Silent Hill 2 Remake Review

GamesRadar

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

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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.

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