Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams

In the end, the Greatest Hits release of Silent Hill 2 trumps the original because of the additional storyline, but even on its own, it still stands strong as the top survival horror game of the decade. Silent Hill 2 is leading the way for all video games into an era of beautiful, wonderful games designed to entertain the masses. Wonderfully, after playing through the game once, you can play through again and again, as the games multiple endings make it well-worth the trip back into Silent Hill. Pick up Silent Hill 2, and prepare for one of the best experiences of your gaming career.

Konami takes you on another surreal romp through the suburbs of Hell in Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams. With cinematic camera angles, a grime-infested aesthetic, and gruesomely glistening monsters, Silent Hill 2 improves on the original in every way. The lighting and shadow effects are amazingly executed, and though the story is a bit depressing, it will nevertheless keep you enraptured until the game’s conclusion. The use of sound to evoke fear and increase tension is flat-out brilliant. Even though the controls are a bit burdensome, it’s nothing that will detract from the overall quality of the game. Parents be warned: This game is absolutely, positively not for kids. Interwoven with the already disturbing foreground story are themes of very mature and very depraved nature.

Obviously, Restless Dreams is the best version of Silent Hill 2 available. The main scenario is terrific, and the added bonuses are nice additions that fans of the series will love. However, that's where the problem comes in. The people who will enjoy Restless Dreams the most are the ones who already own the game for PlayStation 2 (myself included). Gamers who never played SH2 before will not be able to appreciate all of the subtle differences, but they will be able to appreciate the graphics and the gameplay just as much as everyone else, so newcomers should not be turned off.

Wer Silent Hill 2 bereits auf der Sony-Konsole gespielt hat, kann auf Inner Fears trotz Bonus-Szenario, einem zusätzlichen Abspann und anderer kleinerer Änderungen getrost verzichten. Dazu wird zu wenig Neues geboten. Selbst Marias exklusiver Streifzug durch Silent Hill ist nur von kurzer Dauer und sowohl spielerisch als auch inhaltlich eher unspektakulär. Wer hingegen noch keine Gelegenheit hatte, Silent Hill mit James Sunderland einen Besuch abzustatten und auf Survival Horror der subtilen Art steht, den erwartet mit Silent Hill 2 - Inner Fears ein virtueller Alptraum, der nach wie vor seinesgleichen sucht und zu dem es auf der Xbox derzeit keine Alternativen gibt. Weitere Einzelheiten entnehmt Ihr bitte dem Test der PS2-Version, die bis auf die hier beschriebenen Unterschiede mit der Xbox-Neuauflage identisch ist.

Overall a good storyline, but a little ‘dragging‘ at points in the game. Excellent graphics and audio. Silent Hill 3 is slated to be in the works, but has not been confirmed for the Xbox to date, the Xbox version was much better than the Playstation version and Silent Hill 3 for the Xbox would certainly get my attention. This is not a game for young kids, I’d reccommend 14 and up for this title.

Foncez ! Foncez acheter Silent Hill 2 : Inner Fears. On a rarement vu un jeu offrir une ambiance aussi déstabilisante et palpable. Alors certes, les esprits chagrins regretteront que le lifting graphique de ce portage Xbox soit un peu limité, mais le résultat est tout de même probant. De plus, l'arrivée d'un nouveau scénario compense cette lacune. Vous aussi, venez vous perdre dans le brouillard de Silent Hill.

Silent Hill is a small town. The huge lake surrounding the town is a key point, and a bar, a cemetery, and all sorts of other random buildings add into the mix. And a good amount of them are ready to be explored, more than in the original game easily, though there were still some strict limitations. The towns design is quite well done, except for a few things, like the giant walls that bar your path or the gigantic holes in the earth that you can't pass through. These are still unexplainable, even after playing through the game.

Noch schauriger, noch erschreckender und noch bizarrer präsentiert sich der Nachfolger des Horror-Spektakels auf der PS One. War den der Vorgänger nicht beklemmend genug... nein, diese düstere Fortsetzung ist noch beängstigender und triumphiert zu einem Horror-König in der Spielwelt auf.

If you're a fan of the kind of delicious chills you get when watching a great horror movie, you owe it to yourself to play Silent Hill 2. Console gamers who already own it can give this version a pass, as there's no new material in the PC version, but PC gamers who are wondering what all the fuss was about can finally find out.

The control and gameplay are just average. There are 2 different types of control settings: 2D (that is what I preferred - it seems more fluid), and 3D, which is similar to Resident Evil's control. You can also set the action to easy, in which there is nothing to kill and you just enjoy the great story, normal, where there are a few monsters in each area, and hard, which is when there are a lot of the little buggers constantly surrounding you.

Même si le temps a passé depuis la sortie de la version originale sur PS2, Silent Hill 2 continue de faire son effet en bousculant le joueur dans un univers improbable et malsain. Ceux qui tenteront l'expérience ne seront pas déçus, tant le génie de l'intrigue fait que l'on pardonne aisément les quelques ralentissements et le manque de renouveau de cette version PC.

And to be honest, if you've already enjoyed the game on PS2, the extra chapter is no reason to rush out and buy the Director's Cut. While it's just as good as the rest of the game, it's a mere slip of a thing with less than two hours of gameplay. All that aside, this is still the finest survival horror game money can buy. If you can forgive the quirks of the genre, and you like your games with a side order of sheer terror, it's absolutely essential.

Konami's Silent Hill 2 will make you unhappy, but in this case it's because the designers are so successful at creeping you out and exposing gamers to the darker side of humanity. It's the side with creepy zombie things whose limbs are melted together. Silent Hill 2 doesn't stray very far from the versions that appeared on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, but faithful porting and small upgrades make it comparable, competitive, and worthwhile.

However you look at it, it is nice to see a solid game is behind the self-proclaimed scariest game of all time.

Still, Silent Hill 2 is not the perfect scare. The combat is still a little sluggish, although it has been drastically improved over the first Silent Hill. The programmer's insistence that you must walk up and kick every downed monster to really kill it will get annoying. While good, the combat just lacks the precise edge of Resident Evil.

A few months ago, Capcom announced that the Resident Evil series would haunt gamers exclusively through the GameCube. This came as a shock, especially since the franchise was founded and continually updated on the PlayStation. Furthermore, seeing that the Xbox primarily skews toward an older audience, it would be the perfect fit for the survival horror lineage. Grinding against the grain and all that seems logical, Capcom decided to side with Nintendo, perhaps in an attempt to break the GameCube’s classification of being a kiddie machine. Until this bond is broken, gamers will have to look elsewhere to get their horror fix. As it stands now, the only noteworthy alternative on the market is Konami’s Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams.

They're called survival horror games but the truth is you spend more time solving puzzles than Columbo in games like Silent Hill 2. You'd think the only problems to be solved would be all of the monsters roaming around town, but in Silent Hill 2, finding items you need and unlocking doors is the order of the day. The good part is that it ends up as a very linear game even though the town is huge and you have to walk everywhere. When you don't know what you're supposed to do next, SH2 can be very frustrating but then again, if you're playing Restless Dreams you're probably familiar with survival horror games and a bit of frustration comes with the territory.

Overall, I’ll say it like this … if you have not played Silent Hill yet and love to scare the you know what out of yourself, buy this game … turn the lights off … and don’t say you weren’t warned. If you’ve already played this on consoles, you may want it for the extra scenario if you are a fan, but don’t get it thinking that it’s going to provide you with more than a few hours and some additional insight into the game. I’ve played this on PS2 before, and I will have to say that it still scares the you know what out of me to play it. There’s been an ongoing debate as to what “survival horror” game takes the #1 scariest game of all time … and my vote goes with the Silent Hill series, hands down.

For the Platinum release of Silent Hill 2 you not only get the original PS2 games but also the once-Xbox-exclusive bonus scenario. This additional four-hour journey into Hell is in a similar vein as the rest of the original game, so expect more dark, moody visuals, scares around every corner and a sick plot that'll make your skin crawl. On the whole not worth getting if you already own Silent Hill 2, but newbie horror freaks looking to satisfy their bloodlust should definitely get stuck in.

In the end, Silent Hill 2 is a good game for those who enjoy the survival horror genre. The storyline is incredibly scary and will keep you coming back for the next progression. If you aren’t familiar with the series or the Resident Evil games, you will want to make sure you rent this one before you decide to buy, this game isn’t for everyone. Although, fans of the original will surely eat this up.

Niet de meest vernieuwende game in het genre maar je krijgt gegarandeerd een extra portie griezelige sfeer geserveerd.

Einst war Silent Hill ein wahrer Kurort, heute ist es eine Geisterstadt: Lautlos versunken im Dämmerlicht erscheinen die heruntergekommenen Holz- und Betonbauten. Eine dicke Nebelglocke liegt schwer auf allem. Die Umgebung wirkt farbarm, körnig und surreal, wie in einem Albtraum. Aus Silent Hill kommt der Brief einer Toten, der Ehefrau von James Sunderland. Dessen Rolle übernehmen Sie. Mit Gamepad oder Tastatur steuern Sie James durch die verlassenen Straßen und Gebäude der 3D-Ortschaft, um seine verstorbene Frau aufzuspüren.

In both episodes of the game, Silent Hill 2 starts off slowly, appearing as an attempt to build suspense. But once the action starts, it immediately levels off and focuses on puzzle solving rather than being the heart-pounding fight-or-flight thriller you might expect, having weathered the setup. That said, the puzzles are well done, there's little in the way of backtracking, and the game looks and sounds great. Silent Hill 2 is a much prettier, somewhat smarter, but less-compelling game than the original. Those who had hopes that the sequel would improve upon every aspect of Silent Hill will be disappointed, because it doesn't. But high expectations aside, you're still left with a sturdy game, whichever system you end up playing it on.

Pyramid Head, the game’s lead villain, is an effective personification of the Silent Hill 2 experience. Though he lumbers around with all the grace of a shopping trolley, beneath his silent exterior lies a subtlety and purpose that few videogames have ever managed to explore in such unspoken and uncertain terms. While the one-off scares are easy to recall in the short term, it’s the slow-burning dissection of Silent Hill 2’s magnificent plot that will remain with us for some years yet.

Un excellent portage d'un grand jeu console. Seulement, le petit a un peu vieilli, et surtout, il est bougrement trop court comparé aux produits PC. Heureusement, l'ambiance est toujours là ainsi que les décors et le scénario qui s'amèliore au fur et à mesure que l'on s'approche de la fin. Mieux encore, ce Director's Cut nous offre une petite aventure en bonus.

Silent Hill may scare some, but I was far from spooked (I've seen one too many of those patchwork limb monsters). The amount of backtracking and tedious wandering is inexcusable. Why so slow? It's certainly not to let you marvel at the textures and effects, which are butt. The CG is bad, too. There's just not enough payoff for me to stick with this game. The series must have a following somewhere, and will find much less competition on Xbox, but Silent Hill can rot for all I care.

Overall I liked Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams for the Xbox. I would have preferred a bit less item hunting and a bit more combat, but the monsters looked creepy and the whole town made me feel like I was walking around someplace really spooky. The story could have been better developed, but it is rare to find a sequel that lives up to the original.

Aus meiner Sicht ist Silent Hill 2 ein Spiel für masochistisch veranlagte Mister-Minit-Außendienstmitarbeiter. Die empfinden es nicht als Qual, mit vielen, vielen Schlüsseln zu hantieren und stundenlang durch die Gegend zu latschen. Warum, bleibt für mich ein Rätsel. Aber es soll ja auch Menschen geben, denen es Freude bereitet, sich auspeitschen zu lassen. Ergo: Sie werden diesen Titel abgöttisch lieben. Oder die drei CDs nach 30 Minuten nicht mal mehr als Bierdeckel verwenden wollen.

Der Schwierigkeitsgrad für Rätsel und Kämpfe ist separat einstellbar. Das ändert nichts an einer gewissen Basis-Idiotie: Die Puzzles bestehen vorwiegend aus Schlüsselsuch-Orgien und Logik-Verbiegungen inklusive mächtig viel Rumgelaufe. Zum Glück rettet der »Was erwartet mich im nächsten Raum?«-Nervenkitzel die Motivation, unterstützt von der bedrohlichen Licht-und-Schatten-Grafik. Letztendlich aber nur erwachsenen Fans des Survival-Horror-Genres zu empfehlen.

But the problem with Silent Hill 2 is that it's all atmosphere and no real scares. Though there are a few good scenes--such as the first time you see Pyramid Head--it becomes quickly apparent that there aren't many startling, truly scary moments to support the mood. Silent Hill 2 has repetitive puzzles and an implausible story, and you need to play through it several times to get the "good" ending. Not even the game's foggy atmosphere is thick enough to hide Silent Hill 2's problems.

Overall this is a good port with enough extras to make it worthwhile for XBOX owners. A rental wouldn't do it justice, simply because it takes anywhere from 20-30 hours to complete from start to finish. However, I can't recommend purchasing this game unless you are a die-hard fan of the series or genre

Unfortunately, the list of irritating downsides doesn't stop there. The combat in Silent Hill 2 is about as repetitive and tedious as they get. Consequently, playing Silent Hill 2 will get even more painful after a while, as the animation of both the main character and the monsters is weak and simplistic. Fianlly, the sounds of shrieking monsters are so repetitive they will make you wish you put a bullet through your SoundBlaster half way through the game. Still, if you're persistent enough, and you don't mind battling through the endless mazes of bad camera angles, confusing levels and repetitive combat you might learn to like Silent Hill 2. I must say, it takes a special kind of gamer to finish this one on the PC. As for me, I'd rather watch a documentary on rare flesh-eating tropical diseases than play this one again. Sure, the game has its moments but they are just brutally eviscerated by all the idiotic game design solutions that have been implemented in this PC port.