SILENT HILL 2 gives me a lot of regret – GeekTyrant

After receiving a letter from his deceased wife,

James goes to where they shared so many memories,

hoping to see her again: Silent Hill.

There, by the lake, he finds a woman who looks uncannily like her…

“My name… is Maria,” the woman smiles. Her face, her voice… She’s just like her.

Experience a masterclass in psychological horror – hailed as the best in the series – on the latest hardware with chilling visuals and visceral sounds.

Before I get too far into my review, I want to talk about my test setup and settings. The game launched with a ‘Playable’ rating on Steam Deck, but that was quickly changed to ‘Not Supported’ so I played all my games on my gaming desktop (specs below).

I recently started up Silent Hill 2 on my Steam Deck because a recent patch supposedly improved the experience, but after loading it up and playing with some settings, it looked bad in my opinion and I struggled to maintain 30fps.

On my desktop, performance was definitely more stable and I was able to push up quite a few settings and maintain 60+ fps while playing with a controller. Since the last time I played, I believe they’ve injected FSR 3.1 support and that should, in theory, further improve performance capabilities.

Staying on the technical side of things for a moment, at launch there was really bad stuttering when crossing area limits, but I’ve seen this improve at least partially with the patches.

Like I said, I’m a big baby when it comes to horror. However, I had heard so much praise for that Silent Hill 2 and I loved hearing my favorite gaming podcast (shoutout to Get played) talk about how I decided I wanted to try this game with the remake. I’m a baby and I need to play in short bursts with lots of fun afterwards, but I enjoyed my time in Silent Hill.

In case you’re not familiar with it Silent Hill 2It’s definitely more of a psychological thriller (my kind of horror in movies), but there’s also gruesome and disgusting stuff.

You play James Sunderland who travels to Silent Hill, Maine in search of his late wife Mary, who sent him a letter three years after her death. You arrive to solve this mystery and a heavy fog hangs around the now empty city filled with terrifying and grotesque creatures ready to do you harm.

If I’m honest, Silent Hill 2 is incredible! The writing is so good, the team did an impeccable job building the haunting atmosphere, which in itself made me want to quit the game, and everything looks incredible.

The gameplay overall feels good (see some negatives below) to play and I’m glad I’m playing it, even if I often find myself saying “why did I do this to myself” which sounds like it’s not uncommon for gamers who play this.

You can adjust the difficulty of the combat and the puzzles separately, which is nice because I’m definitely more of a puzzle guy and so I lowered the combat difficulty in hopes of reducing the creepiness (with mild success).

The sound team really did a fantastic job with everything. The atmospheric sounds are phenomenal, but the grotesque sounds of the creatures you encounter are also something else. The team has done a fantastic job of using sound to transport the player into the horrors of Silent Hill.

What are my nitpicks? The aforementioned stuttering was very bad at launch. I haven’t played enough since the patches to know how much it’s been fixed, but there’s still some stuttering, although it’s noticeably better.

It also really bothers me that you just walk into doors and push them open. I always expect to have to press A or X to open a door, but pressing the button does nothing. When it comes to saving, I’m torn.

On the one hand, I like the convenience that modern conventions offer for saving anywhere. However, Silent Hill 2 maintains the use of save points which I think is the better move overall. It feels much more thematic, as if the save points are giving you a hint into the game’s true story.

Fighting with the wooden plank (the first weapon you get) just feels awkward to use. I’m sure this is at least partly on purpose, but it was certainly something I wasn’t a fan of regardless of the team’s intentions.

Honestly, if you’re not a fan of horror, I’d say I enjoy the narrative aspect of it Silent Hill 2but it’s hard to get through it because I’m so scared.

This isn’t a game for everyone, but if you think you can handle the horror and creepiness of it then I would definitely recommend playing it Silent Hill 2 on your platform of choice. Maybe I’ll get the courage to finish it for next Halloween.