Why Silent Hill 2 is the Greatest Game of All Time

Anyone who knows me well enough has probably experienced me going off on one about the genius of Silent Hill 2 at some point in our relationship. It’s a game that’s disturbed and fascinated me since childhood, and it was one of my first truly beloved works of art, for Silent Hill 2, as well as being a clunky survival horror that would shitten the pants of even the most jaded fear fanatic, is pure art. In fact, I’ve never seen any game that aims for the emotional depths Silent Hill 2 dares to plumb, and definitely nothing that succeeds so beautifully, or horrifyingly. So, since I’m still completely obsessed with it, here’s another (shh) blog on why Silent Hill 2 is not only my favourite game of all time, but possibly one of my favourite works of art of all time, of any medium.

SH2 isn't just a scary game; it's a crushingly sad one, too, so it's even more fun!

Okay, so the Silent Hill series has blown up in popularity since the year SH2 came out, and the franchise has since disintegrated into total dogshit (except for that one thing that pains me too much to talk about). The first Silent Hill came out on the PS1 and was intended as a challenger to Resident Evil’s B-movie zombie carnival. It involved a single dad getting trapped in the titular town and fighting to save his daughter from the spooky designs of a bunch of sinister occultists, and the story continued in Silent Hill 3, with the weird Alessa-and-the-cult nonsense continuing to pop up all over the franchise, including the movie adaptation. Silent Hill 2, however, is unique in that it follows its own story. It’s not a game about villains or cults or ghosts or any of that bullshit; instead, the team decided to revolve SH2's story around its central character rather than the town itself, and, by going down this more personal route, ended up creating maybe the best videogame story of all time.

The story is: One day, melancholic everyman James Sunderland receives a letter from his wife, Mary, telling him to come meet her at Silent Hill; however, James tells us that Mary actually died three years ago from an unnamed disease. Intrigued, confused, and maybe a little desperate, James drives over to the town, which is now deserted, thick with fog and crammed with freaky monsters, to search for her. As the story progresses, the history of James and Mary’s marriage is illuminated, in all its brutal tragedy, and James descends further and further into the darkest corners of his own soul. Along the way he meets a number of other disturbed and unhelpful individuals who've found themselves beckoned by the town, including a mysterious woman who calls herself Maria, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his late wife. The plot thickens, reality turns on its head, and tragedies begin to unfold.

Symbolism is scattered all over the place, and not always as obviously as this.

Remember when games didn’t insult your intelligence? Believe it or not in this age of hand-holding narrative rubbish, back in 2001, Team Silent poured their heart and soul into this game, stuffing it with so much symbolism and fascinating detail that I’m still discovering new things about it to this day. Nearly every tiny part of it is deliberate and meaningful. The monsters, for instance, aren’t just creepy enemies intended to stand in your way, but actual, manifested inner demons, perversely sexual and just human enough to give you the howling fantods. Freudian psychological shit is going on all over the place, from the esoteric puzzles to the surreal, dilapidated settings; this isn’t so much a game as it is a horror walk through the inside of someone’s head, and what could be more disturbingly raw and terrifying than that?

It’s the little things that make the atmosphere of Silent Hill 2 so unsettling, and it might’ve been the first thing to ever teach me that for something to really fuck you up, subtlety is key. The dialogue, for instance, is jarring and unnatural, almost as if the characters can’t understand each other and maybe aren’t having the conversations that they think they are. Fucked-up English dialogue in Japanese games is usually either hilarious or irritating, but in this game, it actively works to keep you feeling truly alone in the nightmare. In fact, the sound design in its entirety is one of SH2’s crowning achievements, with its ungodly monster cries, its industrial shrieks, and the deafening use of silence itself. Also, the soundtrack is a masterpiece, capable of pulling at your heartstrings one moment and tearing your nerves to shreds at the next.

As the game progresses, the levels become more and more warped and illogical.

Now, when it comes to gameplay, Silent Hill 2 isn’t a winner by any means. It’s not exactly a game to wind down with; it’s barely even fun, in the purest sense. In that case, why do I say that it’s my favourite game of all time? Well, for one thing, games aren’t all about running around killing bad guys and picking up loot. Games are also about setting, and ambience, and exploration. Silent Hill is, at its essence, a walk through a haunted house, or an entire complex of haunted houses. It’s a descending march into a spiralling abyss, a masochistic journey of fear, intrigue and misery, and from start to finish, you're completely submerged in its unique atmosphere. And it couldn’t be a film, or a novel, or a comic book, or anything else. It only works as a world that you yourself must dare to walk through, and be personally affected by.

I could probably write about the ins and outs of Silent Hill 2 for the rest of my life, but, ultimately, the reason I love Silent Hill 2 is because of how much work it puts into making you feel something. As a horror game, it’s the absolute zenith, getting under your skin and keeping you up at night better than any of today’s jump-scare asylum-walkers could hold a candle to. But it’s more than just a thrill ride. SH2’s horrors aren’t in zombies or ghosts or things beyond our understanding; its power to disturb comes from the horrors we all understand – things like guilt, shame, despair, grief, hatred, desire and death. Silent Hill 2 is an expedition through the bleakest shadows of the human psyche. It’s cerebral enough to be analysed within an inch of its life, and harrowing enough to haunt you from now until the end of time. It's fifteen years old now, and maybe a little dated in many ways, but there's still never been anything like it, and if you're looking for a heavy, emotional, frightening and multi-layered gaming experience, consider yourself told that, for me at least, Silent Hill 2 is the number one option, and a work of genuine artistic genius.

P.S: If you’ve read this far and actually fancy giving it a go, as you obviously fucking need to, stay the hell away from 2012’s HD collection, as it’s a monumental clusterfuck. If you can't get the PS2 version, the PC one's easily downloadable.

BioShock Infinite

The BioShock series is, essentially, a run-and-gun horror FPS where you fight off a variety of madcap enemies with antique guns and magic powers, while running through a steampunk version of the 20^th Century that’s both cartoonishly ludicrous and broodingly miserable. The very first BioShock was a surprise classic, taking the dark, claustrophobic atmosphere of System Shock 2 and decorating it with a beautifully original setting – the decadent underwater metropolis of Rapture – and a unique story that threw bold new ideas at the concept of the faceless protagonist. I never played BioShock 2, which apparently had some new direction of its own that people took to with a mixed response, but I put the time into 2013’s BioShock Infinite, and it’s stayed with me as one of the finest shooters of recent memory, at least in terms of its batshit crazy, but enthralling, treatment of my most beloved of human inventions: narrative.

Infinite is a must for anyone who enjoys a good statue or two.

I was intrigued by Infinite before it was even released, just from looking at the concept. While BioShock 2 appeared to simply continue the story of Rapture, Infinite took the bold decision of moving its focus to an entirely new location – instead of a dark, dilapidated underwater city set in the 1960s, Infinite takes us to a gorgeously sunlit flying city set in the 1920s, complete with wide, open, brightly-lit spaces, in total contrast to its originator. It retained many of its core concepts, including its light RPG elements, its stylistic obsession with propaganda, and its unflinchingly brutal violence. I thought this was a fresh approach to creating a sequel, and by the time I reached Infinite’s grand, sensational climax, I realised that a significant chunk of the cerebral part of the game revolves around this very concept – constants and variables; what changes and what remains the same. Infinite is an extremely fun nuts-and-bolts shooter, which at times resembles a theme park thrill-ride, just like its forefather, but whereas the original BioShock was an exploration of a fantasy world inspired by lofty ideas and philosophies, Infinite brings those lofty ideas to the forefront, with greater emphasis placed on its story, its characters, and its brow-furrowing Wikipedia subheading of its Themes & Concepts.

In this game comparisons to the original Bioshock aren’t just expected, but necessary. Bioshock Infinite is set in Columbia, a city above the clouds, which, like Rapture, is an offshoot American settlement created as a haven for followers of the philosophy of its lunatic founder. In Rapture this was the laissez-faire anarcho-capitalism of Andrew Ryan, but in Columbia, the role of the city’s overbearing despot is the ‘prophet’ Comstock, a religious fanatic and oldschool white supremacist, which in the 1920s United States wasn’t perhaps such a radical position. You assume the role of Booker DeWitt, a former army man turned private detective, who is carrying out a mysterious assignment to go up into Columbia and ‘collect’ a girl from her incarceration inside a monumentally ginormous angel statute. At first this seems like a retread of the rescue-princess-from-tower trope used as the central plot in stories since the fucking Middle Ages, but from the offset, it’s made clear that Booker’s intentions in his rescue mission are to wipe away his unexplained ‘debts’ rather than out of a sense of chivalry. It also becomes apparent that Elizabeth, who appears to be as much of a Disney Princess as you can get away with without infringing copyright, has a wealth of space-and-time magic powers that push towards the godlike, and dwarf Booker’s gun-toting manliness quite substantially. Her powers are put to use in a clunky but interesting mechanic where you can summon helpful entities like ammo caches or defensive structures out of the ether, and these abilities eventually become the central mover of the storyline as you revisit the same levels in an alternate universe, which is when things really start getting crazy.

One of the game's most famous moments. The BioShock series often deals with the concept of choice.

One of the little things I thought was notable about BioShock Infinite (since there are a million things I could go into here) was how it puts great effort into portraying its violence in the most horrific way possible. Much of the fighting is blood-soaked and vicious, there are numerous scenes of abject cruelty, and defeated enemies let out cries of agonising pain. It’s a nice touch, however, that Elizabeth is originally horrified when she first experiences the murderous clusterfuck that is necessary to protect her. Criticisms against the game decried its violence is harsh and sadistic, a conclusion which I think is down to the fact that the violence is emphasised by its backdrop of a bright, cartoony landscape, and that it seems specifically heightened in order to instil the audience with deep revulsion. But the horror, which can be particularly spectacular even for the bloodstained world of videogames, is, I believe, justified by its juxtaposition against the setting of a idealistic, glorious utopia (for white people). If there’s any running theme in what BioShock is trying to ‘say’ (which is admittedly a flawed concept), it’s that idealism, and the promises of utopia that are fed to its subscribers, works to conceal the true brutality beneath its appealing surface. Propaganda, after all, is one of the BioShock series’ favourite staples, and you can’t move in Columbia for all its overbearing posters and borderline-communist statues. Even entire levels are dedicated to museums that proclaim the state-sponsored ideals of the floating city, while providing a little ham-fisted exposition in the process. All this propaganda is knowingly ironic, and emphasises the idea that its entire setting is built upon deceit, while also bringing to mind real-life parallels that give the game its softly anti-establishment credentials.

Infinite also met some criticism for its heavy-handed depictions of a thoroughly racist society, with the first sequence of combat in the game being preceded by a disgusting mob descent upon a mixed-race couple. The many uncomfortable scenes of racial nastiness have very little to do with the central plot, which is far more concerned with sci-fi ideas of multiple universe theory and concepts of choice and free will and all that airy-fairy, abstract sort of stuff, which led many people to question its purpose, aside from making the bad guys look particularly bad. Infinite actively bills itself as a distinctly American game, as you might’ve guessed from the torn American flag on the box art and the white Christian utopia-in-the-sky named Columbia. One of the first scenes in the game shows the founding fathers carved as neoclassical statues of divine significance, a clear piss-take at the reverential obsession America has with these figures in their history. One of its enemies is a robotic, minigun-wielding George Washington, for fuck’s sake. Keeping in mind that the game revolves around the idea of multiple worlds, and that Columbia is shown as being formerly part of the United States until it blasted off into the sky, I think that one way to look at Infinite’s sweetly nightmarish setting is as an exaggerated diorama of some of the grimmest aspects of the country’s history, a country where lofty idealism has held sway more than most. Even famous historical atrocities like the Boxer Rebellion and Wounded Knee are brought up and given a heroic spin by the city’s sinister elite. Just as certain characters are monstrous visions of the path unchosen, Columbia is a reflection of the dark parts of the United States, parts which are still to this day warped and concealed by manufactured attempts to distort the true narrative, of which institutional racism is one of the most significant examples, although exploitative capitalism and religious fervour are also absurdly satirised by Infinite.

Everything you need to know about the city of Columbia, as well as the BioShock series' approach to subtlety.

I’ll admit that despite all the things about it I think are genius, Infinite isn’t much for subtlety. Despite all its themes and its big ideas, which it manages to pull off effectively, this effectiveness isn’t attained by pussyfooting around. BioShock’s style, pehaps due to its stylistic adoration for propaganda, has always been about taking its story and shoving it right in your face, usually so you can be sickened by it, and all throughout Infinite are signs, literal and metaphorical, that spell out big sections of the backstory. The dialogue is also laid on pretty thick, suffering from a few bouts of appropriately American cheese, but while I’m a real sucker for subtle exposition, I’m still taken by BioShock’s bombastic way of doing things, maybe because it particularly works in the context of a bullet-flying videogame. BioShock Infinite is sensationalist, almost carnivalesque, which is probably why an early stage takes place at an actual funfair. It’s built a colossal and vibrant show that it wants to take you along by the hand and show you. And by christ do you notice what it’s trying to get you to think, or feel. It’s loaded with memorable moments and unforgettable sequences, and even when it’s trying excitedly to show you around, it never stops being fun. It’s so filled to the brim with ideas that it might take a wiki check or two to fully get your head around the ten million things happening in its ambitious final chapter. I think my favourite thing about Infinite is that it’s stuffed with such a high volume of creative flair, of ideas and visions and characters and concepts. In most media this might've been what would’ve killed it, but in a videogame, you’re free to take in the chronic thickness of stuff it throws your way at whatever pace you feel like.

I’ve rambled on way too long about this already, because you could go on for days about BioShock Infinite, and there’s so many really big things I haven’t even touched upon. It’s as if the discussion never ends, and for a game where you shoot fireballs from your hand and fight robot Abraham Lincolns, I find it pretty impressive how ambitious it is in forcing you to think and theorise about just what the hell’s going on. As an obsessive analyser, this is one of my favourite aspects of anything, and if you agree with me on that, or if you’re a fan of stuff like vicious social commentary and mind-warping science fiction, then I urge you to buy BioShock Infinite, or better yet, play the original BioShock first, as it’s a showstopping piece of work on its own, and the latter revelations of Infinite will be all the sweeter and more satisfying for doing so.