Dare you enter The Room?
Story: As always the story is excellent and is in typical Silent Hill style. Henry Townsend has been having some wierd nightmares which started five days before after he was mysteriously locked inside his apartment, room 302. Eventually a strange hole appears in the bathroom wall and when he goes through it he enters a strange otherworld, which is populated by someones nightmarish imagination brought to life. The story goes along at a nice pace and while slow at the start, begins to get more intense around half way through. Rest assured there are plenty of twists along the way as Henry unravels the secrets of why he is locked in his apartment, who is this serial killer Walter Sullivan and what does all this have to do with the resort town of Silent Hill?
Gameplay: This is your typical Silent Hill affiar, though the emphasis is more on combat, story and exploration than on puzzles this time, but there are some notable changes which make some significant changes, for better or for worse. The biggest new addition is the room itself which sort of acts as your central base where you can heal, save and store items (your inventory is now limited ala Resident Evil). You walk around the room in first person, which is a nice touch and it is interesting to see the room change as you go through the game as about halfway through the game the room becomes haunted, starts to decay and you can no longer heal just by returning to you room and can actually be hurt by the hauntings so your former safe haven becomes a death-trap.
Graphics and Sound: The grpahics are as good as ever and the sound is yet another breakthrough by Akira Yamoaka (the opening theme is just awesome). The game does suffer from the loss of the fog and darkness from the previous games as the game becomes less scary as a result, though it does have its own ways to build tension.
Overall I really liked this game. It is not the best Silent Hill game but it is still as great game and one of the best horror titles for the PS2.