Shit yourself from the radio: Silent Hill 2 review, a remake of the cult horror on Unreal Engine 5

Silent Hill 2 is a game you can't forget after completing it. Bloober Team managed to make such a high-quality remake of the cult survival-horror that gg editorial team couldn't pass by the foggy city. The story of James Sunderland, who is trying to find his wife, turned out to be so fascinating that it is impossible to stop analysing his path and actions. And the redesigned visuals, audio, and interesting gameplay provide a high-quality gaming experience (albeit not without nuances). And all this makes SH 2, if not the game of the year, then definitely one of the best.

Synopsis.

Silent Hill 2 is a third-person psychological horror that immerses the player in the eerie and surreal city of Silent Hill. The protagonist, James Sunderland, receives a mysterious letter from his deceased wife Mary, who invites him to return to the town where they once spent a holiday that became special to them. But what does this town really hide, and how could James receive a letter from someone who is no longer alive?

5 reasons to buy Silent Hill 2

• You played the original and want to feel how it will look like on Unreal Engine 5
• You haven't played the original, but you love horror (and this is a cult game of the genre)
• You are sure that nothing scares you, but you want to feel it at least once
• You like to walk around the city in the fog with a stick decorated with nails in your hands
• You want to know about the existence of glue for vinyl records

1 reason not to buy Silent Hill 2

• Horror is not your genre at all

Fast forward:

• What I learned after reviewing Silent Hill 2
• Plot: how to stop thinking about you?
• Gameplay: kill, explore and think
• The technical side of the foggy city
• How Silent Hill 2 will be remembered
• Five things you need to know about Silent Hill 2

What I learned after reviewing Silent Hill 2

I've never played Silent Hill before. In fact, I knew virtually nothing about this series, but I often heard that the franchise has already become a cult, especially the second part. But the idea of playing a game from 2001 where you can't even control the camera seemed dubious to me. And then the Polish studio Bloober Team came on the scene and was commissioned by Konami to create a remake for those who had never played it, as well as for fans of the series, so that they could return to the updated city. And although some players were sceptical about the success of the remake, we can say with certainty that Bloober did not disappoint. From now on, I understand why people love Silent Hill 2 and why they call the series a cult one. So I was finally able to get to know this world, plunge into its crazy and scary corners, get out of it, and encourage everyone to do the same.

The plot: how to stop people thinking about you?

One day, James Sandland received a letter from his wife Mary. But the nuance is that she died 3 years ago. How is this possible? Did someone decide to play a prank? Is Mary really alive and waiting for James? Or is the protagonist just crazy? However, he decides to check it all out and returns to the city where their happy moments took place - Silent Hill.

Very soon, James realises that the town has changed dramatically since their visit. It used to be a bustling resort area, and now he will meet only four people during his stay.

But even with all this, James's love for Mary is so strong that he simply cannot turn around and leave the city. He is forced to go through all the difficulties, face his own sins, rethink everything he has done, and still reach the end of this mysterious story.

There are games about which the less you know (especially about the plot), the better it will be to play. And SH 2 falls into this category. You don't need to look for any additional information about this game before playing it. If it already seems interesting to you, you should go and buy it.

However, I want to note that I personally found the story very affecting. I still think that Silent Hill is more than just a city. It's a metaphorical projection of James' feelings and guilt. The game is riddled with symbolism, where everything we see embodies the protagonist's deep fears and internal conflicts.

I miss stories where you are not led by the hand, but are allowed to analyse and interpret the story yourself in the way it reflects on itself.

So it's very important to pay attention to the smallest details, to look into every corner of Silent Hill to understand how this city affects you and what it means to you. Because this story hasn't let go of me yet and I'm not sure it will anytime soon.

Gameplay: kill, explore and think

The gameplay of Silent Hill 2 can be divided into 3 stages: exploring locations, puzzles, and battles with enemies, and very often all 3 components work simultaneously.

Although the story takes place in a city, there is no open world. Usually, James finds himself in a large location, such as a hospital, hotel, or apartment building, where he has to run back and forth to find the exit and move on to the next story location. Although, of course, they will also let you wander around the city itself, which is very atmospheric.

In general, I liked the exploration element as well as the locations themselves. The only thing I don't like is when certain places in the game are very dark, like a prison, and I would reduce some of the locations by 20%. Because sometimes it seems that you have already spent too long in a certain place, such as a hospital. The fact that the game would be an hour or two shorter would not be a bad thing, but would actually benefit it.

Still, thanks to its mysteriousness, you can't rest until you've checked every room, examined all the important items or notes. And I had a couple of times when I switched off the game to go to bed and then said to myself: "Well, there's one last floor left to explore," and I'd start SH2 again and get lost in it for another hour, because after exploring that last floor, you don't go to bed, you keep playing.

And in recent years, it's very rare to find a game that can't let go of me. And in fact, after a month of gaming apathy, exploring all those creepy corridors has become a ray of joy for me, no matter how strange it sounds, when you wake up and think about how you're going to run to switch on your console again after work.

Stretch your brain

And where without puzzles. Most of them aren't complex, but they force you to turn on your brain so that it starts generating ideas to move on. At first, we are given simple tasks when we find a note that says that an object (or part of it) is somewhere nearby and we need to find it there.

However, it gets more interesting from there. For example, in the first hours of the game, while exploring the apartment, we find ourselves in a locked room with a safe with a key to the door. How do we find out the code? There is a poem written on the wall, and you need to find the numbers on the wall that make up a single combination.

Or in a hospital, one of the doors is locked with a combination lock. Here the search for the answer is even more interesting. Next to the door is an X-ray room with different images. They all need to be laid out in the right order and at the right angle to see the numbers. But according to all the canons of the genre, not all the photos are in the room at once and you have to look for them. And when we find one of them, we see that it's in poor condition and we need to find a special tool to see something. Where can you find one? So you sit there and think about where it would be logical to store the chemicals. Luckily, there is always a map in the game, so it's impossible to get lost.

It seems like nothing super complicated, but it strikes a good balance between not feeling like a riddle for children, but at the same time, you don't spend hours thinking about it, and you often feel good that you were able to make a logical chain in your head and find the right answer.

Crush and shoot

Now let's move on to the most interesting part - the combat system. James will be attacked by several enemies all the time, but in order not to spoil it, I will reveal only three - figures, mannequins, and nurses.

Figures are the easiest of the enemies. They're not fast, and all they can do is spit acid on you or do minor damage. However, there is a type that crawls on the floor. This one is even less likely to harm you, but it is also harder to catch.

Dummies are the most interesting enemies. Generally, James has a radio that starts making noise if there is an enemy nearby, so you are always warned. But dummies can hide in different places and make no noise at all, making them invisible to the radio. So even if your radio doesn't make any noise, it doesn't mean that no one is around. If you forget to check the corner, bathroom or table, a mannequin will jump out at you and you'll have to try to get away from it.

The scariest thing happens when you switch on a flashlight in a dark room, a mannequin runs in front of you, and then the radio goes dead. And you clearly know that he is next to you, but you don't know where exactly, and you panic and start looking everywhere you can to be the first to see the enemy. And these ways of scaring work much better than conventional screamers.

But nurses carry weapons with them: a knife or a stick, so you have to be careful with them too. You don't really want to get hit in the head with a pipe.

Figures, mannequins and nurses

To destroy them, we have short-range and long-range weapons. The melee weapon is initially a wooden stick with nails, which will later be replaced by a metal pipe. As for firearms, we are given a pistol, a shotgun, and a rifle.

If you play the game on an easy difficulty level, you won't have any problems with ammo (especially for the pistol) and you can turn the game into a shooter, but on medium and hard difficulties, you'll have less luck and need to count each bullet more carefully. And don't forget that in addition to bullets, you also need to look for medicines to restore your health.

With the pipe, James can only attack. There are no blocks or different types of strikes. The only thing you can do is dodge an enemy attack. But I like the aggression with which he makes each blow, which also conveys his emotional state. He hates it all and is ready to crush everything that slows down his path to his wife with all his might.

But it is best to combine a metal pipe and a firearm. For example, if you shoot the nurse in the knee, she will sit down for a while and you will kill her with the pipe in one blow, instead of hitting her 7-10 times until she falls down.

In general, I really enjoyed fighting in the game. The enemies are cunning, you feel that they can pose a threat if there are several of them and you are inattentive and in a hurry. And the arsenal, although not the largest, still allows you to go wild. Figures fly away like baseballs thanks to the pipe, you shoot nurses in the knees, and if you're fed up with the dummies, you take a shotgun and with one shot you can make them immobile.

I didn't get bored with all this even at the end, because you are constantly thrown into new locations with new types of enemies, so you want to study their behaviour, find an approach and leave the arena victorious. And sometimes the game even throws in boss battles. Some of them, especially the encounter with the legendary Pyramidhead, are memorable.

How does Silent Hill 2 play in general?

Bloober Team has managed to combine exploration, puzzles, and combat in such a way that none of these elements get boring. It is really interesting to explore the world, because it is full of many puzzles. Puzzles provide a nice challenge, and battles with enemies add drive to these events, when you can pile on everyone around you with a pipe and finish off the survivors with a pistol. Therefore, we have a game that has both an interesting story and cool gameplay that does not get boring.

The technical side of the foggy city

The game has some problems with optimisation. On the PlayStation 5, it doesn't always manage to keep a stable 60 fps and sometimes there is a loss of frames. There are also visual artefacts sometimes, and in some scenes it is very noticeable. Although the game has never crashed, and I haven't noticed any bugs either, it would still be nice to have at least a stable 60 frames.

Updated and atmospheric visuals

The game has been remade on Unreal Engine 5 and now it looks incredible. The fog feels realistic. We worked hard on facial animations and the characters' facial expressions immediately tell the player what they are feeling. The lighting also affects the atmosphere and, in general, thanks to UE5, the authors managed to create a game where you want to see everything and everyone. I could never have imagined that a city completely covered in fog, with barely any light coming through its buildings, could be made so beautiful and exciting.

Also, finally, the game has an over-the-shoulder camera, which also enhances the immersion in the game and it is much more pleasant to play SH2 in this way when you control the camera yourself, rather than looking at a fixed frame.

Audio on another level

While we're slowly getting used to the graphics in UE5, the audio in this game is something else. Sound is almost the most important aspect for horror games, and everyone involved has done their job perfectly. The game scares you the most with its sounds. You hear the echo of other people's sounds coming from somewhere far away. You have a question: "Is it a man or a monster?". Once, James' head started whispering and it was almost the scariest moment of the game. The sounds in this game are always pressuring and depressing.

The music is worth mentioning separately. Just like in the original, the music for the remake was composed by Akira Yamaoka, and this year he became a discovery for me among game composers. His music, like the sounds, enhances the atmosphere, but in addition to fear, his music also contains notes of hope, which symbolise that perhaps James can finally be happy.

How Silent Hill 2 will be remembered

Silent Hill 2 will be remembered as a remake on the level of the latest Resident Evil games. Bloober Team did a great job and gave us an updated story that a large number of players will now be able to get acquainted with. The story of James and his journey to the foggy city leaves its mark on the player, and during this journey we explore different parts of this place, while solving interesting puzzles and meeting the worst inhabitants of Silent Hill in brutal battles, which makes the gameplay dynamic and enhances the emotions of this atmospheric remake.

As I finish this text, I realise that I believed in the Polish studio for a reason, and my impressions even exceeded my expectations, because I didn't think I could like horror so much. For me, this is one of the best games of this year and I hope to see remakes of other parts of the series, because now I constantly see this city - Silent Hill - in my thoughts.

Five things you need to know about Silent Hill 2

• Silent Hill 2 is a psychological survival-horror
• The story tells about James, who returns to Silent Hill to find his wife
• The gameplay combines exploration of locations, interesting puzzles, and intense battles with enemies
• The remake was remade on Unreal Engine 5, which helped to update the foggy city and make it more atmospheric
• Bloober Team has managed to make one of the best games of 2024 that all horror fans should play

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