Here I am, on the ship to Athens to attend the Dio concert and then go home. I am bored out of my mind, so I will play as much of Silent Hill 2 as I can (I heard it is too frightening to play) and I will recount my experience to you so you will be sad and wiser men, like the wedding guest in that poem. LET THE BEGINMENT COMMENCE! By the way, if you haven’t played this game, I think it’s fair to assume that it will contain spoilers, since it’s a game review.

OK, now I am at a city with no people at all. I’m in a bathroom that looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in centuries (no wonder really, since there’s noone here). Apparently my wife sent me a letter, but she’s dead. Wow, I wouldn’t want to pay the postage on that. She’s telling me to meet in “our special place”. What the hell bitch, you sent me a letter from the beyond, can’t you at least tell me where you want us to meet? You always pulled that shit when you were alive, too. “Honey, I’ll be ready in five minutes”. An hour later, you still hadn’t decided on a fucking dress. I hate you, bitch. Anyway, I remember that and I run to the descending stairs but I remember that I have to get a map from the car. Fair enough, the car’s like, next to me, anyway. I get the map and run down the stairs. There’s a path here. How the hell can there be a path here since there are no people or anything? Oh well, I run down the path and the view changes, I think someone is watching me. Or maybe not.

Oh, there’s a house. Ooo, graves, I love graves. There’s a woman here, she’s telling me not to go to Silent Hill because dead people send letters from there, apparently the post office is really good. I agree personally, but my character wants to go find his wife even if he dies. Pussywhiped asshole. Just kill yourself now and go join her. Anyway, I will play along for now.

I run a bit towards Silent Hill and find a chainsaw. Cool, chainsaws are great, you can chop wood and zombies. Mostly zombies though. I run a bit more, and here we are, Silent Hill. By the way, what is up with this fog? There’s even fog inside the buildings, how is that even possible? Hmm, where do I go from here? This park thing is underlined on the map, so away I go. Damn, there’s no road this way. There was a road, but it is currently a cliff, and I can’t even walk to the edge of it. This is stupid, but oh well, it’s a cliff, so I’ll let this one go.

Let’s find another route. Oh cool, this way is marked as impassable on the map. I’ll run this other way, surely that’ll be open. Hmm, there’s some police tape here. Wait a minute. I can’t get past it. I am a grown man armed with a chainsaw, and I can’t get past some police tape? Oh yeah, way to go there, developers. There goes my immersion. Of course, I didn’t have a lot to speak of, since I’m writing while I play. I’ll find another way. Ooo, a zombie. Damn, my character goes “What is that shadow? It bothers me” and refuses to walk that way. WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT SHADOW IS, EINSTEIN, YOU’RE IN A ZOMBIE GAME. Now quit your whining and walk. Damn him, he won’t. Oh well, another way.

After lots of shit I get to a small tunnel. I find a radio there, and there’s a zombie there. I pick up a piece of wood (wow, hold the phone. A piece of wood? I HAVE A FUCKING CHAINSAW. What the hell) and pwn him. I take the radio which emits static whenever zombies are near (either zombies emit electromagnetic waves or the radio is MAGICAL! I’ll go with the latter) and move on. I get to a motorhome and find a note inside. The note says “I’ll be waiting at BAR (something)”. Does this game really expect me to run to that bar as soon as I find that note? There hasn’t been anyone in this town for years, it’s not like I’m going to be late for my date. Hmm, I think it actually does expect me to do that, the bar is circled on the map, and since there’s nowhere else to go, I’ll bite.

I leave zombies alone, they don’t hurt me, I don’t hurt them, and besides, I’m too fast for them to hurt me. I tried to get near one to say hi once and it farted all over me, rude bastards all of them. Also, I HATE how you can’t Alt+Tab out of the game and I have to quit to write something. Nice loading times though (close to zero actually).

OK, get this: The bar is closed! How is anyone going to wait in a closed bar? Way to go, Neely, you shouldn’t expect my business again any time soon. Oh, wait, there is a way to get in the bar after all. One of the side-doors opens. There’s a map in here with some strange shit on it. How convenient. There’s also a cash register (with no cash in it) and writing on the wall. It says “There was a HOLE here. It’s gone now”. Strange, that’s what my friend said after her female-to-male sex change operation. I met some generic, garden variety, run of the mill, common zombies. These zombies have no distinguishing features, and their arms are glued to their body, as if they were wearing a straitjacket. By the way, what kind of a bullshit attack is this fart thing anyway? I don’t think there’s health in this game, I don’t see a counter or anything (although there are these ketchup bottle things you can drink to restore health, what the fuck) so this is the most useless attack ever, all it does is startle you and make your clothes stink while the zombie bumps on you slightly! FEAR THE BUMPING ATTACK! I’m going to get a bit more sadistic and switch the chainsaw for the piece of wood (yes), since the chainsaw doesn’t provide much of a spectacle, they just die.

(to be continued…)