SH4 is the newest installment into this fantastic Survival horror series. You play as Henry Townsend, your average Joe living in his one bedroom apartment. Well, average if you don’t count bleeding walls, blood sprayed bathtubs, huge holes that lead to other dimensions and a phone that is possessed. Yes, Henry doesn’t know it, but his room is a gateway into everybody’s favorite vacation stop, Silent Hill. Silent Hill 4 takes a new approach to the series by starting you off, not in Silent Hill, but a town near it. You get to SH by taking a portal that is located in your bath/laundry room. From there you are subjected to many strange puzzles and monsters. Every time you complete a goal Henry then wakes up in his bed, as if it were a dream. When you go into your living room strange notes will have been left for you under the front door (which is barred and locked with changes). You are able to interact with your surrounding s as well. At one point you are able to move a counter to find a hole in the wall where Henry is able to spy on his next door neighbor, “Eileen Galvin”. Now that’s creepy ;) The game, which is set 4 years prior to Silent Hill 3, doesn’t do much for the story of Silent Hill, only adds to the mysterious nature of the town and it’s cult. Through out the game you are introduced to new characters that interact with you and give you hints on what to do next. The puzzles in the game were tedious at times, or very easy. The game focuses more on combat then previous titles. There’s a huge array of weapons to be found. Once Eileen joins the nightmare, you can equip her with a weapon as well; she’ll help you beat down those crazy two headed babies with out fear. I found the controls in the game to still be a bit clunky, and the inventory to be just as bad as the previous titles. You’d think they would improve on this. The graphics and character models are a step up from the previous games, but the ending and cut scenes use pre-rendered, low quality movies, which take away from the experience, where as SH3’s cinematic where done all in games. The sound and music is top notch as usual, but I couldn’t help notice the foot steps sounded like 1 sound repeated. I can’t help but feel that Silent Hill 4: The Room was rushed a bit to meet some deadline. My Experience with the previous games is cherished, though I did like this game. I hope Konami will improve on some of the things that take away from the experience. It’s just hard not to get frustrated when every time you want to pick up some ammo it will ask “Take Pistol Rounds? Yes/No” . Well of course I do silly, stop asking ;)
Of all the games I have played, the Silent Hill series really stuck to me. The utterly awesome stories, the great graphics and atmospheric sound, really is an experience for all horror fans. Graphics: The graphics ar... Read Full Review
Silent Hill 4 seemed to recieve a lot of complaints simply because it was different from all the previous Silent Hills before it. Though Silent Hill 4 may be different, no more flashlight for example, it still does Si... Read Full Review
