Like all the Silent Hill games, Silent Hill 4: The Room is disturbing. There are creatures right out of a Lovecraft nightmare, people die horribly, and you never know what is going to jump out at you. Meaning this is a fun game for survival-horror fans. But even though the game delivers on a fright-filled story and some great atmosphere, I really think that it might be time for the Silent Hill franchise to pull into the garage for a bit of an overhaul. It is beginning to feel like it’s not trying to innovate anymore.
The Room’s story, as is usual in Silent Hill games, is central to the enjoyment of the game. The Room’s main character is Henry Townshend. He is so plain vanilla nothing has probably ever happened to him out of the ordinary. He moved into apartment 302 of South Ashfield Heights in the city of Ashfield about two years ago. It has been a nice place to live … until about five nights ago. Five nights before the story picks up, Henry started having nightmares that leave him waking up confused and sporting a horrific headache. His apartment has changed too. None of the windows will open. The door has been chained shut from the inside. He can’t call out on his phone – though he is getting some strange calls in. No matter how much he pounds and shouts, none of the people in the building can hear him. And now his bathroom has developed a hellmouth of a hole that leads to other dimensions. Having no other way out of his slowly degenerating apartment, our boy Henry is stuck trying the hole. In various levels, the story unfolds with Henry trying to figure out how to survive and ultimately get out of his apartment.
The Room does a nice job of making players care about the characters, both player and non-player … which really punches you in the gut when one dies in agony. The main secondary character is Henry’s next-door neighbor, Eileen Galvin. And you just know she is getting sucked into this before it is over.
Like previous games in the Silent Hill franchise, The Room offers at least four (you never know, they may have snuck in even more) alternate endings. The player’s performance during the game will determine which is seen. This does add to the replay value.
The levels of The Room are laid out in a kind of a wheel fashion with Henry’s room as the hub. In his room Henry is comparatively safe, though certain actions can make it less so. (Sorry, no spoilers.) Between forays into the dimensions and locations reached through the hole in his bathroom wall, Henry returns to his apartment to store excess items (of which he can only carry 10), restore his health, and save progress.
Control, graphics and audio are all little changed from Silent Hill’s last incarnation. The gritty, grainy look that sets the mood of the Silent Hill series is here. Audio will have you looking around for the hell spawn in your own room. A first-person view for parts of the game is new. Animation and character modeling look slightly improved. The backgrounds are well detailed and look like they are actually alive – when they really should not be.
The combat control system will be recognizable to fans, but Konami has added improvements. By holding down the X button while equipped with a melee weapon, the player charges-up his blow and inflicts more damage. Add to this the ability to more quickly select weapons via an on-screen menu and a dodge feature that keeps you from getting hit so much, and you’re looking at a nice, incremental improvement in combat.
While it all works well and survival/horror fans won’t be at all disappointed if they go out and get this game, Silent Hill feels an awful lot like previous Silent Hill games. Perhaps it is just me. We’re headed into a new generation of hardware soon; perhaps Konami is waiting for the additional horsepower to give Silent Hill a major facelift. Or perhaps the survival/horror genre has reached a pinnacle and is destined to stagnate...NAH!
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