Sometimes on a cold, foggy day, or in a dark hallway at night, or when I’m simply left with my thoughts, I think about Silent Hill 2. As a sequel to the moderately uneven original Silent Hill, you would be forgiven for expecting the game to be more of the same, but thankfully you’d be wrong. You see Silent Hill 2 took a long hard look at the original game and decided that the only two things worth keeping and expanding on were the setting itself and the atmosphere, throwing the mind numbingly dull cult plot line to shrivel and die in a ditch somewhere. Silent Hill 2 opts to replace monologues about giving birth to god and spooky pentagrams with something actually scary, something dark, disturbing and personal.

Do you know who you are? Maybe you know yourself better than you’d like to, maybe there’s things about yourself you’d like to forget. And you can try. But somewhere deep inside, you know exactly who you are.

Gameplay-wise, Silent Hill 2 is more of the first with few alterations to the formula. In classic survival-horror fashion, you explore various buildings throughout the town, finding keys, items that are functionally keys, or items that you can duct tape together to haphazardly make something that vaguely resembles a key, instead of just shooting the door down. Health items and ammo are relatively scarce, although with proper management you can find yourself a walking arsenal by the end of the game. If this, along with the fixed camera angles and (optional) tank controls, make this sound like a very standard entry in the genre to you, you’d be right, and Silent Hill 2 will do absolutely nothing to shake up this formula throughout it’s entire runtime. You see, where the game truly excels is on almost every other front.

The game follows James Sunderland, a fairly plain and boring looking middle aged man, not dissimilar to the original game’s Harry Mason. Where the two differ, however, is in the fact that under this unassuming exterior, you’ll soon come to learn James Sunderland is one of the most fascinating and psychologically complex characters you’ll ever meet in a game, whereas Harry Mason was the human personification of dry cardboard. Much like how Harry is in Silent Hill looking for his daughter, who he lost in a car crash roughly four seconds before arriving, James is also looking for someone close to him. James was called to the town by a letter from his wife, saying she would be waiting for him in their “special place”, the only issue here being that Mary hasn’t been talking to James for the last three years due to the fact she’s been a bit dead.

Thus begins James’ journey into the town, along the way meeting a remarkably small, yet equally intriguing cast of characters. If you feel I’m being very light on the plot here, it’s because I do not want to give away too many details and ruin one of the best narrative experiences you can have with a game. It’s not just the plot either, Akira Yamaoka returns from the original to deliver some absolutely astounding music, while Masahiro Ito takes the mantle of Monster Designer and brings with him some of the most iconic creatures to grace visual media. Each of these abstract abominations dripping with symbolism, and a deeply unsettling nature.

On the other hand we have the voice actors, who’s performances are about what you’d expect from a Japanese survival horror of the time. This was towards the tail end of the practice of Japanese game devs getting random western looking men off the street and asking them to be in their video game, and as a result you get some strangely… off performances from people. The interesting thing here though is that unlike something like Resident Evil 1’s infamous dialogue, the slightly unnatural delivery of the dialogue in Silent Hill 2 absolutely serves to enhance the atmosphere of the game. It really does help to plant the seeds in your mind that none of the people you’re talking to are quite alright, you might not even be sure if you and they are even seeing the same things. This effect will eventually come in full force when at key moments some character’s delivery becomes uncharacteristically excellent, most notably from Monica Taylor Horgan as both Mary and Maria.

All of these marginally disparate elements come together to create a symphony of horror, that is in equal parts unpleasant and profound. And while it’s nice to hear a full orchestra, it’s important to remember that the reason you enjoyed it is down to the individual artists who came together to give you that experience, not just one man, or a studio, or a franchise. Silent Hill 2 comes together so well because it’s a perfect storm of incredible artists with a strong vision. Sadly, the sales of the game did not exactly align with the critical acclaim, particularly in Japan. This, unfortunately, caused a shift in the series going forward to regress back to the cult plot line from the original game. And while Silent Hill 3 does continue the great music and atmosphere from it’s predecessor, it doesn’t come nearly as close to greatness because of it’s unfathomably uninteresting premise, and comparatively dull cast of characters. The remaining sequels featuring a comically sharp decline in quality from teams who desperately try to replicate 2, but fall so far from the mark that they create something unintentionally hilarious.

What I would hope you’d take away from Silent Hill 2, if nothing else, is that you should follow the individual artists that create these games. Find out what else they’ve had their hand in and try it out. You may find something else you like, you may find something you don’t like at all, you may even find your next favourite. Publishers, studios, engines and franchises do not make games. People do.

A somewhat messy sequel to Doom 2016, constantly shifting tones between trying to take itself too seriously, too comedically and simply trying to be the kind of awesome Doom should be. With a stronger emphasis on story, having doomguy speak, and even showing us his face, Doom Eternal really likes to take the worst parts of 2016 and show it learned nothing from them. Thankfully, what it did learn was that the core gameplay loop of its older brother was pretty good, and as younger siblings often do, attempts to earn the masses love by strapping a flamethrower to his shoulder and listening to metal.

The game gives you limited ammo, forcing you to constantly be switching up what you're using, while the enemy variety complements this by having each one require a different method to effectively pop their heads. Not all the enemies were built the same though, every boss is awful, and the infamous marauder is potentially the most boring enemy design of the 21st century. His entire gimmick is you can only attack him after you parry his attacks, which he only does if you stand at a very specific distance from him. It’s not engaging or challenging in any way, it’s tedious and boring, with his AI often deciding he doesn’t even want to attack you anymore, making the majority of time you interact with him be a game of standing still and waiting for him to do something.

The game also has severe pacing issues, levels are often too long for their own good, and about 6 of them take place on Naboo from Star Wars. Up to around the halfway point the game is constantly ramping up the pace and the set pieces over and over again culminating in a scene so over the top that it will probably be the stand out moment of the game for many, but then after that point the game just flatlines. You’re left thinking the game is going to end soon despite there being several hours of game left. The final stretch of Doom eternal is about 4 hours too long, the game simply doesn’t know when to end. Even when it’s completely run out of steam it still drags itself forwards painfully like a once proud show horse with 2 broken legs, and you’re left wondering if it would be better to let it cross the line or put it out of its misery.

Still, I had fun with it, that is until I got to the 4th time the game blue screened my PC and corrupted my save file, this time on the last level of the game. Maybe one day I’ll come back and complete the game, but as it is I think I got my time’s worth.