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this is a cool game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

this is the first horror type game that i've played. i never played silent hill 1 or any of the resident evils. playing this game is kind of like being in a movie that you control. you move from place to place with movie scenes to watch every now and then. the graphics aren't necessarily photo realistic, but they still impress me because the town of silent hill is huge and everything has a lot of detail. i give the audio in this game a perfect 10. all the sound effects sound just how they should. there isn't much music, but when there is it sounds really good. as for control, the camera angles can bug you sometimes, but isn't a big deal. konami did a good job of making this a creepy game. you probably won't be scared, but when you enter some rooms you might wonder what is going to happen next. overall, this is a cool game with a thriller movie atmosphere.

Amazing!!!!!!!! the Scariest Game to date for the PS2

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

You wont believe but this game is like a Excelent Horror movie
The game looks like the CG cinemas!!!!!!!!!the story line is deep and you get scared every minute of play
The Sound is amazing........you will hear noises of the monsters and you cant see it
and the lonely city of Silent Hill looks like the hell
It has various levels of difficulty and the puzzles change every time you play......

This game is a must buy if you like real survivor horror games
YOU WONT BE DISSAPOINTED

Hello Nurse!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I gave the original Silent Hill 5 stars, and believe it to be the best horror game I've ever played. Though I finished that game over 4 years ago, there are still scenes that come to mind and give me chills. Silent Hill 2 falls short of that experience, but is the creepiest PS2 game out there.

Many of the mosters don't as much look to be spawned from hell as welded together from spare parts. This is a different look, and quite effective. Also, many of the monsters in SH2 have acquired a nervous twich, somewhat reminiscent of the demons in the film Jacob's Ladder. Seeing a deformed, twiching nurse coming at you wielding a steel pipe will make you wonder what you're doing in this crazy town in the first place.

Almost all of the puzzles made sense, though there were a couple of stumpers that made me look for a walkthrough.

The game is brimming with creepy sounds, but I often wondered why particular sounds were played in particular areas (it seemed like the creepiest sounds were played in the areas that furthered the plot).

I wasn't left with as many questions as after the first game, but there is still a lot left unanswered (not that I was expecting otherwise.) The game is pretty short, however. I clocked in at just under 10 hours.

Overall the game accomplished what it set out to do. When I turned off the game at night and walk through the dark house on my way to bed, there was the slightest fear that a deformed, twitching nurse was right behind me ready to clock me with a steel pipe!

scary!!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 31, 2003
Author: Amazon User

this game is scary and the story is cool and mysterios.
but i think they could have done a better job on the zombies. at the beginning of the game theres only 1 kind of zombie until the hotel. once you get to the hotel (15 mins thru the game b-cuz you have to walk in real time thru this huge city but its hard to find it cuz its so foggy)then one more kind of zombie appears and it dosen't look human, but over all its a great game

pros
cool story
great graphics
hard puzzles

cons
to foggy
its hard to get weapons
the zombies look weird (but scary)
the zombies spray freaky juice at you to hurt you

and the overall score is..........

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Its a great game with a great story-line. It has ok controls, they could get a little messed up sometimes. Nice graphics that although are good they dont live up to what the ps2 could do. It is a scary game. Itsso scary that i was scared to turn corners. But in the middle of the game, at the hospital, it just lost all scariness. It got almost funny. I beat the game in a week. You could set the difficult levels so it makes it harder at the riddles and the monsters. There are 5 endings so you might want to play it over. Overall i give it around a 3 and a half to A 4.

One great game....one great game this is

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Let me begin to tell you that this is by far the best game of 2001 (but it will likely be surpassed by Metal Gear 2), the graphics are the best, the sound is sooo real!!...i literally jumped of my seat when i heard a creature crawling in the night....this is the most twisted, macabre, phsycologically disturbed game i have ever played, and it really messes with your mind, i am afraid to play this game alone or in the dark...if you like good games, play, no, buy this game!

Better Graphics...Poorer Story...Still Creepy...But...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

In the first Silent Hill game, we were introduced to a town that had a deep dark secret and as we experienced the environment there, we saw things get ever more and more bizarre.

The reason for this was never fully explained...but there was enough story to allow us to draw possible conclusions.

This time around, Konami has concentrated on giving us mind-blowingly sharp graphics -- from the full motion video sections all the way through to the in-game environments. And with the several possible game play options, there is a lot to do as far as play and re-play are concerned.

However, the story this time is not very well developed. And where there is some attempt at plotting, there are sadly few surprises.

As with the original game, there is never a complete explanation of the situation. How did James Sunderland -- the character we play as -- end up in Silent Hill? We learn that a note from his presumably dead wife inspired his journey but never understand much else about him. When did he notice the world around him starting to mutate into the bizarre place he visits? Why does so little of the strangeness around him have an impact?

There are plenty of attempts made to creep us out in this game and the enemies are definitely strange and interesting. The puzzles with their multiple levels of difficulty are also a nice feature. But, these elements just don't add up to all that they might.

This isn't a major disappointment by any means. It just doesn't live up to the promise inspired by the first game. Even with the PS2-related improvements, the elements of a great game are essentially the same. Unfortunately, Silent Hill 2 lacks several of them.

Survival Horror Comes Back for More

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 16, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Silent Hill, the strange, mist-filled town full of weirdness from the first video game of the same name is back, this time in beautifully-rendered PS2 goodness. The storyline seems somewhat similar, and the puzzles haven't gotten any easier (or any more logical in their placement), but Silent Hill 2 is a wonderful followup to Konami's initial surprise "survival-horror" hit. If Alone in the Dark was the genesis of the genre, and Resident Evil was the splatter-filled special-effects-reliant b-movie, then the Silent Hill series is the ultimate refinement and enjoyment of all that is possible in these games.

The plot will seem familiar to fans of the first game, but in no way has anything to do with those events (until much later, and only then if the player is dilligent): an American everyman, James Sunderland, is searching for someone in Silent Hill and finds that things are.. well.. a little strange there. His wife, Mary, died three years ago, and somehow, he got a letter from her last week, stating she would be waiting in Silent Hill. Unable to let her go, he rushes off, and finds the town deserted and crawling with odd tertiary characters - including one that seems to be the spitting image of his dead wife - and even more odd monsters. Just like the first game, James runs away a lot more than he fights, as he's a terrible shot and his weapons aren't worth much of anything against the baddies. As he progresses through the town, he begins to piece together the entire puzzle, and it becomes more and more apparent that he's in way over his head.

The Silent Hill series is a true genre-buster, as you don't start knowing the entire story of the protagonists, and the protagonists aren't some super-human, super-heroes who can hit anything their guns are pointed at. You can actually play through the game without killing any monsers except the bosses, and running away is almost always preferable to fighting. The mood is spooky and jumpy, relying less on hideous zombies jumping out at you to scare you than it does on building subtle layers of fear and horror until the player's stomach is literally in knots. The game looks great on the PS2, and although the movies can hiccup every now and then, they are all wonderfully rendered as well. Control is decent, but sometimes you have to be pointed directly at something to pick it up, and it's very easy to miss important items because of this. The puzzles aren't difficult to solve, and seem to be included more to have something to do other than follow the plot. Many of them are out of place considering the situations in which they are located, but that's easily ignorable, considering they (usually) don't distract from the plot.

The "empty" characters are that way for a reason, by the way - Konami knew what they were doing when they wrote and designed this game.

While certainly not as innovative as the first Silent Hill - it's a hard act to follow - the second game is more than worthy of the title, despite it's few faults. Horror fans, rejoice: there IS a worthy video game for our most descriminating tastes, and it is Silent Hill 2. Do not hesitate to invest in this game - or a PS2, like I did.

Play with the lights off!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 16, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Let's get something out of the way...this game does not play all that much differently from the first one or any other survival horror game in general. What it does do, however, is choke you with atmosphere and provide a plot that is so disturbingly compelling that you will feel that the events in the game actually happened to you. Silent Hill 1 had a plot that was so abstract and full of cult mumbo-jumbo that it almost ruined the experience for me. Silent Hill 2 made me feel the protagonist's agony and depression. Its brilliant how the game judges your emotional actions and calculates them in regards to which of the four endings you will receive. By the game's conclusion, rather than feeling finished with the game and its plot, I felt more interested than ever in replaying and getting a different ending.
While I will say that I was probably more frightened by the first game, I attribute that to its novelty and the fact that never before had gamers played a game by flashlight. I can see that Silent Hill 2 is more terrifying and refined than the first game, but to those who are veterans it might not have the same impact. That said, Silent Hill 2 uses sound in ways never before seen. Often what is most frightening in this game is what you hear but never see. There were several times when a horrifying sound halted me in my tracks, making me afraid to move onwards, but ultimately I never did see what made that sound. And that is not a disappointment. Moments like these are what the game is about.
Along these lines, I would like to state that you are cheating yourself if you play this game with a friend or with the lights on. I refused to play it before midnight or if there was anyone around. I paid ... for the game to scare me and I was not going to miss out.
My only complaints with the game are that it is too easy in the action category because the town is absolutely overflowing with ammunition and health kits for you to pick up. Also, if you strip away the atmosphere and the plot, you really are playing the same survival horror game we have been playing since Resident Evil 1. Find key, open door, shoot monster, solve puzzle, rinse and repeat. But do not let that discourage you. Silent Hill 2 does so many things right that you will not be able to forget it. Even if part of you wants to.

A genuinely scary and unique experience

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 23, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The genious of this game is evident when that first trickle of fear seeps into your mind and the first nervous knot forms within your stomach-- when you find yourself walking down a narrow, dilapidated hallway and your character's radio begins to emit white noise, signalling that a creature is nearby. Behind you or ahead of you, you cannot tell; the glow from your character's flashlight only illuminates a small area. Silent Hill 2 (and its predecessor in the series) draws from the feelings of fear itself to scare its players--not from the wonder of when the next zombie will burst through the window.

What makes Silent Hill 2 so different from other survival horror games (like Resident Evil) is the fact that it is disturbing. It does not rely on shock or typical b-movie frights to scare the player; even the gore is not what truly settles into the mind. Instead it is the mutiltudes of things that go unseen-- like the shadows shifting in the darkness beyond the realm of your character's flashlight, or the white noise that the character's radio gives off when creatures are near.

You play the role of James Sunderland, a man who recieves a letter from his dead wife, asking him to meet her in the town of Silent Hill--but the plot becomes even more detailed and intricate than the player can percieve. What awaits James is more than he can imagine, as he meets other characters and multitudes of bizarre creatures that stand in his way. This ties in to another fright factor of this game-- nearly all of the human characters you encounter seem to have some sort of mental problem. Subtle things stand out in words they say and actions they do that leave the player feeling a bit unsettled. James makes his way through apartment buildings, a hospital, and a prison among other areas-- all are equally terrifying in atmosphere and appearance, appearing as run-down, burnt out, or bloodstained.

In technical aspects, the graphics of this game are gorgeous and very realistic. Most of the game takes place in the dark, with only James's flashlight to illuminate the way. The lighting and shadow effects are gorgeous and downright spooky. The music, or lack thereof, also adds to the experience. Bizarre sound effects and sparse melodies come in at just the right times, making situations tense and causing your heart to race. The camera angles utilized in the game add to the tension, closing in on narrow hallways and trapping you in too-small rooms. The claustrophobic view adds greatly to the atmosphere; however sometimes it can become quite an annoyance when you can't see where you're going.

The other downfalls of this game are that it is two short (the first run-through takes about 9 hours, while second plays can take as little as 3), and that some parts seem to drag. The game starts off slowly and the beginning may easily bore the player, and unfortunately, despite the terror in the game, some areas do not seem to deviate from the typical "find the key, solve the puzzle, open the door" formula.

But overall, this game is excellent, and this game will scare you. Don't expect zombies trying to eat your brain, or dogs jumping through windows. Expect what you can't see-- and expect things you never thought you could imagine.

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