Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams

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.

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
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.