Reviewed: September 29, 2004
Reviewed by: Megan Dyer

Publisher
Konami

Developer
Konami TYO

Released: September 7, 2004
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature

9
10
10
8
9.1

Supported Features:

Every so often though, a game comes out that really defies the status quo. And Silent Hill 4: The Room is one of those games. If you want a horror game, then oh boy, did you ever get one. Konami isn’t joking when its disclaimer warns that “some parts of this game could be considered violent or cruel.” Consider yourself warned.

You will be playing the mild mannered Henry Townshend, a twenty-something bachelor living a quiet life in apartment 302 of South Ashfield Heights. That is, until terrifying nightmares begin to haunt him, and he becomes a prisoner in his own apartment. The only escape (if escape it can be called) is a portal that has appeared in his bathroom. This portal leads to hellish nightmare worlds that have some strange connection with room 302. You will travel as Henry between your ever deteriorating apartment and worlds that make the mind of the serial killer from The Cell look like a kiddie ride at an amusement park. With impressively realistic in game rendered graphics and a top-notch soundtrack, Silent Hill 4 is one of the most impressive titles I‘ve ever played.

I am happy to report that Henry isn’t inhumanly macho (he’s quite meek, in fact) and does not spout off cheesy one liners as he stomps on leeches and other enemies. There are no large breasted, scantily clad women (well, not ridiculously so, anyway) gallivanting around, and get this: You will actually care about the main characters, Henry and his neighbor Eileen. Instead of sitting around and waiting for the next person that practically has ‘victim’ tattooed on their forehead to die, you find yourself hoping that Henry and Eileen will come out of this alive with their sanity still intact. This makes the whole gaming experience a little more satisfying than the usual, boring old, ‘yeah, I saw that coming from a mile away. Oops, I died.’ horror game.

Another refreshing aspect of the Silent Hill series is that they’re not only horror titles, but suspense games as well. Silent Hill 4 is no exception. The psychological effect of this game is impressive. You feel anxious and nervous, but so incredibly intrigued by the story that you’ll want to keep playing. There are small details here and there that create a tense atmosphere. When you are in your apartment, the game switches to first person mode, so you experience everything in Henry’s eerily quiet and increasingly claustrophobic apartment through Henry’s own eyes.

You can look outside of the apartment at the rest of world going by, completely ignorant of what’s going on inside room 302. You can even make Henry tap on the windows in desperate attempt to catch someone‘s attention. You can also look through your peephole on the door, which will have something new nearly every time you peer through. Dial numbers on your supposedly broken phone. Turn on your radio every so often. Examine everything, even if you already have. These small details make the world of Silent Hill immersive and interesting.

Another nice aspect of Silent Hill 4’s gameplay is the smooth, albeit not flawless, controls. In too many horror games, half of the horror comes not from the undead enemies, disturbing plot twists, and loads of blood and gore, but from how poorly your guy can defend himself. It’s annoying, not scary, when the fixed camera angles disrupt you from seeing the zombie beating the hell out of your flailing, pathetic character.

Silent Hill 4’s controls aren’t exactly perfect, but are a breath of fresh air as far as functionality goes. When you are in the gruesome worlds the portals lead you to, the game switches back to third person mode - quite convenient for when you otherwise wouldn’t know what’s lurking behind you. The camera angles work well in most cases (a nice change), and are rarely fixed. More often, the camera follows dynamically, which is nice.

Switching between weapons in battle is quick and easy, and Henry’s gun aims automatically at the bad thing that he’s supposed to shoot, not some obscure, far off object that poses no threat whatsoever, which shouldn’t have to be a luxury, but is in this case. Henry’s other weapons include golf clubs, steel pipes, aluminum bats, wine bottles, paper cutters, bug spray (yes, bug spray) and my favorite non-ranged weapon, the axe. These weapons can also be charged up for a more critical hit. The power, quickness, and toughness of a weapon vary, but since you can only carry so many items and weapons at once, you will want to put the less handy items away, as usual, in a chest, this time kept in Henry’s apartment. You can do this when you find portal holes in the nightmare worlds that lead back to Henry’s home. The save spot is also here, in Henry’s diary, and returning to the apartment replenishes his health automatically (most of the time…). All in all, the setup is clever, convincing and convenient.

Now, remember, I said the controls were smooth, not flawless. There are some key items that you must use at certain points, but you have to be in absolute perfect position for them to activate. There was one part of the game that required me to move up and down a ladder, which Henry had one hell of a time finding. There were also some points at which corpses you’ve incapacitated will lie in your path, blocking the way, since Henry doesn‘t seem to know how to take big boy steps over the offending entity.

Overall though, Silent Hill 4’s gameplay is nice and smooth. It isn’t perfect, but it is the best I‘ve seen so far in horror survival games. And no one who plays it will be able to dispute that it’s one of the scariest and moodiest games ever made. It’s almost like watching a great horror film, cinematic and unafraid to be almost artsy at points, leaving as much to the imagination as it reveals in gruesome detail. Silent Hill 4 is one hell of a gaming experience.

Henry also appears the way you would expect a man that has been flung to hell and back several times would appear. His eyes are slightly red and blood shot, with dark circles beneath them. Beard stubble on his face and messy hair make him look haggard and stressed. Clothes are rumpled and wrinkled in all the right places, and hair moves and lies naturally. The level of detail and variety in the character designs is astounding, and leaves the game feeling even more disturbingly real.

Background graphics don’t disappoint either. Nothing looks awkward or stands out unnaturally. The scenery is vivid and immersive, and not afraid to take something unlikely and make it seem as realistic as your own house. Among the worlds you will be visiting are a dark and foreboding forest, an abandoned subway station that seems as though it has been locked in a moment in time, and a prison that will probably give you a few not so pleasant dreams. Each time you come back to Henry’s apartment, you’ll sigh with relief to see something that isn’t a scene from the 9th circle of hell. Pay attention to Henry’s apartment when you do return, though. Over time, you’ll notice that even it starts to slowly deteriorate. At first it’ll seem like the game’s messing with your imagination, but when the blood starts seeping into your windows, you’ll know better. This is yet another example of the painstaking detail this game has to offer.

In some scenes, the screen appears to be dusty and scratchy, like damaged film (think The Ring). This technique is used whenever you leave through the portal in your apartment into the nightmare worlds. Other film techniques include sepia washes, blurring and using double images to convey disorientation. All of these add an atmosphere to the game that competing titles simply have lacked in the past. Even the camera work is artistically well done. When the game does let you control it somewhat, moving it around gives the effect of someone watching Henry from your point of view, thanks to some subtle tilting and shaking inherent in the control scheme. Sometimes it will fall back from Henry and tilt as he’s going down a corridor, and other times it closes in so that you can’t see what’s just around the corner. The cinematic feel of Silent Hill 4’s graphics is second to none.

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering, ‘what about the monsters? I’m not going to laugh at them the same way I laughed at the Night of the Living Dead zombies, am I?’ Unless you have an incredibly dark, somewhat deranged sense of humor, I think it’s probably safe to say that laughing will be the last thing you’ll feel like doing. Ghosts, demons and other atrocities don’t look cheesy and ridiculous. Sure, one of the bloody ghosts bared a vague resemblance to Bill Cosby, the least scary guy on earth, (okay, I was laughing at that point) but other than that, most of them are quite disturbing. I’d be a bit nervous about looking into the minds of those who created them: Masashi Tsuboyama, Masaya Okada, and Jun Inoue. Well done, guys. A little too well done.

As for Silent Hill 4’s soundtrack, there isn’t too much music, but lots of atmospheric sound. Some of the effects will have you jumping and readying Henry’s weapon almost as though it were a reflex. Sometimes these noises are there to simply make you jump or shiver. Other times they really are an indication of a monster that you are going to want to put a bullet in, if for no other reason than to make it stop producing that horrible noise. The mixing and changing up of the noises in the game means that you’ll always be on edge, no matter what.

As I said, the soundtrack is sparse. However, the music that is here is music I would dearly like to get a hold of. Slow, moody gothic music and deliberate trip-hop beats makes some of the scenes less disgusting and a bit, well, sad. The title screen plays a discordant acoustic guitar riff over a wash of breathy sighs. I enjoyed the mood of the music. Perhaps it was because I was sick (literally) from listening to disturbingly tall mannequin nurses belch and gurgle every time I hit them. Whatever the case, I simply have to find the songs they used for this game.

Besides, the story that drives this game on is a very intriguing one that will leave you wanting to play more. You won’t want to miss one detail, one secret, and to tell you the truth, there will be some things that you’ll wish you hadn’t done. I won’t spoil it for you, but seriously, be careful about items that you decide to keep and items that are better off just left alone. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything…(stupid, stupid, stupid!)