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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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)

Turn off the lights, plug in the stereo and get ready for some chill

The Good
SH2 has a great story. I've read a lot of reviews of ppl complaining about the confusing story with so many missing pieces of information. Guess most of this ppl where the kind of ppl who finish adventure games with the game guide or who just take the shortest route through the game. SH2 needs more than that...it deserves more time and if you are willing to spend more time you'll get the real deal. Try to discover the past of Silent Hill.....read everything you get and you won't have too many questions in the end. Besides that, discovering the story is the real (maybe the only) puzzle of the game.

Besides that, be sure to have the appropriate audio to let you frighten by the sound itself. SH2 has some of the best sound effects i ever encountered in a game and some really gave me a chill. Still remember the feeling when the elk ran litteraly through my living room while examining the prison court. Besides the sound, the melancholic music adds real athmosphere, especially once it gets to an end, you encounter the truth, the music really makes you feel sad.

What's left? The graphics. Well, the blur filter too annoyed a lot of ppl but after turning it off to see the crisp graphics i though that it looked better before :) The details are great.....the restroom at the start.......disgusting.....and it goes on and on. You'll see incredible detailed textures through the whole game to give all the locations their special touch.

Another thing I liked where the 5 different ending sequenzes. While there are several "bad" ones there's one which you really should care to see and at least it should increase replayability.

So what's on the neg. side

The Bad
Sold as action-adventure with better puzzles than the RE series it was still disappointing to see those baby puzzles. Especially with the possibility to play with diferent skills i really hoped for more but we have to face the truth.....adventures are dead and what's left are puzzles a 5 year old would solve if he really would try hard!

The voice acting is quite poor, they didn't really fit into the situations but living in the german speaking parts of europe where every film gets dubbed it's kinda common to have bad voice acting and so that doesn't hurt too much :)

The biggest disappointment IMO was the sucky controls.....shortly after the start i restarted the game with easy action skill because the controls where kinda slow...sometimes it took to long to hit and while in combat that could cause quite a lot of damage fastly. Besides that it was too easy to get stuck on corners, especially with enemies around. Well, at least the different skill levels should make it possible for everyone.

The Bottom Line
It's a great game. It's dark, it's scary and it's sad. If you want a action packed game and don't care for story or puzzle elements you shouldn't really go for it. Like i said before, you'll miss a lot of the story and will be left with an unsatisfying story at the end. If you like puzzles or at least aren't afraid to READ, then go for the game, it's deffinatly worth it :o)

PlayStation 2 · by Quapil (5530) · 2002

When playing this game, have an extra pair of underwear handy.

The Good
it freaked me out. I thought it was scary. Not in the way so much as something jumping out and going "Boo!" kind of scary but just the overall atmosphere of the game I found especially creepy. I don't scare easy, I found movies like The Exorcist hilarious but this game was scary.

I also thought the graphics were pretty good. The fog gets irritating but I thought the shadows cast by the flashlight were very realistic, reminded me of the quality of shadows on Doom 3.

Sound = excellent. Attributes to probably 70% of SH2's creepiness.

The Bad
Will the Silent Hill series ever understand that the movement and camera angles are completely inadequate?? There is nothing more frustrating than walking in to a room, hearing a monster in there but the camera is facing your characters face and you can't move the camera around to see whats in the room. Unfortunately, this happens almost every time you walk in a small room (i.e. especially the beginning apartments you explore).

I wouldn't say it's enough to ruin the whole game but it's definitely annoying. The fighting is pretty bad too. The response time is unrealistic. The guy, for some reason, has a hard time using a wooden plank as a weapon. Just swing it for gods sake. Nope. He has to stop ALL movement, then get in to a swinging position and then it takes about two seconds for the signal to go from his brain to his arms to make him swing. It's just very bad programming in my opinion and lazy quality control guys down at Konami who don't want to go back in and make it more enjoyable for us.

The Bottom Line
Lets face it, even if you're a dedicated fan of the SH series, you can't deny the camera angles, movement and fighting controls just plain suck. But I still don't think it was enough to ruin the game. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes these style of games. It's definitely better than Silent Hill 1.

Windows · by OlSkool_Gamer (88) · 2005

Definitely not for everyone...

The Good
The most striking thing about SH2 isn't its fast-paced action, it's riveting storyline, its use of the Xbox's graphical capabilities or even the gameplay itself. This game manages one thing that may be said about very few (if any) action-based horror game: the suspense.

While many such games promise suspense, terror and spine-tingling thrills, very few deliver. With the unique combination of seemingly arbitrary sound effects, subtle changes in scenery and the tell-tale overall darkness of the game, it certainly delivers some interesting surprises. There will be times when the player will take a bit of a scare, which is exactly what the game is supposed to do.

Working well on a system with good surround sound, you'll hear footsteps behind you, rustling in the bushes, rattling of pipes and a barrage of other auditory illusions and effects that will keep you turning around in your chair to make sure that there really isn't something sneaking up behind you.

The Bad
Visually, this game isn't much to look at. Some of the cinematics are well-rendered, but the overall appearance of the game is lukewarm if you're charitable. Yes, the town is cloaked in fog and yes, the interiors of the buildings are almost complete darkness if you don't have the flashlight turned on, but the visual obscurity almost leaps from ambiance to hinderance in one mighty bound.

Also, while using the 3D control mode, our hero is all but unmanageable. Combined with constant spinning of camera angles, the "up equals forward" process (which doesn't even work half the time) can be maddening. Fortunately, you can switch between 3D and 2D control modes (which will give you more of a Tomb Raider feel) at any point in the game.

The voice acting also lacks something to be desired. The actors were trying to lend some strength to situational dialog, but it was as though they recorded the lines without ever hearing each other and were given almost nothing contextually to navigate by. This left the dialog seeming almost alien to the scenes in which it occurred.

The puzzle solutions were also a little outlandish. The solutions appeared to have no relation to the puzzles themselves, and it seemed more work than fun to collect the answers. (I'm not sticking my hand in a festering toilet because something appears to be stuck there, nor am I sticking my arm blindly into holes in a wall if I'm walking around a town that's infested with things right out of a Clive Barker novel.)

The storyline is fragmented and uneven, and though I enjoy the idea of being able to explore freely, the play offers very little directional assistance as far as which direction you need to go. The gameplay boils down to checking the map for places you haven't been and going to those places in hopes of finding something useful.

The Bottom Line
All in all, this is one of those games that you simply must have a taste for already. Chances are good that this game won't attract you to this genre, but if you're already interested, it will keep you busy for a while.

Xbox · by Joe Galindo (3) · 2003

[ 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.

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  • 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.