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Konami puts out another Silent Hill title. This is quite impressive considering that the previous installment, Silent Hill 3, arrived a mere year ago. The Silent Hill series has been around for a while, and I have been interested in playing it but never got around to do so. Fortunately, Silent Hill 4: The Room provides a satisfying take on the survival horror formula that even series newcomers will appreciate.
Now, call me silly but I was under the assumption that Silent Hill games took place in a town called Silent Hill. For whatever reason, Silent Hill 4 does not. Instead you are taken to South Ashfield, where you play as Henry Townshend. Henry led a good life until one particular night. He had intense nightmares only to awake to a real life nightmare. He finds himself unexplainably locked in his apartment with the phase “Don’t go out, Walter” written on the door. Eventually he finds a way out, through a hole in the bathroom that will lead him to discover exactly who Walter is and why his room is special.
One part of the game takes place in a first person viewpoint, as you explore your apartment, trying to find new information to help you understand what is going on. Although a bit strange at first, the first person bit soon becomes second nature. The left analog stick is used to move, while the right analog stick enables you to look around to explore the room. There will be certain items that the game lets you click on like windows or notes to uncover more of the story. As the story progresses, you’ll notice the apartment change, for the worse, providing additional excitement to the game. You’ll also frequent the apartment to drop off unneeded items and to save the game.
The bulk of the gameplay takes place in the third person levels which you’ll get to from portals in the apartment. These third person levels take places such as a prison, forest, subway station, and hospital, some of which you’ll need to visit twice. You’ll need to explore these places to find the answers to the numerous puzzles scattered about which usually means you’ll need to pick up a few keys and other puzzle items.
Of course, what fun is that if there aren’t strange, demented monsters trying to kill you? Thankfully we don’t need to find out as Silent Hill 4 includes a repertoire of enemies for you to eliminate or be eliminated by. I was surprised with the amount of enemies you’ll see on-screen as there can be many at some points, an issue furthered by the limited space you’ll often be in. The enemies are vicious and really don’t want to be avoided. Furthermore, you’ll encounter ghosts that will hurt you without even touching you and require a special weapon to get rid off. To help you out are a number of melee weapons and firearms.
Unfortunately, the game’s limited inventory system doesn’t allow you to rely solely on the firearms. Every gun, and clip of ammo takes a precious spot in your inventory and you cannot combine the ammo into one big spot on the fly, although you can in the storage box found in the apartment. The inventory issue isn’t a major problem since you’ll get accustomed to running whenever possible but it would have been nice to have more flexibility.
I was able to complete the game in a little less than eleven hours on my first run through. As is the norm for the genre, you’ll unlock additional costumes when you play through the game, but the replayability is more dependent on whether you want to go through the game again to get a different ending (there are four).
The Silent Hill series is known for its creepy atmosphere, and The Room is no different. The environments you’ll go through don’t evoke reassurance and are otherwise gritty and just plain weird. The enemies in the game are, as always, quite strange but look good thanks to the detailed character models. Said character models carry on to other characters who have particularly detailed faces but less than fantastic animation.
Horror games are all about the atmosphere, and as such, you’ll rarely hear background music. Nonetheless, the beloved atmosphere is brought to life with good voice acting and a repertoire of sound effects from the sounds of enemies coming at you, to something more settling like wind gusting around.
When it is all said and done, Silent Hill 4: The Room is a fun horror title with solid gameplay and an interesting storyline to keep you playing to the very end. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Sep 16, 2004
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