Silent Hill 2 had already claimed my wife and myself when it first appeared on Sony's Playstation 2 nearly a year ago. The combination of seductively chilling gameplay and haunting score had us both fascinated and repulsed unable to tear ourselves away from the dull light of the TV screen. The clammy touch of fear however never leaves a man for long and all too quickly it was once again time to enter that town of death. With a rapidly beating heart and sweating palms, I gingerly stepped back into the mist.
Silent Hill 2: Inner Fears finally arrives on the Xbox in its entire resplendent sphincter tightening glory. Featuring improved, squalid visuals and an even more harrowing soundtrack, not to mention a new (albeit short) side mission, Konami have released the definitive version of their cracking survival horror franchise. Like its Playstation 2 peer, our story starts in a dank, fecal strewn public toilet (think 20 hippos with diarrhoea and no toilet paper) and takes you to all matter of depressing (but stunningly realised) locations before you reach your final goal. Make no mistake this is one miserable game that will quickly hook its slathering jaws into you and refuse to let go until you finally complete 1 of 6 possible endings.
Taking the role of James Sutherland you soon realise this is an individual who is obviously not playing with a full deck; hes received a letter from his wife and decides to head to Silent Hill to meet her; fine until you realise shes been dead for 3 years. Ignoring any number of horror films he must have seen, James heads off into the mist enveloped town hoping to find some answers. What follows is one of the best survival horror games yet seen, puzzles are tricky yet never impossibly so, the various monsters are truly disturbing and the sound is simply the best score ever heard in any game. While it still has the standard problems of the genre (an incredibly archaic Resident Evil control system is the games biggest fault) Silent Hill 2 is so intoxicating you just cant stop playing it.
Take the visuals for example; from your initial foray into the mist-cloaked town to the dinghy, disheveled interiors you explore, the whole game reeks of atmosphere. Its when you first pick up your flashlight though that things really come to life. Interiors that were originally just full of broken furniture and shattered belongings become creepy, frightening places whose shadows seem to come alive. Beds, chairs and the like now take a sinister turn as their shadows stretch and warp across the screen like shadowy arms threatening to reach out and grab you. As for the monsters you encounter, well, the designers must have seen some distressing things when they were younger; zombie like creatures in straight jackets shuffle towards you, only stopping to exude a gout of disgusting gunk from their stomachs. Slain nurses, their necks lolling lifelessly against the shoulders attempt to send you to your maker and lets not even start to mention the evil monstrosity mentioned only as Pyramid Head.
Needless to say the combination of horrifying creatures and oppressive mist filled locations makes for a great environment that will have you looking over your shoulder whenever you play alone.Unfortunately the use of the Xboxs extra power is kept to the minimum and apart from some slightly sharper looking surroundings and character models, this is pretty much the same as the Playstation 2 version. The sound however, is a completely different matter.There are not many things that should scare a 29 year old male (apart from obviously a request from the wife to go over to the in-laws), but shut your curtains, crank up the TV volume and prepare to be scared witless. Never before has sound been used so effectively to build stomach churning fear and spine tingling terror. Guttural voices, screams, breathing and all matter of knocks and bangs build to a turbulent, cacophony of sound that will have the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.
While the actual main adventure will only take you around 10 hours of serious play to complete, the joy of Silent Hill 2 is to keep going back in an attempt to unlock those elusive extra endings (something this reviewer didnt fully appreciate on playing the Sony version). Such is the games structure that you should never get bored with repeated plays and the fact that different difficulty levels result in new puzzles only enhances the experience. It may be based on a tired formula but this is currently the best form available and will give Xbox owners a much-needed case of the heebie jeebies. The much-vaunted extra mission starring Maria is a bit of a disappointment as it will take you no more than an hour and a half to complete. However it is a nice feature to have and with the stunning digital sound and (slightly) improved visuals it does help to complete an already excellent game.
Overall Silent Hill 2: Inner Fears stands firmly as the best example yet of the survival horror genre. Small faults do nothing to diminish the fact that even a year down the line this is simply a wonderful (yet unsettling) experience to participate in. Xbox owners will also get this version before their Playstation 2 peers making this fact the final shattered skull on a corpse filled cake, thanks Konami
