Imagine waking from a nightmare containing blood-coated apartment walls on which hang framed pictures of people being slaughtered. Worst of all, you cannot escape from this room, the door and windows won`t open and no one can hear your screams. From the outside, everything looks normal.
But that`s the bright side. Let us not forget the demon that is now seeping through the wall, clutching at the floor dragging itself towards you, getting closer and closer.
Thankfully, this was just a dream and when you open your eyes you see the ceiling fan spinning and everything is back to normal. Normal? Then why is your front door chained from the inside? Why won`t the windows open? Why can no one outside your apartment hear you?
This is the life of Henry Townsend, a normal guy until the nightmares start. Welcome to Konami`s Silent Hill 4: The Room.
The game
Silent Hill 4 encompasses two game play modes: a first-person mode that you will use to guide Henry around his apartment and a third-person mode that will be used to explore the nightmarish worlds.
Sometimes you need to be careful about what area you are viewing, because certain parts of the room will have multiple focal points. For example, let us say you want to look out the window, but if you click on the wrong focal point Henry will try and open the window. It is a bit frustrating and takes some getting used to.
Silent Hill 4 is quite different from the other games in the series. Konami has taken advantage of the analogue sticks of the PlayStation 2. You can move Henry around with the left analogue stick and look around with the right one. Also, there is now an instant inventory menu, where you can select items on screen.
Another change in Silent Hill 4 is the diverse number of stages. You enter different areas through portals in the apartment, starting with a hole found in the bathroom that gets bigger over time.
Every time you complete an area, you go back to your apartment and then to the next portal. I found this more enjoyable because I knew I was doing things right. I always felt that I might be on the wrong track in previous Silent Hill games.
Attacking trend
Some ghosts have special attacks where they will shove their hands into Henry`s chest and grab his heart, causing him to take damage. However, Silent Hill 4 gives you the ability to charge your melee weapons by holding down the attack button. The longer you hold it, the more it charges.
This means Henry can unleash a couple of different attacks depending on where you let go. I found the shorter attacks work better and keep the monsters at bay.
You need to press the right trigger to get into a battle stance, and then must press a button to whack or shoot away. Henry will aim automatically at whatever happens to be closest at the time, and you can execute a jump-dodge move to try to avoid incoming attacks.
Once you get them down, you will have to give them the final crush with your foot, otherwise they will rise again to take you out.
Silent Hill 4 throws enemies at you in great numbers, forcing you to engage in lots of combat. While avoiding enemies remains an option, it is quite a difficult feat to pull off, because of the narrow spaces.
A gripe
One gripe is the amount of items you can carry at one time; if you find pistol bullets, instead of them stacking, they each take another slot in your inventory.
This means you run out of space quickly and have to keep returning to Henry`s apartment to offload items in the storage area. This is also the only place in the game where you can save the game, so expect to see his room A LOT.
As survival horror games often indulge in graphical detail, Silent Hill 4 is no exception. It features corroded, bloody and gritty environments. My favourite is the area where the escalators are flanked by walls consisting of living, moving flesh that tries to grab you.
The haunting main theme is one of the only pieces of music you will hear in the game. Quite fitting, for a horror game that seeks to create mood through subtle eerie sounds in the environment rather than through a soundtrack.
As a huge fan of survival horror games, this is one game I would suggest you have in your collection. I give it two undead thumbs up.
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