If you haven’t played any other Silent Hill game (Like me…), it’s okay. Silent Hill 4 is an okay place to start since the gameplay is a little different than the others. (In true Konami fashion, no less.)
However, do not play SH4 as a substitute for Resident Evil. The two games implement fear, but Silent Hill 4: The Room uses a different type of fear than RE. Resident Evil uses “jump out and scare you” tactics while Silent Hill 4 uses “What the fu…is that a…okay, moving on…WHAT THE HELL!” tactics. Not to say SH4 isn’t scary. It’s, just…different. Okay, enough of that.
I’m using Snake’s format for reviews since it’s efficient (Thanks, Snake), so lets get it started.
(Side note: If you’re clostrophobic or have a fear of being alone, don’t play SH4.)
DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME WITH OTHER PEOPLE IN THE ROOM. IT WON’T BE AS FUN…OR AS SCARY, AND IT’S NOT AS FUN IF YOU’RE NOT JUST A BIT ANXIOUS.
Story - 10/10: Henry Townsend. He’s your typical everyman. He has an apartment and a nice quiet life in Ashfield, a nice quiet town several miles from the tourist town, Silent Hill.
One day, he wakes up to a shocking realization…he finds himself locked inside his own apartment with no way out. What would you do in that situation?
Call the police? No go. The phone doesn’t work.
Bang on the door as loud as you can as people pass by? No can do. No matter how loud he yells or bangs on the door, no one can hear him.
Jump out the window? They’re shut tight. Some unknown force is holding them shut.
To make things weirder, from time to time, he discovers that someone…or something keeps moving his furniture around, even though the apartment is empty. He occasionally gets phone calls from beyond the grave, and a serial killer (who has been dead for years, no less) keeps sliding notes under his door.
Overall, his weekend’s off to a bad start. (You begin gameplay after he has been stuck in his apartment for five days.)
On the fifth day, however, a hole appears in his bathroom wall. What would you do? Well, of course you’d crawl through it, wouldn’t you? What’s the worst that could happen? I mean, it’s not like you’d wind up in an alternate dimension where the same serial killer that locked you in your room has made a world where the ghosts of all of the people he’s killed attack you and you have to survive while trying to solve the mystery of why he’s come back from the dead to kill more people before he makes you a victim yourself…right?
Gameplay - 5/10: You have to go back and forth through the hole (alternate world and real world) watching the killer (I won’t say the name, since it may spoil the story) murder people in gruesome and horrifying ways. Each time he murders someone, their handprint will appear on the wall outside your room (You can see them through the peephole) and you will be sent to a different level afterwards. (Don’t worry, that’s supposed to happen.) After each level, you’ll notice that the hole in your bathroom is getting bigger each time…hmmm…foreshadowing.
In the alternate world, you’ll find holes similar to the one in your bathroom. Go through any of these…TO FIND YOURSELF WAKING UP IN YOUR OWN BED!!!!! EEEEEEEEK!!!!! Okay, so it’s not that creepy…but Henry finds it weird. In the first half of the game, returning to the apartment heals you if you stay there long enough. Take advantage of this, cause in the second half, the apartment becomes haunted and instead of healing you, it makes you look for ghosts or demons which you have to exorcize form there or else you’ll get one of the game’s bad endings…plus, if you let the ghosts stay there, they could make you lose some HP if you’re not careful. What I’m trying to say is, in the first half of the game, enter every hole you see to heal yourself back at your room. In the second half, enter every hole you see to exorcize your room of ghosts…and leave any items you don’t need, of course,
Enemies – 2/10: I’m doing an enemies section to make a point…they’re weak. There are no bosses, save the last boss…which in my opinion can’t be called a “last boss” since there are no bosses before him…anyways…
The regular enemies are weak. The ones you can kill (dog-like things) are lame. They circle around you, like, eight times before they flail at you…which has a high chance of missing…and by that time, they’re dead. You stomp on enemies heads to finish them off.
Then there are the ghosts of the people the serial killer…killed. You can’t kill them, but you can knock them down.
Also, they’re not scary. Everyone knows how much the chainsaw guys (especially chainsaw women) freaked me out in RE4, right? Well, in SH4, I saw a guy with a chainsaw in one hand and a shotgun in the other…and chased him through the woods with a rusty axe. Yes, I chased him. How lame.
Sound - 9/10: I’m giving this a 9 out of 10 for one reason…the sound quality is excellent. There’s no music in the apartment, so any sound you hear may make you jump in your seat…which I like. I rented the game so I could be scared; the sound really makes it feel like you’re there. I’ll bet surround sound would add to the effect.
The reason I subtracted a point, though, is because I’m not exactly to giddy about the voice actor for Henry, though. He takes the whole “there’s a serial killer out there and I’m stuck in here and I’m going back and forth through dimensions” thing really well. A bit too well, actually.
“Oh? I’m locked in my room. No biggie. Ho-de-dum…Hmmm? The shower head is spewing blood. Okay. La-dee-da…the peephole in my door is bleeding…is that normal? Never happened before. Oh well.” I wasn’t too thrilled (or freaked out) with that. All I know is, I’d be like “HOOOOOLY SH…I mean crap…” if I was in that situation.
Graphics – 10/10: Lovely…in a gruesome, try to scare you kind of way. Everything looks realistic…even the hairs on Henry’s beard…yeah, yeah, it’s just a text layer, but you know what I mean.
Replayability - 4/10: Once you’ve solved the mystery (You solve it halfway through the game, but you still have to get out of your apartment and save the girl. I intentionally didn’t mention the girl, but yeah, you have to protect her, like Ashley from RE4, throughout the second half of the game) there’s no point in replaying the game unless you want to get a different ending. Every one of them except the main good one is a real downer, though. Just keep your apartment clean of spirits and keep the girl alive in the last (and only) boss fight.
I’d recommend this game to anyone who loves Survival Horror games, but wants a break from zombies and parasitic villagers.
Sound - 9/10: I’m giving this a 9 out of 10 for one reason…the sound quality is excellent. There’s no music in the apartment, so any sound you hear may make you jump in your seat…which I like. I rented the game so I could be scared; the sound really makes it feel like you’re there. I’ll bet surround sound would add to the effect.
The reason I subtracted a point, though, is because I’m not exactly to giddy about the voice actor for Henry, though. He takes the whole “there’s a serial killer out there and I’m stuck in here and I’m going back and forth through dimensions” thing really well. A bit too well, actually.
“Oh? I’m locked in my room. No biggie. Ho-de-dum…Hmmm? The shower head is spewing blood. Okay. La-dee-da…the peephole in my door is bleeding…is that normal? Never happened before. Oh well.” I wasn’t too thrilled (or freaked out) with that. All I know is, I’d be like “HOOOOOLY SH…I mean crap…” if I was in that situation.
okay the first thing i have to say is, it is nothing new for me to be locked in my room is the norm for me two, i usually take a shower in a pool of blood because the faucets over here spill blood instead of water i'm working on getting the blood to flow up the walls instead of down the walls now also the peephole does bleed too because sometimes i have women squeeze their bloody tampons on the door for me because i think that it's sexy
anyhoo, sounds like a pretty sweet game to me, and i'll have to play it because there's nothing like getting the ole' adrenaline pumping throughout the body eh
kannibalkaney
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You don't love a woman because she is beautiful, she is beautiful because you love her. ~Author Unknown
Now, I'd like to say that there has been some criticism from a certain person who read this (not a member here) who questioned my mental stability for wanting to play a game like this.
I assure you, sir, that I am a perfectly normal, healthy man. I enjoy video games as an art. Rarely do I ever play a game like this one and say "Hey, there's a guy who's getting killed by a power drill! I want to do that to someone!" Very rarely does that happen. In fact, I believe the last incident like that was last Tuesday. And it wasn't inspired by the game, let me tell you, sir.
But just because of that doesn't mean that I can't take care of your granddaughter. I assure you, that I will be caring and protective of her and keep her far away from evil things like the cult I used to belong to where every Sabbath we would cut the left breast of a young virgin woman and gather the blood in a goblet to be passed around to our members to drink as a sacriment to our Dark Lord Rapthorne.
So, just because I sometimes play games where a bunch of freaky things happen, just ask yourself "have I ever seen a horror movie?" Surely you have. These Survival Horror games are simply horror movies that you actually experience first hand. It is a truly exhilirating experience...just like stabbing 12 year old boys at their day-care centers with screwdrivers for looking at you weird...er...not that I've done that.
He deserved it, though. Creepy little bastard.
Zieg Heil, sir.
EDIT: Did I say "12 year old boys at Day-care?" I'm sorry. That was my mistake. There aren't a lot of 12 year olds at Day-cares. The one I was referring to....er....not referring to was about 8.
I must've been thinking about that 12 year old that...er...jumped in front of my car.
Well the game sounds interesting Mitch, but I've never been one for violent video games because I'm just a little bit skitish, and I'm not one for having nightmares related to my games .
I should do a Final Fantasy VII Review .
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I'm waiting for you in the lifestream my dearest Cloud.
Here's a mini-review: A punk goes on a wild goose chase that lasts 3 game discs. The girl dies (That's YOU, Aeris!), the bad guy spends the first half of the game running from you, and the second half floating around a crater, hours are spent gabbing about absolutely nothing, a reference to an album one of the producer's liked is made, and the black guy says "G** D*****" a lot.
Then they all eat pudding, and Cloud doesn't live happily ever after, because he can't let go of the fact that the girl he liked is dead, and he's too stupid to see that the girl with huge breasts likes him.
Mitch wrote: We already have a review of FF7. Here's a mini-review: A punk goes on a wild goose chase that lasts 3 game discs. The girl dies (That's YOU, Aeris!), the bad guy spends the first half of the game running from you, and the second half floating around a crater, hours are spent gabbing about absolutely nothing, a reference to an album one of the producer's liked is made, and the black guy says "G** D*****" a lot. Then they all eat pudding, and Cloud doesn't live happily ever after, because he can't let go of the fact that the girl he liked is dead, and he's too stupid to see that the girl with huge breasts likes him. The End.
Bravo.
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"If you believe in yo'self, eat your school, stay in milk, drink your teeth, don't do sleep, and get eight hours of drugs, you can get work!"
of course i would start a new topic because xenogears is like one of the greatest games known to man, and i will even include images from the game just to increase its majesty of course i'll have to do this in the evening tomorrow or friday so i can upload the images from my cmputer
kannibalkaney
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You don't love a woman because she is beautiful, she is beautiful because you love her. ~Author Unknown
two, i usually take a shower in a pool of blood because the faucets over here spill blood instead of water 
also the peephole does bleed too because sometimes i have women squeeze their bloody tampons on the door for me because i think that it's sexy 
You don't love a woman because she is beautiful, she is beautiful because you love her. ~Author Unknown
I'm waiting for you in the lifestream my dearest Cloud.
