Articles
5 Games That Will Terrify You for Halloween
introduction of the Silent Hill
series onto the wildly popular
PlayStation 2 console made
some tough guys and girls
quiver as they made their way
through…Silent Hill (the town,
not the game. Actually, both.
Carry on.). While the game
isn’t exactly a direct sequel to
the original, the creep factor
nonetheless remains at a 10
out of 10 as protagonist James
Sunderland visits the town in
response to a letter sent to him
by his deceased wife, Maria.
From there, all hell breaks loose,
but not in the conventional,
Issue 61 • November 2014
guns blazing at zombies
scenario that many of us have
come to expect from games
like these. In contrast, the true
brilliance of Silent Hill 2 rests in
its ability to affect the mind of
the player by constantly forcing
one to question whether what
is being seen is “real.” The game
has been described as a tribute
to the films of David Lynch, and
this strikes me as pretty spot
on. One consequence of this
is, like with most Lynch films,
the game can be somewhat
polarizing for those who enjoy
the more mindless experiences
of hack and slash titles (Diablo)
and traditional shooters (Call of
Duty, Battlefield). This is in no
way a knock on those games,
as they undoubtedly have their
respective places held tight
within the modern video game
lexicon, but there is something
unique and special about the
psychological warfare that
takes place from start to finish
in Silent Hill 2. Think this might
be your cup of tea? Give it a
whirl—it’s been remastered and
added to updated collections
more times than I cried
during my first playthrough.
15 • GameOn Magazine