Great story, keeps you guessing until the end.
The Good: Great story, keeps you guessing until the end - Great soundtrack - Plenty of creepy environments - Great sequel.
The Bad: Poor combat - Repetitive, maybe too much for its own good - You have a limit of 10 slots to hold stuff.
Silent Hill has always been known for its ability to put you in a very unsettling atmosphere, have a couple of odd characters and would compliment those factors with a great story, the same can be said for Silent Hill 4: The Room. Though many things are the same as previous Silent Hill games, Silent Hill 4 does not actually take place in Silent Hill. Another big change in Silent Hill 4 is there are two perspective modes, the first being third-person and the second being first-person. The combat has improved, but at the same time has also failed. Silent Hill 4: The Room is the 4th installment in the series, the 3rd on the PlayStation 2 and the 2nd on the Xbox.
"It was two years ago that Henry Townshend moved into room 302 of South Ashfield Heights, an apartment Building in the medium-sized City of Ashfield. Henry was happy and enjoying his new life. But five days ago, something strange happened. He began to have a recurring dream each night." (- silenthill4.net) Oh yeah and one more thing, he could not leave room 302.
The game begins with Henry waking up in his bedroom, he walks out, goes into his living room and sees that his door has been chained shut from the inside, with words on the door "Don't go out!! Walter." On top of that his windows have some magical force-field on them not allowing him to escape at all, nobody can hear him scream or make any noise what so ever. Henry turns around and sees what seems to be a portal forming on his living room wall, seconds after a ghost starts to come out of the hole, it flys towards Henry and he faints. Much like Silent Hill 3, Silent Hill 4 too has the main character have a nightmare before you actually get into the game. Henry again wakes up and walks around his apartment. Soon he will hear a loud noise coming from his bathroom, he checks it out and finds an enormous hole in the wall. With no other way out of his apartment Henry decides to go into the whole hoping it leads him out of his apartment.
As mentioned previously, Silent Hill 4 two perspective modes: the first being the original Silent Hill view, third-person, which will be used when exploring other worlds and environments. The other is a first-person view, which is used in Henry's apartment. There are many things to interact with in his apartment and some with many focal points in the same area, so you will have to be careful of what you are trying to view. Some of the things you can do in Henry's apartment are use the sink, look out of his window(s), use the phone so on and so forth. As for the third-person perspective, you will be traveling in and out of dream-like worlds through portals. As for the story, it is a great one, but some characters such as the main protagonist Henry Townshend has no emotion at all. If you were to light a tree and Henry on fire, the tree would scream WAY before Henry would even speak. You would think someone going through all that he does would show a little more emotions. But as I said before the story is a great one, many people complain that it is too confusing and makes no sense until the end of the game. Who wants to play a game if they figure out the ending halfway through the game? Silent Hill 4 keeps you guessing until the end.
As for the combat, it is better and worse than previous Silent Hill games. What it did right was make it where you have to defend yourself and cannot just run past all of the enemies. How did it do that? By putting you in narrow locations with several enemies, it is definitely safer to kill the enemies than run past them because just running past them (if you can) will cost you a lot of health. Now the bad part about it is that in the game there are ghost that you cannot kill and they can hurt you without actually attacking you. All they have to do is fly near you causing Henry to rub his temples and then you will lose health. Now there is a weapon in the game that can keep them pinned on the ground. Which brings me to my next point. In Silent Hill 4 you are limited to 10 slots to carry stuff. Which can make the repetitive gameplay even more repetitive because you will have to go back to Henry's apartment just to drop off items, and make space.
Silent Hill 4 has four endings, they depend on how much you take care of Henry's apartment and his neighbor Eileen Gavin. Later in the game Henry's apartment and Eileen (who will accompany you later in the game) will become possessed. So if you want a good ending, that is a space taken away from your ten slots. Eileen also can help you beat up the monsters by giving her a weapon, but it will also cost you one space in your ten slots. Now you do not have to save Henry's apartment or Eileen, but the expect to get one of the bad endings. (When I say bad ending I mean this: there are four endings, Good +, Good, Bad, Bad +. All of the endings have titles but you'll have to play the game to figure them out.) As all previous Silent Hill games, Silent Hill 4 will give you a rating at them end of the game and show you all of your stats.
The graphics are without a doubt good, a slight bit better than the PlayStation 2 version. The environments are great looking. One of my favorite parts in the game is when the ghosts come out of the wall. The way a portal starts to form and then a demonic ghost comes out of it, it's just really cool to watch. As always, Silent Hill's soundtrack and sound effects go great with the environments. But some of the sound effects in Silent Hill 4 come off as kind of lame. For example: When you are in the hospital you will encounter a freakishly tall patient or nurse (I'm not sure exactly what it is) and chances are you will kill it, but the sound it makes when you hit it sounds like someone is burping. Another part where I questioned the sound effects was when you are in the Subway on the train, it sounds like someone is walking on flooded grass, but it's metal you are walking on. Those are really the only two that I thought were kind of lame, but there were plenty of great sound effects.
Though Silent Hill 4 did not take place in Silent Hill, it had a great story and had that unsettling atmospheric feeling of Silent Hill. Silent Hill 4 is easily a worthy addition to the series, and probably my second favorite. If you are a fan of the survival horror genre or just a Silent Hill fan, Silent Hill 4: The Room is at the least a rental.
