So it is no surprise to anyone that my favorite horror game of all time Silent Hill 2. It’s been that way and it’ll continue to be that way for a long time. But with it’s awkward gameplay and acting, can I really put such a game in my top ten favorite games ever? The answer is yes, and I just did.
Silent Hill 2 follows James Sunderland, an awkward man who arrives to the town of Silent Hill after he receives a letter from his dead wife, Mary. He meets all sorts of other characters there, like Angela, Eddie, and Laura, and a mysterious woman named Maria, and has to get through the town of disturbing monsters alive by any means. Silent Hill 2 is a lot different from something like Resident Evil, at least in the later entries. It’s a lot more quiet, and the enemies don’t even resemble anything human. You have ones that are just walking mounds of skin and flesh, creatures that are a set of legs, and even the ones that do look human are so malformed and twitch violently that you still can’t help but feel disturbed. Everything about the monsters in this game feels so inhuman, and I love everything about that. The environments are also really interesting. The town of Silent Hill is always covered in this thick fog, so you can’t see the monsters. All you can rely on is your radio to warn you when a monster is coming. But doing so brings the monsters toward you as well, so you gotta decide whether to keep it on to known when monsters are coming, or keep it off and allow yourself to run passed them in the hopes of escaping. Other places in the town are as such, like the bowling alley where you can find Eddie eating pizza, the Heaven’s Night club where you just wander through this strip club with it’s own unique track, and the hospital, which slowly turns into a more screwed up version of Silent Hill every second you sit there. And the characters have a ton of depth to them to. Maria looking exactly like Mary and seeming to know a whole lot about James, without specifically saying why. Eddie is in denial for the horrible things he does and you see his deteriorating mental state throughout the game. And Angela… Oh man, poor Angela. Even James has a bunch of guilt from his past that he keeps buried. And the music… Ooooh the music of Silent Hill 2. I know I talked about music alot in this top 100, but I really gotta keep talking about it, especially Silent Hill 2, cause it is easily my favorite video game soundtrack of all time, up there with No More Heroes 2 and the #8 on this list. It’s so atmospheric, mixing in slow, soft piano music, with the industrial rock soundtrack, and the occasional mess of steel and metal that makes you go, “What the fuck am I listening to”. The music is something I listen to on a regular basis for how unique it is. I don’t think there is any soundtrack out there that can compare to the disturbing and depressing nature that is the world of Silent Hill. I could sit here and talk about it all day about the symbolism, the themes, and the beauty of Silent Hill 2, but I already did that in a Corner of Horror article, so if you want more details on it, go read that, please.
Silent Hill 2 is such a depressingly gripping game with a story and score that is so haunting, yet so real all at once. It’s a game that really gripped me with it’s storytelling, it’s beautiful soundtrack, and how it portrayed horror as this more psychological way. And of course, Konami had to go fuck it all up. Ugh, forget about Pyramid Head. Konami is the real terror of Silent Hill 2.
