Tuesday, 12 November 2024

Silent Hill 2 (2024) - Manic Delirium

Bloober Team's fabulous remake is given the same treatment as OG.


Strange Photos

Throughout the game, 26 Polaroids can be found.

If you count certain things within each image and translate working out to caption, you'll land on a letter.

To cut a long explanation short, Paul Robinson solved shit on 3 November.

YOUVE BEEN HERE FOR TWO DECADES

Responding to reddit post, creative director and lead designer Mateusz Lenart verified claim was accurate.

While meaning of hidden message is left open to interpretation, date of till receipt found in Green Pharmacy raises eyebrows.

June 22 1992
So if real-time, James has been stuck in purgatory since 1972.

Glimpses of the Past

All 26 instances are nods to locations/puzzles from OG that have either been moved or changed.

When interacted with, static briefly appears, camera angle changes and wistful music plays.

While previously left ambiguous, mutilated corpses are previous iterations of James who died trying to escape the loop.
Fast food

James: Ugh. This town is full of monsters. Who could just sit here and eat pizza.
Pete's Bowl-O-Rama previously played out a conversation between Eddie and Laura.
As a reminder.

James: This town is full of monsters! How can you sit there and eat pizza?
More importantly, where did geezer order takeaway from?

HA HA HA!

At Reverie Theatre, an empty box confirms that Eddie has got his appetite back.
This doesn't count as a 'Glimpse', but still interesting.

OG

Before entering the back of Heaven's Night, examining strip club's stock has James say:

"Liquor bottles.
I don't need that right now.

It's not that I don't drink.
In fact, I drink a fair bit.

To get away from the pain, the loneliness....
But the drinking never changes anything.

...Anyway, I don't need it now.
There's something that I have to do."

So protagonist has a drinking problem.

Mixing shit up.

In a brand new sequence, Maria pours him a drink, but he silently resists.
Taking a gander at whisky bottle returns no information/and or reaction.
Iconic graffiti

There was a HoLE here, It's gone now.
The door that wakes in darkness, opening into nightmares.
The Shining

Novel

Room 217

Wood Side Apartments
Lakeview Hotel
1980 film

I'm Johnny, one hot guy
Typewriter
Universe

School bus - Silent Hill


Originating from:

Kindergarten Cop (1990)
Silent Hill: The Arcade

The Little Baroness was first mentioned in a magazine article in Silent Hill 2's Toluca Prison.

Very briefly.

"On a fog-bound November day in 1918, the Little Baroness, a ship filled with tourists, failed to return to port."

It would literally reappear in 2007 arcade game.

"November, 1918
Toluca Lake,
Central Silent Hill

Sightseeing boat, the Little Baroness, mysteriously disappears with 14 crew members and passengers on board.

75 years later. The ship returns to Silent Hill."

At the curiously named Museum of Historical Materials, a picture hangs.
Apart from funnels now expelling smoke/engine exhaust, remake adds a different year.

Little Baroness
The maiden voyage of 1916
Highly unlikely, but a game set aboard steamboat would be fucking AWESOME.

At Brookhaven Hospital, a 'random' teddy contains a bent needle.
What's this?

Emilie owns a teddy.
Hmmm.

Silent Hill 3

Robbie the Rabbit


Also, below sticker of Lakeside Amusement Park's most famous mascot is Three Peaks Tours, a reference to Twin Peaks.

It's bread


Jacks Inn

When night falls, Room 106 is not how we remember it.

Halo of the Sun


Douglas Cartland's hat


Final flourish

Yeah, I'm not done yet.

Andy's Tool Shop boasts the world's finest Metal Gear woodworking tools.
My Snake is already Solid.

When both parts are glued together, title of vinyl record is "The Long Way Home".
No song exists, but The Long Way Home is a 1997 World War II documentary film, narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Coincidence? Maybe.

Heaven's Night has a selection of fine beverages on offer.

L-R: Red Velvet - Blue Velvet (1986), Leonidas - rather than actual historical figure, probably a nod to 300 (2006), Keswick Pride - as per OG, landscape in opening is modelled on Keswick's Derwentwater in the Lake District, Jacob's Lager - Jacob's Ladder (1990), Ale Peaks - Twin Peaks and Tolcua Light - local version of low alcohol lager.
During the butterfly puzzle in Blue Creek Apartments, we come across a taxidermy species of the death's-head hawkmoth, namely Acherontia styx.


Even though scan is of actual insect, this was probably inspired by the poster of The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Skull was altered for dramatic effect and lifted directly from Salvador Dali's 1951 photograph In Voluptas Mors, made in collaboration with Philippe Halsman.


The best is saved until last.

On the way to red gemstone at Lakeview, the sigil of King Paimon is shown.


Decoration pays homage to Hereditary (2018).

Magical symbol carved into telegraph pole foreshadows Charlie's decapitation.
Brilliant stuff.

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