I REALLY wanted to give this thing a shot (no pun intended). I heard lots of great things and how interesting the dynamic between the brothers was.

Well, I guess it had its moments but for the most part, the shooting gameplay undernined it more than develope it. Speaking of which, for a late PS2 game it shockingly plays like shit. Every weapon feels like it has all the impact of a BB gun, but with slower reloading time than it takes an ant to move a stone across a football field, depth of view and sound design that often makes it difficult to tell where you're being shot from, and some of the absolute WORST hit detection I've ever come across!

I'm willing to play through a bad game if it has some elements of fascination or enjoyment, but here, that extent only goes as far as an arbitrary bullet time gimmick.

As much as this entry proudly stands above the mediocrity of later Lego games, it doesn't reach anywhere near the levels of The Complete Saga or even Lego Batman 1. There are occasional great moments that pay tribute to the films, like the catharsis of instantly drinking from the right cup in the knight's chamber, but the level design is really lacking at times and doesn't warrant a lot of replay value. In fact, it often feels like the game is coming up with great ideas for levels during cutscenes but then forgets to put them in. I mean, why are there no vehicle levels?

The Raiders of the Lost Ark levels are fine
The Temple of Doom segments are a ton of fun
The Last Crusade segments are an absolute chore to get through.

This is the most fun I've had with a game in a year! Beautiful art direction, kick-ass combat and relentlessness gore and violence that you don't see anymore.

It's not a game that I necessarily recommend to anyone because it is hard as steel! Dying so much and constantly repeating boss fights is definitely a big flaw in the game's difficulty scaling but it's just a case of learning through trial and error. Now that the hard part is out of the way, I feel that I'm only going to enjoy this game more on my second playthrough.

Do you know how long I've been procrastinating my first playthrough of this game? It has been nearly a year now! You see, I REALLY like the first half of this game. It amazingly evokes the creepiness of this franchise in ways it's never been done before. I would've loved to see Team Silent making more games outside of Silent Hill, because there were clearly more stories they wanted to tell.
However, once the game reaches its midpoint, it becomes practically unplayable for me. Escort missions are fun for what they are but it doesn't belong in a game like this, especially when an unkillable dude starts chasing you with a gun. The titular room getting destroyed makes the game unendingly dreadful with barely a moment to breathe. Being able to escape from the nightmares gave the atmosphere a melancholic vibe, kind of like going to the merchant's store in Resident Evil 4, and you can't have a horror game without that calming inbetween. But you know what? I can take these problems to some degree if I wasn't forced to go through the same areas all over again! It makes all my previous progression seem wasted, the puzzles become infinitely less fun to solve, and it destroys the rising action!

I feel that all of this has something to do with Konami's intervention to turn this from an original IP into a Silent Hill game. It's like they were on the verge of sticking with what they already had in the first half, but then had to take the story in a completely different direction halfway through to make it more in-line with the franchise without the time or budget to create new environments and monster designs.

Overall, a game that had so much potential to become an all-time favorite of mine but destroyed itself with a shockingly unnecessary tonal shift.