4/5 ★ – james_i_think's review of SILENT HILL 2.

A pretty fantastic remake of one of the most famous survival horror games of all time. The storytelling is engaging, the atmosphere is oppressive, and the gameplay is tense, scary, and challenging. It's pretty apparent that this game endeavoured to be like the Resident Evil remakes, and I really mean that in a good way. From what I can tell, both the gameplay and story were expanded on from the original SH2, with some members of the original team working their magic. The cutscenes are tragic and unnerving in all the right ways, with lots of room to interpret the story from small details. I came away thinking a lot about the plot, and my perspective on its events. Probably the most effective part of the horror in gameplay comes from the eerie soundtrack and skin-crawling sound effects. I found the combat system to be an effective balance of fighting back, while any enemy could still potentially kill you. I was pretty hooked from the start to the finish, for the most part anyway. From a design perspective, the expansion from the original game is a blessing and a curse for this remake. I loved all the different sections and puzzles, but the game was far longer than I was expecting; adding roughly 10 hours onto the original's playtime. Some sections definitely felt like they were dragging on a bit, but I think that some new enemy varieties in different areas would've helped keep things fresh. I can't say there was any part of the game I really disliked, though. My biggest issue by far is the state of the PC port. My machine can run modern AAA games without any issues, but this game would not stop stuttering. I had to crank the graphical settings down so that it'd run okay, but even then I would still get frame drops. Looking into it, this seems like a pretty universal experience for PC players. This game looks absolutely phenomenal, but unfortunately I couldn't experience the full potential of the visuals. This needs to be patched, or I'll have to turn to mods on my next playthrough just for the bloody game to run as it should have on release. I would highly recommend this to those who are into survival horror games, and I'm really keen to see Bloober Team potentially remake the first Silent Hill, too. If the game runs better the next time I play it, I'll probably enjoy it far more.