Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams

aka: Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut, Silent Hill 2: Inner Fears, Silent Hill 2: Saigo no Uta
Moby ID: 5069
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Description official descriptions

Restless Dreams is an updated version of of Silent Hill 2. It contains all of the content of the original version and adds several pieces of new content. The most significant is a new short scenario called Born from a Wish, where players take control of Maria from her first moments right up to where she first appears in the main game. Also included is a sixth ending to the main scenario and a minor feature that allows the player to turn off the graphical effect, which makes the game look like it was shot on cheap film stock.

Spellings

  • Silent Hill 2: 最期の詩 - Japanese spelling

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Credits (Xbox version)

115 People (93 developers, 22 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 40 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 133 ratings with 14 reviews)

One of the scariest games I've ever seen.

The Good
As a huge fan of horror games it's pretty safe to say that I was really looking forward to this one. Silent Hill 2 at first glance seems a lot like a revamped version of the first game and in many ways it is. The graphics have been obviously updated with the fog that surrounds the town all day being the first noticeable change. It swirls, changes direction and is completely volumetric. Lighting seems fairly standard until you get inside one of the dark buildings. Suddenly huge shadows are cast all over the walls by the light of your flashlight making for some of the creepiest visuals ever seen in a game. Seeing the shuffling shadow of a mutant nurse coming ever closer really gets your heart going. The monsters are some of the strangest and most bizzare creatures ever concocted. They have form but a form that doesn't quite make visual sense. Truely the stuff of nightmares. Sound is nigh on perfect with strange musical accompaniments that send shivers up the spine as well as some of the creepiest sound effects ever to grace my speakers. Definately one to turn way, way up. For example: At one point I could hear something very faint and it wasn't until I paid closer attention that I noticed that it was some kind of ghostly whispering. Little touches like that really add to the procceedings and often have something to do with the story. Yes the vague, thought provoking story telling has returned but this time it's been much better written. There is a depth to the story that the first one never had and it's in this story that I feel SH2 truly excels. Easily this is the best story in any horror game to date and with multiple endings to find that are determined in an ingenious manner as you play, there's a lot to keep you interested. There are 3 immediately available endings plus a special forth one that you can get the second time through an an additional hilarious 'joke' ending that you really must see to believe. The puzzles in this game are really good and the difficulty of both the fighting and the puzzles can be scaled according to your own personal liking.

The Bad
SH2 may be great but it's not free of problems. The voice acting is for the most part pretty poor and really can be quite off putting with a game of this calibre. The lighting routine while it looks amazing, also uses vertex based lighting and so the light zig zags unrealistically across straight walls at times. James is also quite slugglish to control, particularly in combat. It can be infuriating when you are killed by a monster because James got stuck on something or was too busy standing in the one spot for 5 seconds after you tried to hit whatever evil creature was after your blood. The game itself is also pretty short despite the 5 endings. I got through the whole thing in 7 hours my first time through which is a little less sizable than an adventure should be.

The Bottom Line
It has its faults but it's still one of the best horror adventures ever made and a vast improvement over the original.

PlayStation 2 · by Sycada (177) · 2002

A terribly done adventure game

The Good
May be it is a great adventure. May be it is scary. May be it has atmosphere. May be it has a good story. I don't know about that, because I was too frustrated with the game to notice all this.

The Bad
Controls are terrible. I don't care that it was ported from game consoles. In 2002 developers no longer have an excuse not to make decent controls for the game. You press the attack key, but nothing happens because the game didn't finish the character animation yet. The fighting system in general is crap. Every 5-20 seconds game pauses for a fraction of a second without apparent reason (no disk activity, no transition to another scene and my 3D hardware is more than adequate). The sounds are supposed to be scary, but they are annoying an low quality. The graphics look pathetic. The noise feature is probably intended to make the image similar to the crappy picture that console users had on TV and it succeeds briliantly. It does look crappy. And you are not going to see farther than 5 meters from your nose. Yeah, it's a fog, I know, but it doesn't make the game look better.

The story might be great, but things like broken lip sync for cut scenes spoil it. Having to spend some considerable time in the beginning in the fog fighting some generic annoying zombies (same model, 30 identical copies running around) doesn't improve the first impression.

The Bottom Line
If you like adventures and are not afraid of disappointment, you might give it a try. Who knows, may be you will like this game better than I did.

Windows · by Paranoid Opressor (181) · 2003

``this is how to make a survival horror game``

The Good
everything in this game was great :) when i first played it i was sitting in front of the tv waiting on the FMV sequence finishing at the begining where he was standing in the road side toilet cubicle. and i waited for about a minute thinking when is this going to give me control of the character cos i just saw him standing there so i tried to move him and he started to move and i thought to myself i`ve been standing here like a fool and i could have moved all along that was how god the FMV sequences were just like the graphics i couldn`t really tell the difference i had never seen anything like that before.

the story line is the best one in any game so far it touches your emotionaly at times or tries to while still keeping its horror feel to it which was really good i thought. atmosphere was and is second to none ill wait till res evil comes out on the cube to see if it can match SH2 for atmosphere .

great game far superior to the original in every way the start of the game was well done you started at least a couple of miles away from the town and had to run all the way there when you left the road side toilet and ran down the stairs into the forrest and down the path you heard a loud noise as if something was coming through the trees at you but nothing happened its things like that that i love about the game pure genius so it is they have to be to think of games like Silent Hill 2.

roll on Silent Hill 3 cant wait to see how #3 turns out.

The Bad
there is nothing to hate about this game if you like survival horror games<br><br>**The Bottom Line**<br>if you like survival horror games then you have to play this even if you did not like the original you will like this because it`s far far superior.

PlayStation 2 · by Iced Earth (9) · 2002

[ View all 14 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Pending correction Corn Popper (69030) Jan 14, 2011
Very well done Joe Price Apr 30, 2009
Best survival horror game? Donatello (466) May 24, 2007

Trivia

The Xbox version contains a lip sync bug. Since the PC version is a direct port of the Xbox version, the lip sync bug is also present.

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Related Sites +

  • Hints for Silent Hill 2 for Windows
    Questions and answers to help you solve the game.
  • official homepage
    Konami's website for Silent Hill 2. Shows about the game, screenshots, movies and tips&tricks for the game, and is on english language.
  • official website
    "Konami computer entertainment Tokyo" official website on english and japanese. However, japanese link has much more info about the game, including all descriptions you'll need, movies, merchandise and such.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 5069
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Jak Din.

Xbox added by Brian Hirt. Windows added by John Chaser.

Additional contributors: Macintrash, MAT, Jeanne, NeoMoose, Corn Popper, John Chaser.

Game added October 4, 2001. Last modified January 27, 2024.