horror meant to a generation and inspiring hundreds if not thousands of ancestors, both Indie and Triple A. But up until mid October, I'd only ever heard of Silent Hill 2's cultural capital and experienced it second hand (as a Pyramid Head Main in Dead by Daylight of all things). I decided it was high time to dust off my PlayStation 2 and plop in the most infamous horror game of all time. I was blown away. 

A lot of games from that time period are excellent in their own right and still hold up to this day, but Silent Hill 2 is a different beast entirely, it has aged perfectly. Countless hours of ink has been spilled over the atmosphere, it's oppressive mist and inky darkness, almost unadaptable onto our modern hardware. The Narrative itself, the Lynchian twists, the exceptionally uncanny performances in the FMV's, and even dialogue regularly delivered in gameplay is unmatched in imparting the feeling of being trapped in a half remembered nightmare, unable to escape until you find what brought you here in the first place. I'll mostly try and stick to the more mechanical aspects of this, but the game, art, atmosphere and narrative are so seamlessly blended I'll certainly overlap. 

A good place to begin is with the 3 C's, Camera, Character and Controls. First and Foremost, the Camerawork in this game is effective and unsettling. Oftentimes the Camera will switch to odd angles indoors, or, even worse, stay close behind James, blocking the players view behind them and trapping them with James. The camera always seems to have a life of its own, which gives the whole game a voyeuristic quality, like you the player are watching the events unfurl from a third person perspective. Usually this would knock you out of immersion, but with Silent Hill and the medium of games as a whole it just unsettles you more, as you still identify with James, despite the external perspective. 

As for Controls, they are Tank Controls, classic for that era but it drives home the immense powerlessness of the situation. To kind of blend character and control a bit, it makes James feel powerless, frozen in fear, unable to really move or act in a manner befitting the traditional action hero of these roles. This sense of dread and powerless and not even being able to will you body to move how you want it to both serves to characterize James, enhance the terror of the atmosphere, and put the player on edge. 

Lastly the Character itself, James Sunderland is an unassuming, almost weak seeming character. In comparison to the environment and monsters he's certainly no match. Even his attacking animations are milquetoast at best, feebly beating monsters to death with a wooden board or holding his weapons exactly how he would have seen it done on TV. while I think at the end of the game, He does seem become more competent (a side effect of your mastery of the systems), it's never in doubt that James is human, and fallibly so. 

Continuing further in the game, the design of the enemies really highlights that simple AI can be the best sometimes. Each enemy is absolutely terrifying no matter where you encounter them, be it running past the straightjackets on an open road or facing down your sixth nurse within the walls of the hospital. Yet this terror comes mainly from the design and placement of the enemies, as well as the top notch sound design, the goal of most enemies is to walk towards you and hit you with their one or two moves till you die. It's a brilliant moment of understated AI that understands that complex behaviors would only serve to clutter the terror and effectiveness of the enemies. 

This, somewhat, falls short in only a few places, most notably the scripted encounters with Pyramid Head. A monolith of punishment and psychological torment, Pyramid head is horrifying when encountered in base gameplay, be that stalking the semi subaquatic halls of the Labyrinth or Standing stock still behind a chain link fence, only bathed in the dim light of your flashlight. Just knowing he's nearby or even possibly present is enough to drive the tension to 11. But both encounters with Pyramid head are almost jokes. Both run on a timer, a Deus Ex Machina to escape, and that approach of simplistic AI just doesn't gel well with the threat. 

Pyramid Head, similar to his other counterparts, tamely walks towards James and swings his Greatknife or Spear in his general direction. While I will say the first encounter with Pyramid head is much better done (down to him being able to instantly kill you and the tightness of navigating the room) in both fights once you get the Rhythm down you can pretty easily avoid the attacks, it's just a matter of mastering the unique controls to do so. I think this flaw really shines through in the second encounter however. Here a pair of Pyramid Heads hunt down James with spears. The room is a square arena, and similar to the first encounter, they can't be harmed in the slightest. I was able to get into a groove of walking the metal grates of the square room and was unable to be hit by either entity. For such a narratively impactful moment of James theoretically choosing that he's tormented himself enough and that he no longer needs these executioners, James and the player have literally zero agency in this fight, simply walking around a room in circles until the problem solves itself.

On the other side of this game, however are the Puzzles. I enjoyed quite a majority of them. Navigating the dreamlike world was surreal and seeing how the puzzles fit into the world, utilizing obsucre and disgusting materials to advance really drove home that nightmare like quality. In dreams the next logical step is often absolutely out of reality, but Silent Hill 2 does a good enough job at leading you down those pathways that the solutions still seem surreal but understandable, like disparate elements of a dream coalescing into a way forward.

Overall the Mechanics of Silent Hill suit it incredibly. I played it on normal and while I don't think this is exactly what it was going for, I would have loved a more scarce ammo pool or hardier enemies. I recently continued my journey into Silent Hill 3 and that does an excellent job of making the enemies hardy and horrifying, while providing you with just enough ammo to scrape by. In Silent Hill 2, I never felt like I needed to conserve ammo, I did out of habit but ending the game with 90 handgun bullets, over 40 shotgun shells and around 24 rifle shots felt like I really didn't need to be beating everything to death with a pipe, or that if I ever was really in danger, I could always blast my way out. I think the same applies for health items, I could easily be at full HP whenever I wanted. 

The most effective scarcity of resources, however, was Save points. Often relegated to one or two an area, Save squares were the best source of tension. A knowledge that if I did somehow die, if something hit me hard enough to kill me or I did run out of ammo I would lose those hours of progress and have to wade through that section of nightmare all over again. 

Overall the game was spectacular, the tension and atmosphere carry the game so far, not to mention the immaculate sound design. Mechanically the game does it's best work with what the player will be interacting the most (The 3 Cs). The game understand it's strengths and weaknesses well, knowing when to simplify and when to go all out, with only a couple of missteps along the way. Overall I think this game held up immaculately over the years. I'd be curious to see how the remake updates the game, especially since so much of the terror and charm of the game comes from the limitations of the hardware. The old adage of limitation fostering creativity rings true, the unique approaches to problem solving contribute heavily to the overall feeling of the game, I wonder if the seemingly unlimited power of current gen hardware will constrain the remake enough to spark that ingenuity or if the edges and cracks that make the game so fascinating will be polished off in favor of more modern design sensibilities.