A truly unsettling experience that will stay with you for months.
The Silent Hill method was far more terrifying. We're talking ''What the hell was that?'', ''Ah I don't like this'', ''I don't even want to go in there'', and classic lines such as ''Nah something is going to jump out at me if I do that''. But joking aside, it was and is still is very scary.
The protagonist of the game, James Sunderland, is visiting SH pretty much because his dead wife has sent him a letter. To be fair, that is a pretty interesting start to a game. It sucks you right in until the end, where you feel shattered and confused and want to play again. The games atmosphere is mentioned in just about every review, and with good reason: it's haunting. You feel genuinely isolated throughout the game as well as claustrophobic. The constant fog and rare moments of human interaction messes with your mind, keeping you on edge constantly. Although a simple concept, there a few things scarier than walking through a derelict building with a torch (it is imperative that I mention how well Team Silent executed the lighting effects in this game) and even more especially when you KNOW there are things in this particular building that represent James' imagination or hell itself, who knows what's going on here? The gameplay movement is awkward and controls can be tricky, but this only adds to the amount of adrenaline that will be pumping through your veins as you play. Who wants to play as a hotshot character who can punch and kick their way through hordes of monstrosities without so much as a scratch? It is not realistic, and you need to be able to relate to a character in order to really feel like you are there, and to feel their fear and pain. You'll often find James running out of breath and slowing down fairly quickly if you act like superman, which is not a good thing at certain points in the game. This in turn, brings me to one of the main things about the game. Pyramid Head. Ahh Pyramid Head. Why? Why me? Who are you? Where do you come from? What is your story? These are perhaps some of the questions you'll be asking yourself when he's not trying to kill you. Pyramid Head is probably one of the best features if not the best feature in the game. He is your pursuer. Your nightmare. Your very reason for wanting to leave SH perhaps. He is as can only be described: a 6 fingered man-beast-thing with a large red pyramid for a head. I can laugh freely as I recall the horror of having to confront him, but he's actually a fairly sinister character. Without spoiling too much, there are a few scenes where you can just briefly see him doing things of a suggested sexual nature to other monsters in the game, and believe me, it's scary. A brilliant enemy, one you won't forget for a while, especially at later scenes in the game, when things really start to get messed up. Taking all this into consideration, that was just one character, there is so much more to keep you involved. The soundtrack is terrifying, a strange mix of dark/ambience to metallic/industrial sounds, and then there are some sad piano/violin pieces when you reach the more thoughtful and emotional areas of the game. There are a few other humans like James with their own suggestive, frightening stories who seem to be troubled people. As the game progresses you discover more about them, and almost all of it is disturbing stuff. Wherever you go there are plenty of reasons for you to feel uncomfortable and with additions like this you will throughout the whole game. I'd love to go into details but i hate major spoilers, but there is one part I will describe for effect. Hospitals must be the worst possible building you can enter in any horror game. In SH2, it certainly is. Not only are we dealing with shockingly scary nurses wielding pipes, you will read detailed accounts of psychopaths and people living in delusional mental states (that's where the alarm bells start to ring a little bit) in this area. You can see padded cells with blooded stained walls and notes left behind by some crazies describing their obsessions and madness. Psychologically speaking, although you never see these characters, it's very effective. At one point the whole environment changes, effectively becoming even more rusty looking and derelict than it previously was, and some doors you were able to access are now inaccessible. That's where the magic lies. It's one of the best games I have ever played and I've came back to it time and time again. You don't need replayability, it's just great to be so immersed in the horror element when it's this good. As a definitive masterpiece, a must buy.