Silence has a Surprisingly Loud Echo: A Silent Hill 2 Retrospective

“Silence has a surprisingly Loud Echo” While you’re pondering the scientific fallacy of this opening allow me to talk about an old game series close to my jaded heart, Silent Hill. Specifically Silent Hill 2 (Number 3 to follow) as that PS2 classic is set to get a flashy new release along with the following sequel Silent Hill 3 as part of a clever ploy by games companies to squeeze every penny possible out of there old hits, the HD Collection. Currently up for pre-order for PS3 and Xbox 360, which means I haven’t played it yet, but I have played all the games in the original series (1,2,3,4) several times over with 2 and 3 battling it out for the top spot, so now is as good a time as I’m likely to get to indulge in nostalgia and look back at a couple of classics. I was going to do both at the same time but decided to split them up for several reasons. First they have little to do with each other in terms of plot, 2 is very much a character driven game. Second my first draft with both of them mashed up was very confusing. Third it was giving me too many nightmares.

“In my restless dreams, I see that town, Silent Hill”

Now  since the Silent Hill series is insanely popular (at least until after 4 was made and they outsourced the other games) in Survival Horror circles only being beaten in sales and pop culture saturation by Resident Evil I’m aware that most who’ll read this even if they haven’t played the games will be familiar with at least some of the plot and infamous bits, so I’ll try and avoid recapping the plot except when elaborating a point. Besides Konami Sony and Microsoft must thing there’s a viable market out there for the game beyond those who bought it first time around otherwise they’d just put out another run of PS2 discs.

So Silent Hill 2 starts of with protagonist James Sunderland reading a letter from his estranged wife Mary, telling him she’s in Silent Hill waiting for him. This naturally puzzles are hero as his wife is estranged due to being dead, and presumably not buried in Silent Hill. So with nothing better to do and a mystery to solve he sets off to America’s foggiest New England(1) tourist town to find out what’s going on.  Its not too long before the towns desertion and blood-trails tip James off that not all is well, and soon the ghouls start showing up. The game is essentially a mystery tour of the Town, James is determined to find his wife, thinks he knows the special formerly romantic place she’s waiting for him at but since this is Silent Hill the most direct route is blocked leaving James to scurry around the towns back allies and deserted housing and public buildings following a trail of breadcrumbs only in this game the bread crumbs are messages scribbled on walls in human blood.

Unlike many horror franchises including both film and games Silent Hill didn’t get its survival horror stamp by being loaded with cheap jump scares (though a couple crop up in a few games there handled quite well regardless) it instead squeezes emotions out of a player primarily through use of atmosphere and psychology, you know the same two things every “good” horror film has according to positive reviews. The games use of atmosphere to amp up the skin crawling feeling you get when you play a good scary game is highly effective. Virtually everything in this game re-enforces the same theme, you are alone, the omnipresent fog limits your vision shrouding everything and alienating you (and cutting down the draw distance so the graphics don’t push the game too hard), your ability to find your way is limited to a map,a small torch and broken radio, the map reminds you that you’re in a town and yet still alone, the torch is too small to pierce the darkness and the radio an obvious source of communication and comfort to those who spend a lot of time alone in there shed doesn’t work and only crackles and screeches when a ghoul is near. Hell even the few times you meet up with another human remind you that James is alone. There dialogue is crafted in such a way that its clear they also see some weird stuff but from there remarks it doesn’t appear to be the same weird stuff that James sees.  Theres one character Maria who looks exactly like Mary James (ex?) wife Mary. This leads to the possibility that James might be imagining her and by extension the entire thing but that would be spoiling. And the sound effects convey a subtle sense of ….. er wrongness about the surroundings it even uses the odd silence to punctuate the loneliness.

The Psychological themes are the backbone of Silent Hills monster designs, rather then just thinking “hmmm….. what looks creepy, something with tentacles and red eyes” they went with “what sort of monster would James cook up in his own mind” and went from there. Its quite clear that James has some, well to be frank women issues. Most of the monster types you see are feminine, like the mannequin which despite its name having man in the title is a female torso with two pairs of legs (the ones were the arms should be are dummy legs) or the bubblehead nurses, these first appeared in this game (Silent Hill 1 contained normal Doctors and Nurses that were corrupted in some way) and wear outfits closer to the fetish costume shop variety rather then ward approved standard. And adding evidence to the Maria might be imaginary possibility, not only does she look like Mary but she is a much more sexualised version, she was a dancer at the local strip club. There are a few exceptions though, one of whom is not only the most famous aspect of this game but of the entire franchise. Pyramid Head, so called because he (and it definitely is a he) has a Pyramid on his Head, he’s also extremely muscular, carries around a huge “knife” that he has to drag around and uses to impale the feminine monsters (remind you of anything?) well if it doesn’t don’t worry later on he trades the Knife in for a spear just to make the subtext clear. In short both the game and James has issues, and there all the better for it.

The storyline compliments this nicely. The game is littered with gruesome rambling notes, mournful imagery and constant references to icy claw of death. Since this is a character piece the constant “go to X to get Y” which is what the game is at heart, doesn’t really drag the focus is very much on the journey and how James deals with everything he comes across. Where as in Resident Evil (to pluck a random example) it was just about getting the key card to the locked door where the next cut scene and or boss fight is triggered.

Now onto the bits of rough stuck to this diamond. The voice acting is well interesting and not in the good way. Expect wooden readings and strange stressing of syllables for a glaring example when other characters refer to James by name they sometimes stretch the “Jay” part making it “Jaaaaames” but this is an original Japanese game localised into English so the bar is pretty low in terms of quality, this is the same process that gave us the classic “All your base are belong to us” after all. Hell Resident Evil (to pluck an specific example) had terrible dialogue and readings and those games were English(2) from the beginning. So in comparison it isn’t too bad, and in some places it actually adds to the creepy otherworldly nature of the setting, but judging that tone of the selling points for the HD collection is a brand new voice cast that this wasn’t intentional, and is just a product of either lack of resources or incompetence. And the controls are quite sluggish, there not frustratingly so but it is noticeable, but given that James and every protagonist from the original four games don’t have any combat experience. James is a Clerk and in number 3 you play a teenage girl. So if you’re in the forgiving mood the flaws can weirdly add to the experience. Though these will probably be fixed for the new release anyway.

In conclusion I recommend this game to practically every human being (over the age of 18 or equivalent in your native homeland) alive. And hopefully I can say the same when the HD collection comes out (though obviously someone else will have to review that) and if you haven’t already played it and can’t wait for High Definition then it is still possible to get a copy, cheaply too, it just costs your soul! Only joking.

1: Northwestern tip of the USA, includes Maine and Massachusetts.

2: Apparently the team working on the first Resident Evil or Biohazard to give it the original name, were fans of the English language, and you’ll notice I said fans of and not fluent in.