RETRO – While Silent Hill does have its fair share of blood drowning, screaming, floating, and Siamese twin undead, in Silent Hill 4: The Room, the freakiest thing was an innocent looking kid. Every time he appears many die, and has a strange set of numbers carved into his back.

That is the fundamental motif of Konami’s classic horror game’s fourth entry. Silent Hill 4’s producer is Akira Yamaoka this time, who „only” served as the director of audio and music. Yamaoka, this time, is trying to freshen up the series a bit with a new idea: the central narrative is focused on one location, a tiny apartment room from which you are trying to get out.

The boy who is standing too close to you

Our story’s hero is a thirty-year-old Henry Townshend, who we do not know much, only that he lives in Ashfield in Room 302. Henry is an average person: he does not wish to travel to Silent Hill (the city is barely in the game), has no daughters going missing, no guilt over killing his wife, and has no godlike powers unlike an individual protagonist from Silent Hill 3. No, our Henry has nothing special going for him: except that he lives in a house that is very weird, and might have something to do with a (dead) serial killer, and a young kid. Our hero cannot get out of his apartment, only through a hole in his bathroom which leads to who knows where.

I do not wish to spoil anything else from the story, as the fans would lynch me, but the story is splendid, and could easily beat such movies as The Ring or Haute Tension.

„I see dead people…”

Of course, while the story is important if the survival horror is not scary enough, then it is not worth too much. Silent Hill series has always been a slow, depressing type of a horror game, and some of the entries even made me shut off the console because I could not bare to play it (After ten minutes of rest I continued of course). Team Silent can create horror games out of everyday environments, and they have no need to use fantastic spiritual dimensions or space bases, or maybe that dead planet. Instead, we get metros, small towns, and museums, that are rotten down to the core, everything is bloody signifying that all hell has broken loose.

The monsters themselves are sometimes humanoid, or have animal forms, but in a weird way. Also, we can emphasize with the main characters of the series better since they are simply everyday people. Not superheroes, mages, or mercenaries. Plus Akira Yamaoka’s sound effects and music sessions are still one of the best in the horror genre.

L’art pour l’art brightness

Of course, some of you probably expected that there would be some issues with the scare factor. Well as much as I love the series and its camera angles, cutscenes, it seems that the development team fell into its trap with their latest idea. They wanted to create something original so much that they reduced one of the fundamental pillars of the horror genre – walking around in the dark. While it was excellent to walk around in the dark in the previous games causing tension, here these sections are lacking. Most of the locations are brightly light, and at the beginning, of the events, we won’t be as scared compared to the previous games.

One and a half room plus comfort issues

Reading the Silent Hill 4 forums, it turns out that one of the most dividing aspects of the game for the fans and the critics are not the fear factor, but the actual room. The developers decided that this place would be the narrative and gameplay center point for the entire game. As our hero always wakes up here after an extraordinary sequence, or when leaving a location. That makes the game a bit monotonous, add to the fact that this is the only place where we get to save. Which is a bit annoying to run back to the red book and save the game.

Claustrophobia, paranoia, despair

Luckily the room has its purpose and is not just a wasted idea. The developers built up the very neatly the connection between the protagonist and the ever changing room. We are locked as an unseen force has barricaded the front door, yet we do see the neighbor girl from the peephole Eileen, who walks in front of our room, talks to the superintendent about us. Sometimes they even ring the doorbell, but no matter how hard we yell they cannot hear us. By the way, we can peep on the girl next door through a hole in the wall, which is probably not the credentials of a sane and healthy person (This will be an important part of the plot later).

If there is no BFG, use two bags instead…

Less revolutionary, but more refined is Silent Hill 4’s gameplay. We still control our protagonist from a fixed camera angle, and SH4 still lines up a fair share of action, plus puzzles for us to complete. The puzzles are less obscure this time around, but they do require some thinking, so I was satisfied with the difficulty (although I would have loved to do more puzzles). The combat was okay, a bit clunky to control.

Our arsenal is heavily limited, and we barely find any ammunition for our weapons, but Silent Hill was never the action packed Suffering or Doom 3. Instead, it is a psychological horror. A new feature is that we finally will not be alone during our combat. We had a partner in the second game, who was Maria, but we had to take care of her. Meanwhile, Eileen the girl with a broken arm will beat the crap out of the demons with anything. Maybe it sounds ridiculous but our lady compatriot can fend for herself pretty good, and she can also help us a lot. Due to this combat is a lot more fun compared to the previous entries, and I could call it one of the best in the survival horror genre…

Bloody Art

Beautiful graphics always mean something different in a Silent Hill game. The style is imbued with photorealism, cold colors, and avant-garde effects, disgusting and grotesque horror elements. Rusting dirt marks, and dried blood cover houses, and the same goes for the Ashfield metro stations, plus the Wish House child prison is no different.

The locations are well-detailed and top notch regarding graphics fidelity. The problem is with the Room’s interior as sometimes the textures can be low quality.

„Time for the final judgment…”

Some people might think that 87% is a bit harsh. Sadly Yamaoka made some decisions regarding the gameplay, which while I can understand regarding a narrative structure, is not good for the player (Same goes for the too bright locations). Another problem I had with the game is that after the half of the game the areas are repeated, so there is a lot of backtracking. This time, we’ll be fighting monsters with Eileen on the old levels, which is not that scary. If this route could be avoided in the previous games, I have no idea why backtracking was in Silent Hill 4. Besides these small issues, Silent Hill 4 is a real classic of the series and a must-have for the fans of the genre. Once you dive into Henry Townshend’s and Walter Sullivan’s story, then you will not be able to step away until you finish the story.

-BadSector(2004)-

Publisher: Konami

Developer: Konami

Style: Survivor horror

Release date: 2004. szeptember 7.