Getting this review in before the book comes out.
It’s no shock that I am enjoying yet another Boss Fight Books title. For the record so far I have reviewed the Resident Evil and Postal books by Philip Reed and Brock Wilbur respectively. This month I managed to get an early copy of the Silent Hill 2 book thanks to the crowdfunding campaign I backed. I don’t actually have the physical copy yet but that’s not important as I’ve been keeping those unopened on my bookshelf. I also own copies of Majora’s Mask and Red Dead Redemption and may review those at some point.
I love Boss Fight Books because they are essentially like the muffin of video game books. They generally run in at about 100-130 pages but they have a wealth of information and it never feels like the author is repeating themselves. The authors that Boss Fight Books find to write about these games are highly knowledgeable about the subject and have some personal story with how the games impacted them growing up.
The Silent Hill 2 book mostly covers Silent Hill 2 (go figure) with a sprinkling of Silent Hill. Silent Hill 2 is of course the 2001 survival horror game developed and published by Konami that puts players in the role of James Sunderland who enters Silent Hill in search of his dead wife. Unless it wasn’t self evident you should come into this book expecting the plots of Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 to be greatly spoiled for you. In detail.
Silent Hill 2 is one of those books that you could spend endless hours discussing the symbolism around the game, its tropes, its characters, its monsters, the setting, and more. And Drucker goes into a lot of detail talking about everything and what place it has in the overall Silent Hill universe. He addresses a wide array of topics including the later versions of the game and the extra content as well as the multiple endings and the discussion of which one is really canon.
One discussion I did really enjoy that Drucker brings up is how different Silent Hill 2 is not just from Resident Evil but from the first Silent Hill title. Not only did the massive shift in direction leave a sour taste in some players mouths, the game proved difficult for many reviewers to enjoy and even for Konami to figure out how exactly to promote it.
It’s been a long time since I played Silent Hill 2, as in before the HD re-release came out in 2012. Reading the book and even going through a thorough explanation of the game’s plot and events it has me wanting to boot up my PlayStation 2 and play through the game once again.
You can pre-order the Silent Hill 2 book on Amazon or at Boss Fight Books. The release date is January 26 for the physical version and it looks like January 19 for the e-book. I’ve also said this pretty much every time, but I love Boss Fight Books and their minimalist book covers.
MMO Fallout 