Silent Hill 2
“In my restless dreams, I see that town… Silent Hill.”
“Well goood luck with that.” Should have been James Sunderland’s response to the eerie note he receives from his wife, beckoning him to come to the fog covered nightmare village that is Silent Hill. Instead James grabs a two-by-four and embarks on what is probably the scariest journey in video games.
Grotesque doesn’t even begin to describe the nightmare inducing creatures that roam the deathly silent streets of Silent Hill, all of which want James dead. The impeccable music and sound design serve to compound the terror one experiences while playing. What’s worse is the very town itself seems to impose a feeling of dread on the player, as the setting corrupts and warps into a vision of hell as the game continues on. It is your unenviable job to march forward searching for answers to Jame’s note, and locate his missing wife–all the while avoiding the very large knife of perhaps the franchise’s most iconic foe: Pyramid Head.
As you’ll no doubt find out, some things are better left unanswered. Do you even need to ask why Silent Hill 2 belongs on this list?
