Why Silent Hill 2 Is Possibly The Greatest Game Ever Made

[Johnny Novgorod]

Silent Hill 2 is massively over-rated. Played it multiple times. Not scary, not original, no engaging or immersive. Its just some dork running around a near empty town, not knowing whats going on, while equally dorky people tell him he doesn't know whats going on, and then a bunch of dorky monsters don't bother to chase you because you don't know whats going on, and then you get a dorky ending based on actions you didn't know about, all leading up to a conclusion where you don't know whats going on.

1) Why play multiple times something you found overrated, not scary, not original, not engaging and not immersive?
2) You know when you want to discredit something it's very easy to say "it's just some guy" who is "just doing something". You could say that of James Joyce's Ulysses.
3) Your failure to connect or understand the plot is no more relevant than the fact that some (most) people enjoyed the game and had something interesting or inspired to say about it. Similarly, somebody somewhere was unimpressed by the frightening attempts of every horror movie ever made. No one thing unites everybody in laughter, tears or terror. "Well I didn't laugh". "Well I didn't cry". "Well I didn't scream". There's always some of that.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Silent Hill 2 is NOT and was never groundbreaking. That's not me trying to discredit its accolades, just pointing out a very simple fact.
Player choice? Was done years prior by games like Fallout, Baldurs Gate, Planescape Torment, Wasteland, Deus Ex, etc. Absolutely nothing new on that front. Player choice was very much a thing before anyone even thought about making SH2.
Tying together gameplay and plot? Also done years before it by other games like Half-Life and System Shock.

If gaming's "Citizen Kane" is determined by originality, then Silent Hill 2 by definition, loses.

That's like saying the steadicam in The Shining was bleh because it had already been used in Rocky 4 years prior.
The Taxi Driver monologue in front of the mirror? Brando did that already in Reflections in a Golden Eye.
And every tracking shot ever made goes all the way back to 1915's Birth of a Nation.

History's not a checklist. We don't chastise a work of art for checking out an item second, or third, or last place.

 

[Vigormortis]

Quite a lot of instances of the word "perfect" being thrown around for a game that is anything but perfection. In any regard.

But then, hyperbole is something I've come to expect from this forum. On a lot of topics...

 

[MysticSlayer]

In a way, the moment a player realizes they have choice is the very moment their play through ceases to be organic.

I think you're really grasping here. While some games (e.g. BioShock) handle choice horribly, I would say plenty of games I've played (e.g. Mass Effect, The Walking Dead, The Witcher) all handled themselves very well in choice. Just because they're obvious doesn't mean I'm not pulling from my beliefs about the world and what may or may not be the consequences. In fact, it's the exact opposite: When presented with choices in those games, I go off of my beliefs regarding the characters and the world along with what I believe may be a consequence. As far as organic choice goes, that's about as good as you're ever going to get.

And I can get that Silent Hill 2 is probably one of the best stories ever told in gaming. There's certainly no shortage of articles, videos, and forum posts making the claim. However, I think decrying games like Mass Effect for not making choices feel organic, as if the subtlety of Silent Hill 2's delivery is the only way to go, is taking the fanboyism a little too far.