Lucky for us, Drucker’s Silent Hill 2 is both good and fun. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, as Duncan writes in a tone that’s both informative and entertaining, particularly when he throws shade at the game’s protagonist for being both excessively boring and also an awful, awful person.Īs mentioned before, Silent Hill 2 is a good game, if not a fun one. But even still, things never get dry and academic. Factor in a bunch of citations from books and articles about horror in general, Silent Hill 2 is downright educational. Partly because Silent Hill 2 has a surprising amount of academic research written about it– in particular, the work of Ewan Kirkland is cited multiple times throughout the book. Silent Hill 2 is definitely on the more academic end of the spectrum of Boss Fight Books. Early on, Duncan notes the Silent Hill games are are explorations of American surrealist horror a-la Twin Peaks or Jacob’s Ladder, as done by a Japanese video game developer, which is one of the things that make them so wonderfully weird. Drucker gives each of the game’s character a chapter’s worth of analysis, and also explores some of the bigger themes presented by the town itself. This said, even though I’m not super into the series, I still found Drucker’s Silent Hill 2 to be an interesting and informative exploration of the game. Later, in college, I had a roommate who played through Silent Hills 1 & 2 in preparation for the release of Silent Hill 3, so I at least absorbed some of the stuff about rust-world and Pyramid Head and whatnot via osmosis. When it first came out, my horror-loving best friend scooped it right up– and promptly got mad at me and the other guy hanging out at his place when we kept making snide commentary about the game’s slow burn of an opening. I honestly haven’t played Silent Hill 2 all that much– rather, it’s a game I watched someone else play. As on the surface it looks like a survival horror romp a-la Resident Evil, but the game is more interested in exploring themes of abuse, neglect, depression, murder, and suicide. Drucker makes a very good point in the book that Silent Hill 2 is certainly a good game, but really not a fun one. Mike Drucker’s Silent Hill 2 leans towards the latter, though he does mention some of his own personal experiences throughout.įor those who might not be familiar with Silent Hill 2, it’s a video game of psychological horror, released by Konami in 2001 (you know, back when Konami still made good games). Some are more personal affairs, looking back on nostalgia and identity and stuff, while others have a more academic bent. Boss Fight Books releases books about video games, with each one written by a different author, taking a different tack. So yeah, if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you probably know the rundown.
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