Silent Hill 4: The Room
For most people, Silent Hill 4 was the turning point for the series. The point where it started to lose steam and some of the original drive and focus of the first three games.
I never even felt a hint of that though. For me, Silent Hill 4 was a fresh new narrative that followed the path of Silent Hill 2, showing you just what the town is capable of when it decides to torture the protagonist with unspeakable horrors. Another launch on the PlayStation 2, Silent Hill 4: The Room pushes the system even further for some rich, disturbing graphics as the system was nearing the end of it's life.
Silent Hill 4 follows Henry Townshend who becomes trapped inside his apartment by some supernatural force. His apartment isn't actually within the town of Silent Hill, but I believe he became either linked to other victims of the town, or finds himself travelling via strange holes in his home to areas of Silent Hill.
There are two main sections to this game. There are the levels you find yourself travelling, or waking up within and then there is your safe haven and prison which is your apartment. The time spent in your apartment is viewed in first person, which is probably the best choice for a tight area, giving you a good view of everything within. The rest of the game is spent in the standard third-person perspective you'd find in any other Silent Hill game.
The time spent within your apartment really makes this game stand out from the rest of the series. It gives you a chance to catch your breath, think about everything that's happened thus far, store some items for later and restore your health back to full.
Your Room really creates this calm and frightening horror of being trapped in a nightmare all the while being able to see the outside world, going on about it's business in safe daylight. You peek out your window as people walk by, wait for the bus or make their way into the subway. People knock on your door and you watch them through the peep-hole, but they can't hear you call for help. There are also a couple moments where you can for some reason peek into neighbouring apartments, getting a glimpse of other victims.
The Room is as horrifying as any other Silent Hill game before it. The monster designs are unique from the previous titles and so is the primary antagonist. Not only do you find yourself fighting strange creatures, but as the game goes on, your safe haven that is your apartment starts to turn on you and becomes dangerous to stay in for any length of time. You eventually discover that the room itself is actually possessed (for lack of a better term) by a serial killer's mother. Or something like that. I can't remember precisely. It was an interesting story, I promise.
And of course, Silent Hill 4 also contained an absolutely new soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka who also helped produce and direct a ton of the series. Yamaoka seems to evolve his works each time, creating new and more fantastic tracks that advance as if only ever held back by the same technical limitations as the rest of the game. Easily a 50/50 split between what makes a Silent Hill game a Silent Hill game.
Silent Hill 4 just created this fantastic feel that I didn't get in any of the other games. The Room felt about as real as possible, I don't think I've ever felt so connected to a place in a videogame quite so much as Townshend's apartment. I even felt compelled to write my own narrative within Konami's creation. The only fiction I've ever written since I was a kid, I typed out a short piece about the room and it's inhabitant before anything went wrong.
I'm pretty surprised that this wasn't included in the HD re-release of the PS2 Silent Hill titles. But in some aspects, it wasn't necessary, since it pushed the PS2's graphical prowess as far as possible. Still, since there was 3 titles on the system, it would have been nice to have them all in a single package. Personally, I would LOVE to see this one, of all of them, rebuild ground-up as a new game for the current generation of consoles. I would just live in it, I swear.
For most people, Silent Hill 4 was the turning point for the series. The point where it started to lose steam and some of the original drive and focus of the first three games.I never even felt a hint of that though. For me, Silent Hill 4 was a fresh new narrative that followed the path of Silent Hill 2, showing you just what the town is capable of when it decides to torture the protagonist with unspeakable horrors. Another launch on the PlayStation 2, Silent Hill 4: The Room pushes the system even further for some rich, disturbing graphics as the system was nearing the end of it's life.
Silent Hill 4 follows Henry Townshend who becomes trapped inside his apartment by some supernatural force. His apartment isn't actually within the town of Silent Hill, but I believe he became either linked to other victims of the town, or finds himself travelling via strange holes in his home to areas of Silent Hill. There are two main sections to this game. There are the levels you find yourself travelling, or waking up within and then there is your safe haven and prison which is your apartment. The time spent in your apartment is viewed in first person, which is probably the best choice for a tight area, giving you a good view of everything within. The rest of the game is spent in the standard third-person perspective you'd find in any other Silent Hill game.
The time spent within your apartment really makes this game stand out from the rest of the series. It gives you a chance to catch your breath, think about everything that's happened thus far, store some items for later and restore your health back to full. Your Room really creates this calm and frightening horror of being trapped in a nightmare all the while being able to see the outside world, going on about it's business in safe daylight. You peek out your window as people walk by, wait for the bus or make their way into the subway. People knock on your door and you watch them through the peep-hole, but they can't hear you call for help. There are also a couple moments where you can for some reason peek into neighbouring apartments, getting a glimpse of other victims.
The Room is as horrifying as any other Silent Hill game before it. The monster designs are unique from the previous titles and so is the primary antagonist. Not only do you find yourself fighting strange creatures, but as the game goes on, your safe haven that is your apartment starts to turn on you and becomes dangerous to stay in for any length of time. You eventually discover that the room itself is actually possessed (for lack of a better term) by a serial killer's mother. Or something like that. I can't remember precisely. It was an interesting story, I promise. And of course, Silent Hill 4 also contained an absolutely new soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka who also helped produce and direct a ton of the series. Yamaoka seems to evolve his works each time, creating new and more fantastic tracks that advance as if only ever held back by the same technical limitations as the rest of the game. Easily a 50/50 split between what makes a Silent Hill game a Silent Hill game.
Silent Hill 4 just created this fantastic feel that I didn't get in any of the other games. The Room felt about as real as possible, I don't think I've ever felt so connected to a place in a videogame quite so much as Townshend's apartment. I even felt compelled to write my own narrative within Konami's creation. The only fiction I've ever written since I was a kid, I typed out a short piece about the room and it's inhabitant before anything went wrong.
I'm pretty surprised that this wasn't included in the HD re-release of the PS2 Silent Hill titles. But in some aspects, it wasn't necessary, since it pushed the PS2's graphical prowess as far as possible. Still, since there was 3 titles on the system, it would have been nice to have them all in a single package. Personally, I would LOVE to see this one, of all of them, rebuild ground-up as a new game for the current generation of consoles. I would just live in it, I swear.
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