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Yet another reason not to leave your apartment.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 86 / 97
Date: July 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Silent Hill 4 is some scary scary stuff, but that is nothing that years of therapy cannot fix. That being said, you must now obtain this game. This review is of the Japanese Import of the came, but the US release will be identical in almost every aspect (All the in game dialog is in English, and the menus are multi-language).

It must be mentioned that this game is a departure from the first three of the series, but everything it does different it gets right. The bosses have been removed, but don't worry there is still plenty to back you into a corner and make your cry for mommy. The removal of the bosses has added to the overall fluidity of the game. It seems less like the structured chapter based plot and more like a constant downward spiraling nightmare. The puzzles are a bit more straight forward (not nearly as cryptic as some of the earlier puzzles) and the enemies have become a bit more organic. The skinned dogs are still roaming around but new enemies such as the creepy yeti-babies and ghost/zombies will defiantly keep you on your toes and loosing sleep. I considered the more human of the monsters to be the scariest (Pyramid Head, The Nurses, Blood Soaked Alessa) and this game capitalizes on this.

All of the aesthetic changes are well received like the new health bar and power gauge. The first being so you no longer have to guess at your health via limping or hemorrhaging and stop the game for a inventory check; the second is used for swinging weapons to charge from a moderate THUMP to a full blast body-hurling home-run style WHACK. Two of the biggest departures are the first person perspective mode and the limited inventory. Gone the way of the dodo is the Resident Evil rip-off inventory screen and introduced is the Resident Evil inspired limited inventory. This adds a whole new level to the game being that what items you carry now matter in the sense that you can no longer pick up any more if your inventory is full (and in some parts, what you carry affects the level). No need to worry being that the portal/hole system that traverses you from your room to different `worlds' allows you to go back to your room and store unneeded items in a stylish ottoman/chest placed next to your possessed television. Also to please your inner voyeur, the frist person view allows you to peek out your window to see into your neighbors' apartments and to spy on the single white female living next to you.

Returning SH fans will find that this new addition has much to offer with it's tentacles embedded in plot from all previous Silent Hill titles bringing new light to old events (What was the outcome of James Sunderland's trip in SH 2, What really happened at the Wish House from SH3, etc.). New players stepping up to the challenge will not be disappointed with beautiful detailed graphics and a story line that drives you to dig deeper and deeper until it all makes sense. Konami once again has created an audio/visual attack on the sensed that is truly designed to scare the living crap out of you.

This is more like it.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 33 / 40
Date: September 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

My first reaction to previews of Silent Hill 4 was that they had run out of ideas and this was going to be a lame attempt to make this instalment a bit different. Well, I think I was wrong. Silent Hill 4 has rewarded me with more fear and unease than I experienced in the second and third games, and I've really fallen for the new structure. In case anyone is not yet aware, this game takes place in an apartment, from which the main character, Henry, is unable to escape. Henry is thoroughly cut off from the outside world until the day he finds a strange hole in the wall, which leads to adventures in hideous, nightmarish locations. The main innovation here is that all action inside the apartment takes place in 1st person prespective, and although I was initially skeptical about this, it really works. After walking around in it, and returning to save in it between trips through the hole, I got to know where everything was and it really felt like MY apartment!

It becomes the restful respite from the horrors of the "other" worlds... and it's a secure feeling that the game designers obviously wanted to instill, as later in the game - skip this bit if you haven't played yet - the apartment itself starts to get invaded by supernatural manifestations, and you can no longer roam around it in safety. This overturning of the game's only "safe space" really worked on me, and I longed for a way to rid it of the evil prescences that were taking it over.

The adventures that take place through the hole are in the traditional SH style, 3rd person, running around looking for items and attacking weird creatures. Again, the designers have come up with some new monsters, and the two headed baby-faced creature is definitely the most memorable. The game also includes floating ghosts that can't be killed - they also attack you, so this is pretty frustrating at times. And watch out later for some very dangerous "Frankenstein" creations that roam around the hospital level - very dangerous. On that note - what is it with Japanese survival horror games and hospitals? That's all four SH games, plus Siren and Resident Evil that use hospitals as a location! The other levels are more creative, and include an orphanage and a particularly weird cylindrical prison standing in the midle of the sea. There's also an apartment block which is far better than the one in SH2.

Again we have multiple endings, and in this case, the conditions that have to be met to obtain them are much more satisfactory. So in all, I have no hesitations in recommending this game to Silent Hill fans, and it's a welcome relief, after the 2nd and 3rd SH games struck me as duplicating the first one too much. The character models and scenery are all superbly rendered as I expected. The graphics in SH games just continue to get better every time. Drawbacks? Well, just a few. As the game draws to a close, you have to revisit all the locations again in the same order and carry out slightly different tasks. This seemed a rather cheap way to pad out the playing time to me. Plus you can now carry only a certain amount of items, so lots of trips back to the apartment are needed to drop off unwanted items in one central storage box. And every clip of 10 bullets counts as one item! So carrying a gun means you are going to fill up all your slots with bullets. A bit mean, that one.

But as a result of this, I did nearly all my fighting with melee weapons, which, it has to be said, was much more fun anyway as these weapons are all random everyday items like golf clubs and spades. Oh yes I forgot to mention the new fighting system - you can land lots of little hits on an enemy, or you can launch one very strong attack by "charging up" your strength and then letting rip. You'll see how it works when playing. And every weapon has it's own attack style, all superbly realised. Watching Henry fling his steel pipe all the way around and almost topple over with the effort is almost worth playing for alone.

I can see reviews here that must have been written by people who haven't played the game...my advice would be to ignore them. Try it for yourself. Its definitely a frightnener. There are a lot of very painful deaths and other sickening sights on display here, so do not apply if you are squeamish. For the rest of us, though, it's a great ride.

Technical aspects good, everything else lacking

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 14 / 15
Date: August 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've been a Silent Hill fan since the original survival horror legend. I've played all the games in the series, and to tell the truth, this installment simply doesn't live up to the others. Rather than ranting like a lunatic and taking an extreme stance on this, I will say this: The game is mediocre at best, and I will do my best to construct an objective analysis of it.

There have been several noticeable, but largely inconsequential, changes made to the overall game. The combat system has been altered, but not so much as to make it revolutionary. The inventory system has downgraded by limiting the amount of items you may carry at any given time, much like Resident Evil. This adjustment is perhaps the most detrimental aspect of SH4 - what is the point in changing something that worked before if you won't improve it? Furthermore, the flashlight and radio, which we have all come to love (for the most part), have been removed, and the environments have brightened up considerably, as well as lost all the fog. This results in the characteristic traits of the series to vanish, along with its inherent ability to terrify. It is quite unfortunate that Konami felt the need to butcher the saga so.

As far as graphics are concerned (which I could really care less about), they are simply remarkable; having the detail of SH3 with a little more crisp features and realistic physics. As a side note, the noise effect that was in use ever since SH2 continues to go strong. The musical scores to accentuate the development of the so-so story (more on this later) are superbly done, taking the classical approach from SH2 and giving a solid backdrop to the cinematics. The sound effects, however, are seriously lacking in ingenuity. The noises the monsters make in particular are simply laughable, considering they are about as generic as the Bandersnatch roar in RE: Code Veronica... which is pretty bad. And I believe that we all have heard of those patients or whatnot in the hospital world that burp when struck. Unfortunately, that is very true.

The demons, themselves, are perhaps the most ludicrous creations ever to be conjured by the SH team. First off are the ghosts, a very common enemy and indeed the most irritating creature to come into existence. They cannot be killed by any means, the mere presence of them harms you (as Henry holds his head as if he's having a headache - which I can certainly sympathize with him there), and if you get too close, they stick their hand in you to rip out your heart or something. And they make a moaning noise that quickly gets on your nerves. In appearance, they are similar to RE's zombies, except they float through the air and appear to be even more inept than their walking cousins. Then there are the wasp-like things that pollute the air in practically every area you visit, and when they are struck down they release a cry identical to the Pendulum demons' screech from SH3. There are also homicidal wheelchairs (yes, wheelchairs), leeches that explode if you walk over them in a fashion that made me burst out laughing my first playthrough, burping amazon-things, and ape-like creatures that make stereotypical monkey noises as they attack. All of these beings help remove any and all potential to frighten the player. Perhaps the only "demon" that was even remotely scary was that two-headed baby-faced ostrich thing that walked on two hands, but that's about it.

While many people are hyped up about the visual effects of any given game (usually Xbox and Gamecube fans), there is one aspect that supercedes any other feature in a Silent Hill game, and perhaps all survival horror games: the story. The story that is put forth in SH4 is the most poorly assembled plotline in the entire series, combining sheer stupidity, pure impossibility and a sadly apparent longing to somehow connect it to the other iterations. It is basically summarized as this: Henry Townshend wakes up in his apartment one day to find numerous chains and padlocks sealing his front door shut for no apparent reason, and several days later a hole randomly opens up in his bathroom wall. Considering he has nothing else to do other than watch his neighbor shave her armpits, he decides to crawl through the hole to find some way to escape, and enters a "nightmare world". Yeah, right. None of the areas you visit are not even remotely disturbing or creepy, and puts all nightmare realms from before to shame. Also, the plot surrounding Walter Sullivan is a severe disappointment and contradictory to the tale read in SH2. So instead of killing just two people like the magazine article said before, he really killed 8 people before commiting suicide? I apologize for pointing out this glaring incongruity, but it exists nonetheless and must be stated to give you an idea of how terrible the story is. I will not spoil any more details, but suffice to say, although the build-up has some intrigue to it, the final product is far less than satisfying, and that is tragic coming from a Silent Hill game.

Also, throughout the entire game, you NEVER enter the town of Silent Hill. At all. Which begs the question: why even make it a Silent Hill game if you never visit the town the game is named after? Instead you go through a number of "worlds" where you battle ghosts and collect messages. There is a serious lack of puzzles in this game as well - another aspect removed. Instead, most of the "puzzles" you find are just fetch quests, in effect forcing you to use about as many neurons as when you bang your head against a wall.

The surrealism that was so strongly enforced in the previous games are lost to this. The radio show from a seemingly broken elevator loudspeaker, the bathroom stall opening up with blood all over just after someone knocked from the other side, and a corpse falling out of a locker - those kinds of mysterious and unsettling occurences found in SH4's successors are long gone, leaving the fright to come from... wait... fright? WHAT fright? Anyway, there are a couple of exceptions, but if you choose to purchase it then I'll let you find them. But for the most part, the distinguished trademark bending of reality is sadly no more. This, coupled with the pathetic excuses for demons, has produced a game that utterly fails to scare, rendering its whole purpose as a survival horror moot. And that is tragic as well for a Silent Hill game.

To be fair, the room is a nice addition, and it is interesting to see how it alters subtly as the game progresses. There are a few activities there that could be considered marginally entertaining, and after a while you may feel some sort of connection to it, so when... "things" happen to it later it will affect you in a certain way. But Konami forces you to go back to your room repeatedly, to your "storage box", to hold unneeded objects and save your progress. In the worlds you go through, there are holes all over for you to return to your home. Also, like I previously stated: unraveling the plot could hold your attention for a little while, even if the payoff isn't as satisfying. The combat is enjoyable to a certain degree (unless you're fighting ghosts).

Another shortcoming of SH4 is the fact that there are two parts to the game: one part you venture through a number or worlds to unravel the secred behind THE ROOM (DUM DUM DUMMMMM!!!), and the second half you go through the exact same worlds again, except with your roommate following you around all over. Wow. That's a rather cheap way to extend the length of the game, don't you think? What's worse is that a number of the realms I really did not enjoy whatsoever, and having to go through them once more with a lady who mindlessly attacks the monsters I face even though they can kill her easily and she's right in the way of my swinging. As another side note, the weapon selection was comprised of about twenty melee weapons and two guns, and what's worse is that a magazine for the pistol takes up one precious slot in your inventory, effectively rendering firearms absolutely worthless.

In conclusion, don't bother with this game. Unless you've never played any other SH games, are obsessed with graphics rather than how enjoyable a game is to play, or are delusional, this isn't all that great of a survival horror installment.

A new Silent Hill formula to keep you awake...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: September 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I love all Silent Hill games. I love everything about them, from the music, to the graphics, to the storylines intricately woven into each one. Now comes Silent Hill 4 The Room, which is a new story that revolves around the events in all the other games. Well, I shouldn't say that, but the other games have something to do with this one, in one way or another.
I have just beaten this game, and I was quite impressed. The story was good, the graphics were good. But wait, something is missing. Actually, make that three things are missning.

For anyone who have ever played any of the Silent Hill games, you should have noticed certain reoccuring items in 1 through 3.
One, the fog. Two, the radio. Three, the flashlight. None of which make an appearance in the new game. Sure, it is set in the town of Ashfield, near Silent Hill, but still, that only compensated for the missing fog. But what about the other two items? I mean, what's a Silent Hill game without your radio freaking out and your crappy flashlight barely giving you any visibility? I'll tell you what it is, it's a new survival horror game that is never really dark (light-wise).

In fact, it is quite possibly the brightest of all the games. I mean sure, the other games were bright when you were outside, but still. They also had some pitch black areas too. Almost throughout the entire game, everything is well lit. Which won't hurt the games score, but it's just something that i've grown to love in these games. And as for the radio, well, the only thing that comes close is the ghosts making your screen start to mess up and then there's a bit of static, but there's no explanation for it. Well, I guess it makes his head hurt whenever they are near, so it does make sense in that way. But still, even then, he's still lacking that small appliance from his person.

Which is something else, you have a limited amount of items you can carry on you at one time. You have a chest back in your room that you can drop things you don't need at the moment into, but if you accidentally pick up something you didn't really mean to pick up, you have no way of dropping it until you find a hole to get back to your room. So sometimes you'll have to waste a full clip of pistol ammo or use a nutrition drink to clear up a slot so you can pick up the key item you need to take with you. This is probably my only complaint, and it really isn't worth whining about. I do like the on-screen health bar and swing meter, which thankfully fade away after you're out of combat, as does the item selection menu. Because I would be really pissed of if I had to have some freaking crap cluttering up my screen and blocking the gorgeous graphics.

If I can I'd like to add a little here on the new main enemies, ghosts. These apparitions come through the walls and float around chasing you. If they get too close, without even getting their hands on you, you will recieve damage. The coolest one is that of a main (semi-main) character, who, when in ghost form, kind of resembles the little girl from The Ring, you know, the one that crawls out of the television. What I really found cool about this character is when you knock her down, she doesn't always get right back up, sometimes she'll use here arms to pull her around all crazy like on the floor toward you. Pretty creepy.

I know that I don't talk much about the story or the characters in my reviews, maybe that's because I like to sprawl out the rest of the stuff in the game that nobody else talks about. But if you want to know, you play as a man named Henry Townsend. And at the beginning of the game, you have already been trapped in your apartment for five days. The front door is covered in chains and locks and none of the windows open. While in your apartment, you can listen to the radio, if anything is on other than static, look through the peephole to the hallway outside and watch people walk by or have an arguement, look through the hole in your wall in the living room to see into the room next door where a very special girl spends time watching t.v. or painting her nails. But one day, you find a gaping hole in your bathroom wall and decide to ivestigate, upon doing so, you get a steel pipe (i'm glad they atleast left that in there, I sure do like beating things with my steel pipe), and the story begins to unfold. And on the story, while good, it wasn't what I expected. Sure it was twisted and insane, but it just didn't have that punch at the end. No real shocking twist. But oh well, if you liked or loved the other games, buy this one immediately. But I would just like to warn you, this game is totally different from the others. It's not so much Silent Hill 4, it's either The Room or Ashfield Heights.

All in all, a great game, just not a real Silent Hill game. Still spooky though. If it does one thing better than anything else, it's the sense of claustrophobia you get from spending so much time in your room, which you won't want to stay in for too long later in the game...one word: haunted.

Good, but less so

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: December 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

"Silent Hill 4: The Room" is a good game. The voice-acting is largely improved from previous installments, and the style of gameplay takes some exciting new turns. The omission of the radio was an interesting twist, as was the item management system. In this game, the player can carry only ten items, and must leave the others in a safe place. It was a good way to add a bit of extra difficulty and was not so restrictive as to be annoying- unlike the item management in the Resident Evil series.
Unfortunately, this game just isn't scary. Each of the previous games did something no other game (or book or film) has ever managed to do, and that is to be actually scary. The way it accomplished this (nearly impossible) feat is by using darkness and sound to immerse the player in the game world and instill a sense of fear on par with the character's. The player can't see everything that is coming at him/her and only ever catches glimpses at best, while the monstrosities make horrible, unsettling noises. In "Silent Hill 4" the designers made an unfortunate choice to brighten up the environments and omit the flashlight, taking away all of the atmosphere and horror. The decision to scale down the use of firearms and focus more on improvised (usually melee) weapons was a good one, but there is a very strong emphasis on combat in this game. Killing all the creatures also kills the tension. Previous games often required or strongly encouraged the player to run from the enemies, either through a lack of healing options or a lack of ammunition (at least in the harder difficulties). Bullets were powerful, but in short supply. All these things made the games scary. But "Silent Hill 4" gives an excess of extremely weak ammunition and throws in quite a few obscenely resilient and highly visible enemies. The movement system has been changed to a Metal Gear Solid style, where button directions depend on the camera's position, in order to make combat easier to control. Mastering the defensive maneuvers (dodges) and offensive maneuvers is a must for completing this game.
The sum of all this is that "Silent Hill 4" is an action game, not a horror game. The puzzles are watered down, it has no real atmosphere when compared to its predecessors, and combat timing is the key to success. In the older games the Resident Evil style controls (where up is forward, down backward and left/right is turn) were a good choice. They were intuitive, what with the frequent camera angle changes, since the games were about exploration and slow, creeping progress interspersed with moments of panicky flight. Combat proficiency was not a necessity. For this newest version, the control scheme reflects the intended style of play, so it was probably the right choice.
The really terrible thing about this game, though, was the camera. All other Silent Hills allowed the player to track the character with the camera OTS when it was free. Here the right analog stick is assigned the function of camera control, but it has almost no effect. Often, the edge of the player's view is only centimeters of screen space in front of the character's face, making it extremely frustrating to play in many places.
In many ways "Silent Hill 4" is more linear than the others. There is very little backtracking allowed, and no opportunity to run throughout town looking for extra items and such. But it also has far, far fewer inaccessible rooms (the ones that say 'the lock is jammed'), making for quite a few dead ends. I personally disliked the labyrinthine nature of some of the levels (especially "Building World: 2nd Time").
The truth is, if you're looking for a truly frightening and immersive experience, pick up any of the three previous games- especially "Silent Hill 2". This fourth installment comes of as merely a story-heavy actioner.

Disappointing for three reasons

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: February 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The fourth installment of the Silent Hill series was a complete let-down. It included three specific factors that were unbearably frustrating and made me feel like I had wasted my time.

1. The way Eileen follows you around for a greater part of the game. True, she can defend herself a bit, but that AI gets annoying quick when you're trying to run from a Ghost and she just keeps hacking away while getting hacked at herself. You become a babysitter for an pathetic AI system that constantly gets in the way, and if you just ignore it you can't get a good ending.

2. You can only hold ten items at a time. Each clip of ammo takes up a separate space, so carrying and using guns (a resource that is scarce anyway) is too irritating to be of any real use. Silent Hill 4 emphasizes melee weapons way too much. This rule also makes you have to take constant trips back to your apartment to organize and use important things like healing items.

3. You can finish the game and still lose. I suppose there's an appeal of a scary game without a happy ending, just like a scary movie. But spending 18 hours fighting to escape, defeating the last guy, and still losing because of things that qualify more as side quests, left me very unsatisfied.

Finally, some minor pros and cons.
Pros: The power up trait of the melee weapons is extremely useful and well done. The basic concept of escaping your apartment is intriguing, and creates a great eerie atmosphere comparable to Silent Hill 2. And the player has more freedom to move the camera than in previous Silent Hill games.
Cons: The minor role of guns and lack of ammunition makes you feel like you have to conserve such little resources so you end up never using them. And the hardest and most frustrating monsters in the game are one of the first monsters to appear: the ghosts.

Silent Hill 4: I Got Stuck In This Room And Died of BOREDOM

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: October 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Like fox mulder, I wanted to believe. While I'd enjoyed the previous entries in the series on many levels, I could see that there was resident-evil-esque stagnation looming on the horizon. Team Silent took a chance, and decided to mix up the game play.

Now, I'm all for innovation, but this game is a wonderful study in how to take a great concept, rush it, and make it, at best, mediocre.

The protagonist sounds like he's spent all his free time shooting up thorazine, as his emotional reactions are limited to a weakly uttered, milquetoast "what the hell?". Since this character is our conduit to this world, there's almost no emotional attachment to what happens to him on screen.

One of the brilliant points of the previous games was the plot, which led us from the mostly plausible (if not only slightly off-kilter), gradually into the creepy, macabre, frightening, and genuinely disturbing. Silent Hill 4 eschews this, and basically heads full tilt, yee-HAW, into just wierd stuff... which again, removes a subtle, but effective (and important) connection to our on-screen character.

While the graphics are techincally impressive (as is the engine they use), they have a mostly sepia-toned and washed-out feel. The lack of vivid colors leaves you feeling as if you're looking at a painting, and not a window into a world.

The sound design, sadly, is more miss than hit. The lack of any creepy atmospheric music, along with wretched sound effects (the cougar-screams of the dying dogs, or the just-plain idiotic belching of the nurse-demons udnerscore this well). The creature design is sorely lacking as well... the one-hit bean-sprouts are pointless, and the killer wheelchairs just made me think that i was being assaulted by monopoly game pieces.

Finally, the game is far more linear than past entries. The ability to roam a game full of strange and interesting nuances helped us to fully realize the world that these characters inhabit... something sorely lacking here. And they use one of my most loathed tricks to "extend" the length of a game: having you run through virtually every level twice (ghost and goblins anyone? this was just a clever illusion by lucifer!).

Overall, the entire effort feels like a rushed concept, almost like a pilot for a series. All the nuances that made the previous entries so wonderful are simply missing. And it's a sad blotch on what has become, justifiably, one of the finest horror franchises out there.

Excellent

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: September 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

God forbid that Western gamers ought to ever be expected to try something original!

In the wake of all the bad and mediocre reviews I've seen here for this game, I'm finally beginning to understand why the US and Europe are responsible for a good two-thirds of the the mundane sequels that we, as gamers, see released on a week to week basis.

Annihoo, "Silent Hill 4: The Room" is indeed a sequel, but an original one. Konami have made many changes to the gameplay mechanics and general 'feel' of the game, while retaining the more well-loved features of the series to date.

Players control Henry Townsend, housebound for some five days (thanks to the enormous chains all over the inside of his apartment door), as he begins to uncover something of the evil behind his apartment, his neighbours, and a nearby town called Silent Hill.

Gameplay-wise we're looking at practically a whole new Silent Hill. The radio and flashlight are now missing, as are the menu screens. Players now make selections via the D-Pad and the circle button, all in realtime, and since Henry's inventory is no longer bottomless, a "Resident Evil"-esque Item Box system has been employed (albeit far more realistically). Levels, towns and Bosses are all gone by the board, replaced with a Quake-ike "Hub" system - you access various different realms via Henry's apartment - but the game does, in fact, feel a lot more organic for this. There's a real sense of progression and, thanks to the fact that ammo and health items are far, far scarcer than in previous games, there's a much deeper sense of "Survival Horror" about this one.

Controls are tighter, and Henry moves a lot faster than Harry, James or Heather before him. The actual mechanics of movement will be immediately familiar to anyone who's played a Silent Hill game before, and the new speedy controls come into their own when trying to avoid the un-killable ghosts and super-lithe dog-monsters.

In fact, the enemies that populate "The Room" are definitely the scariest-looking since SH 2. The Nurses now resemble something like Egyptian Dog-Gods, and those damn Monkeys from SH 1 are back with a vengeance (as well as a second head!).

Graphically this is the real King of the Silent Hills. Advancing on the already-amazing character models from SH 3, "The Room" is populated by a whole host of impressively-detailed and realistic protagonists, and the animation is very fluid (if not so much as SH 3). Landscapes are now more grim and repulsive than SH 2 (but thankfully, not the teen-goth-pretentiousness of the SH 3 worlds) and the vignettes are as imaginative as they are ambiguous. Remember the "What the hell is that??" feeling of SH 2, that was almost absent in SH 3? It's back, and the atmosphere benefits hugely from it.

The sound is by far and away the best sound in a Silent Hill game to date. From the haunting and melancholic opening tune ("Goodbye") to the human and animal sounds that populate the eerie worlds, there's a wealth of aural abomination waiting to be enjoyed. It adds huge amounts of atmosphere and, perhaps more importantly, scares, to the proceedings. Voice acting is excellent (Henry's shyness and ambiguity add greatly to our appreciation of him as the hero) and on a par with some of the better horror movies I've seen lately.

Story-wise, while it can't compare to the magnificent Silent Hill 2, "The Room" is certainly one of the stronger games of the series in this regard. You need to complete the first third of the game before any of the real characterisation comes into play, but when it does, you feel an immediate attachment to the cast, and the compelling natures of characters like Eileen and the Child pull you further into the plot.

Weighing in at a far longer play length than SH 3 (as well as a slightly steeper difficulty level), "The Room", with its four different endings and numerous chilling set pieces, will never compare to Silent Hill 2, but is a definite step in the right direction after the lacklustre and dull Silent Hill 3. It's a sort of cross between the Adventuring aspect of the original game, with the melancholic atmosphere of the second, and the super-cool graphics of the third game. The innovations and gameplay changes won't suit all fans, but I promise you, approach the game with an open mind, and you'll not be disappointed.

Very highly recommended.

By the by, the now-ubiquitous Hospital level is present, but isn't the same damn building, and, though very short, is also very affecting.

Well done to Konami for making some brave and fresh changes to one of its best-loved series of games.

Graphics get 5 stars but something is missing....

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: January 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Im a big Silent Hill fan and I just completed SH3 when my husband brought "The Room" home for me the same night. I was totally excited as I had only seen a trailor for the game during the previews for the "Resident Evil:Apocolypse" movie. From what I had seen it looked awesome, great graphics and scary. Well part of that was right.

The Good: The graphics and soundtrack (as usual) are amazing in SH4. They keep getting better and better which really impresses me with each game. The enviorments are really detailed and brought to life. And the charachters are acted really well for a video game. I liked being able to look out the window and peek in on neighbors.

The Bad: You dont have a radio this time. You could assume that the amount of bad guys (monsters or in this case ghosts)you will run accross is really low. Not true in some parts, now your just kept on your toes. Gone are the days of an unlimited supply of weapons and items in your pockets. Now you have a storage chest in your apartment where you must keep everything but up to 10 items to carry with you. Which can make for many a trip back to your room. No end bosses. While I never noticed in SH2 that there were no bosses until it was pointed out to me I did notice it here.

The UGLY: THEY MESSED WITH THE CONTROLS!!!! I appreciate a game with controls where up=forward, down=backwards ALWAYS. Now you are to direct your charachter depending on the camera angle. Well thanks to many different camera changes you end up running around like a little girl sometimes. THEY MESSED WITH THE CAMERA!!! You were always able to toggle your camera either behind you (so you could see where you were going) or infront of you (to see if anything is behind you)or to look around the room. Now when your not in first person mode the camera is set. You have really no freedom to look around and definately no freedom to change your view. These two things really upset me while playing the game. There is no town to explore or any running around for extra weapons or items. You have about 4 "worlds" that you explore twice. The second time around there is nothing new about them except your purpose there.

The REALLY UGLY: The worst thing about this game though is that it is not scary! SH2 is my personal favorite, it creeped me out the most. But all Silent Hill games have been scary. Except this one. They took away your flashlight and made the rooms brighter, thats not scary. Being in the dark and hearing something but not being able to see it is definately more scary than a well lit room. Another really bad thing about this is the puzzles. Silent Hill has always had challenging puzzles that for me were hard on the normal setting. This time on normal I had no problem. Am I getting that smart? Probably not.
The end boss was extremely EASY. I beat it in one try. Im not great at video games and I dont suck either but I dont remember the last time I beat an end boss in one try. I think it must have been a "Kirby" game when I was 14.And this is probably one of the lamest stories I have played. There are some Resident Evil games that really leave me laughing. The stories are so out there. Silent Hill has always been a story driven game. Creepy, well thought out games which have you playing to find out more. This one was pretty lame in my opinion. I cant really say too much without giving anything away. But when you find out whats going on all I could think of was "Come on! Ive been playing this game for hours and THIS is why this is happening?" I felt robbed. I retell the story of the different Silent Hill games to friends and family who know I play it. They are all usually entertained and ask me when Ive beaten a new one "So what happend"? This one I dont even want to tell them about.

So after reading this lengthy review of the good, bad, ugly and really ugly your probably wondering what my point is. Here it is......

If you have played the other Silent Hill games then this is definately a game worth playing. Although it doesnt really feel like any of the others. You will get a few bits and pieces here and there to tie into the other games. You will be missing your Silent Hill staples, creepiness, atmosphere, story, good controls and camera. But you do gain really great graphics and just a new experience. I know I complain about a lot but I am glad I played it. I just hope that they fix some of the problems before they decide to make another.
If you have never played a Silent Hill game before then start with Silent Hill 2. The graphics are a little dated (not too bad though) but it has a great story which more than makes it worth playing. Then play SH3 or the original Silent Hill.

These are Opinions, not fact!......with a little conspiracy!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: October 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Well, another latest installment in the Silent Hill Series and this is a pretty different version than the rest. If you like the game flow of the first three silent hill's, then be somewhat prepared to experience something different in this one.

In this latest installment, the first thing i've noticed was that you are limited to what you can take and yes, that's the puzzle of the game. You will find a document saying in a puzzly way that you shouldn't carry redundant items around with you. To me, that's an excuse for the creators of this game to focus on "Melee weapons" like axes, pipe, golf clubs, etc. They really want you to go up and personal with monsters rather than killing them from a distance. Another thing I notice was the save feature. It isn't all too bad. I mean, the holes are located on numerous places and usually close by at all times. It is rather worth a trip to always revisit your apartment and save because if far enough in the game, your apartment gets more absurd as ever! Also, usually observing what your neighbor is doing as well as who's out your door is pretty fun.

The puzzles in this one isn't all too complicating nor is it too creative like previous silent hills. I'm guessing it's more combat experience and the unfolding of "what's going on" deal. Not that its bad, but if you do like the weird puzzles like in previous installments, then maybe you'll be disappointed. The game is pretty short and do revisit old places again as you progress through the game. It seems like it's been divided into levels because you seem to jump from one place to the next and later going back to them. The bad part (TO ME, IN MY OPINION)is that revisiting already conquered levels doesn't transform to you know, "Hell" like in the other Silent Hill games. It could of been probably better if the place seems to adjust to hell setting, to you know, make the level a little interesting to explore but it doesn't. In my opinion on that, Silent Hill is cool with that "Hell" or "other world reality" thing that other silent hill series had. Oh, and the radio as well as the flashlight are not included in the game. Is that bad?.....it all depends either you like playing in the dark with limited visual perception or not, the game is still scary even with the somewhat bright environments.

Another new addition is the ghosts. To me, I think it's a cheap way of not creating more new monsters so the company can release this title right away. There aren't that many new variety of monsters in this game and the ghost are indestructable. They follow you at times and seem to just keep tailing your character to feel you're being followed at times.

All in all, this game is ok. The combat system is actually the best in the series since this game actually makes you use melee weapon since a clip of bullets takes up room in your inventory and does fit in the game. Monsters are fun to bash up and do give weird animations. Controls are easy, the inventory is based on real-time and to me, it keeps the dramatic flow the game going. uhhhhh, let's see, it doesn't cost $49-$50 to buy but I would recommend=> "RENTING" it. There are four endings, not much secrets to unlock, 1st person view in the apartment surprisingly works very well in this game but more things could have been done with it, which didn't unfortunately. If you're a silent hill fan, yes this game is worth=> "playing"! This game.....to me, gets a solid 3 stars!!!

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