Silent Hill 4: The Room

Added August 10th, 2004 by Derby

I don't know about the rest of you but after watching a girl throw up God, and then watching another eat God, I'm a little curious to see what Konami has up its sleeve for the next Silent Hill.

Silent Hill 4, ominously titled: The Room, sees you playing Henry Townsend. Poor Henry woke up from a bad dream one day and found his front door chained shut. From the inside. Along with the locks is a message above the peephole, which warns you not to leave. Right away we can see Konami hasn't lost its freaky touch, I've got goosebumps. As you wander around the apartment you'll eventually notice that there is a hole in the floor next to your toilet. Instead of calling the super to get it fixed Henry decides to take a plunge and finds himself on an escalator and your story begins. And this is also where a few of my complaints begin. Mall escalator? Have we not seen that before? From the screenshots I've seen we will be revisiting a few things Konami has hit us up with before. Such as the Mall, Subway stations, doglike enemies, flying enemies with swords. I fear change as much as the next person but Konami has got to be coming dangerously close to losing their fan base. We can only look at the same thing so many times! Even with the drawback of some familiar locations Konami does redo the graphics, layouts, so at least nothing is exactly the same. I don't expect this to detract that much from my overall enjoyment of this game but I hope Konami reads this and considers themselves warned. I doubt the Silent Hillians will tolerate another mall.

I don't think we'll see much improvement on the camera angles or the graphics between the third installment and this one but honestly I'm ok with that as long as they provide the same high quality story we're eagerly anticipating. One thing they have switched up is an added charge ability to charge up your attacks. I can see this coming in handy. Another thing they've changed is the viewpoint, while you're in your apartment you will be operating in a first person perspective that is new to the series, but while you're traversing the wonderful toilet dimension you'll be utilizing the classic Silent Hill third person view.

In my Internet ramblings I haven't found much hype for this game outside of the obsessive Silent Hill fans and this has always disturbed me. The horror genre is completely bypassed by most people and it's really a shame because this game will be a quality game, as have the rest of the series. Obviously not meant for children, with the excessive violence and semi-complicated plots (which will be prevalent in this installment as well), these games cater to the same crowd as Rockstar but because it's not run-and-gun senselessness it often gets little to no credit or acclaim. I'm telling you here and now folks, this game will be worth buying, play it with the lights off and the curtains drawn and get ready to be scared.