Overview:

A man stricken with grief goes back to the town his wife kept wanting to go before she died. As he goes through the town strange occurrences happen and even stranger people weave in and out of his life causing him to question his sanity. You go throughout the sleepy northeastern town and stumble upon regular locations, like a bowling alley, which are just made even creepier by the bizarre things going on. Not to mention you sometimes get stuck in the middle of the night with nothing to guide you but your trusty flashlight.

Visuals:

Man, this game looks rude as fuck! The filter on the screen giving it the film grain technique back in 2001 makes it seem from a different era. It also being of that time, the graphics can look even more grungy if played at standard definition resolution which just make everything look extremely fuzzy. Almost as if you’re watching it on a VHS!

This even isn’t getting into the main course, though. Everything else about how this game looks is amazing. I’m looking at this back in 2001 respect. For a very early PS2 game the visuals in this game are striking. The characters, environments, and shitty DVD CGI all set the mood for the game that, I feel, was not surpassed on this generation of hardware from any of the competitors.

Audio:

Ah, the audio. Gone are the screeching industrial tunes of the first game and are replaced with just an ambiance and moody tones that seem to be the norm in survival horror games. The voice acting, though, is something that has to be heard as it is super laughable. This is only a few years removed from the horrible voice acting seen in the PS1 era but they haven’t improved by much. Fortunately, it doesn’t detract from the atmosphere too much but it did make me smile.

Completion:

I FINISHED THIS GAME! It actually wasn’t very long but I just kept wanting to see where the game would take me. Every locale was something new and fresh with the characters just leading me along a nice path. Some of the things James, our protagonist, did are head scratching but you can’t blame him since he’s grieving. Some themes and backstories are horrific but kudos to the game for going there. Unfortunately, based on my choices I got the bad ending but I feel it is an earned catharsis due do how I played. Will I go for more endings? Probably not, but I feel it would be a nice playthrough in the future. A+ game. You had me from the very beginning.