A twisted and dark view into the life of a man troubled by his past. The Citizen Kane of videogames.
The game begins with James Sunderland, a man who travels to Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his dead wife. A spooky start. We start the game is a public restroom with James looking into a mirror. As the story progresses the player will see many other characters, each with their own shady and hidden past, which most of the time, needs to be discovered by the player through intuition. The game tells you very little outright. The story is a deep, depressing, and heart wrenching, and deals with topics which at first I would have been against being portrayed in a videogame, like rape and child molestation. However, the way the game tells you this is very discreet and very well done. The mature topics are handled in mature ways.
The story itself is absolutely perfect. Almost everyone leaves this game with a different idea of what happened. Its one of the few games where the main antagonist is actually commonly disputed. The symbolism of everything leaves the player who can understand the depth a good view of what is going on. Almost everything has meaning, and most things require you to look deeper, to think outside the box, if you want the full story.
The atmosphere isn't as much scary as it is haunting, desolate, and leaves you feeling alone. You feel as if James is the only person on Earth, with this feeling only to be broken by the few instances of character dialogue and meetings. The environment seems almost impossible; large gaps and endless pits, huge barriers blocking paths, buildings that change as you travel through them. It's a supernatural and haunted town with a bloody past. The environment can get so creepy and unnerving, that fear is instilled into the player before an enemy even appears.
The monsters are all perfectly designed, walking horror shows. The infamous Pyramid Head will give the player a nice few instances of panic with his telltale screeching as he drags his weapon across the ground. It tells the player that he is near. Boss fights themselves are few and far between, but are still prevalent enough to add that bit of challenge on harder modes. This game is incredibly easy and lenient of its easier modes, so for a better experience playing on Normal is a good idea if you are used to tank controls.
The controls are standard tank controls. This leaves you occasionally hitting walls instead of monsters and running directly into monsters when the camera is facing you, not forward. The controls are this game's weak point, if you can get over them, which shouldn't be hard considering there is a difficulty mode just for the story, not monsters involved, then the experience is worth it.
The game itself has a puzzle difficulty as well, 4 of them to be exact. The puzzle difficulty is not something to fool around with, as getting overconfident and putting the difficulty on Hard will leave you reaching for a guide 10 minutes into the game. Start off on Easy or Normal to get the feel of them, then move up. The puzzles are all very mindbending on higher difficulties, but only a small few actually change with an increase in difficulty.
The gameplay is the same as the first, weapons and healing items. You find guns, ammo, and melee weapons to help fight off your nightmares. It hasn't changed.
Altogether, this is a game you play for its scares and story. It is horrifying, dark, and mind-bending. Its an experience you will not soon forget, and hopefully not because of the controls. Give it a chance, you might like what you find.