Silent Hill 2

Alright, so your wife who died of an illness a few years back sends you a letter to come meet her in Silent Hill in your "Special Place".  What would you do?  I would burn the letter.  This is the beginning of Silent Hill 2.  You James Sunderland come to Silent Hill in search of your dead wife who sent you a letter.  Once you get to Silent Hill you realize just how much it has screwed up since you were last here on vacation unless your idea of vacation includes mutilated monsters that want to ravage you.

Story- 8/10
Probably one of the best Silent Hill story lines.  The story of how Henry's wife died slowly unfolds as you progress further into the game.  You also learn more about Henry and his character develops wonderfully as you take on Silent Hill to find your wife. This story has less to deal with the actual background of Silent Hill then it does with Henry's story, however you do learn quite a bit about Silent Hills past such as Walter Sullivan and the sickness of Silent Hill.

Game play- 7/10
A giant improvement from the first Silent Hill .  You actually have the option to turn off tank controls in this game, so movement is much easier than the first game.  Combat flows smoothly except for some camera issues and the inability not to switch targets gets frustrating.  You are able to hold as many items as you want in this game and the game includes quite a few weapons.  There are less melee weapons inside of this game compared to 4 and it focuses mostly on ranged weapons.  The puzzles in the game are challenging and interesting at the same time.  At some point you will be wondering what the hell do I do with a wax doll, a lighter, and a horse shoe.  The only problem I had was with the camera controls.  A lot of the time you cant even see what is attacking you and the camera a lot of the time flys back and forth.  It does give you the option of doing a 180 with the camera, but it takes a while and a lot of the time it doesn't work.

Sound - 10/10 
The creepy sounds of most Silent Hill 1 makes a return inside of Silent Hill 2.  The sound track is absolutely wonderful and keeps you on the edge of you seat most of the time.  It gives you a sense of despair with a slight sign of hope for the future.

Ability to replay- 10/10
Silent Hill 2 has quite a few endings and a lot of unlockables.  The game itself is quite short averaging around 6 hours, so in my opinion it urges gamers to replay it multiple times.

Overall- 9/10

In a lot of people eyes Silent Hill 2 is probably one of the best Silent Hill's in the series.  I urge anyone that has any sense of interest in Survival Horror games to give this one a try.  It doesn't matter if you don't know about Silent Hill and pretty much anyone can pick up this game.  I loved this game every time I played it and I hope you will also.

I will be starting Silent Hill 3 soon which is arguably my top pick in the Silent Hill series.  Thanks again for reading.

Trailer