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Silent Hill revolutionized survival horror gaming. Konami then
released its sequel Silent Hill 2 for the PS2. How does this
game hold up?
GAMEPLAY (8.3)
In Silent Hill 2, you play James Sunderland, a common
middle-aged man who had lost his wife due to an incurable
disease. For some reason, he receives a letter from his
supposedly dead wife, Mary. The letter says she is waiting for
him at their "special place" in (you guessed it) the town of
Silent Hill. James sets off to Silent Hill in search of Mary.
Silent Hill 2's gameplay involves solving puzzles, searching,
running from enemies, and of course fighting enemies - your
basic survival horror game. The overall difficulty was at a
right level; the puzzles were challenging, the bosses weren't
too easy nor too hard, and so on. What's new with Silent Hill
2's gameplay is that it utilizes a new feature called pressure
sensitivity. Here's how it works. Let's say James is using a
wooden plank - a close range weapon. James can swing the wooden
plank in two ways depending on how hard you press the button. If
you press the button lightly, James would swing the plank
rapidly from side to side. If you, however, press the button
hard, James would perform a damaging overhead swing. The
pressure sensitivity feature makes fighting enemies exciting
adding somewhat more realism to the game's gameplay.
The thing to look at though of Silent Hill 2's gameplay is its
ability to scare or, as I call it, its level of freakiness. A
good survival horror game uses the environment, camera angles,
sound effects, and the feeling of "hopelessness" to scare its
players. In Silent Hill 2, the environment you'll be exploring
is either foggy or pitch dark. You can't see much in front of
you forcing you to constantly look around for monsters and
listen to their sounds. Also in Silent Hill 2, the camera angles
are purposely set up at certain points to be at the worst
possible position. For example, in one instance the camera angle
is set up so that you won't be able to see what's behind the
corner at the end of a hallway. This is a great scare tactic. An
important scare method Silent Hill 2 utilizes well is sound
effects. I'll explain this later in the sound/music category.
The feeling of
"hopelessness" is what all survival horror games should give to its
players. Silent Hill 2 does this, but unfortunately only to an extent.
Granted you're running around Silent Hill (blindly at that) all by
yourself with monsters on the loose, but it doesn't seem hopeless as
you might think. >>>cont... |
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