Adventures in Horror Gaming: Silent Hill 2

Recently I started playing horror games so I thought it would be a good idea to talk about my experiences playing them. Of course I haven't been playing them alone, I tried that once and I lasted maybe 40 minutes before I turned the thing off and just said NOPE. It was on the urging of my boyfriend that the first game we played was Silent Hill 2. I really wanted to put the action on beginner, since my gaming skills end at random button mashing in Super Smash Bros., but we ended up settling on playing it on easy mode.



Right off the bat I was too freaked out to even run anywhere and stuck to very cautious walking. That fog just made it too damn hard to see what was ahead of you, that is when the camera angle allowed you to see what was in front of you. We hadn't even met a single enemy yet and I was already terrified simply because I didn't know what I was walking into. As I got more into the game I took to affectionately calling my character Steve rather than James Sunderland, it's just more fun using the name Steve for chastising the character. Such as when he tells Angela that he doesn't care if Silent Hill is dangerous. That sparked me yelling "SHUT UP STEVE! I CARE IF IT'S DANGEROUS!"

Oh Steve, you so sassy.

When the enemies started showing up you might say I was a little overzealous in killing them. Those lying figures, I would get so nervous that they weren't actually dead I would just keep hitting them with that stick that is your first weapon. Then when I got a gun I would shoot them a minimum of five times even if only two hits would kill them. When it comes to video games I guess I prefer the fight rather than flight strategy. Then we got to the apartment building...

Nope.

At first I was doing fine, I was scared out of my mind, but I was playing the game. Then I entered one of the apartments to find Pyramid Head raping one of the mannequins... I threw the controller. It was a cut scene and it scared me so much I screamed and threw the controller. After some reassurance I finally started playing again, then eventually ended up in the stairwell with Pyramid Head. I was told that I couldn't win that fight so I should just avoid him until he went away, after that warning I was left alone in the room the complete this part of the game which I got most of the way through, until Pyramid Head decided to grab me by the throat and choke me out. This time I not only screamed and threw the controller, I full on ran out of the room. After that point I didn't do much of the playing and mostly yelled at the characters (Maria kept getting in the way and getting shot, while Laura was just a general dick trying to get us killed) while my boyfriend finished the game.

NOPE!!!!

Apparently we played the game appropriately because of the three possible endings on your first play through we got the "good" ending and I have to say if that is the good ending, the other ones must be soul shattering (I still would have wanted to get the dog ending). Playing this game may have been one of the scariest things I've willingly done so far in my life, how it made me feel is how I imagine the average movie-goer feels watching horror movies. Therefore if you have never played this game I would definitely recommend it, the graphics may seem dated, but they are scary as heck and so is the sound design.