An almost reverential recreation of the original, Silent Hill 2 both succeeds and falters. Is this glossy coat of paint enough to stand up to or even supersede the original?
Review and voice over: Leon Hurley
Video editor: Hal Dimond
Review and voice over: Leon Hurley
Video editor: Hal Dimond
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GamingTranscript
00:00I yelped and flinched more than a few times playing the Silent Hill 2 remake,
00:03which isn't bad going for an exactingly precise remake of a 23-year-old horror
00:07game that even people who haven't played it mostly know inside out.
00:10That was largely thanks to the mannequins, those enemies that look like legs with more
00:14legs on top, and they have a horrific habit of just standing in plain sight,
00:17tucked in a corner or nestled against some shelves,
00:19completely visible but somehow so, so easy to miss.
00:22I'll just explore this totally dark and empty room-
00:24LEGS IN MY FACE OH MY GOD WHY ARE THERE SO MANY LEGS IN MY FACE
00:27Barely hours into the game, I ended up a twitching wreck,
00:30standing outside of rooms for far too long and peering nervously inside for an excess of limbs.
00:34Even without that leggy jump scare, the atmosphere and general mood of Silent
00:37Hill 2 is a grimy foreboding sense of tense expectation.
00:40Sure, it largely owes that to using the original like a mould,
00:44pressing out an exact recreation rather than sculpting anything new, but it works.
00:48The darkness, the weak torch that just makes it worse, and the grinding loop of
00:52ambient screeching sound that picks at your nerves as you explore,
00:55all make for a satisfying horror experience.
00:57Now satisfying is probably not the first word you were expecting to sum up a game
01:00famous for murder nurses and sexually repressed purgatory,
01:03but it is the best way to describe my experience.
01:05This is a big, well-made interpretation that maybe plays a little too safely with
01:09its careful replication, but in doing so,
01:11re-creates a good horror game full of pace, variety, and moody foreboding.
01:16Remaking a game embedded in almost everyone's subconscious,
01:19whether they've played it or not, was always going to be somewhat of a poison chalice.
01:22Even outside of a passionate fanbase, almost everyone vaguely knows the gist of the story,
01:26subtext, monsters, and so on.
01:28Do you risk a backlash by interpreting or changing things,
01:31or play it safe and just follow what was there?
01:33Bloober Team has definitely gone with the latter, and while it's good,
01:36I was often surprised with just how slavishly it follows the original.
01:39The result remixes puzzles and makes very minor alterations to things like boss fights,
01:44but otherwise it's more reproduction and remake.
01:46It suggests either a fear of changing anything, or a rigidity that prevented it.
01:52I would have liked to have seen just a touch more of an update here and there,
01:55like tweaks to characters, dialogue, plot progression.
01:58Sticking so closely to the original means a few things feel out of touch,
02:01while some moments of recreated 2001 narrative and game design can feel clunky.
02:06A few later areas also feel a little bloated,
02:08often from fleshing out a minor puzzle or area that might have been better cut.
02:11But it's not a huge problem, and a few changes there are do improve things,
02:15like more nuanced facial animations and performances.
02:17All the characters speak in a subtle, almost perceptible dreamlike way initially,
02:21as if they know something is wrong but haven't woken up enough to fully grasp what it is.
02:25It really helps sell Silent Hill as a predatory entity disorientating the prey it lures in.
02:29Overall updates are mainly very non-invasive,
02:32better controls, modern camera, overall looks and so on,
02:34but some things do suffer a little by present day standards.
02:37For example, the small pool of monsters,
02:39basically three core creatures for 90% of the game,
02:42lose a little bit of their mystery and higher definition.
02:44Where things like the wreath-lying figures had, for me,
02:46a far more membranous, amniotic feel to their original straitjacketed appearance,
02:51here they present much more of a straight-up vinyl gimp suit look.
02:54I know that's technically in line with designer Masahiro Ito's original bodybag intent,
02:58but the sharper clarity here lacks the interpretive ambiguity
03:01created by the original game's technical limitations.
03:03The nurses as well, arguably Silent Hill's greatest contributor to popular culture,
03:07don't really land here either.
03:09They're dangerous and scary because they can kill you but have little charisma.
03:12With the exception of an off-the-shelf headshake animation,
03:14they have no real menace or character to their movement.
03:17In the initial opening hours,
03:18I worried the 4K clarity would strip away the misty sense of uncertainty and dread.
03:23As you first explore, the town feels far too crisp and visible,
03:26almost exposed for a game more associated with squinting fretfully into fog.
03:30But fortunately, it doesn't last long.
03:32Once you reach Woodside Apartments, the first big interior area,
03:34the game takes a horrible turn for the worse, which is a good thing here.
03:37And almost as soon as you start exploring its peeling rooms,
03:40things take a nosedive into some filthy dark depths they never really recover from.
03:44Again, a good thing.
03:45Woodside Apartments also establishes the overall structure that repeats
03:48for the majority of the time you'll be playing,
03:50splitting your time between unravelling large interconnected puzzle hubs
03:53and exploring more open town areas.
03:55For example, getting around the peeling walls of Woodside is centred on finding a clock,
03:59and in the three hands you need to set a time on it.
04:01Each hand is linked to a different door,
04:03and behind that is a smaller hub with its own puzzle theme to chase.
04:06In this case, mothwings to count, weights to balance, and chains to pull respectively.
04:09Generally, all the interiors follow this idea of one big central puzzle doohickey
04:13orbited by a range of mini-puzzles that get you numbers, ornaments, whatever's needed.
04:17For the most part, there's some good variety,
04:18with clues to interpret, pleasing detective work,
04:21and sometimes you just need to find a key.
04:22That said, in the later stages it can get a little wearing,
04:25especially when you're rattling around a level with multiple things on the go
04:28and pockets full of crap that needs to go somewhere.
04:31I don't think I've ever played a game with so many puzzles
04:33that wasn't specifically a puzzle game.
04:35If you combined all the Resident Evil remakes, Plus 7 and Village,
04:38you wouldn't even have half the count found in Silent Hill 2.
04:41By the end, it can feel like back-to-back puzzles for hours at a stretch,
04:44and while most of them are fun to solve,
04:46there's a few that feel like busywork or incoherently obtuse,
04:48and there's one that picks the most unintuitive answer possible
04:51to the point where I still think about it occasionally and mutter,
04:54really?
04:55Mostly though, the puzzle hub interiors are broken up by exploring open town sections,
04:58creating a nice ebb and flow between the
05:00oh-my-god-I'm-gonna-die corridors and the runaway-now streets.
05:03Combat is a mix of clumsy pipe swinging and wobbly aiming,
05:05where hero James Sunderland has just enough skill with a plank or a pistol
05:08to take on a single enemy without too much of a problem.
05:11Help by a dodge move to avoid incoming attacks.
05:13But against multiple creatures or in tight spaces with poor lighting,
05:16things can quickly go awry as you flail at anything that passes in front of your flashlight.
05:20Challenge-wise, the hardcore might want to nudge up the difficulty a notch.
05:23I always had gratuitous excessive ammo,
05:25and while the interior sections often left me limping from one health drink to the next,
05:29another player I spoke to had over 30 healing items for most of the game.
05:32That might be due to a patch that dropped midway between our playthroughs,
05:35or more likely I suspect a difference in playing styles,
05:38with me hoarding ammo and piling in messily with a pipe,
05:41compared to a more stealthful approach with headshots to avoid so much as touching an enemy.
05:45Either way, you might want to dip into the copious wealth of options to tune in the challenge,
05:48as well as just about every aspect of the controls, gameplay, UI and appearance.
05:51Although the only thing I really wanted to change and couldn't was a weird decision
05:55where James automatically pulls out a weapon whenever an enemy is nearby.
05:58It completely ruins the ambiguity of the iconic radio static
06:01that's meant to be a more general indication of danger.
06:04However you approach it, Silent Hill 2 is an atmospheric and rewarding horror game,
06:07up there with the Resident Evil remakes for reinventing a classic.
06:10While its strict adherence to the past can feel a little constrained at times,
06:13and a few things are lacking as a result, it nails the feel of the original well.
06:17Despite a scattering of minor issues,
06:18any negativity comes more from a place of believing it could have been better
06:22than it actually being bad.
06:23The whole thing ultimately delivers,
06:25and does a good job of making the series feel meaningful and relevant
06:27in the way it hasn't done for years.
06:29We give Silent Hill 2 three and a half stars out of five.
06:32Are you going to be playing Silent Hill 2 when it comes out?
06:34And if Bloober Team were to remaster another game in the series,
06:36which one would you pick?
06:37Let us know in the comments.