Spaz:  Just in time for Halloween, Twitch and I have two top-notch horror action/adventure thrillers to recommend, both guaranteed to raise your blood pressure to boiling.

Twitch:  That’s not saying much in your case.  Pin-ups of RuPaul get your blood pumping.

Spaz:  Dude, I’m trying to be nice here, don’t let this get ugly…like your face.

Twitch:  Bring it on big guy!  And by big, I’m referring to your head.

Spaz:  Speaking of big, Silent Hill 2 is easily the biggest PS2 release of the year.

Twitch:  This is a game that demands a dark room.  You play as James Sunderland, a driven man who arrives at the foggy town of Silent Hill after receiving a mysterious letter from his dead wife asking him to meet him there.  Much like the first game, the town is shrouded in mist and zombie-like citizens shuffle about aimlessly.  The graphics are impressive as swirling fog dissipates to reveal locations that could not be seen mere seconds before.  For two games now, the developers have utilized the mysteriously horrific Silent Hill much like Stephen King does his fictional town of Castle Rock:  a homey Mayberry-like setting is turned upside-down and while the setting is familiar, new characters are subjected to fresh horrors.

Spaz:  Yet, Silent Hill 2 is not a scary game, but is instead rather unsettling as weird sound effects and creatures that seem to have been compiled from misshapen and decomposing body parts play upon your subconscious.  As was the protagonist in the first Silent Hill, James Sunderland is Everyman, armed with a board with rusty nails and a radio that emits static whenever danger is near.

Twitch:  The weapons, of course, become more lethal as the game progress but fear not adventure purists, Silent Hill 2 is as far from an action game as you can imagine.  For at the beginning of the game, there is an option to set the action to the easiest level possible and the puzzles to the highest difficulty.  And Silent Hill 2 has numerous puzzles that are not the usual ‘find a key open a door’ (though there are still quite a bit of these!) that are so prevalent in survival-horror, but are more inventory based, focused on logic and even riddles that can be solved by piecing together clues from scraps of notes and documents. 

Spaz:  Though there are literally dozens of structures and areas within the buildings to explore, an excellent mapping system is available that shows rooms you have visited, rooms that contain puzzles rooms that contain puzzles that have been solved and the locations of doors.  As in Grim Fandango, your character’s head will turn towards inventory or health items so the pixel-hunting is kept to a minimum.

Twitch:  The dialogue does at times seem to be stilted and trying too hard to be foreboding, but it is still a far, far cry from the ludicrous, god-awful acting and scripting of the Resident Evil series. 

Spaz:  The 3D graphics are quite simply – perfect.  They draw from our familiarity with such movies as Night of the Living Dead and The Last Man on Earth to immerse us into a world that we believe we have knowledge of, but the familiarity is only an illusion as the game veers off into directions and interactivity not possible with a film.

Twitch:  Best of all though is a storyline that gradually increases in horror, slowly uncovering the gruesome secrets of Silent Hill as new characters are introduced and secrets unlocked.  Once again there are multiple endings, but unless one has the internal fortitude to not only replay the game but to also attempt to discern exactly what influences a different conclusion, then this can be a source of frustration as you wonder what is different about the other endings.  Console developers do not yet seem to understand that adventure games are not meant to have replay value.  They are more like a tantalizing mystery novel that one savors as various clues are uncovered building to an ultimate, not penultimate, conclusion.  To offer multiple endings only cheapens the storyline, not to mention that adult gamers who don’t have innumerable hours to replay a game may feel as though they have been cheated out of a portion of their gaming dollar.

Spaz:  Still, Silent Hill 2 is easily the best PS2 game we have played this year.  It’s that rare game that manages to keep you coming back for more mental abuse.

Twtich:  Extermination, on the other hand, is not as good as Silent Hill 2, but it is still pretty darn impressive.

Spaz:   In a lot of ways, Extermination is the total antithesis of Silent Hill 2.  Heavy on action and light on puzzles, Extermination is more adventure on-the-fly as split second decisions must be made regarding weapon choice, tactical planning and leaps of faith.

Twitch:  Extermination is comparable to the Resident Evil series sans the claustrophobic atmosphere.  A biological virus that infects both organic and inorganic objects is transforming military personnel and even plants into deadly mutant creatures at a top-secret military station in Antarctica.  Think Aliens without the spaceship.

Spaz:  Dennis Riley, a member of the U.S. Special Forces Marines RECON team, is dropped into the mouth of madness to exterminate the virus.  Since this is Antarctica expect the weather to be as much of a challenge as the mutants.  The developers have done a wonderful job of immersing the gamer in believably adverse weather conditions. 

Twitch:  The plot is propelled forward by wonderful cinematic cut-scenes, but except for the lack of interactivity these scenes are almost indistinguishable from the in-game play.  If any one thing distracts from the gameplay it is the corny gung-ho attitude of the dialogue and the occasional poor lip-synching.

Spaz:  But then this is more a game for those who like the action and horror in their face.  Unlike Silent Hill 2’s gradual revelations, Extermination explodes in bursts.  But each in its own way is the perfect example of the different elements of horror.  While Silent Hill 2 could easily be a modern episode of The Twilight Zone, Extermination is John Carpenter’s The Thing.

Twitch:  Extermination isn’t a game that attempts to break new ground.  Instead, it just builds on what has been done in previous games and attempts to go one better – on this point it succeeds.

Spaz:  I wish I could say the same thing about that Halloween mask you have on.  It looks like somebody beat you with an ugly stick.

Twitch:  Mask?  What mask?  Wait a minute, are you making fun of my face?

Spaz:  Dude you need to punch some air holes in that mask before you suffocate your remaining dozen or so brain cells.

Twitch:  Too late, they’re already dead.  Ha!  Wait a minute…..

Final Grades:

Silent Hill 2 – A-.

Extermination – B.