I yelped and flinched more than a few times playing the Silent Hill 2 remake, which isn't bad going for an exactingly precise remake of a 23-year-old horror game that even people who haven't played it mostly know inside out. That was largely thanks to the Mannequins, those enemies that look like legs with more legs on top. They have a horrific habit of just standing in plain sight, tucked in a corner or nestled against some shelves – completely visible but somehow so, so easy to miss. 'I'll just explore this dark and totally empty room LEGSINMYFACE! OH GOD WHY ARE THERE SO MANY LEGS IN MY FACE!'
Barely hours into the game I ended up a twitchy wreck, standing outside rooms for far too long and peering nervously inside for an excess of limbs. Even without that leggy jump scare, the atmosphere and general mood of Silent Hill 2 is a grimey, foreboding sense of tense expectation. Sure, it largely owes that to using the original like a mold, pressing out an exact recreation rather than sculpting anything new, but it works – the darkness, the weak torch that just makes it worse, and the grinding loop of ambient screeching sound that picks at your nerves as you explore, make a satisfying horror experience.
