I hope that Dustin doesn't mind if I make the announcement of a new edition of the STC Gaming Club.  It wasn't clear from the other thread who would.  The consensus from that thread was that we play 2001's inestimable horror game, Silent Hill 2.  Since it's pretty short, I think that two weeks would be a suitable timeframe for completing the game.  Let me know if this schedule works:

February 1, 2010 - February 7, 2010: beginning of the game to end of the hospital
February 8, 2010 - February 14, 2010: end of the hospital to end of the game

Please post if you intend to participate.  Thanks, and I look forward to seeing you in hell.

I will again journey to Silent Hill, and that schedule works with me.

Sounds good to me.
Sign me up!

I'll be happy to participate in discussions on it - I've been through the game twice, once by proxy - but I probably won't get into the guts of playing it this time. I'm kind of terrible at survival-horror games that aren't RE4, and already split between 8 games or so. But that should be OK, since the story is the key thing to this game, yeah?

Thanks for starting up the new thread rein!  Sorry I haven't been on much lately.  Times have fallen a little hard as of lately and I no longer have a job.  I'll try to keep checking up on the site as I can but it'll be sporadic at best.  That being said, I won't be in on the new club as my PS2 games and most my hardware is packed up.  The only system I have out right now is the PS3 and I'll be playing through White Knight Chronicles starting tomorrow.  (I had it pre-ordered, so I guess that makes it okay!).  Best of luck and I hope you get a few more people on board!

Sorry to hear about your job troubles, Dustin.  I'm sure you'll land on your feet, though.

I suppose that I should start the discussion.  It appears that all of us are playing Silent Hill 2 for at least the second time.  I last (and first) played Silent Hill 2 around the time of its release in fall 2001.  I've made a few half-hearted attempts to replay it since but have not advanced past the apartment complex, so although my recollection of the first hour or so of the game is good, the rest of the game has faded in my memory.  I'm interested to see whether on reconsideration the game will live up to my memories of its brilliance.

Thus far I have only reached the apartment complex and have not yet obtained the flashlight.  At the outset, I was again impressed with the quality of the voice acting.  The actress who provides the voice of Mary gives the best performance that I've heard in a video game.  Too often in voice acting a tone of speech intended to be wistful instead sounds tired or flat, but Monica Horgan pulls it off.

Getting back to the playthrough, though, I observed as I was running to and then through town that the game did not impose as oppressive a sense of apprehension and dread as I recalled.  But as soon as I entered Wood Side Apartments, the claustrophobia began to set in.  Whereas frequently in video games walls serve the player by providing cover and concealment, here even the walls are menacing.

One thing I've noticed on this playthrough is that I probably had the brightness set too high the first time.  At that time, I could see well enough even without the flashlight.  Now, I'm stumbling around in the dark and feeling helpless, which I assume is what the developers intended.  I can't even bring up the map, which I think of as a safety blanket that I can pull over my head.  I notice, though, that I can view the map if I stand underneath a light in the hallway; I appreciate this sort of attention to detail.

It's also here in the apartment building that the sound design starts to shine, giving the game its visceral force.  Unit 208, for example, is empty and mostly quiet, free of radio static and the guttural noises and scratching of monsters, but the subtle ambient sound in the room is perfectly tuned to resonate with the pit of my stomach and lodge therein a feeling of discomfort.

Haven't yet actually started playing, but my brain is already making me feel nervous about the game. Just had a dream today where the actual dream was a series of flashbacks of places / things in the game which I hate.

Man I love this game. Even if it plays me even on sitting on the shelf. Gotta start today, later.

Well, it looks as though this is more of an individual Silent Hill travelogue than a group tour, but that's okay.  I needed the motivation to replay Silent Hill 2.

I hate to say so, but although the game is still deeply affecting, it has lost some of its force for me.  Part of it is that knowing what happens dissipates the fear a bit.  Another part of it is that I'm so focused on admiring the Silent Hill team's craft that I'm occasionally at a remove from being in James's shoes.  That said, the game still generates such a beautiful sense of dread that I, well, dread playing it.  Thus, I am now only partway through the hospital.

Continuing from the end of my last post, after I got the flashlight, I immediately returned to Unit 208, having forgotten that I needed the clock key to proceed.  Seeing Pyramid Head simply glare at James across the bars in the hallway is one of my favorite moments in the game.  I feel Pyramid Head's stare.  To me Silent Hill 2 is a shining example of the video game form being used to craft an emotional experience that could not be replicated in another medium.  I can't imagine a book or a movie giving me the same feeling of being stared at menacingly.

The end of the apartment level demonstrates what I mean about the experience being somewhat diminished on a subsequent playthrough.  The first time that I played Silent Hill 2, I was terrified to be locked in a cramped stairwell with Pyramid Head.  Seriously, who expects a boss battle in a stairwell?  But this time I know he's there and also that there's no point in fighting him; I can save my ammo and just wait him out.

Well, I'm going to finish this write-up, albeit in brief, since I seem to be talking to myself.

- It's the details that make the game, e.g., being briefly trapped in a prison cell because the cell door stuck, Mary's letter turning into a blank sheet of paper, a cutscene lingering on James as he sits silently and remembers what he did.

- I'm struck by how beautiful the game looks even after eight years and the transition to HDTV.  I love, for example, the way the mannequins glisten, and even today the lighting effects are fantastic.  I also appreciate that the "alternate" environments have more variety than the rusty-grates-and-spikes motif from the first Silent Hill.  It's amazing to watch and be filled with a suffocating sense of despair and ruin as the hotel becomes increasingly sodden and filthy with mold.

- Angela's subplot is genuinely tragic.  Broaching the subject of molestation was bold, risky, and tastefully done, with intimation and brilliant symbolism.  And to finally be helpless to do anything for Angela was a poignant ending to her subplot, denying closure or a pat conclusion.

- To my surprise, I got the "In Water" ending.  I guess that I let my health stay in the red for too long.  I've started another playthrough and, since I want the normal ending, will make sure to keep my health topped off and not to look at Angela's knife.

- It's a shame, really, that in later Silent Hill games Silent Hill itself (or its extensions) is the main character.  The iconography of Silent Hill is only a means to the end of taking the player on an emotional journey, and an emotional experience requires characters that the player can care about.  If memory serves, the player character in Silent Hill 4 is just some random guy who meets a random gal, and between them they haven't as much personality as a fruit fly.  If there were any characters other than these two, they were so forgettable that I have no recollection of them at all.

there's a huge improvement when you hook up your ps2 with component video cables (although i havnt had time to play through sh2 since i got my hdtv 3 years ago, i did give it 15 mins.

once you've played through a few times (consecutively i must admit) and know exactly where to go, what to grab for the puzzles, and who NOT to waste time fighting, you can really rip through the game like super metroid. i remember being DONE with the apartment in about 30 mins, the hospital by 55, and the save right before the final battle at 2:56, of course i've forgotten it all now. Forgetting where to find the prison map can REALLY set you back.

yes, i put SH4 down after about 7 hours and never picked it up again.

Question: did you play with or without the Noise Filter on?  I know purists are steadfast in their convictions to play the game with it on, but since unlocking it after my first playthrough, I've never looked back.  Everything is clean, crisp, and great to look at with the noise off.

Angela's story is certainly one of the most psychologically powerful I've experienced in a video game, her visually-potent ending the sole reason I'd want to play through the game again.  It's why I love the accompanying "Theme of Laura (Reprise)" so much.

You've stated "denying closure or a pat conclusion" -- are you referring to Angela's story arc as a whole, or James' acceptance of Angela's fate?  If you believe in the commonly believed interpretation of the scene (that she's..... resigned herself to suicide, accepting it as her only avenue of escape), then I would think the outcome is reasonably conclusive on both fronts.

I just upgraded from SDTV last fall, and many PS2 games now look terrible even with a component connection.  Final Fantasy XII is a glaring example.

Actually, I figured that Angela resigned herself to suicide long ago, and commission of the act is only a matter of time, so by my interpretation Angela is in the same psychological position at the end of the game as she has been for a long time, possibly even for most of her life.  I don't believe that the scene should be interpreted to mean that at the end of the game Angela is more determined to off herself or that her suicide, albeit inevitable, is imminent.  So by this interpretation James is merely a spectator to an unchanging mental condition.  I would also say that what James has accepted is not Angela's fate but rather his own powerlessness to help her.

I've contemplated this take as well.  That she would reply, "For me, it's always like this" could indicate that she may..... continue living her life of eternal damnation for a while yet, until, as you say, the inevitable day comes.

Still, I had figured there were finer details littered throughout the game, details that I unfortunately can't remember at the moment, that leads to suicide as a basis for conclusion.  Was there hidden meaning with the knife, or the.... futile attempt to search for her mother?  I'm really going to have to replay the game again soon -- or maybe I should just read up on President Evil's plot analysis again. ;)

Personally, I didn't see Angela's journey as being over, regardless of whether she was or wasn't going to do what you guys are talking about - long since forgotten how to hide spoilers here.

Like James, I saw her as having to work through her particular issue. She may not have been all that far a resolution off but James, through one particular boss battle, actually took that from her. If that was the end of her journey of self-discovery, I'd actually be putting the blame on James for her lack of progress and lack of a positive resolution.

But who is to say what was at the end of that place she was in when we last saw her? Damn my lack of spoiler tags. I just think that she still had a long way to go, but the journey wasn't over. We can't know of course, but my speculation way back when was that she probably had done what she wanted to do (that thing) many times but, being in the Otherworld, she wasn't allowed the outcome she wanted. And wouldn't be allowed it until she eventually faced some sort of personal truth that would likely have come from that boss battle James interfered with.

I'm a purist for sure.  For me playing on a PS2 with the noise filter on is the only way to play the game.  I could play the PC version at 1280x1024 pixel resolution (the game actually scales up gracefully to that resolution), but I don't want the game to look clean and crisp.

Should I bother to play Born From a Wish, or is it tacked on and gratuitous?

I'm personally against that extra scenario, since I've always held the view that Maria does not really exist, so how can she be walking around having adventures on her own without James there to "imagine" her?

Still, it's very short and an interesting little romp, so you might want to try it.