Hey everybody, my name is Dave Jackson, and this is Tales from the Backlog, a video games podcast where I will bring in guests to talk about games that I’ve recently played.. My guest today is a friend of the show and endless fog enthusiast, James Lohkamp Today we’ll be talking about Silent Hill 2, a survival horror game developed by Team Silent and published by Konami in 2001, with an HD re-release in 2012. But before that, what have you been playing lately? Ok, let’s get into today’s focus, Silent Hill 2. This game is extremely reliant on its story and I don’t really see another reason for someone to play the game, so we will talk spoiler-free about the game for a little while, but there will be a big spoiler section at the end of the show. Our histories with the game- What interested us in this game? I hate horror games, rather I should say that I hate the sensation of being scared in games, movies, etc. But I love a good story in video game. I think that when a video game has a good story, it hits harder for me than any other medium with a good story. I had never heard this game’s reputation until a few years ago, and I immediately got interested, but kind of decided I would never play it because of my aversion to horror. But I was able to get through a few scary games like Soma and Prey, and heard SH2 doesn’t have any jump scares, so I decided to give it a shot When did we play, on what platform- played on PS Now on ps5. This game looks pretty bad on a 4k tv but it added to the grainy atmosphere a bit. Play time- 6 hours Basics of how the game works, key mechanics, what makes this game stand out? Story- the real reason people should play this, imo James Sunderland receives a letter from his dead wife Mary to go to their “special place” in the town of Silent Hill, Maine. As James explores the town looking for Mary, he meets others in the town and is tormented by monsters. The developers have stated they designed this game around the plot first, as opposed to designing the levels and encounters and fitting in a story later. Benefits greatly from a replay because everything serves a purpose- locations, enemies, cutscenes, everything How it creates fear without jump scares Sound- unnatural, dreamlike droning background music. Machine sounds, screaming, dog/animal sounds that sound close by but never/rarely actually attack you. Enemies set off intense radio static/feedback when they get close, so you know they are near, but not exactly where they are. The soundtrack goes from these droning background tracks to straight up industrial music during boss fights and stuff, definitely gets the blood pressure up Absolutely beautiful, haunting, catchy piano tracks during lots of the cutscenes Camera- loss of control, also a big source of frustration Fog/total darkness- always present Not a ton of action- the opening, you walk for at least 5 minutes Into the uncanny- character designs, voice acting, awkwardly long pauses between lines of dialogue The things that James is doing Sticking his hand into holes in walls and dirty toilets, jumping into seemingly bottomless pits What you’re doing Most of the time, exploring the levels looking for keys or other key items to use as de facto keys. As soon as you go into a new area, checking every door you see I ended up using a guide because if you miss a key or something, and they’re easy to miss, you’ll just be stuck in this loop of re-checking every room. Pretty helpful map, shows your location, doors and also obstacles that you can’t pass through Puzzles, often with a riddle associated with it One cool thing about Silent Hill 2 is that you can set combat and puzzle difficulty independently, something I greatly appreciated. I played on beginner (easiest) combat difficulty and normal puzzle difficulty. Combat/Bosses No other way to put this- the combat is horrendous. The boss battles are horrendous, but they have cool designs. Also the control scheme is weird as hell. You have to hold RT to ready a swing or shot, then press X to attack/shoot. THen the enemy will fall down and you have to kick them to kill them. The saving grace is that most enemies, like out on the streets of silent hill, don’t need to be fought and you probably shouldn’t be fighting anyway since you don’t get XP or items or anything from enemies. Sometimes I would kill them so the radio would shut up. I played on Beginner combat difficulty, and I can’t imagine wanting any more of a challenge Final thoughts, Do we recommend? At what price point? Housekeeping - Thank you for listening! If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your platform of choice, leave us a rating and review if your platform allows it, and spread the good word! I also do a podcast called A Top 3 Podcast, where each week we pick a topic, pick our top 3s in that topic, and discuss. It’s a good time, so check that out if you want to hear us talk about other subjects. SPOILER WALL Story? Best framed through the prior knowledge from your first playthrough or other ways, that the supernatural version of Silent Hill has summoned James and the other characters to face their trauma and atone for misdeeds. 3 phases of silent hill The real world (James visited with his wife on their last good time together before she died) The fog world (very dream-like, characters acting uncanny, monsters roam, can’t leave Silent Hill) The other world (basically your personal hell, facing the harsh truth of what you’ve done) Starts with James in the world’s grossest roadside rest stop bathroom, as he’s just arrived in Silent Hill, which is coated in fog. James received the letter from his wife Mary, claiming that she is waiting in their “special place”, but Mary died 3 years prior. The game starts you out really well going down this really long forest path, very low visibility, you hear sounds of danger but nothing really attacks you. Meet Angela, who says she’s looking for her mom. But really she has been summoned to deal with her past trauma “I’m looking for my mama- I mean mother!” extremely uncanny line that was one of my first clues that something isn’t right Is preparing to kill herself in one scene, seen as extremely apathetic towards life in general, says that she and James deserve whatever happens, gives up the knife but thinks James will use it on her has been sexually abused by her father and ended up killing him, “you’re all the same, you all want the same thing” and this really comes through in a climactic scene where this is revealed- the boss that is attacking her is like 2 bodies fused together on a bed, and the walls are full of these tubes with pistons thrusting into them, very uncomfortable sexual imagery Her version of silent hill is always on fire Going through the apartment. First meet Eddie he’s puking his brains out in a bathroom in an apartment with a dead guy in it, binge eating pizza. He gets more aggressive as the game goes on, and you find out he brutally killed a dog, and probably lots of other people, who he thought was making fun of him. James? Eddie to me seems like the least believable of the characters, the biggest caricature, but his scenes are weird and creepy so that works First see and meet Pyramid Head, the game’s main antagonist Extremely affecting the first time you see him from the other side of a gate in the hallway And then again raping other enemies, several times. Reminding James of something, perhaps? Great sound design of his great knife scraping on the floor Kind of cool that you can get that knife but it’s useless to you- “this is not for you, you don’t deserve this” Pyramid Head is a manifestation of James’s guilt and serves to punish him. He kills Maria over and over, which really affects James. Only after James comes to terms with what he did, do the pyramid heads (multiple at that point) kill themselves. Their purpose is served. Get to the park, which you think is James and Mary’s “special place”. As you go you gradually get clues that something isn’t right. At the park you meet Maria, who looks identical to James’s wife Mary, but with a more sexual vibe. She becomes the main side character in the game. She is really uncanny in a lot of ways, long pauses during dialogue, James constantly mistakes her for Mary, sometimes Maria knows things that only Maria could know, “I can be Mary if you want me to be” dies several times but appears again with no recollection of dying. Laura- a little girl, gives you a lot of motivation through the game for why you’re going in these places, because she knows things about Mary and is constantly running from James, doesn’t like him Locks you in a room with monsters once Turns out she knew Mary in real life, in the hospital, and thinks James didn’t love Mary because he didn’t visit often and because of what he did to her She didn’t do anything wrong, so the town holds no danger for her, so that’s why she is so nonchalant about everything in the town Lake view hotel elevator weight allowance one person scary moment because you’re in a menu Get the video tape that truly unlocks what James did, he killed Mary, possibly for himself and also as euthanasia. You also find out that this wasn’t 3 years ago, this was within the last week, from a conversation with Laura Opens up the possibility that the letter bringing James to Silent Hill wasn’t real, just a manifestation by the town to get James there. Mary and James had a tumultuous relationship during the time she was in the hospital, which explains a lot of the enemies in the game if they are manifestations by Silent Hill to torment James. Maria is a sexualized version of Mary, sexualized nurse enemies mannequin enemies. flesh lips enemies- could be sexual, could be representing verbal abuse as heard in a conversation where Mary yells at James. Endings- 6 total I got the “in water” ending, where James atones for, maybe makes peace with what he did, carries Mary’s body out and presumably puts it in the car, where he drives into Toluca Lake and commits suicide so he can be with her again. Masahiro Ito has said that this is his own personal canonical ending. Particularly heartbreaking because as the screen goes underwater, you see the air bubbles rising to the surface, and the letter from Mary plays again, only this time you see the whole letter, with Mary apologizing to James for her outbursts and begging him to go on living. James which ending did you get?