You have not played a more polished game in your life and probably won't for a while until Rockstar comes out with another game. This game is at this point already 6 years old and remains an unreached milestone in immersion, open world density, depth of interaction and and and. The amount of options, choices, characters, randomly occuring events and never ending amount of exploraton you have in this one game is quite astonishing. Playing this you will continually ask yourself how in the world they managed to put this together to make it a real game. And again, this was 6 years ago already. I guess a lot of devs had to suffer some intense crunch for years to make this brilliant game a reality. It really shows. They took an insane amount of precaution for immersion on all fronts and to never let it break.
The historically accurate depiction of the wild west is another thing we've most definitely never seen before in a video game. This basically is a Hollywood western movie implanted into a game.
that even in the most minor ways you can imagine will be remembered by NPCs in the game. You steal something in a bar, even after months of ingame time they will remember you there as a thief and also what specifically you stole. NPCs you kill in the wild will remain laying there, unfound, rotting, vultures gathering. You can observe the decomposure day by day. You can also tie people up and feed them to the aligators.... and I mean... if that's not a 10/10 game, then I don't know what is, lmao.
proving that they are the best in the industry by a long shot, considering they have been coming out with groundbreaking games consistently since GTA 2. And this game in particular still stands tall as one of the greatest achievements in gaming development as a whole to this day.
A small example to outline how far they went to polish this: they had every voice line recorded at least twice or more times in different volumes and demeanours, so that every escort quest you do, your character shouts or talks more calm and quiet the further or closer they are to each other. The transition between this is seamless and provides an extra layer of immersion you are not used to from games in general.

Every once in a while we all have these outlandish thoughts that "you know, I wish I could do that in a game" and then you realize that's maybe too far out there for a game to be advanced enough to meet that expectation. THIS is the game where you can actually do some of those things.

it's actually quite worrying if anyone is gonna reach that level again anytime soon. If at all. The game has been in development for like 8 years, so for anyone to spend that time, have the talent, vision and direction to even make it this great and also take the giant risk to commit to it for so many years, has not been done by many, especially big studios and will probably become more rare in the future. Just like with modern cinema. Sh1t out something average with high production for guaranteed sales and that's about it. Low risk, high reward. So imo it remains doubtful how many deeply original games AAA like these we'll continue to have.

...and wow, I've said "game" like 20 times in this review.

To anyone who's interested, I've made a performance optimization guide of how I fixed up my game to look and perform the best: https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3363384988

I had never really played the originals for more than half an hour, because these horror games made me paralyzingly scared as a kid. I was however very aware of them. Just alone by hearing people talk about the franchise, looking at videos, I was picking up on the impact it had and the reputation that SH2 established as THE ultimate psychological horror game.
The movie, even though it wasn't considered very good, also did its fair share of pushing me deeper into this world. One of the most mysterious, deviant, morbid and psychologically unsettling worlds ever so passionately put together. One of the most original pieces of art to ever see the light of day. Even more so impressive at the time, but even now, still. You can't reinvent the wheel, so they say. So I had made some efforts over the years to go back and get into retro titles like RE2, RE3 and Silent Hill games, but I had become so spoiled by modern gaming that I just couldn't put up with the graphics, fixed camera angles and janky controls. It just wasn't as great as I imagined it would be. So I never really got past the intro on those...
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⣼⡄
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⣼⣿⣧
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣼⣿⣿⣿⣧
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣛⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⡀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⡀
⠀⠀⠀⣰⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡟⠙⠛⠿⠿⣿⡄
⠀⠀⢠⣿⠋⠈⢻⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈
⠀⠀⢸⡟⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡀
⢀⣄⣿⡇⠀⠀⣸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ In my restless dreams, I see that town
⠚⢻⣿⣧⡀⠀⣿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Silent Hill
⠀⠈⠉⠉⠻⣿⣿⡗⣯⣿⢿⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ You promised you'd take me there again someday
⠀⠀⠀⠀⢰⣿⡋⠺⣿⣿⣿⣯⡻⣿⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ But you never did
⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⡟⠒⠄⠙⣿⣿⣿⣷⣝
⠀⠀⠀⠀⣾⡟⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠻⣿⣿⣿⣦⡀
⠀⠀⠀⣸⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣶⣮⣙⢿⣿⣿⣷⣄
⠀⠀⢰⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠉⠛⠓⠉⠻⢿⣿⣷⣦⡀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠒⠬⠭⠿⠵⠄
Maybe another game from Konami, maybe a game from another company that would be similar and do it better. After Konami's track record however and ultimately after Kojima's Silent Hills got cancelled, I can speak for everybody, saying that the expectations for either another Silent Hill game, let alone a faithful remake, were as low as they could go. Especially after Kojima had upped the bar with his P.T. Demo, the stakes were now too high and nobody could even imagine what a remake of these games would, -or even should look like... The predominant opinion was that it could only be done wrong, especially in the hands of Konami.

In the meantime the Silent Hill soundtrack made me become interested enough to go out of my way and try some piano, to learn the main piano theme. It's one of the most melancholic and haunting pieces of music I've ever heard. Absolutely Iconic.

So I caught myself checking the internet multiple times a year about any new Silent Hill news, with a deep yearning and no real hope in sight...

Until they finally announced the remake of Silent Hill 2...
.. and I was like "YES, YES, YES!", and everybody else was like "OMG, PLS NO, NO, NO!!!".

When I saw the first trailers, I was immediately on board with it. The atmosphere just seemed right. I was very very excited and optimistic that it was going to be a huge success, similar to Resident Evil 2 Remake.

After the combat trailer I had dramatically lost hope, thinking it was just gonna be a cash grab jank show from Konami with some pretty graphics. After some time I removed it from my wishlist and was not even sure if I needed to play this at all... especially with that kind of a price tag, it sure seemed like a shameless FU to the community at the time...

It's pretty astonishing. It's the famous story of the underdog, against all odds, coming outta the gates swinging and delivering what nobody thought possible. It was really like a Half Life 3 type of situation, if you think about it. The stakes were really that high. Imagine the pressure they have been under.

I really am kinda shocked that this is here. That this game is real and we are not disappointed, but blown away by it. You can tell that the people who have worked on this were deeply passionate and giving it their all, even though Konami clearly cut corners in the development.

I mean even though it is certainly bad, it's not game breaking in any way. And it's far from catastrophic, like the Cyberpunk2077 launch.
I was sure I had to get a new GPU for this game. I was about to give up after hours and hours of trying stuff, neither being happy with the amount of FPS, nor the quality of the image I had,
when I finally found the best settings for the state the game is in right now to make it as best looking and performing as I could. The discrepancies in performance optimization are pretty big with this game, so you have no idea what's possible.
I've made a guide about it that will be very useful to you, which I will keep updating to remain relevant: https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3344891926
The core gameplay: I kind of expected Resident Evil 2 Remake type of gameplay in a Silent Hill setting and basically got exactly what I wanted. It's so similar, as if they were siblings.

The acting/voice acting in this is top notch. Better than in a lot of movies. How James talks all the way throughout the game. It's incredibly emotional and moving. It's quite impressive. You can very clearly hear how talented James' voice actor Luke Roberts really is. Salóme Gunnarsdóttir maybe even more so, because she voiced both Mary and Maria.

The visuals and the fog in this game are so impressive to me. Quite realistic looking and can be modded to be even more so.
How seemless the fog moves and behaves. I keep looking at it and my amazement about the visuals does not and will not fade for a long time, I guess. It creates such an eerie atmosphere that feels very unique to this game.

The sound design was very gutwrenching sometimes, with all the noises intentionally created to rile you up and make you paranoid. It's like someone really dug deep on how to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, got a workshop full of tools and went hard on it. These are some of the weirdest, creepiest noises I've ever heard and they perfectly keep you on edge the whole time. I imagine that to be a very hard job to do. It's very tasteful sounding and never annoying.

The length of the game was actually surprising to me. My fear about the game being too short was delightfully alleviated.

After finishing the remake, I now went back and finished the original. And man, I can see why it has its reputation and all, because it was the first to do it, also got a different 90s Twin Peaks vibe to it, but to be honest, the remake is clearly the better game in almost every single regard. It's not even a question for me. It greatly expanded on everything that was there. I don't understand the hollow criticisms. Yes, Angela's Face, yes, Maria's outfit, but then what? The great knife and hyper spray? Not essential.
People who dismiss this game for being "soulless" or whatever are not to be taken seriously. I've read so much garbage by now from people who haven't played the game in 23 years, nostalgia having terminally destroyed their judgement.

Even if you don't like it, you should still be happy this game exists...
Because this could have very well been the end of the franchise. Instead it's a massive success, having blown the doors open for future developments of the franchise that might suit you better and surpass what this game was.

The game is at least a solid 8/10 in regards to all aspects of the game. The price point, performance problems and combat mechanics overshadow what otherwise feels like a masterpiece to me. I really hope they do a Maria DLC.