Silent Hill 2

Thoughts on this? This game inspires a particular kind of negativity in me that nothing else really does. It's a unique sort of horror. If you know of anything sufficiently similar, post it.

The Cat Lady Downfall

>>1709 >Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs I just finished this, and it was quite a disappointment. Instead of explaining why I disliked it in depth (I feel it had almost no redeeming features), I will ask you why you consider it similar to SH2. Is it the environmental design? The superficially similar plots?

Afraid of Monsters Cry of Fear Lone Survivor Detention

And if you want something really disturbing and you don't mind visual novels then you should try Saya no Uta.

>>1724 Just to add some info to my own post: Afraid of Monsters and Cry of Fear are both modifications for the original Half-Life, so that game is required to run them. All of the mentioned games are psychological horror kind of games with various endings, which is what I think the core idea of Silent Hill series games is. The most popular game on this list is Cry of Fear, but I think that its predecessor Afraid of Monsters is also worth of playing. Lone Survivor is the game which probably mimics the feel of Silent Hill games the closest, but some people say that it's a little bit artificial. Well, you can be the judge of that. Detention is kinda the odd one on the list, because it's much more slow paced and doesn't include any direct combat, but many people say that on the deeper level it resembles Silent Hill games more than anything else. >>1709 No offense, but this looks like a "most popular horror games on steam" list. I'm not saying that those games are bad, but... I think that some of them (Outlast 2) doesn't even fit the criteria of a psychological horror.

>>1727 I didn't want to restrict things too much, so I didn't say what I liked about SH2 before. I find that if you go looking for something using highly specific criteria you tend not to find anything worthwhile. I suppose that I enjoyed SH2 for being relentlessly oppressive rather than outright frightening, not to mention its heavily layered and largely unified presentation. It's horror that stands up to intellectual scrutiny when it seems that higher thought usually goes out the window in horror games. Also, I haven't played the other Silent Hills on account of hearing that none of them approach the brilliance of 2, so don't think that your recommendations must conform to the standards of the series as a whole. Also, I will remind everyone that this is meant as a discussion thread too, should anyone want to talk about the game, what makes horror like this appealing, etc.

>>1728 I actually prefer Silent Hill 1 to Silent Hill 2... ...but I'm weird and I know that I'm probably the only person on the entire earth with such strange tastes, so I guess you can completely ignore this post.

Anyway, if you are looking for deep games regardles of a genre, then you should definitly try some of Chris Avellone's work - especially Planescape: Torment, KOTOR2: The Sith Lords, NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer and Torment: Tides of Numanera.

>>1729 You may like lost in vivo

I haven't played video games regularly for the last half of my life but I've been seeing stills from the Silent Hill games for years and I want to play them so bad now.

>>1751 1 - 4 are absolutely worth a play, 2 is near if not masterpiece level. Dont bother with homecoming and downpour, 0rigins was actually okay but no where near as good as the original games by team silent.

>>1754 What about Shattered Memories?

>>1755 It's the only silent hill I havent played, I've heard good things but it still looks very different in tone/atmosphere to the original 4, I'll need to play it at some point to form my own opinion.

>>1708 Rule of Rose. It comes from the same "era" of survival horror games, which makes it very similar in presentation. It has psychological depth as well, but it takes it in a different direction from SH, and the conclusion is arguably less pessimistic. Prepare for a lot of loli suffering though.

>>1758 You've reminded me that I need to finish this, was really enjoying it but I always seem to get sidetracked by something when trying to playthrough a game

>>1708 Lost in Vivo

Lost in Vevo is the correct answer. Both Detention & Devotion from Red Candle give me Silent Hill vibes too. The Taiwanese setting and culture aren't familiar, which is important for a horror setting. Unfamiliarity

>>1750 >>1761 >>1821 Lost in Vivo is fantastic. Great art design on top of well-crafted atmosphere and spooks.

Out of the games mentioned in this thread, I've now played Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Cry of Fear, The Cat Lady, and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. I don't think any of them were worth it, really. Maybe I should go ahead and play Silent Hill 1. Lost in Vivo seems promising, but it looks perhaps a bit too much like Cry of Fear.

>>2182 >Cry of Fear, The Cat Lady What didn't you like about these? If you don't like these, then I have no clue what you enjoyed SH2 for. These are some of the closest games you're going to get to SH2. Still play SH1, I guess, but it's less like SH2 than those two games outside of gameplay and lore.

>>2198 To begin with, I should say that I never really know what makes me like one thing and not like another. If I had to guess, I'd say that, while the aesthetics of those games were similar to SH2, I didn't get the same impression of emotional and intellectual depth (not to mention tonal/aesthetic/atmospheric consistency) that I did from SH2. I would point out that The Cat Lady in particular ended with a generic "No, don't kill him! You're better than that!" ending, and the general level of artistry throughout seemed roughly consistent with that ending. I do think it had a somewhat strong start. That's one hypothesis. Another is that I just prefer the Japanese approach to art.

>>2209 Fair enough. I've always played these games mostly for the aesthetic art of them so I guess that's why I think they stand pretty shoulder to shoulder. I can understand the emotional depth level, but I've never really gathered an "intellectual" component from any of them. The Cat Lady was a little inconsistent tonally sometimes admittedly though I think not killing the guy was a worse fate for him. He wanted to die and not killing him forces him to remain a stupid vegetable the rest his life. Honestly, Silent Hill is as western as it gets in my analysis of it. David Lynch, industrial music and visuals, the '81 film Possession, Doestoevsky, Stephen King, western religious concepts, all come to mind quicker than eastern sources of inspiration and execution of it. Its actually quite distinctly western. They even used western movies like Kindergarden Cop for visual references in SH1. The western vibe seems very deliberate. I guess it's all just your own perception of these things

>>2217 The game had western influences, and it was aimed at western audiences; you're right about that. Still, Team Silent was very Japanese, and I think much of the horror reflects the genre conventions of Japanese horror. Pretty much everything the Japanese make at this point is inspired or influenced by western sources (especially Hollywood), but there is still a recognizable "Japaneseness" to it. I want to say that it has something to do with subtlety, but the specifics behind this impression are not accessible to me through conscious thought.

>>1708 The white chamber, free indie horror point and click, try it now

>>2219 You are right. Silent Hill might look western on the surface, but in its deepest layers it's very recognizably japanese. This kind of horror could not have been made in the West. I don't want to sound like a pretentious smartass, but I think one of the main things that defines certain japansese media is this lack of a solid boundry between reality and dream. Take a look at many anime made by KyoAni ( R.I.P. btw. ). For example Kanon. Can you explain why was Yuuichi able to meet Ayu the entire show, even though you find out at the end, that she was in the hospital unconscious the whole time? You can't. Because Japanese don't bother to explain such things. In western media they often break the laws of physics and science, but they always try to explain that somehow and follow at least some basic laws of logic. In japanese media, they often break even the most basic laws of logic and don't even bother to explain. And that is okay. That's because their media have more common with dreams. The story, artistic expression and emotions are above logic there. This is something that is almost never done in the West. While Japanese do this often and mastered it.

Anyone ever play this? https://store.steampowered.com/app/335670/LISA/ Maybe not quite similar but it does make one feel terrible in a somewhat unique way.

>>2225 >This is something that is almost never done in the West. While Japanese do this often and mastered it. You're kidding.

>>2229 I'm only now entering this conversation, but would you explain why you disagree? >In western media they often break the laws of physics and science, but they always try to explain that somehow and follow at least some basic laws of logic. I can't write that I really disagree here, but I'm also not well-versed with Japanese media enough to comment on the other side. >In japanese media, they often break even the most basic laws of logic and don't even bother to explain. >That's because their media have more common with dreams. The story, artistic expression and emotions are above logic there. This isn't the feeling I usually get from Japanese games, but I mostly play Nintendo when it comes to Japanese games. This isn't the feeling I got from, say, Final Fantasy VII either, but that story was a mess is part of it. Final Fantasy IV was a coherent story, even with all of those fake deaths. >This is something that is almost never done in the West. While Japanese do this often and mastered it. I'm curious if you who wrote this could find another example, I've never played Yume Nikki but that comes to mind, and you who I'm replying to could find an example of a Western game that has these qualities.

>>2230 >>In western media they often break the laws of physics and science, but they always try to explain that somehow and follow at least some basic laws of logic. It's simply not true because "they always try to explain that somehow and follow at least some basic laws of logic" is simply an overestimation and I'd guess comes from observation of media that is more apparent in western culture. Yes, many pieces of mainstream western media try to do some sort of "rational explanation" thing but that's generally stuff outside of the art-house field and generally in a world which calls for some sort of rational explanation. >>In japanese media, they often break even the most basic laws of logic and don't even bother to explain. >>That's because their media have more common with dreams. The story, artistic expression and emotions are above logic there. I'm not versed enough in it to say whether or not this is a true as a cross section analysis of Japanese media, but to say that there isn't a soykaf ton of western media that values story, artistic expression and emotions over "logic" is again just an overgeneralization. >>This is something that is almost never done in the West. While Japanese do this often and mastered it. As I said here >>2217 the pieces of media listed here more or less all employ the same "distinctly japanese" characteristics that one guy is talking about while obviously influencing SH. I'm not sure where he's getting Silent Hill being extremely Japanese when it's intellectual content is pretty much a pastiche of western medias. In the best way possible, of course, but still a conglomeration of ideas reaching from every format of media. And if you take away the content that was all clearly inspired by western art, you really just have the mechanics of the game.

>>2225 >In japanese media, they often break even the most basic laws of logic and don't even bother to explain. And that is okay. You could argue that, but on the other hand you could just as easily say that it is just easier to not rationalize something due to laziness, poor storytelling.

>Silent Hill could not have been made in the west But david lynch, guys. Or what about Salvador Dali, Alejandro Jodorowsky? Kitty Horrorshow actually makes videogames and is a product of "the west". The team at Frictional are a bunch of europeans and SOMA plays like an actual nightmare.

>>1729 I went through all of them last year and I have to agree. SH2 is the fan favourite, but SH1 is very special to me. Too bad we never got a rerelease.

>>2225 >In western media they often break the laws of physics and science, but they always try to explain that somehow and follow at least some basic laws of logic. Alice in Wonderland and other Lewis Carrol works come to mind as counterexamples. So, I'm skeptical of the claim there's much of a schism between East and West on this.

>>1708 I regret passing it up a year ago at a yard sale for $4. Instead my dumbass got some Castlevania games instead.

I think part of the horror is the idea that everything in Silent Hill is some kind of metaphor or allegory, but it's still going to kill you whether you get it or not. You can't just opt out and say "You're nothing but a deck of cards!".

>>1708 For some reason Silent Hill 1/2 feel so cozy to me. I watched LPs to help me sleep at night

Just played through this bad boy. It was short and decent, but it definitely captured the feel of discomfort of early 5th Gen/6th gen/ps1/2 horror games. I would also recommend Fran Bow. >>1727 >Lone survivor was artificial I definitely think it captured silent hill better than downpour and homecoming did. I think the room did as well, even though it wasn't originally a silent hill game. Also Jasper Bryne makes some good soundtracks, considering he also did a few for hotline Miami.

I finally got around to playing SH2 a few days ago and I really liked it. It's the most engaging game I've played in a while. It also made me feel things, and that rarelt happens. You might enjoy Deadly Premonition. It's not quite as scary (and I'd hesitate to call it a horror game), and it's very cheesy, but trust me when I say to just stick with it until the end. It's one of my favourite games. I found there were a few similarities between SH2 and it. As far as I know, you should emulate the PS3 version for the best experience.

>>2955 Oh boy, I am in exactly the right frame of mind to respond to this (and thanks for responding to my dead topic, btw), as I just finished watching a video that explained certain obscure aspects of Twin Peaks, one of Silent Hill 2's many influences and the core work from which Deadly Premonition draws. I enjoyed Deadly Premonition until I watched Twin Peaks and decided that DP was a pale imitation of that excellent show. If you haven't seen it, fix that right now. I mean it. Deadly Premonition is funny, but watching Twin Peaks is like a spiritual experience (or it was for me, at least).

I think I finally put together part of what makes this game different. Everyone knows about psychological horror and what I would call "physiological horror," or the kind of horror that relies on jump scares, etc., in order to provoke physiological reactions associated with fear. While Silent Hill 2 is close to psychological horror, I would suggest that it actually falls into a third category which I would term "psychosomatic horror." The horror in the game is all about the thin line between the mind and the body. The three main characters (James, Angela, and Eddie) all embody (heh) this in different ways. The tale of James and Mary is the story of how relationship dynamics, intimate feelings, and moods/attitudes are affected for the worse as the physical form degrades through illness, even going so far as to blur the line between mercy killing and hate-based murder. James' psychological decline is at least partially due to his inability to receive sexual gratification from his wife; not only will she not engage in sex, but she also becomes progressively less "sexy" with time. In order to deal with this, James conjures Maria, a construct which explicitly references the fact that she "[doesn't] look like a ghost" (is not insubstantial) and uses physical touch to "prove" her reality ("See, I'm real..."). Even in this, Maria herself is not physically perfect and was intentionally designed with a bit of belly flab. Angela's case is that of the prototypical rape victim. Rape is a phenomenon in which the desire for psychological and social domination is difficult to separate from physical lust. Further, Angela's experience changes her relationship with her own body and the bodies of others; she covers her skin with clothing, and it is hinted that she wishes to mutilate men (or at least that she did mutilate her brother and father). Eddie is the victim of a form of bullying which centers around shaming him for his appearance and obesity. Once again, this phenomenon sits at the center of social, psychological, and physical factors. His case is especially intriguing in how it bends in on itself; to begin with, it is likely that the bullying leads to more eating and the perpetuation of the problem, and Eddie comes to see his body and the bodies of others as what are essentially slabs of meat, a kind of food. Notably, he shoots a dog and watches as it "chews its own guts out" (eats itself) and maims his bully in a way that would almost certainly end his football career (the destruction of social status through destruction of the physical form). As an aside, it is notable in this context that Eddie vomits (a gastric event) in response to guilt/fear. Of course, the game also plays heavily with the relationship between the mind and physical spaces, but even here it is difficult to escape the influence of the body in conjunction with this raw physicality. The hospital is a building which is intimately associated with both physical illness and physical well-being; the search for health is its purpose. The most obvious example would be Angela's piston room, a mechanical representation of her physical trauma. Eddie's otherworld is a meat freezer where corpses are placed on hooks. The ever-present fog is a physical phenomenon which has long been associated with fear and the imagining of monsters, likely due to its tendency to distort the visual aspects of the forms of those who walk in it. Similarly, the monsters are distinct physical threats (as someone else put it, they will kill you whether you understand the metaphor or not) as well as twisted reminders of the characters' traumas (which are themselves psychosomatic in nature). Plenty has been said about this, so I won't dwell on it. Finally, there is the recurring motif of suicide, which is a phenomenon in which the desire for psychological release is ultimately indistinguishable from the desire for physical destruction or at least the forceful cessation of the mechanics of biological life. In all this and in my experience, SH2 is quite singular in employing this brand of horror, at least with this level of detail and unity of vision.

>>1708 Silent Hill scares me on a deep level 'cause I made dreams that looked like it. >>2225 The main artist for SH has a Twitter account, if you read his posts about his history with the game's development you will realize it was almost entirely inspired, if not ripped off of Western stuff, mainly Jacob's Ladder which is one big fever dream of a movie. He didn't mention David Lynch's movies and Twin Peaks in particular, but those obviously had a massive influence on SH as well. That's a rather uninformed post you made there.

>>1751 >>1754 I almost never play video games cause it's boring, except some retro 16 and 32 bit era. Discovered SH2 recently and it was one of the better video-games experience I've been through.

Hear me out here: Dark Souls. The constant oppressing feeling of dread is a similar atmosphere to that of Silent Hill 2, but obviously it's not in a horror context. Characters you meet turning hollow due to various psychological things making them give up like Siegmeyer's self determination and pride being eroded with every challenge he faces being solved by you also reminds me of Silent Hill 2, namely the encounters with Eddie throughout the game. Again, hear me out on this one: Majora's Mask. It has a similar, albeit lighter atmosphere of oppressive dread (Dawn of the First Day, the rumbles, bells, etc) and its journey is psychological in nature—each major area of Termina represents a stage of grief. It's kinda simplistic compared to Silent Hill's psychological elements (Clock Town's residents are in DENIAL about the moon falling, the Deku are ANGRY about monkeys, etc) but simple makes it more effective imo. Funny aside about the game—Miyamoto gave them a year to make MM, so they made a game about meeting an impossible deadline set by a guy who was based on Miyamoto's appearance. (^: For on actual survival horror recommendation, Back in 1995 might be worth a look if you don't mind that it's short (it's 1h 30m to 2h long) and a bit easy. The story is quite neat. It was made by a Japanese guy, so there's that too. Deadly Premonition is amazing, do play. >>2956 >I enjoyed Deadly Premonition until I watched Twin Peaks and decided that DP was a pale imitation of that excellent show. Honestly I thought that at first, but toward the midpoint it came into its own as some kind of weird Dreamcast-ish fever dream. (Did you notice the Shenmue influence btw?) I think it sells DP short to call it a pale imitation of TP when it's its own, wonderfully weird thing.

>>2993 >Dark Souls I tried playing Demon's Souls but only found it enjoyable as a background for listening to podcasts. Do you think I should still try Dark Souls if I didn't enjoy its predecessor very much? >Majora's Mask I played this years ago but didn't get very far, although I remember its sinister atmosphere fondly. Maybe I will return to it some day. >Back in 1995 I have never heard of it, to my knowledge. Thank you for the recommendation. >Did you notice the Shenmue influence btw? I did not, but I never played Shenmue. From what I know of it, I think I can understand the comparison.

>>2997 I think you should give Dark Souls a shot. It's a bit more streamlined than Demon's Souls (you don't lose half your health for dying and there's one way to heal). Exploring the world feels more adventurous since (in the first half of the game anyway), you're walking everywhere and finding ways that areas link together. It's still an enjoyable podcast game, too. Shenmue is a weirdly accurate comparison to make with Deadly Premonition. Swery tried to give the town a life outside of the player. Each resident has their daily routine, each shop's got its opening hours, and you can interact with them via their substories. There are also the mundane aspects of the game, like shaving, making sure you eat, making sure you sleep, washing your clothes, using vending machines, drinking coffee, and commuting. There are also darts and fishing minigames. (I mean there's also the racing one but that doesn't feel like a mundane everyday activity to me.) The game's vision is really quite grand when you think about it.

>>1726 Saya no uta will bring you more enjoyment if you treat it as a Romeo & Juliet type love story but with a lovecraftian twist if you will.

I've never played Silent Hill games but from my starting to play of the first one I can tell it's lack of music is what made it more disturbing to people than Resident Evil. Plus existential crisis bothers people more than zombie apocalypse tier scenarios. Unless they're germaphobes I guess. But still, the lack of music is scary. Resident evil let the music roll too often.

>>2997 absolutely, i felt like i had more ability to experiment. i can't play demon souls, like its too cryptic, there is too much dynamics for me to micromanage and learn. dark souls its much simpler imo.

SH 1 - 4 are some of those games that succeed in capturing a feeling or atmosphere that is totally unique. It's hard to articulate, but that's what I'm always looking for in video games. pic unrelated

>>1708 >If you know of anything sufficiently similar, post it. Definitely Spec Ops: The Line Don't get fooled by the name. I know it sounds like a generic shooter, but I assure you that it is not. I could tell you more, but that would be a spoiler.

I actually think that Spec Ops: The Line is the only game that can genuinely replicate similar feelings as Silent Hill 2 and gets to the same depth without trying to copy it or anything else. It's the only game that can be genuinely compared to it. If you don't mind spoilers, watch this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tULRgsc362o

Also the soundtrack is great. https://youtu.be/bt3JWkh1KzQ https://youtu.be/wMXE3fulO8g

>>1756 Well worth playing.