Silent Hill 4: The Room

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Released (UK): Sept '04
Released (US): Sept '04

May contain Spoilers. You're Henry Townsend, a regular Joe who lives by himself in an apartment located in a town called Ashfield. You moved there two years ago living in a carefree manner. Then the game starts by bringing you up to date - Five days ago Henry started having nightmares, which shows in the opening scene that was on the demo. At the same time Henry found himself locked in his apartment with no TV, Phone and no way out but hang on.... When Henry wakes up from his dream he receives a phone call, from a woman. "Help Me,” she asks but when the call cuts off, you find the cord has been cut - how did that happen? The door has been locked from the inside and some one named Walter has written a message "Don't go out".

The game really gets going when you hear a noise in the bathroom. A hole has been knocked right through the wall - who did that? You're the only one in the room, right? Within the first ten minutes of the game, you're already gripped, well I was, and I was spooked. How can you not be after seeing this video?

Curiosity gets the better of Henry and he forces the player to go check the hole out. On this occasion, the hole leads you to the start of the first part of the game - the Subway World. It's a little too quiet to be a subway station but you do see a woman up ahead. She introduces herself as Cynthia one of the eight other characters Henry will meet throughout the game in the various 'worlds'. You will meet a new character in every world you come across - Jasper Gein, Andrew De Salvo, Richard Braintree are among them.

These worlds all do their very best to add to the feel of terror throughout the game - some more so than others. I found both the Forest World and Water Tower World to be very intense because they make the best use of sound effects from wild animal calls to footsteps. Other environments include the Building World, Apartment World and Hospital World. The characters that you meet all have their part in the story but the character the game is based around is the life of the Antagonist of the game - Walter Sullivan (below).

At the time I didn't know it because this was the only game of the series I had played at that time but the name Walter Sullivan was mentioned in Silent Hill 2 several years earlier. Fans should have known what kind of guy he was as soon as his name came up but newbies like me were clueless. Either way, we were due to find out more about him.

What about the monsters? Games need bad guys right? The Doublehead was the only monster I had seen of this game before playing it but more were to come. The first monster you come across is the Sniffer Dog who in pairs wander around the Subway World among with the ghosts or Victims that haunt it. Other monsters include the ape like Gumhead, the quite tall and dangerous Patients, the utterly annoying Wall Men and the pointless Mothbats, Tremors and Mushrooms.

Game play starts off in quite a tedious way. I got stuck almost immediately. You lose Cynthia and meet a dead end when you find two closed off stairways and a locked subway entrance. It took me ages to realise that there was a hole in a restroom wall that I had to go through. I thought it was my own foolishness but a friend of mine got stuck in the same place also. This hole leads you back to your apartment and it's also the moment when you realise that these holes are the gateway to the 'real' world from the 'nightmare' world and vice versa. You have to keep checking back at you apartment for any new information or clues. This is also the only place you can save your progress. Henry travels light through out the game and can only hold ten items at a time. Any reject items that you don't need can be stored in a chest back in your apartment so check what you need before leaving home - this adds to the little bit of tediousness that you get at the beginning of the game. It's all quite easy until you get to the second half of the game where the dark part of the storyline really kicks off. The second half of the game sees Henry with a companion, Eileen Galvin - his next-door neighbour.

Around this time Henry sees his apartment is no longer the safe haven it was previously (before Eileen, just being in your apartment added health to your health gage) as it's now starting to become possessed by evil spirits. Silent Hill 4 as four endings which are determined by two things: 1) Eileen’s Survival. 2) % Of spirits exorcised. Eileen will become possessed herself if Henry allows her to get hurt too badly so if you want a good ending - don't let it happen. Spirits in your apartment can be easily exorcised with the use of the Holy Candle, many of which can be found throughout the nightmare worlds. The more you exorcise, the more chance of a better ending.

Then we get to the boss fight - Walter Sullivan is our target and we have to end him within a time frame, which is dependent on how well you've played. Eileen becomes possessed at this point but how badly possessed she is highly depends on if she was badly hurt. Walter has to be killed before Eileen walks into the machine Walter had invented - if she's badly possessed she walks faster so you have less time to kill Walter in but if you want the bad ending then don't worry about it. Overall the fight is quite hard - you need to make sure you bring enough health items with you and that you're equipped with a pistol, some bullets and a melee weapon in case your bullets run out. The fight should take around 10 minutes to complete it but it is very likely you will be on your 5th attempt when you do.

I loved this game. I thought it was atmospheric, intriguing and disturbing all at the same time. The hauntings in the apartment always had me scared to see what new spirit had occurred and the Doublehead didn't disappoint me - there's a point in the game where you see six of them waiting for you at the end of a large corridor, blocking the exit out of there. I was hesitant to move any closer.

I've since heard a lot of complaints about the game and Silent Hill fans have said that they hated it and I couldn't see why they should say that. I've since played the other games and even though I can see what they mean - It wasn't set in Silent Hill at all, there was no flashlight or radio, Henry could only carry ten items and no more - but you can't criticise the game too much. The Room originally wasn't going to be a Silent Hill game at all and you can tell but it wasn't a crap game. Would fans have been as critical if the game wasn't part of the franchise? I doubt it.

The game's good points were plentiful: Better graphics, good-looking monsters, excellent plot and the best thing? Walter Sullivan still is the best horror antagonist of all time (in my eyes anyway).

10/10

I wanted to find out for myself how these games could possibly be better than this one. So I did....

Did you like Walter Sullivan?
Was Silent Hill's greatest Monster in SH4?
How was Henry as a Protagonist?

My First Survival Horror Experience

I'm a late bloomer in almost everything I do and gaming is one of 'em. It was 2004 when I bought my Playstation 2 and the last time I played a game was in 1991 when I got a Sega Megadrive for Christmas.
I tried all sorts of flops when I bought it - Sonic Heroes, Smackdown: Here comes the pain and Need For Speed. I started to buy the Official Magazine to find out what games were actually worth the £40 I was paying for them. One thing managed to catch my eye however and I pursued to read it.
It was a preview of the fourth game in a successful series called Silent Hill. It was only half a page but it was a picture that was brought to my attention, the Doublehead (pictured)- A monster that was due to be in the game.
The games I last played as a kid were Sonic the Hedgehog, Alex Kidd and Ecco the Dolphin and this was nothing like the characters in these games.
Anyway - It got me interested and I read it and I thought the games sound really good. After that I would always read on if Silent Hill 4: The Room was mentioned.
Eventually, a demo was given out with the magazine and I finally managed to get hands on with this game. The demo was really interesting and gripped me immediately - The man coming out of the wall in your apartment in which you are currently trapped.
It was hard however and I found that I got nowhere quite quickly. When the game was finally released I found myself doubting whether I should actually buy it. I thought it would be too hard (I was known for giving up quite easily) and therefore a waste of money. A couple of days later, I bit the bullet and went to the shop to get it.
These are my thoughts on the game.....

What was your first Survival Horror game?
Did you like it?