Silent Hill 4: The Room Review

When confronting your enemies, you will be granted many different weapons but most of the time, you'll find yourself swinging a pipe or a baseball bat (or even a spike, if you manage to find it). Early in the game, you are given the handgun, but bullets will be sparse and to be quite honest, sometimes the melee weapon will be more effective. The thing is your inventory is now limited so you won't be able just to pick up everything you get hold of. There is a stash in your room though, so you'll be able to keep all your belongings there and just pick it up when you visit. With time, your room will deteriorate and show signs of decay (especially with the presence of the Shabby Doll, in case you choose to accept it), to the point where you'll even see falling cutoff Doom-like heads through your window (!), and there is of course the fact that the hole in the wall will just keep getting bigger and bigger whenever you finish with a chapter of the game. Although SH4 offers a seamless story (and a good one at that, if I may add), the game is virtually divided into several chapters according to the locations you visit, but that "division" and the cut-scenes do more to tie the story together rather than break it apart. You are once again caught in the middle of the strange Devil-worshipping cult whose seat is in Silent Hill, the city known for its evil (although it tries to present itself to the world as a quiet vacation spot). Gradually, you will try to unveil the mystery of the orphanage in the woods, the secret of a deceased mass murderer Walter and his connection to the new series of ritual murders, done in his fashion.

Ten dead people in ten days - all those deaths that you're going to witness all the time, wondering if you're going to be one of them... Your way to sanity and the "normal world" you used to see through your windows (before those flying heads began to fall) is not going to be an easy one, but despite the fact that every second of this game is going to give you nightmares (sometimes because it's plain scary, sometimes because of the freaky camera) you will keep going. There were some instances where the game scared hell out of me, and even when I presumed what was going to happen I always jumped off my chair. I would jump every time I heard that mysterious roar, and it didn't help a bit that I was prepared for it. Of course, the scariest things in The Room are again those that can't be seen, and the atmosphere simply seems to be rotten and corrupt to the core. There is something wrong with everything and everyone in this game and you will always be ready for trouble. After playing Silent Hill 4, I still hold to the belief that there is no other game that can compare to this series when this sort of disturbing atmosphere is in question. It draws you in so deep that you tend to forget about the outside world, which is what every decent game should try to do in my opinion. There is a gallery of such bizarre characters in every SH game that you won't find anywhere else and each one of them will give you a headache.

And while we're on the subject of headaches, this is where I should mention the crappy camera and the control system again, because they managed to ruin much of my enjoyment in the game despite the fact I got used to it eventually (the game is obviously not intended to be played on the keyboard with a mouse). Walking around and running is not much of a problem by itself, but managing to get the right angle during the fights is so bothersome that I nearly smashed my PC in frustration dozens of times. Of course, applying some Hobbit-wisdom should help ("Don't look for trouble, 'cause it will come to you!"), e.g. Sometimes, the best thing is to hold up the bat and wait, but you won't always be in the mood to let the bastards come to you. You would be in mood for some action, which sadly often ends with your looking at the ceiling while the monsters attempt to gnaw a whole in you bigger than the one in your bathroom.

There is plenty of action sequences in this game, especially when you bear in mind that this is a SH title, famous for its puzzles and not the combat. Well, this time the accent is obviously put on action, as there are not many puzzles in the game - at least, not many that are worth mentioning. You will have some hard time with the levers in the Prison World for example, but most of the puzzles will still make no threat for your already troubled mind. Maybe this is just me, but I didn't find the puzzles challenging. I somehow expected them to be more imaginative and mind-breaking which they clearly aren't.

Apart from all this, the sound in the game is something also worth mentioning, as it is simply brilliant. All those moans and groans, bat-smashing and ambient sounds are truly awesome, and the voices are fairly authentic themselves. The soundtrack is very typical for a SH game and could simply be labeled as "breathtaking." In the graphics department the game is impressive as ever, with all those rusty and bloody surroundings, blood-stained walls and creepy peacefulness of empty rooms, but also with some lovely town scenery, grayish industrial-looking subway station, disturbingly quiet lakeside and the forest and so on. There is almost no fog in the game and not as many dark corners, so you will be able to see just how beautiful everything is (or would be, were it not for the monsters). The characters are rendered well and their supposed "normality" makes them fit perfectly into the grimness of the story. The problem with the characters is the way they're animated - rather stiff and unnatural looking. In addition, the main character is obviously a Tom Cruise look-alike, but that does not ruin the overall impression. The quality of the cut-scenes is also very high, which could not always be said about the contents (sometimes the banality could not be avoided, alas).

All in all, I had a hell of a time playing Silent Hill 4: The Room and when I say, "hell of a time," I mean - "hell of a time." Despite some of its major flaws - the many-times mentioned control system, unnerving camera angle (which can be adjusted, but with poor result), the fairly idiotic combat system and the lack of more challenging puzzles - I still enjoyed the game for what it was, and that is a freaking scary horror adventure that questions the boundary between good and evil, sanity and sheer lunacy, with the main premise of "Don't trust anyone - especially not yourself." In all likelihood, The Room cannot compare to its predecessor - the first title in the series - but it surely can give us the good-old paranoid feeling of Silent Hill once again. There is no boredom in this game, only sheer horror. Bear that in mind, poor soul, when you grip that mouse firmly and start smashing your way through the game.