LogFAQs > #941750071

#8. Silent Hill 2 (2001)
Developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo (Team Silent)

The original Silent Hill was one of the first big hits to match the cinematic possibilities of third-dimensional gaming with a truly mature narrative. Silent Hill 2 amplifies this experience. The story is better, the monsters scarier, the atmosphere denser. This is everything a survival horror game should aspire to be.

The biggest element which makes Silent Hill 2 stand above the other games in its franchise is how it conceptualizes the town. The dense fog and darker realms have always been intense, but this game adds a narrative aspect which casts a shadow over the entire experience. Silent Hill 2 presents the idea that the town is a reflection of any visitors inner psyche. Thus, every element of the experience can be analyzed as symbolic of James Sunderlands experience.

This means that the monsters are more than mere obstacles. Being two sets of feminine legs, the mannequins come off as obvious symbols of sexual frustration. But many other monsters are related to Jamess repressed memories, meaning their meanings are obscured through a lack of information. As with anything, fear of the unknown weighs heavily, made even worse by the expectation that nothing here is inexplicable. Visual design can only go so far, but knowing these come from within makes everything so much worse.

Pyramid Head has become an iconic villain not because he personally has depth but because he represents Jamess darkest parts. His abuse of the mannequins suggests something being very wrong before we find out why. In a game otherwise filled with feminine monstrosities, it is the masculine Pyramid Head who relentlessly pursues James throughout the town. In fact, his masculinity is so overdone that his obvious phallic symbol actually weighs him down - yet that hindrance never stops this symbol from being as terrifying as intended.

Video games rarely confront sexual themes. Additionally, many games which do largely take a juvenile approach. There will be sex jokes, there will be scantily clad women, and there might even be an embarrassing cutscene as a reward for romancing a party member. Buried within all the surface horror of Silent Hill 2 is one of the mediums greatest takes on human sexuality. In a game about people being eaten alive by their inner fears, the narrative never shies away from acknowledging this as an obvious source. Its rare for a video game to even have a meaningful opportunity to confront issues such as lust and sexual violence, and Silent Hill 2 dared to tackle these themes in an era where even the most narrative-rich contemporaries were still focused on supersoldiers and summoners. This game so easily gets under our skin because its horrors are both human and familiar.

Even without these themes, Silent Hill 2 is absolutely terrifying. The first encounter with Pyramid Head is one of my favorite moments in gaming. The scariest moment in a franchise like early Resident Evil is a zombie jumping through a mirror a literal jump scare. Here, the most intimidating sequence is Pyramid Head simply standing at the end of a hallway, cast in an eerie red light. Theres a grate between the two of you, giving only the slightest sense of protection. You must walk down this hall, toward the monster, to reach a room, and hes gone when you step back out. This establishes a lingering dread now you know what the monster looks like, but it felt so much better when you had a sense of where he stood. And, naturally, the game forces you to find your way to the other side of that grate. This is a work which understands that the expectation of a threat tends to be worse than the threat itself.

One of the worst feelings Silent Hill 2 gives is the sense that James is doing this all to himself. Other horror protagonists are typically trapped or at least pursuing a solid goal, but James made the trip to this town and keeps going even when things appear off. In a horror film, its easy to chide a character for making poor decisions. Having to make those poor decisions, on the other hand, can be a nauseating experience. The game keeps diving into deeper and darker places, and the dissonance between player and protagonist helps build the unease.

With ever more realistic graphics, video games have only grown better at providing scares. Yet this early PS2 game manages to be completely terrifying, even as someone who played it for the first time in the last few years. Theres an unease to this experience like few others, like you are doing something wrong by pursuing this course of action. Even as the Resident Evil characters dive deeper into secret labs, theres always the sense that theyre ultimately trying to get out - getting out is at the heart of nearly every horror story. Silent Hill 2 sticks with us because James Sunderland seems dead set on getting in, and were being dragged along for his self-destructive ride.

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