| Publisher: |
Developer: |
Genre: |
Players: |
ESRB: |
| Konami |
Konami |
Action |
1 |
Mature |
Silent Hill 2
Reviewed by: Infestator
Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams is the sequel to Playstation’s horror game, Silent Hill. The game is out for both XBOX and PS2; however, the Xbox version of the game includes many more features than PS2’s original Silent Hill 2. These features include: One new sub-quest (which is disappointingly short), enhanced graphics and light effects, new areas, items and weapons, and a brand new ending.
Gameplay: One of the things I like about Silent Hill 2 is the storyline. Of course, the story wouldn’t be that “complete” without six alternative endings and many graphical cut scenes. However, some endings can only be reached by doing certain things in the game. For example, to obtain the “Rebirth Ending,” you must beat the game at least once and find all the ritual items, which is surprisingly VERY hard to do.
In the game, you are confronted with various monsters that you must kill. This isn’t as exciting as it seems. Throughout the whole game, you fight the same monsters over and over again. Occasionally, there are a few bosses that you must fight, but still, that does not make up for the horrible repetitiveness. Also, throughout the game, you often run low on ammo for your ranged weapons and are forced to switch to your melee weapons. This makes the game very slow because each monster takes like 30 seconds to kill with a pipe, knife or whatever melee weapon you use, not to mention that they revive themselves after you “think” you’ve killed them.
On the other hand, the puzzles give this game a major plus. They are fun and difficult to solve (depending on which difficulty level you choose; easy, medium and hard), they fit well into the story as well.
Graphics: The cut scenes in SH2: RD are unbelievably realistic. Unfortunately, the scenes are extremely short. Although the XBOX version has enhanced graphics and lighting, the ingame graphics are sluggish and squared, but what do you expect? The game’s a port off the PS2 version.
Controls: I didn’t have much trouble with the controls. They are easy to learn, even for first time players. You would use the analog to move, the right trigger to attack, and the remaining buttons to bring up menus and to perform certain tasks. The controller also rumbles when you attack or get attacked. Despite the good facts, the camera view often changes a lot and makes it hard to control the character in third person view.
Replay: Silent Hill 2 is not worth replaying because this game gets repetitive and boring. Unless you are really dedicated and would like to spend hours and hours just to unlock the secret endings, I wouldn’t recommend playing this game again.
Sound: The sound is the best feature in the game and it makes up for the slow gameplay and the sluggish graphics. If you have surround sound it gives an eerie effect to the game. Also, if you played this game at night with all the lights off, it would add a touch to the eeriness because the game is very dark and you have nothing else to rely on, but your sound.
Overall Presentation:
Scores:
Gameplay:  5
Graphics:  8
Controls:  10
Replay:  3
Sound:  9
Total Score: 9
|
