The Room begins as a promising experience but gets bogged down by repetition, clunky controls, poor AI, and other issues
The most notable difference in The Room is that none of the locations are set in Silent Hill. Instead, The Room starts out in the apartment of Henry Townshend; a man who's been locked inside his room for days by some unknown force that chained the door shut. Eventually, a hole appears in his bathroom wall that serves as a portal to another world that is represented by familiar locations (e.g. a subway, hospital, etc.) in either realistic or abstract constructions. Having locations that aren't in Silent Hill barely makes it feel like a part of the series, but it does add a nip of variety that isn't seen in any of the other additions.
The absolute best addition to The Room is the first person view mode in Henry's apartment. Over time, the apartment will get a few hauntings that range from windows chattering to shoes walking by themselves to ghosts popping out of the walls. Having all of these hauntings in first person view makes for a personal horror experience that scares the player in a way that a third person camera can't. The only gripe with the first person view is that it takes a little while to get used to controlling the camera with both sticks while moving around.
The part where The Room is unique in combat mainly lies in the inventory system. In previous installments, the character could carry an infinite amount of items and they could be accessed at any time using the start button (which would then pause the game as well).
The Room's inventory system can be explained as such:
1. A finite amount of items can be carried.
2. Items don't stack (two health drinks take up two slots).
3. Items can't be discarded, only used in vain.
4. Henry's apartment is the only way to store items.
There are a few hit-and-miss issues the inventory presents. All of the tweaks to the inventory can be interpreted as a good or bad thing (with the exception of 3 and possibly 4) depending on the player's comfort with the system and how difficult they like their survival horror games.
First off, the finite amount of items Henry can carry (about 9 or 10) is reasonably large compared to other survival horror games that run on the same system. The inventory can be accessed by the back button or directional pad and X selects the highlighted item. Since the game doesn't pause while they player looks through their inventory, a bit of suspense is added to places where other installments ignored. However, digging through the inventory while a monster's nearby can be distracting and can even result in dying.
Secondly, the fact that items can't be stacked forces the player to only carry a small amount of healing items, ammunition, and possibly a couple weapons at most. On the contrary, the no stacking element can be a good thing since it adds a level of realism, strategy, and thought to the experience. Generally, the no stacking element is a good thing if the player has a habit of planning ahead but it can be a bad thing for the impatient.
The atmosphere in The Room is another aspect that's been modified from the other games in the form of minimizing. In the previous installments, the player was given a radio and a flashlight at some point. In The Room, both of these integral pieces of equipment are missing, meaning that there's no real way to predict if a monster is in your area or see clearly in a dark room. In general, the omission of the radio and flashlight give The Room its own brand of horror that seems to lean into the Resident Evil "BOO!" scare department at times.
A strange addition to The Room is the ghosts Henry encounters along the way. These ghosts can't be killed by any weapon in the game and can only be stunned by a special weapon that pins the ghosts to the ground. If Henry gets too close to the ghosts for too long, he'll start to take damage and possibly even get killed off if he stays around them too long. What's even stranger about the ghosts is their ability to randomly pop up in any area at any time by phasing through walls in an oily black substance. To be honest, the ghosts add a bit of frustration due to their immortality. Still, the ghosts make The Room stand out even more.
Sadly, not all changes are good in The Room. The way you control Henry, the AI, the storyline, and lack of variety all dull the experience.
The most notable offender of the group of problems surrounding The Room is the lack of variety: mainly in environments. In the first half of the game, Henry will explore a colorful variety of locations that shift and twist as the game progresses. The expert design and artistic thought that goes into the locations is wonderfully fresh and exciting. However, the second half of the game consists of the exact same environments as the first half. All of them. And they're all an escort mission. This lazy technique of lengthening a game by backtracking almost made me want to stop playing after I revisited a couple of locations.
Another negative of The Room is how poorly the AI plays for friendly characters. When the player's forced to escort a character through a level, the AI is so slow that Henry will frequently have to stop moving for a few seconds so they can catch up. What's made worse is that the escorted character will be left behind in another room if they don't catch up to Henry before he exits the area. Sometimes, the escorted character will be left behind if they're right next to Henry (but thankfully that doesn't happen often).
A third problem is how boring the story is. Henry barely even has a few lines that don't include "What the hell?" and he speaks so plainly that the player finds it difficult to feel any sort of connection with the man. However, the other characters Henry encounters are decently voiced and have their own distinct personality. Still, the lack of motivation on Henry's part makes the journey a bit too dull.
Last of all, the clunky controls are a little bothersome. Sometimes it can be hard to judge how far an enemy is in relation to the length of the weapon you're using, resulting in taking one or two hits for lack of accuracy. Also, having to stomp every enemy to make sure they're dead gets annoying after the first few kills and becomes more of a chore.
Overall, Silent Hill 4: The Room is a decent addition to the series for standing out. Sadly, the experience quickly loses its luster due to the game-lengthening backtracking, clunky controls, poor AI, and other issues. Silent Hill fans will most likely buy The Room, but everyone else should give this one a rental at most.