Silent Hill 4: The Room

How anyone can say that this game is the weakest of the Silent Hill series, or weak in any aspect is at all is beyond me. This game is simply breathtaking. The environments, music, sound effects, monsters, storyline and appearance of this game FAR surpass any of the (admittedly excellent) previous 3 Silent Hill titles.

"The Room" just does it for me. I have played it at least a dozen times and it has been well over a year since its release. Right now just talking about it makes me want to play it again.

I personally feel, (in reference to what others have said about it) that it is the strongest in the series so far, with Silent Hill 3 coming a close 2nd, the 1st installment coming in 3rd and the "not very scary" but still very good Silent Hill 2 last on my list.

It is a big step away from the other games but thats what was needed. It would be too much to have 4 games that follow the same formula. Silent hill 4 has freshened up the series and more than opened the road for a 5th game on the upcoming PS3.

In conclusion - if David Lynch made a video game, this would be it. I can't think of a more glowing compliment for a game.

Among seeing some of the complaints involved, it truly makes me wonder how people actually look at the Silent Hill series. Most see them as games, simple as that. I somehow have the impression of interactive movies - a glorious story that we have the privilege to unravel ourselves through each installment. So what if the controls, combat and inventory are plunked down a peg? Are you really gonna let that ruin your perspective of a wonderfully styled new story in this respectable series?

First thing I really liked about the story - it's irrelevant. That's right, completely out of wing from the first three. Instead of following through the grand cultist prophecies that Silent Hill 3 so casually topped off, we have the story of an individual that was misled by this cult since a child. That right there is a sign that the Silent Hill stories are maturing; the ability to successfully elaborate on and illustrate a smaller slice of the same pie.

The next thing I enjoyed was the innovation involved. The series has a history of altogether gritty and grotesque imagery, not holding back at the least. Here you have a much slower progression into that messy environment, and rightfully so. This is a more personal story, that of Walter Sullivan, therefore we don't see the cult's signature gooey imagery until they are quite literally consuming the main character's home. Until then, it is a journey through this very personal story in the form of dreamscapes. Though misshapen to say the least, the environments aren't as alive and gritty as most would like it, but that's perhaps because it's all in the perspective of Walter, not the 'paradise' that previous cultists allowed to come alive. Through this droning and down-beat style, the player can truly learn the story of Walter and maybe even come to have sympathy for him.

And perhaps the biggest thing I loved about the story is how the story is told. Previous installments was by adventuring and word of mouth. The Room takes a very abstract story and presents it in an abstract way. Whether by reading the diary entries of a forgotten journalist or reading random scriptures off walls, you have a presentation based more on illustration than verbal storytelling. Not only that, but the pieces don't even come in chronological order, so you are left to stare and think on a certain detail until you find perhaps another five to put together in a sort of order and make sense out of it. This abstract storytelling seems frustrating, but given its relevance to the harsh and melancholy imagery it comes from, it only provides further suspense and motivation to learn more.

Overall, I find this to be a very refreshing title in the series. I don't rate it any higher or lower in comparison to the previous titles, as it's a completely different entity on its own. And even considering the grotesque nature that it shares with its predecessors - it's a beautiful entity, indeed.

I'm a huge fan if the Silent Hill series and whilst I fully understand and appreciate why so many fans rate this sequel lower than the others (because it isn't actually based in Silent Hill), I believe it's merits far outweigh their complaints.

Typically with any Silent Hill game it features strange and psychotic creatures, puzzles and battles. The controls are perfectly simple. The story-line is smooth, the characters are intriguing and the voice acting is great. But of course the graphics and the sound effects - just superb! I would not class this as one for novice game-players. It's a notch up in terms of complexity.

Synonymously, the atmosphere is overwhelmingly dark, creepy and VERY unsettling.

There are plenty of scares and frights in this one, and very often you get the feeling the whole game is TOTALLY messing with your head -- Which it is!! Enjoy it with the lights out and the sound turned UP...

Whilst every game in the SH series has been picked over and impolitely prodded every which way already, I feel I have to write my own review/nitpick of this particular title somewhere.

This game, despite being a departure from the previous trilogy, is still very much a SH title. Awkward melee combat, creepy atmosphere of the kind RE could only dream of, squeezy females to admire (hey, blame the developers for putting them in), it's all SH. With one exception, these bloody 'ghosts'. Whilst the voodoo behind it is intriguing, having a melee-based combat engine (I've been through most of the game and not used a fire arm once) with enemies you cannot kill seems a bad mistake. There are also several other issues I have with changes to the SH format, not because I hate change itself, but because they're just changes for the sake of fiddling. Almost of the changes are for the worse.

Rather than trying to paragraph it, here's a few lists of what I really liked and what I despised about this game.

Here's what I liked about the game:

* The story was good, it was interesting, I'm impressed.

* The twin-headed enemy is one of the best survival horror monsters ever, what a fantastic design.

* The first half of the game (apart from the annoying gameplay changes) was as superb as ever.

* Some aspects of the room, it was an interesting plot device and things like the notes under the door, the peep-hole and the hauntings really ramped up the atmosphere.

Here are all the problems I have with the game:

* Copying and pasting vast swathes of your own software in a vain attempt to get content for nothing sucks big style. I don't care what excuse/reason anyone comes up with, it's lazy, ignorant and someone needs beating with the ugly stick over it. If they weren't interested in creating a full game then they shouldn't have started it.

* Lack of enemy types. Again, how many survival horror games do you need to make before you bother to at least add a good dozen enemies? The ghosts really don't count, 'leeches' ... how many seconds did it take for you to think of that? Dog monsters! Oh please.

* Dog monsters. They're not part of the SH universe, what cobblers, their only association is that the SH dev. team(s) insists on clagging one into each game. I think we didn't have one for SH2, but then that's another reason to like SH2 :D Dog monsters in survival horror games have been done to death. Let's act like we're making new games, not rehashing our own success, K?

* Puzzles - where? Were they copied and pasted over by accident? Lining up a few blood-splotched rooms to jump down is neither interesting nor difficult.

* Ghosts - why? Why on earth are invincible monsters here? I really don't care if it was supposed to be another game before you clagged SH stickers on top, these do not work, the bug involving Eileen constantly slapping them shows how little the impact of these monsters has been thought over. I got stuck on more than a few occasions in tight corridors by these things. I beat you down, now stay down for 2 seconds or just get the hell out of my way, I don't want to lose precious energy just because of flawed enemies.

* Hauntings - nice idea, why do I have to sacrifice my precious energy(again) in order to deal with them/save? I've scrimped and saved my restorative items, risked being sent to Game Oversville by not using them when I'm half-dead, now you're going to crucify Harry when he isn't even in the game environment? Silly, annoying and pointless.

* Limited inventory space - if you're going to change something, at least change it because you've found something which works. How does limiting the amount of bullets I can carry, limiting the health packs I can pick up, limiting the golf clubs I can pick up HELP me to enjoy the game? Does someone on the development team think trogging back and forth to stick items in the chest is fun? Take some time off, you need it.

* Save system - as above, why? Does the thought of needless time wasting make you people happy? Take another week off.

* Prescence of ghosts sapping energy - yes, I know about the St. Christophers, but why punish us just for accessing that part of the game? This really wasn't needed or well thought-out.

So, as you might have guessed, I'm not much of a fan of SH4. What really annoys me is that it was, at its core, a solid game. If the dev. team/Konami had bothered to make sure the basic game mechanics worked, this could have been an absolute corker. I can only despair when one of the best franchises in video games is rolled out of the showroom without wheels - if SH5 isn't a major improvement then Konami can keep the rest -.-

Positives:

• Atmosphere
• Story and writing
• Creatures designs
• Psychological elements
• Musical score

Negatives:

• Some of the gameplay
• Some of the characters