Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams

The Good
-The atmosphere is unbearably good. Never before have i been so frightened in a videogame. The ridiculously thick fog in Silent Hill makes everything so scary.

-The sound is amazing. The sound effects of the monsters are so scary. This game also uses background noises for the monsters. For instance; you are walking through a forest, you hear your own footsteps but you also hear footsteps that are not synchronous to yours which means that someone could be behind you. You turn around to find out there is nothing there. This happens in a lot of places in Silent Hill 2. The music is also great. In many places throughout the game you will hear mucho scary ambient music & sound effects that also add up to the atmosphere of this game. The idea of a broken radio used as a monster detector is also cleverly thought of.

• The graphics are simply amazing. No pre-drawn environments like in the Resident Evil games, but rendered three dimensional backgrounds. The grain effect is probably the best thought of feature of this game. The grain effect really comes to life when you are in the apartment building. The shades of dark colors are also nicely done.

• The monsters are probably even better. I've never seen such craftsmanship when it comes to enemie's. Not your standard "Thriller video clip" type zombies, but four legged what-ever-you'd-like-to-call-it enemies. A survival horror game is even scarier when you expect and find the unexpected. I also loved the sound effects from these monsters. The monsters are also pretty smart. They'll back each other up in combat, they respond to footsteps and your flashlight, and some of them even use other forms of attacking (the sprayers can/will lay themselves down on the ground and start crawling around at immense speeds and they can collide with you to cause extra damage).

-Some of the scripted events are also nicely done. Distant screams, monsters that avoid being detected by your radio by staying still etc.

-The idea that you received a letter from your deceased spouse alone is scarier than the entire Resident Evil series.

The Bad
-Well, some of the puzzles are to straightforward and perhaps a little too easy. -Oh, and another thing. Don't play this game on your own at night before you go to bed. Believe me. It was pretty hard for me to sleep that night (i've even had a nightmare about this game :-).

The Bottom Line
Resident Evil, move over! This game is TRUE horror. Never before has a game been released with so much suspense and horror. This game is not gory, but it will frighten your pants off.

The Good
Try playing this game at night with all the lights out no friends or family members and surround sound should give you the feeling like you are in the game. It will have you running up to the bathroom every five seconds or have you sitting in bed with a shot-gun. Yeah you are probably thinking I am trying to scare you, but this is no joke. This is by far the scariest game on X-box. It gives you the feeling like one of the monsters is lurking up behind you. When I played this game for the first time I didn't think it was all that scary.Things started to get eerie at the first apartment. It was pitch black till I got my flashlight, but I kept playing. Then at the hospital I was screaming my head off at every little noise and shadow. When I found an unlocked door, I didn't want to open it. When I did go in rooms I paused the game to listen for my radio. Yeah it IS that scary. So when you want a scare inviter friends over. Turn out the lights, and prepare to scream. This game should NOT be played by little kids. They WILL have nightmares.I have to admit there is a few flaws, but still a "Hall of Fame" game

The Bad
I didn't like having to return to the same place to find things that you may have missed.

The Bottom Line
Perfect for parties or sleepovers. Scarier than any game or horror movie.

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.