Topic: Silent Hill for n00bs

[NWR_DrewMG]

Anyone who liked the RE games on Gamecube should like SH2, I would think.  They're not drastically different. 

Interesting things so far: multiple difficulty levels for the puzzles.  I chose normal.  I wonder how they differ.  I noticed that my inventory keeps track of where I found items, and where they might be useful.  Also, the map automatically updates itself with scribbles indicating blocked paths and other useful tidbits.  Very cool.

[Halbred]

Bustin, I would say that out of all the SH games, SH2 has the most bland enemy design. They all DO tie into the game's core plot, but that doesn't help them be cool or anything. Pyramid Head is the most disturbing character (once you realize what he represents) and the most iconic in the entire series.

I was Pyramid Head for Halloween a few years back. My brother helped me build a helmet and Great Knife. It was cool. I should do that again.

I started Homecoming. It's not bad, but it's slower-paced than SH2/3, which are my favorites. Enemy design is good, but different. Combat is still shallow, but improved slightly from the last few games.

Drew, seriously? RE and SH share the same genre, but they're compleeeeetely different games. They're in separate subgenres. It's like comparing The Thing to Aliens.

[NWR_DrewMG]

SH2 actually reminds me of RE4 than any other RE game so far, just because all of the open world exploring.  I always thought the mist in the town was meant to hide the technical shortcomings of the PS2, but it's clear that it's there for atmosphere as well and it really does a great job.

Just got to the hospital part, after my first battle with buckethead.  I really wish that James wasn't so quick to trust all these normal people he's meeting in this clearly decimated town.  The girls are both pretty creepy so far.

[GoldenPhoenix]

SH2 actually reminds me of RE4 than any other RE game so far, just because all of the open world exploring.  I always thought the mist in the town was meant to hide the technical shortcomings of the PS2, but it's clear that it's there for atmosphere as well and it really does a great job.

Just got to the hospital part, after my first battle with buckethead.  I really wish that James wasn't so quick to trust all these normal people he's meeting in this clearly decimated town.  The girls are both pretty creepy so far.

Yeah I would say the mist is more for technical reasons in the first Silent Hill then SH2.

[NWR_DrewMG]

Okay, so I crossed the 8 hour mark in SH2 today (I took a break for a week or so while I was playing Brave for review), and god this game is really creeping me out.  This is hands down the most creepy game I'm playing but man I'm really sick of James having no reaction whatsoever to the creepy NPCs in this game.

I'm in the hotel at what I believe to be the end, and I've got the music box 66% put together.

Really looking forward to finishing this, because I want to know how the story ends, and also because I have Arkham Asylum coming in the mail in a few days and I anticipate playing the crap out of that.

[broodwars]

Okay, so I crossed the 8 hour mark in SH2 today (I took a break for a week or so while I was playing Brave for review), and god this game is really creeping me out.  This is hands down the most creepy game I'm playing but man I'm really sick of James having no reaction whatsoever to the creepy NPCs in this game.

I'm in the hotel at what I believe to be the end, and I've got the music box 66% put together.

Really looking forward to finishing this, because I want to know how the story ends, and also because I have Arkham Asylum coming in the mail in a few days and I anticipate playing the crap out of that.

I would keep on going because you are nearly at the end of the game, probably maybe 1 more hour left.  This is the best part of the game, so I'd keep going while you're still into it.

Incidentally, if you're playing the PC or Xbox version of the game you can unlock the "Born from a Wish" Maria bonus story mode for some extra play time after you beat the game.  That mode's only an hour or so long and is an interesting puzzle diversion.

[NWR_DrewMG]

"This is hands down the most creepy game I'm playing but man"

It's clear to see why I was chosen to write for the site.  Heh.  Let's try that again.

This is hands down the creepiest game I've played, but man...

[GoldenPhoenix]

Silent Hill 2 takes the ideas of SH1 and runs with it crafting an almost flawless experience. What I've always liked about the SH series is that it actually doesn't prohibit your movement with tank controls, but instead relies on other means to creep you out.

[NWR_DrewMG]

The section directly after the historical society where you have to keep falling down holes in the prison area is amazingly creepy, especially after the 4th or 5th time it asks you to volunteer to jump in a dark hole.

[Halbred]

You'll find that jumping down dark holes in a running theme in the SH series.

[NWR_DrewMG]

My thoughts and questions after finishing Silent Hill 2:


Is the entire thing supposed to be a dream?  I'm still stuck here trying to understand what the hell happened in this town to make everything go so wrong.  Maybe it's just because I'm playing the second installment first, but I really don't like that I wasn't given a clear indication of what the hell happened in Silent Hill.  We have all these characters besides James, and I don't know what to make of any of them.  If the whole game is a dream, then what place do Angela and Eddie have in this dream?  If it's not a dream, then is Laura on James side, or not?  She seems to actively plot against him for most of the game, but he never decides to stop trusting her.

So I get that James killed Mary because she was dying and he didn't know how to cope with it any longer, and that he supposedly creates Maria as a way of trying to feel less guilty about it, but then why the hell does Maria have her own SUBQUEST?  That doesn't make any sense.

Someone help me make sense of this.  I really enjoyed the horror aspect of this game, but I don't like the way it wrapped up. 

FWIW I got the ending where James and Laura leave town together through the graveyard as Mary reads her full letter.

[Halbred]

Okay...*phew*...here goes.

This is a bit different than in SH, but in SH2, the waterfront vacation town of Silent Hill is basically hell. Your own sins are given form, your own guilt comes crawling after you, forcing you to accept it.

James and Laura both enter Silent Hill and are forced to confront their own demons. Instead of a subquest featuring Maria, it would've been more interesting to see a subquest with Laura, because she is a human character just like James. She's dealing with something FAR more troubling than he is, though. She is eff'd up.

Maria was created to torture James, to make him care for somebody he obviously couldn't help. Notice that for much of the game, Maria is either IN danger or just outside of James' reach. Or dying, or all three! As for Laura, I think she's so far outside of sanity at this point that she sees James as a threat, as just another creature in this horrible hellscape, while James idenitifies with her on a human level. They're kind of in this together. I still don't understand, however, where Eddie fits into this. His agenda is never clear, his reason for coming to Silent Hill...

Of course Pyramid Head represents James' violent tendancies, perhaps the very act of killing his own wife. But the Pyramid Head is also sexually violent, and notice that at least one enemy in the game (Mannequin) is female. I take this to mean that James is sexually frustrated, but I could be reading to far into it.

What's Laura in there for? Well, it's telling that the official name for the boss monster attacking her is "Abstract Daddy..."

Hope that helps, sir. I HIGHLY recommend SH3, although you need to know what all went down in SH first. 

[NWR_DrewMG]

So what about Angela?  Does she also represent someone who came to Silent Hill, like Eddie Laura & James, to pay for her own sins?  I suppose that makes sense, but if the machinations of SH are of the mind (at least in the case of James) are we to assume that these other characters have their OWN version of Silent Hill?

And if Silent Hill isn't a real place, but rather James own personal hell, then how does that fit into the other Silent Hill games?  If I'm not mistaken, Silent Hill is more an example of the Occult gone wrong in the first and third SH game.

I don't know... I can kind of tell what is going on with this game, but I still kind of feel like the town is awfully detailed with newspaper clippings and remnants of what once was for the whole thing to be in James imagination.  It all feels so real.  That's one thing this particular game did better than any of the RE games I've played: this town feels like it's really there.  The locations feel very alive, very detailed, and believable.

At least it makes sense now in retrospect why James didn't have a "why are you even here?" kind of reaction to the other characters in the game - he's clearly not in his right mind the entire time.

[broodwars]

Hope that helps, sir. I HIGHLY recommend SH3, although you need to know what all went down in SH first.

Well, not really.  I didn't play the original Silent Hill till just last month, and I had little problem following Silent Hill 3 years ago.  Besides, it's not like Silent Hill 1 made sense to begin with.

As for Angela, yes she was drawn there (along with Eddie) to confront her "sins" just like James.

[Halbred]

Wait, I think I confused Laura with Angela. Which one's the crazy b*tch who dies in fire and is attacked by the Abstract Daddy? Whoever that is, that's who I was referring to.

The other girl is the little girl, right? SHE'S not real. She's a product of James' hell. I've heard theories that she represents Mary's ultimate innocence that was betrayed by James (that's why she's a snotty little brat the whole game). She could also represent a child never concieved, and is angry for having not been because of, again, James' killing of his wife. Both theories have merit, but I like the first one better. Goes more immediately with the central theme of the game.

[broodwars]

Wait, I think I confused Laura with Angela. Which one's the crazy b*tch who dies in fire and is attacked by the Abstract Daddy? Whoever that is, that's who I was referring to.

The other girl is the little girl, right? SHE'S not real. She's a product of James' hell. I've heard theories that she represents Mary's ultimate innocence that was betrayed by James (that's why she's a snotty little brat the whole game). She could also represent a child never concieved, and is angry for having not been because of, again, James' killing of his wife. Both theories have merit, but I like the first one better. Goes more immediately with the central theme of the game.

No, the little girl's real, as she was a friend of Mary's at the hospital.  She hands James a key item late in the game that he wouldn't have had access to himself.  It's just a Silent Hill rule that children cannot be drawn into the SH darkside because they still have that "innocence", so they fall under the protection of Metatron.  That's why often you see her act like she can't even notice the things that James can.

[Halbred]

I don't know, Brood. SH2 depicts the town in a completely different way than SH1. I don't know if the Seal of Metatron applies here.

[NWR_DrewMG]

I did a bit of googling this morning and found a few very interesting interpretations of the game's story, and I'm feeling a bit more okay with how things went down.

A very interesting game, I'm glad I've had that experience.

Hopefully the new Silent Hill game for Wii will give me enough of the SH1 story that I can then dip into SH3 with no problem.  I wish there was an Xbox version of SH3 because otherwise I'll have to drag my PS2 downstairs to my good TV.