Silent Hill 4: The Room (Sony PlayStation 2, 2004)

The first thing that any one should know about this game is that it wasn't supposed to be a Silent Hill game. Originally, the game was supposed to be called "Room 304" but Konami hijacked it in the way of Square Enix at the last second in order to make some more money using the franchise's name. Don't worry though, the game is mostly Silent Hill, with powerful, dark storytelling and Akira Yamaoka's amazing compositions.

This game was the last of four games that Team Silent worked on, and while I still enjoyed the game, I found it to be my least favorite out of the tetrology. The story and the music aren't to blame here; I found them to be quite engaging. What really bothered me was the gameplay.

First, however, I want to briefly talk about the atmosphere. The game is a little scary, with some really memorable moments within Harry's apartment room. When you enter the maps, however, (via portals in Harry's walls) they're all so well lit! The darkness (and the darkworld, Silent Hill's namesake!) just aren't there, and I found that this game didn't scare me half as much as the first three games because of it!

One of the new additions to the series (promptly ditched after this attempt) was that of ghosts: Spirits which can harm the player without even touching him/her and cannot be killed with conventional weapons. Instead, these creatures are susceptible to "holy weapons," such as swords which hold them in place, medallions which slow them down, and candles which (supposedly) exterminate them. Silver bullets are also included, but I could only find one or two in the whole game. I personally could never get these weapons to work quite right, so I just gave up and started running past everything I saw.

Another frustrating gameplay element is that of Eileen, your partner during the game. Unlike partners like Maria in Silent Hill 2, Eileen can, in theory, actually fight back. I say "in theory" because she suffers from the usual terrible AI nonsense seen in just about any escort in a video game. Most of the time she challenges large groups of enemies and gets herself severely hurt. This wouldn't be a problem, I suppose, if you didn't need to keep her from getting hurt in order to get the best ending.

The final, and maybe most important (and most frustrating) gameplay element is that of the "room" itself, Harry's apartment, room 304. The concept is actually not bad at all; being locked up in the room, helplessly observing a serial murderer from the inside is quite scary. The first person mode while in the room is a little awkward, but nothing too bad. You can even come back to the room to heal yourself up whenever you want to. What really ruined it for me was in the second half of the game, when "hauntings" start occurring. What I mean is that ghosts start invading your apartment. You can use the medallions or the candles to get rid of them, and if you want the best ending, you have to. In order to do this however, you pretty much have to ignore every ghost you encounter outside of the apartment. I find it quite stupid that you're forced to avoid combat with ghosts, as they constitute the main enemies in the game! What's more, you can no longer come back to your room to heal. If you haven't saved up all of your rations in the first half of the game, you will be BEGGING for a health drink constantly.

Overall, I'd give the game a 3/5. If you haven't played a Silent Hill game before, go with any of the first three instead; they're way better.

When i first purchased this back then in 2004 it was a true gem, it had the classic Silent Hill atmosphere, but now with Akira Yamaoka as the director / music director it was a huge surprise, the characters and monsters motions are in perfect detail, and the music takes you to the depths of emotion and terror, i love playing Henry Townshend as main character, i don't know why but i resemble the same feelings and likes to the character. When i finished all the endings + extra features i felt something was missing, i got really dissapointed and sold the item for much less than what i payed, now i've realized i was wrong, this masterpiece should not be missed, if you are fan of Silent Hill series or you just like HORROR ADVENTURE video games, then this is your choice. I must say this is one of the coolest and mature video games i've ever played, and now i can't wait for part 5 to come out, rumours are said that it will be released for the PS3 but nothing is certain. This item is already out of print and you can't easily found it in videogame shops anymore, so get this while it's still available, it's a huge experience with lots of entertainment, highly recommended for everyone that likes paranormal / horror videogames.

Ok, this is the final game comming out in the silent hill series, "maybe" anyways its an awesome game if you have ever played the series or not it has a fresh story that is nothing like the first three games, the Fan Fav. is silent hill 2, prob the most famous out of the four. but this game is awesome non the less. the controls are the same as in the first three, the creepysetting of the game totally connects the game together easy to follow and a blast to play, its alll starts as Henry Townshend finds himself trapped in his apartment thats been cursed by a deeply DEEPLY rooted evil that he must uncover. But one day a portal opens in his apartment leading to disturbing alternate worlds which Henry will begin to unravle the truth of the creepy events and the story behind silent hill.theres a whole line of mysterious new characters, horrendous creatures, and the undead will use any means necessary to impede his progress. Horrific new monsters, like spirits that can attack through walls (a super pain in the butt and deadly) and bizarre beasts, in addition to expansive areas like the forest, prison, and hotel ensures ties back to the early silent hill games if your a fan you will see the connections but if you are new to the series it is still an awesome game the you will want to play again and again and again in the dark with the volume tured up high.

if you love horror survival games or new all together this is a great game to start up with

The reason I rate this game so poorly is because the game play is monotonous. It starts off unique and interesting; your character is trapped in his apartment by a mysterious force and you must check everything in your environment to find a way to escape. The game starts going downhill for me after you discover a hole in the wall that leads to an alternate world, then you end up back in your apartment, go through the hole again to another world, go back to your apartment again... well you probably get the point.

Other downfalls of this game include the long crawl-through-the-tunnel-scene​s to go back and forth from your apartment to the other worlds to unload items, some annoying monsters that can't be killed, some monsters that had potential but just turned out lame, and the lack of boss fights.

This game only has a couple of saving graces, but I don't consider them to be enough. The idea of being trapped in an apartment is a cool and unique idea. The traveling to the boring alternate worlds on the other sides of the holes is what ruins it for me and eventually the whole apparent thing just wears off. The storyline is quite intriguing but doesn't offer enough replay value for me to want to play it again and relive the whole experience, like in the other Silent Hill games.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend buying this game unless you are a die hard fan/collector of the series. If that description doesn't fit you, but you are a survival horror fan, it's worth borrowing or renting just to give it a try and see what it's all about for yourself.

Any of the horror-gamers out there will already know about this series. The evil town called Silent Hill drags unweary souls into a hellish nightmare of moaning demons, aggressive ghouls and psychological terrors.

Being quite a linear gaming experience, you may not have much use for replay; however you will get alternate endings depending on the difficulty level selected.

My personal favourite feature of this particular game is when you think you saw something in the apartment (which is played in first-person) such as a child standing, staring at you, or a severed head float across the window and move back to find it isn't there. You end up wondering whether you really saw something or if you just need to stop gaming at 3am.

The sounds and ambience in this game are unmatched. Where other scare-tactical games will catch you on a "boo" startle, Silent Hill 4 will have you staring at the screen while you hear a person wailing from the next room. More than once I've muttered, "N-No... I'm not going in there." Other times in the game the sounds of children laughing from long, dark corridors will have you cringing.

All around, it's a great game and well worth the purchase. Figure out the mystery of the room and how someone managed to lock you in from the inside. Oh, and there IS that disturbing hole in the bathroom that leads into the darkened heart of Silent Hill...