My Favourite Game

Sometimes, I am asked the question ‘what is your favourite video game ever?’ and I would always have considered that to be difficult to answer as I have liked every one that I have played, even a few stinkers I enjoyed playing because they had fallen into the ‘so bad they’re good’ category; eventually, I would answer with Super Mario Bros. 3. But like Homer Simpson thinking about the best day of his life after staying home from church, winning a radio competition and finding a penny, we have a new champion; Silent Hill 2. 

I had played the first instalment on the PlayStation in which a man named Harry Mason tried to rescue his daughter, Cheryl, from an evil and sick cult who were hellbent on raising the ancient gods of Silent Hill. There were two states to place; in one state, everything seemed normal except the town was shrouded in a mysterious fog, completely deserted except for the vicious monsters roaming the streets like skinless dogs, flying creatures and hopping skinless humans (honestly, the monsters in these games are very hard to describe) and the other state, known as the ‘Otherworld’, was introduced by the wailing of an air raid siren in the distance. This place was in complete darkness with only the hero’s flashlight showing the way. This place resembled an industrial wasteland where the monsters were stronger and harder to avoid and other horrors awaited you such as corpses on metal tables covered in bloody sheets, I loved it. When the sequel was announced for the PlayStation 2, I heard the smash of a gavel and I shouted ‘SOLD!’ in my head. 

The second game took a different approach, going for a more psychological horror experience rather than a simple survive, stop the bad guys and save your daughter affair. I remember reading about the game's plot in a magazine and I was instantly intrigued. It centred around James Sunderland who had received a letter from his dead wife, Mary, saying that she is waiting in their special place, Silent Hill. Desperate for a reunion with his lost love, he goes to the town and meets some strange characters, a young woman named Angela searching for her parents, a man named Eddie that seems to have wandered into the town by accident, a young bratty little girl named Laura who knew Mary and a woman named Maria. Although she bears a striking physical resemblance to Mary, she doesn't share Mary’s personality and is flirtier and more sensual. 

The game had retained the empty town covered in a thick fog, the monsters roaming the streets and ‘Otherworld’ but now, it had a deeper meaning and after 18 or so years since I first played it, I’m getting it. The monsters represent emotions; the monster that looks like a man stuck in a living straight jacket represents James trapped in his own grief, the faceless nurses represent James’ disgust at the doctors and nurses and the monster known as Pyramid Head, who looks like a butcher wearing a heavy-looking pyramid helmet that covers his entire face and drags a gigantic kitchen knife, represents James’ guilt (of course, these are my own opinions and I could be wrong). There was a sense of foreshadowing too because, at one point, James finds a corpse sitting in front of a television wearing clothes similar to his own. 

It was thought-provoking and to this day I still can’t figure out what is the true end to this tale. Now, this would be seen by the general masses as slow, boring and so not scary as now popular games are all about beating up street punks, fighting to the death and shooting loads of enemy soldiers in the face. But no matter how much the times and trends change, Silent Hill 2 will always remain my favourite game.