Soundtrack Review: Silent Hill 2

Rating: 5/10

Ask survival horror fans what the epitome of the genre is, they'll most likely point to Silent Hill. Ask them where the best survival horror soundtracks are, and they'll most likely point the exact same way.

I agree with them...to an extent. Silent Hill, including Silent Hill 2, does have some very lovely and interesting songs. The problem is, I'd like to hear more of them.

While the second game in the series gave birth to some classic melodies like Betrayal and Theme Of Laura, those are incredibly rare within the game itself. The majority of the soundtrack isn't that great at all. For every stunningly beautiful Music Box melody you hear, you have to go through ten tracks of what, as YouTube commenters so accurately put it, sounds like Pyramid Head's copy machine.

Anyone can tell you that I'm a huge dark ambient whore, so I thought I would like the ambient-style soundtrack. But there's a right and a wrong way to do dark ambient, and one way to instantly put yourself on the Wrong List is too much repetition.  Silent Hill 2 has this problem in spades. While the songs can work simply to provide atmosphere within the game, the sheer recycling of sounds and repetition of rhythms gets boring FAST.

This annoyance is amplified by the track division on the soundtrack - you'll have three songs that should be one, given that they're each just the same repeated sound effect(s).

So, I give it an overall rating of 5/10. While I give it massive credit for having masterpieces like Betrayal, the Music Box, and Theme Of Laura, you have to wade through so much repetitive and boring other songs to get to the good. The reason I actually don't rate it lower is that, as I said, the ambient songs do their technical "job" within the game, which is to contribute to the game's atmosphere. But for a soundtrack to be impressive, it has to be something you'd listen to outside of the game. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to listen to five tracks of Pyramid Head's copy machine just for the fun.

Oh, and if I put you in a SH2 mood now...I ARE JAMES! PURIFIER OF THAT WHICH IS UNHOLY!