ParvusREx
23 reviews liked by ParvusREx
Silent Hill
1999
Amazing game with great atmosphere and level design my only real complaint is that its not longer
where Falco
Mercenaries
Cry of Fear
2013
An amazing free psychological horror game with a deep story and character built beautifully on Valve's Gold Source engine.
Garry's Mod
2004
One of my favorite games ever
Garry's Mod
2004
This is one of the greatest games of all time, it's been out for nearly 20 years and it's still great fun! I've personally been playing since 2013, it was the first game I ever bought on Steam and the reason I actually made an account on there in the first place. Endless fun alone and even more with friends, another one that should be in everyone's library.
Devil May Cry
2001
The original and purest hack 'n' slash game. Some might find it hard to return to after DMC went full CUH-RAYZEE but over time I find myself preferring this game's approach to combat. The guns are actually viable in this game, for one.
Also in love with the atmosphere, it may have been a holdover from the cancelled RE4 project that this was built on top of but a giant gothic castle is always appealing. Also knows when to let you walk around areas in silence with deep fog and heavy winds with no music - Devil May Cry used to actually be kind of creepy.
The most 'controlled' of all the games too, each enemy is carefully placed and considered without prioritizing making things into into a combo-fest.
It's kind of remarkable how this game did basically everything right and created my favorite genre of action games in the process.
Also in love with the atmosphere, it may have been a holdover from the cancelled RE4 project that this was built on top of but a giant gothic castle is always appealing. Also knows when to let you walk around areas in silence with deep fog and heavy winds with no music - Devil May Cry used to actually be kind of creepy.
The most 'controlled' of all the games too, each enemy is carefully placed and considered without prioritizing making things into into a combo-fest.
It's kind of remarkable how this game did basically everything right and created my favorite genre of action games in the process.
Silent Hill 2
2001
I could write page after page about what this game means to me and the themes you can find it in it, and I do kind of want to, but I feel like it's just one of those things you have to experience yourself, preferably as blind as possible. The more time you spend thinking about it, the more you'll come to love it.
The true reveal of Metal Gear Solid 2 is not that we play as Raiden instead of Solid Snake - it's that the antagonist of the game does not exist. It's pulling back the curtain to find that the man behind it died a century ago. The most powerful nation on Earth is essentially an algorithm with a mind of its own, akin to a runaway train that everyone "in charge" pretends they are responsible for. There is no individual you get to blame. Not the politicians, not the CEOs of major corporations. Not even the current or former presidents of the United States have any idea of what's really going on. The algorithm will replace these people the second they stop being useful. In my opinion it's a much better conception of "the system" than what you see in most conspiracy fiction: a small, shadowy cabal of people pulling the strings from behind the scenes. The reality is that all of the powerful people we blame are just the ones who managed to latch on to the algorithm of capitalism and milk it for all they can. There is no grand design, nobody is in control, everyone responsible for setting this system into motion is long dead. Which is why Otacon says the Patriots "have been dead for 100 years".
Every choice you (and Raiden) make perpetuates this status quo, and every radical political cause (like Snake and Otacon's 'Philanthropy') is effortlessly co-opted by it. MGS2 conveys this idea in a way that only a video game could: By playing as Raiden, you are forced to directly confront the futility of any resistance. You can approach MGS2 in a million different ways with an expansive arsenal of tools, getting no kills or alerts and discovering every secret in the Big Shell, or do the exact opposite. But the end result is always the same: You kill Solidus, the only threat to the Patriots, after they explicitly tell you it's exactly what they want. If you opt out entirely and "turn the game console off" you're still doing something you were ordered to do. Even if you choose not to play, you lose to the Patriots. MGS2 places you in the position of the post-information age, digital subject: Imbued with detailed knowledge of every single way you are being oppressed and exploited, you still choose to follow orders. You are so overwhelmed by information, some true, some false, that is causes a kind of exasperated compliance.
This is simultaneously a commentary on the nature of video game stories as an immutable, pre-programmed series of events not as different from film narratives as we like to think; Any "choice" is always an illusion, whether it's in Metal Gear Solid or a Telltale game. Any game that sets out to fulfill the concept of "player freedom" in its story will always fail. Video games stories are (at their best) about interactivity, not choice. They let you play out a pre-ordained role and do some improvisation, not write the story. Kojima understands this, and it's why he borrows so much from film. It's also why the criticism that his games are too much like movies is kind of pointless; he's just recognizing the inherent similarities of the two mediums.
On a less meta level, this lack of free will in MGS2 underscores the reality that capitalism, American empire, the very norms and values of American society, whatever the antagonist of the game is - cannot be destroyed from within. It is a system that has achieved self-awareness. Any possible attempt to destroy it has already been anticipated with an infinite number of contingencies. Emma Emmerich gave her life to destroy the GW AI and it was just replaced with a backup. The battle has already been lost, and it was decided by a microscopic processor in a fraction of a second. Solidus (a perfect stand-in for the kind of right-wing populist we wouldn't see for awhile in 2001) was the only person in power trying to oppose the Patriots, but his fatal mistake was believing that the Patriots were essentially a deep state globalist cabal, rather than the nigh omnipresent force they really are (they aren't really a "they", but an "it"). Like Snake said, "the Patriots are a kind of ongoing fiction". But even the legendary Solid Snake, the archetypal hero who opposes the system with clear-eyed determination, is completely dumbfounded after the credits roll.
And that's because this enemy is simply beyond the abilities of one man, even if that man is a Snake. It can just create its own soldier to surpass Solid(us) Snake and even mass-produce them, and your actions throughout the game prove it. No tactical espionage action can defeat what is essentially an idea - one that has infiltrated the furthest depths of the human soul. The only hope lies on a society-wide level: An alternative has to be built by everyone from the ground up, through finding what is true and meaningful in life and passing it on to the next generation. Slowly, generation by generation, an alternative capable of opposing the great algorithm can be built. And it has to be one that people can have faith in, in a spiritual sense.
But the encroachment of the internet into our lives is making this less and less feasible. By replacing the traditional nuclear-armed metal gear with Arsenal Gear, an AI that controls the internet, Kojima is essentially framing the internet itself as a threat equal to or greater than that of nuclear weapons. It is an instrument of human separation much more powerful than the splitting of an atom. The quote at the beginning of Raiden's chapter tying computers and nuclear weapons together bolsters this interpretation.
The digital age has turned human life into a scrambled mess that is impossible to parse. We create entirely idiosyncratic, patchwork realities for ourselves by finding various "truths" through our own individual exploration of the internet and jury-rigging them together. We relate to each other less and less, and mental illness is widespread. This overload of information makes us increasingly neurotic, isolated, and unable to determine truth from fiction. The collective human mind is being broken (or at least pounded into a new shape) against the collective neuroses of the internet, and nobody knows what to do about it. We're all alone right now, each of us left with the isolating task of finding our own truth amidst the cacophony. Even the algorithm fears for our future, yet it's still the only entity with a solution: Censorship. Make the noise stop. Honestly, has anyone thought of a better idea?
Every choice you (and Raiden) make perpetuates this status quo, and every radical political cause (like Snake and Otacon's 'Philanthropy') is effortlessly co-opted by it. MGS2 conveys this idea in a way that only a video game could: By playing as Raiden, you are forced to directly confront the futility of any resistance. You can approach MGS2 in a million different ways with an expansive arsenal of tools, getting no kills or alerts and discovering every secret in the Big Shell, or do the exact opposite. But the end result is always the same: You kill Solidus, the only threat to the Patriots, after they explicitly tell you it's exactly what they want. If you opt out entirely and "turn the game console off" you're still doing something you were ordered to do. Even if you choose not to play, you lose to the Patriots. MGS2 places you in the position of the post-information age, digital subject: Imbued with detailed knowledge of every single way you are being oppressed and exploited, you still choose to follow orders. You are so overwhelmed by information, some true, some false, that is causes a kind of exasperated compliance.
This is simultaneously a commentary on the nature of video game stories as an immutable, pre-programmed series of events not as different from film narratives as we like to think; Any "choice" is always an illusion, whether it's in Metal Gear Solid or a Telltale game. Any game that sets out to fulfill the concept of "player freedom" in its story will always fail. Video games stories are (at their best) about interactivity, not choice. They let you play out a pre-ordained role and do some improvisation, not write the story. Kojima understands this, and it's why he borrows so much from film. It's also why the criticism that his games are too much like movies is kind of pointless; he's just recognizing the inherent similarities of the two mediums.
On a less meta level, this lack of free will in MGS2 underscores the reality that capitalism, American empire, the very norms and values of American society, whatever the antagonist of the game is - cannot be destroyed from within. It is a system that has achieved self-awareness. Any possible attempt to destroy it has already been anticipated with an infinite number of contingencies. Emma Emmerich gave her life to destroy the GW AI and it was just replaced with a backup. The battle has already been lost, and it was decided by a microscopic processor in a fraction of a second. Solidus (a perfect stand-in for the kind of right-wing populist we wouldn't see for awhile in 2001) was the only person in power trying to oppose the Patriots, but his fatal mistake was believing that the Patriots were essentially a deep state globalist cabal, rather than the nigh omnipresent force they really are (they aren't really a "they", but an "it"). Like Snake said, "the Patriots are a kind of ongoing fiction". But even the legendary Solid Snake, the archetypal hero who opposes the system with clear-eyed determination, is completely dumbfounded after the credits roll.
And that's because this enemy is simply beyond the abilities of one man, even if that man is a Snake. It can just create its own soldier to surpass Solid(us) Snake and even mass-produce them, and your actions throughout the game prove it. No tactical espionage action can defeat what is essentially an idea - one that has infiltrated the furthest depths of the human soul. The only hope lies on a society-wide level: An alternative has to be built by everyone from the ground up, through finding what is true and meaningful in life and passing it on to the next generation. Slowly, generation by generation, an alternative capable of opposing the great algorithm can be built. And it has to be one that people can have faith in, in a spiritual sense.
But the encroachment of the internet into our lives is making this less and less feasible. By replacing the traditional nuclear-armed metal gear with Arsenal Gear, an AI that controls the internet, Kojima is essentially framing the internet itself as a threat equal to or greater than that of nuclear weapons. It is an instrument of human separation much more powerful than the splitting of an atom. The quote at the beginning of Raiden's chapter tying computers and nuclear weapons together bolsters this interpretation.
The digital age has turned human life into a scrambled mess that is impossible to parse. We create entirely idiosyncratic, patchwork realities for ourselves by finding various "truths" through our own individual exploration of the internet and jury-rigging them together. We relate to each other less and less, and mental illness is widespread. This overload of information makes us increasingly neurotic, isolated, and unable to determine truth from fiction. The collective human mind is being broken (or at least pounded into a new shape) against the collective neuroses of the internet, and nobody knows what to do about it. We're all alone right now, each of us left with the isolating task of finding our own truth amidst the cacophony. Even the algorithm fears for our future, yet it's still the only entity with a solution: Censorship. Make the noise stop. Honestly, has anyone thought of a better idea?
Silent Hill 2
2001
This review contains spoilers
After playing this I can 100% see why this is commonly referred to as one of the best horror games, and one of the best games, of all time. Silent Hill 2 absolutely blew me away with how it basically took every aspect of the first game and improved it tremendously in a way that felt beyond how much improvements sequels normally make. There is just so much put into this game it's insane and I definitely see why it's withstood the test of time to be considered one of the all time greats. Going to be going into massive spoilers with this so here's your warning on that. On a similar note this does get into heavier topics towards the end so be warned if you're not in a good mindset for that sort of thing.
Silent Hill 2 is a game about James Sunderland as he travels to the town of Silent Hill to answer a letter that was sent to him by his ex wife, who has been dead for 3 years by the time he reaches the small Maine town. He then proceeds to fight his way through hordes of horrific monsters as he attempts to find his wife. He also comes in contact with a variety of different people all with their own troubles and problems as they also traverse the town around James.
Something that I want to talk about first that the first game also had going for it is it's atmosphere. Playing this game is the most unnerved and tense I've felt in a horror game in a long time and I'm more than a little surprised by that since generally this kind of thing doesn't get to me. Even Silent Hill 1, which I praised extensively for it's incredible atmosphere, doesn't hold a candle to Silent Hill 2's attempts at reminding you it's a horror game. Whether its the oppressive fog that hangs over the town, the messages that will randomly appear in some places reminding James that something knows what he did, or the constant whining of the radio as an enemy approaches this game excels in making the player feel scared. Which honestly is one of the highest praises I can give a horror game since as I mentioned earlier I don't exactly get scared by games. I think a big part of what went towards this atmosphere working as well as it did was the gameplay.
Silent Hill 2's gameplay is basically an upgraded and refined version of 1's combat that still manages to maintain the general slowness and clunkiness that helps to make a horror game feel like a horror game without making it feel unfun. The game has a kind of refined clunkiness to it where the gameplay isn't fluid but it doesn't feel out of place with how the tone of the game is. I know these controls might still be a problem for some but personally I love how they add to the experience of the game. The general combat feels a bit slower at the start due to your starting weapon being a bit weak but this feeling quickly goes away with how quickly you get access to a gun and a stronger melee weapon. Just like the first game ammo for your guns are abundant but it doesn’t bug me as much this time around (we’ll discuss why later) and the general act of shooting and using the weapons you’ve been given feel a lot better to control and use that the first game.
One neat thing the game does is it makes the enemies react to you in ways that you wouldn't expect from this type of game. My favorite example is what happens if you get your hands on Pyramid Head's weapon. If you go the right way at a certain point you can gain Pyramid head’s cleaver to use as a weapon. It's the most powerful weapon in the game, which unlike the emergency axe from Silent Hill 1 actually has a balancing factor to this in that it's really slow to use and drags along the ground behind you. However the best aspect of this weapon is how enemies react to it if you turn off your flashlight. If you turn off your light and just walk around with it the sound of it scraping against the ground terrifies the non Pyramid Head enemies and makes them flee you, thinking you're Pyramid Head. It's a really cool small thing that just makes me love how much care and detail went into planning and making this game.
Speaking of enemies, while the enemy variety is lesser in this game since most enemies are humanoid in nature minus the bosses and monsters based off the bosses I didn't really mind this much honestly. First of all it meant no more flying enemies which I was very thankful about not having around since I didn't realize how annoying those were in Silent Hill one with them constantly appearing out of the fog and attacking you randomly until they weren't there doing that. As for with everything else them being mostly humanoid works a lot better thematically with the game than if we had a lot of dog based enemies or giant bat things so I didn't mind them all being variations of humans personally.
One gameplay aspect (technically) that I thought was pretty interesting was them deciding to separate the puzzles and the actual gameplay when it came to difficulty settings for this game. Allowing players who want to focus more on the puzzles while putting gameplay in the trunk have that option and vice versa. I'm a really big fan of this change because dear god some of the puzzles in Silent Hill 1 were impossible to parse and allowing players to choose the difficulty of how tough these puzzles is this game was a relief because it allowed me to not have to put up with something like the final puzzle of Silent Hill 1 again. Speaking of puzzles I definitely enjoyed them a lot more this time around, none of them overstayed their welcome and all felt possible to get on your own without outsider info, which is nice since stuff like the piano puzzle from the first game really dragged down Silent Hill 1 for me.
Something that really stuck out to me about Silent Hill 2 was its sound design. A lot of the sound effects and general ambient noise really added to the oppressive and unsettling atmosphere that I mentioned earlier. This is probably one of the strongest parts of the game in that every sound effect and bit of music just really helps to sell this tension that the game is trying to create. Which makes it even funnier when its contrasted by the voice acting. Now don't get me wrong, I love the voice acting in this game; but its not great. A lot of line deliveries feel stilted or have a very clear feeling of the actor just simply reading words off a page over acting. That being said, I am more than okay with this. I love cheesy kinda bad voice acting like what's in this game and even if it wasn't the best it did sell the characters for me to a degree and I enjoyed it regardless of any measure of quality the line deliveries had. The layer of cheese this voice acting adds to the game is a welcome one, and makes the game's story have brief moments of amusement in what is generally a very bleak narrative.
The story of of Silent Hill 2 is honestly up there now as one of my favorites in gaming I think. Seeing James traverse this horrific town while slowly remembering how things went in his past, dealing with the other people who have been brought to this town to atone for their sins, all of it just really hits me in just the right way and I love it. The town basically creating Maria as a version of his wife Mary for him to just lose again and again because of the fact that, as we learn at the end of the game, he killed her and repressed that memory is really interesting to me and really explores the mental guilt James feels over his actions without quite remembering his actions. The game basically functions as a big character study of James and I love media that takes this approach.
Personally I also think I enjoy this take on the concept of the town more than I do of the concept of the town in Silent Hill 1. Silent Hill 2 presents us with the idea that the town exists to make people confront their sins and atone for the evil they committed. I like this approach of the town as an entity that draws people in and forces them to face themselves more than it just happening to be a random weird town with a cult that the main character kinda just stumbled upon. Don't get me wrong I still loved Silent Hill 1's approach and story, but man do I just really vibe with the concept that this game sets up and I hope its carried on into the next few games. One of my favorite things that happens with this concept is how we see it handled with the other three actually alive characters that we find in the town. For example, there's a character named Laura who is a little girl that came to the town in search of Mary since they both knew each other in the hospital. Laura however, hasn't done anything to warrant needing atonement so to her Silent Hill is just an abandoned town. She doesn't see anything created by the town for others, no monsters, no Maria, nothing. Once you figure this out it kind of starts to put things into place how James isn't exactly innocent and starts to hint towards the twist, that being that James killed his wife as I mentioned earlier.
I think ultimately what it comes down to is that Silent Hill 2 feels like it has something to say. It's a story of self reflection and choosing your path in how you atone for the terrible things you have done. The way these themes are portrayed throughout the game with the constant symbolism just really elevates the whole story with how many minor elements allude to future events or character's thought processes, such as the fact that numerous dead bodies in the game's overworld are all wearing James's clothing which alludes to his thoughts of wishing he were dead/thinking he should be dead after killing Mary which is known from one of the various endings you can possibly get. I just think the use of motifs and symbolism to drive themes is a really cool think in fiction and I haven't seen a horror game do it on the same level that Silent Hill 2 does. Hell it even made one of my biggest complaints about the game, just the sheer amount of ammo you get so killing things isn't really a tough choice or a challenge, not a problem for me anymore once I realized that the ease at killing things and the rate at which you find the tools to do it is because killing is already easy for James since he did it once before. So killing all of the monsters that come after him is an easy thing for him. It's really impressive how much this game managed to pull off and I wish I could go into all of it without needlessly doubling the length of this review.
Going into Silent Hill 2 I was ready to be underwhelmed after how hard people push this as one of the best games of all time, since usually when people always talk something up to me like they do with this game I end up going in with my expectations set a bit too high. This however lives up to the hype and goes well beyond what I was expecting. If you're looking for an incredible horror game, look no further than this. The game is the absolute peak of the genre for me and I recommend it to anyone who's looking for the best the medium has to offer in terms of horror.
10/10
Silent Hill 2 is a game about James Sunderland as he travels to the town of Silent Hill to answer a letter that was sent to him by his ex wife, who has been dead for 3 years by the time he reaches the small Maine town. He then proceeds to fight his way through hordes of horrific monsters as he attempts to find his wife. He also comes in contact with a variety of different people all with their own troubles and problems as they also traverse the town around James.
Something that I want to talk about first that the first game also had going for it is it's atmosphere. Playing this game is the most unnerved and tense I've felt in a horror game in a long time and I'm more than a little surprised by that since generally this kind of thing doesn't get to me. Even Silent Hill 1, which I praised extensively for it's incredible atmosphere, doesn't hold a candle to Silent Hill 2's attempts at reminding you it's a horror game. Whether its the oppressive fog that hangs over the town, the messages that will randomly appear in some places reminding James that something knows what he did, or the constant whining of the radio as an enemy approaches this game excels in making the player feel scared. Which honestly is one of the highest praises I can give a horror game since as I mentioned earlier I don't exactly get scared by games. I think a big part of what went towards this atmosphere working as well as it did was the gameplay.
Silent Hill 2's gameplay is basically an upgraded and refined version of 1's combat that still manages to maintain the general slowness and clunkiness that helps to make a horror game feel like a horror game without making it feel unfun. The game has a kind of refined clunkiness to it where the gameplay isn't fluid but it doesn't feel out of place with how the tone of the game is. I know these controls might still be a problem for some but personally I love how they add to the experience of the game. The general combat feels a bit slower at the start due to your starting weapon being a bit weak but this feeling quickly goes away with how quickly you get access to a gun and a stronger melee weapon. Just like the first game ammo for your guns are abundant but it doesn’t bug me as much this time around (we’ll discuss why later) and the general act of shooting and using the weapons you’ve been given feel a lot better to control and use that the first game.
One neat thing the game does is it makes the enemies react to you in ways that you wouldn't expect from this type of game. My favorite example is what happens if you get your hands on Pyramid Head's weapon. If you go the right way at a certain point you can gain Pyramid head’s cleaver to use as a weapon. It's the most powerful weapon in the game, which unlike the emergency axe from Silent Hill 1 actually has a balancing factor to this in that it's really slow to use and drags along the ground behind you. However the best aspect of this weapon is how enemies react to it if you turn off your flashlight. If you turn off your light and just walk around with it the sound of it scraping against the ground terrifies the non Pyramid Head enemies and makes them flee you, thinking you're Pyramid Head. It's a really cool small thing that just makes me love how much care and detail went into planning and making this game.
Speaking of enemies, while the enemy variety is lesser in this game since most enemies are humanoid in nature minus the bosses and monsters based off the bosses I didn't really mind this much honestly. First of all it meant no more flying enemies which I was very thankful about not having around since I didn't realize how annoying those were in Silent Hill one with them constantly appearing out of the fog and attacking you randomly until they weren't there doing that. As for with everything else them being mostly humanoid works a lot better thematically with the game than if we had a lot of dog based enemies or giant bat things so I didn't mind them all being variations of humans personally.
One gameplay aspect (technically) that I thought was pretty interesting was them deciding to separate the puzzles and the actual gameplay when it came to difficulty settings for this game. Allowing players who want to focus more on the puzzles while putting gameplay in the trunk have that option and vice versa. I'm a really big fan of this change because dear god some of the puzzles in Silent Hill 1 were impossible to parse and allowing players to choose the difficulty of how tough these puzzles is this game was a relief because it allowed me to not have to put up with something like the final puzzle of Silent Hill 1 again. Speaking of puzzles I definitely enjoyed them a lot more this time around, none of them overstayed their welcome and all felt possible to get on your own without outsider info, which is nice since stuff like the piano puzzle from the first game really dragged down Silent Hill 1 for me.
Something that really stuck out to me about Silent Hill 2 was its sound design. A lot of the sound effects and general ambient noise really added to the oppressive and unsettling atmosphere that I mentioned earlier. This is probably one of the strongest parts of the game in that every sound effect and bit of music just really helps to sell this tension that the game is trying to create. Which makes it even funnier when its contrasted by the voice acting. Now don't get me wrong, I love the voice acting in this game; but its not great. A lot of line deliveries feel stilted or have a very clear feeling of the actor just simply reading words off a page over acting. That being said, I am more than okay with this. I love cheesy kinda bad voice acting like what's in this game and even if it wasn't the best it did sell the characters for me to a degree and I enjoyed it regardless of any measure of quality the line deliveries had. The layer of cheese this voice acting adds to the game is a welcome one, and makes the game's story have brief moments of amusement in what is generally a very bleak narrative.
The story of of Silent Hill 2 is honestly up there now as one of my favorites in gaming I think. Seeing James traverse this horrific town while slowly remembering how things went in his past, dealing with the other people who have been brought to this town to atone for their sins, all of it just really hits me in just the right way and I love it. The town basically creating Maria as a version of his wife Mary for him to just lose again and again because of the fact that, as we learn at the end of the game, he killed her and repressed that memory is really interesting to me and really explores the mental guilt James feels over his actions without quite remembering his actions. The game basically functions as a big character study of James and I love media that takes this approach.
Personally I also think I enjoy this take on the concept of the town more than I do of the concept of the town in Silent Hill 1. Silent Hill 2 presents us with the idea that the town exists to make people confront their sins and atone for the evil they committed. I like this approach of the town as an entity that draws people in and forces them to face themselves more than it just happening to be a random weird town with a cult that the main character kinda just stumbled upon. Don't get me wrong I still loved Silent Hill 1's approach and story, but man do I just really vibe with the concept that this game sets up and I hope its carried on into the next few games. One of my favorite things that happens with this concept is how we see it handled with the other three actually alive characters that we find in the town. For example, there's a character named Laura who is a little girl that came to the town in search of Mary since they both knew each other in the hospital. Laura however, hasn't done anything to warrant needing atonement so to her Silent Hill is just an abandoned town. She doesn't see anything created by the town for others, no monsters, no Maria, nothing. Once you figure this out it kind of starts to put things into place how James isn't exactly innocent and starts to hint towards the twist, that being that James killed his wife as I mentioned earlier.
I think ultimately what it comes down to is that Silent Hill 2 feels like it has something to say. It's a story of self reflection and choosing your path in how you atone for the terrible things you have done. The way these themes are portrayed throughout the game with the constant symbolism just really elevates the whole story with how many minor elements allude to future events or character's thought processes, such as the fact that numerous dead bodies in the game's overworld are all wearing James's clothing which alludes to his thoughts of wishing he were dead/thinking he should be dead after killing Mary which is known from one of the various endings you can possibly get. I just think the use of motifs and symbolism to drive themes is a really cool think in fiction and I haven't seen a horror game do it on the same level that Silent Hill 2 does. Hell it even made one of my biggest complaints about the game, just the sheer amount of ammo you get so killing things isn't really a tough choice or a challenge, not a problem for me anymore once I realized that the ease at killing things and the rate at which you find the tools to do it is because killing is already easy for James since he did it once before. So killing all of the monsters that come after him is an easy thing for him. It's really impressive how much this game managed to pull off and I wish I could go into all of it without needlessly doubling the length of this review.
Going into Silent Hill 2 I was ready to be underwhelmed after how hard people push this as one of the best games of all time, since usually when people always talk something up to me like they do with this game I end up going in with my expectations set a bit too high. This however lives up to the hype and goes well beyond what I was expecting. If you're looking for an incredible horror game, look no further than this. The game is the absolute peak of the genre for me and I recommend it to anyone who's looking for the best the medium has to offer in terms of horror.
10/10