Wow, the Bonehoard
definitely has
King's Field vibes.
I remember reading an old interview many years ago, where a Looking Glass employee cited
King's Field II as one of the key inspirations towards
Thief. I can't remember which employee it was, maybe Tim Stellmach or Greg LoPiccolo. While I doubt that you will love
Thief as much as I did, I'm pretty sure you'll find the whole shebang to have been worth your time. I consider
Thief to be the best game I've ever played, but to be fair, I haven't beaten the game since 2001... nostalgia being what it is and all.
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So I beat this obscure oldie none of you ever heard of...
69. Silent Hill 2 (Greatest Hits) | PS2 | 2002"Silent Hill 2" is a survival horror game developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, and published by Konami in 2001. Having been a critical darling since its release, really this game needs no introduction. I've personally known quite a few people online and offline who have highly praised "Silent Hill 2". To this day, "Silent Hill 2" still gets listed in "best horror games of all time" lists regularly, even seventeen years since it debuted. Squeezing the teats of a sacred cow so long after it first mooed is tricky business, especially when you wonder why the milk only seems to taste a bit off to -you-. I have to admit, it's been a long time since I found myself with such conflicting opinions concerning a video game. I am not going to bother explaining the plot or how this game even works. There's a thousand reviews on the internet that will already do that for you. So some quick ups and downs:
+Much improved playability compared to the original "Silent Hill".
+Absolutely brilliant sound design.
+A fearless plot full of symbolism, pathos, and gravitas.
+Extremely well crafted CGI cutscenes.
+Technically impressive real time graphics for its time.
-Terrible, awful, worthless "puzzles".
-A jerk camera that rebels against common sense angles constantly.
-Highly repetitive level concepts and layouts.
-Dumb HUD-less interface makes tracking player health and location inconvenient.
-Pacing issues often leave the plot on the back burner for too long.
After beating "Silent Hill 2" I will say I respect the hell out of it, but I did not actually enjoy playing it.
The plot is legit amazing; James' tale exceeds what you could expect from a video game (even in today's time). Not to mention that "Silent Hill 2"'s visual symbolism is so riveting it'd make David Lynch envious. After seeing the ending, replays would strongly serve to unravel and clarify said symbolism. (One could write an essay.) Speaking of endings, there are many (I received the "In Water" ending if you're curious). "Silent Hill 2"'s unrelenting atmosphere is also strongly palpable, consistently giving off a feeling of dread and misery. The completely genius sound effects and OST serve the atmospheric purpose even more so than the impressive pixel work. And speaking of pixel work, the real time lighting engine is magnificent. You might notice most of what I'm describing here could just as easily fit a movie, as much as a video game. And therein lies my qualms with this experience.
From a gameplay alone standpoint, "Silent Hill 2" pretty much sucks. That's my opinion. The puzzles are terrible, the combat is wonky, interactive trigger points are fidgety, the camera is often uncooperative to say the least, level designs are rather boring, and enemies are a complete joke (on normal difficulty). While the puzzles can be infuriatingly illogical (Konami published their own official strategy guide for this game for the record), combat is instead overly simple. I often wondered why combat was even included. This game would have been scarier if you just had to run away and avoid monsters, instead of pumping them full of lead. And there's another problem, "Silent Hill 2" isn't scary. To me it never was. Sure it felt a little unnerving occasionally, but the "scariest game of all time" as so many internet posts say? Not hardly folks. Nor was it hard mechanically. By the end of this game, I was absolutely swimming in bullets and health restoratives. The challenge just wasn't there in that arcade sense.
And yet, as the credits rolled, I felt like I had experienced more than just a video game. So I'll just say it; "Silent Hill 2" is art. Yes, it's one of -those- games. "Silent Hill 2"'s impression and message reached beyond its medium's typical trappings. But there's the other problem; I think "Silent Hill 2" would have been a better film, or novel even, than it turned out as a video game. The interactive entertainment aspect, that is to say the "fun of playing it", wasn't there for me. I rather despised that aspect to be redundantly honest. Now with some HUD tweaks, and massive overhauls of the level concepts, puzzles designs, and combat engine... I think "Silent Hill 2" would be as good a video game as it is an artistic expression of love and loss. Clearly however, most people are not bothered by the things that bothered me in this game. I suppose it's tempting to overlook the interactive incompetence aspect, when you just saw a pyramid headed man raping a half-rotten mishmash of butts and legs. And likely a bad camera won't be on your mind, when the credits have just rolled, and you find yourself wondering if the darkness in James is just as dark in you.
Ex's time to beat: 9 hours 7 minutes
Ex's rating: 7.5/10
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I'll be playing through Born From a Wish next.