Product Description

With the Silent Hill series famed for its unsettling blend of psychological and visceral horror, Silent Hill 4: The Room turns the screw even further. Taking the series in a new direction, apprehension and fear immediately run high when the new main character, Henry Townshend, finds himself trapped in his own, cursed apartment.

Only by exploring mysterious portals leading into disturbing alternate worlds will Henry begin to uncover clues as to why he is trapped. However, in true Silent Hill fashion, mysterious new characters, horrendous creatures and the undead will use any means necessary to impede his progress. A tense atmosphere and grotesque enemies will keep the player on edge as Silent Hill 4: The Room delivers a gameplay experience that fans and newcomers will never forget.

Using all-new technology, the Tokyo-based development team has created a host of unique effects designed to add to the game s oppressive atmosphere. Players will notice changes in the environments as the alternate world begins to taint reality, while--in a massive first for the series--the action switches between the traditional third-person view and a new first-person perspective.

Beautifully designed environments, a haunting soundtrack and a roster of macabre and misshapen monsters contribute to one of the scariest games you will ever play, as players travel between Silent Hill 4: The Room s central location and their worst nightmares...

• A new Silent Hill adventure, where terror comes to your room
• Horrific new monsters, including spirits that can attack through walls
• Expansive areas to explore, including a forest, prison and hotel
• A cast of mysterious new characters and a new first person viewpoint
  
   

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5683 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Konami
• Released on: 2004-09-17
• Rating: To Be Announced
• ESRB Rating: Adults Only
• Platform: PlayStation2

Amazon.co.uk Review
Survival horror games don't get the recognition they deserve in the wider world. Whereas CGI effects have done nothing but make horror movies less and less scary, ironically video games, particularly the Silent Hill series, have been showing filmmakers just how it should be done for years.

Irritatingly though the original PS one title remains the best of the series with the last two PS2 titles being little more than hi-res rehashes. The Room manages to shake things up a bit though, ditching the radio and flashlight gimmicks and adding twice the normal amount of side characters and a more involved fighting system. There's also a number of completely invincible bad guys and a new Resident Evil style limited slot inventory system.

The room in question, as you're no doubt wondering, is in fact the toilet. Playing yet another everyman character you wake up from a rather disturbing dream to find out that you're locked inside your flat and the only way out is through a gateway to hell next to the privy. Which almost sounds like a BlackAdder joke, but is unlikely to have you laughing after your first trip.

Within your flat the game uses a first person view, with the series' more traditional third person viewpoint taking over when you go through the portal. A series of weird lens filters and excellent (i.e. very unpleasant) sound lends a real otherworldly feel to proceedings, so that when things do choose to go bump in the night at you, you end up being very scared indeed. --David Jenkins

Manufacturer's Description
With the Silent Hill series famed for its unsettling blend of psychological and visceral horror, Silent Hill 4: The Room turns the screw even further. Taking the series in a new direction, apprehension and fear immediately run high when the new main character, Henry Townshend, finds himself trapped in his own, cursed apartment.

Only by exploring mysterious portals leading into disturbing alternate worlds will Henry begin to uncover clues as to why he is trapped. However, in true Silent Hill fashion, mysterious new characters, horrendous creatures and the undead will use any means necessary to impede his progress. A tense atmosphere and grotesque enemies will keep the player on edge as Silent Hill 4: The Room delivers a gameplay experience that fans and newcomers will never forget.

Using all-new technology, the Tokyo-based development team has created a host of unique effects designed to add to the games oppressive atmosphere. Players will notice changes in the environments as the alternate world begins to taint reality, while--in a massive first for the series--the action switches between the traditional third-person view and a new first-person perspective.

Beautifully designed environments, a haunting soundtrack and a roster of macabre and misshapen monsters contribute to one of the scariest games you will ever play, as players travel between Silent Hill 4: The Rooms central location and their worst nightmares...

Customer Reviews

A welcome improvement from Silent Hill 3
I have been playing a Japanese import of this game for about a week (haven't finshed it yet), and it is definitely as good as I had hoped. There are some nice new features - first person mode, better combat physics, plus all the usual Silent Hill hallmarks of creepy sound effects, poor lighting, never enough ammo, last gasp swipes with the lead pipe, running out of health, etc etc. Fans will know what I mean immediately!

Perhaps the biggest departure from previous versions in the series, is that the game is very loosely divided into a series of connected "missions". The main character, Henry Townsend, returns to "the room" afterward to save and refresh his health. Henry is trapped in his apartment, and a strange hole appears in his bathroom, which forms a tunnel into other "dimensions". It is through this hole that most of the game takes place, and were the typical Silent Hill monsters are waiting for Henry. Gone are the endless referencing to maps, checking locked doors, getting lost, getting lost again, and there is more emphasis on progression in the game, which I think is a welcome change.

There is however, still plenty of scope for discovery in each "level" - the usual looking for ammo, and searching for clues to unravel the overall plot, which in true unfathomable Silent Hill fashion seems to be connected with a strange cult, a very big stone, and an orphanage in the town of Silent Hill.

There are also some strong references to previous Silent Hill games, most notably the return of the Subway station level, and even a glimpse of the pink bunny rabbit soft toys from SH3. Fans of the series will love it, and I'd say it's a return to the "wet the bed scary" heights of SH2. A must purchase.

Just as eerie as the previous Silent Hill games
Silent Hill 4 (or ‘The Room’ as it is also known) follows a young man named Henry Townsend, who one morning discovers that he is trapped in his apartment by some sinister force that has cursed his home. A week passes, and Henry is no nearer the truth as to exactly what is in possession of his apartment, nor how to escape. That is until, in a hysterical state, he notices that a mysterious hole has appeared in his bathroom (bizarre yes, but this IS Silent Hill). With no other means of escape, he decides he has no choice but to transport himself through the hole. The producers have promised that Silent Hill 4 will match (or possibly even surpass) the level of creepiness that was present in the three previous games. It’s really not a game you want to be playing late at night.

The game contains more terrifying creatures than ever before, such as spirits that can attack through walls, individuals in wheelchairs (kitted out in bondage attire), deformed spectres, slug-like beasts, demonic wolves and misshapen torsos with two squealing baby heads. Whilst the three previous Silent Hill games tied in with each other and shared similar characters, there is a whole new set this time around, with relatively few links with its predecessors. Similarly, there will be new areas to explore, such as a hotel, prison and forest.

One scene from the preview shows an elegant Gothic-inspired room with a stylish chandelier and then, in complete contrast, decomposing bodies bursting through the walls. There is also the mist that seems to seep into every available area – enough to let the game player know that something terrifying is about to happen. It is not unusual either, for Henry to be strolling down a seemingly normal pathway only to discover a levitating body waiting to greet him at the other end.

The duration of the game will be divided between the apartment and the worlds on the other side of the portal. Whilst once again there will be a select few individuals that are able to help the hero on his quest for the sunny world he once knew, there is an overwhelming force of evil wishing him harm. With that in mind, the producers have attempted to put more emphasis on action, and there is a great variety of weapons to choose from, which are easier to access from the menu than the system of previous games. Gameplay is much more like the original Silent Hill than games two and three, with a more puzzle-orientated feel; codes to decipher and riddles to solve, that sort of thing.

The distorted, grainy black and white footage of the trailer was particularly disturbing, reminiscent of Japanese horror film Ring. The haunting lullaby-type song that is part of the soundtrack also serves to scare the gamer witless and complements the game down to a tee. The ethereal compositions, songs layered with piercing screams and pathetic whimpering (courtesy of producer and composer Akira Yamaoka) are also suitably frightening. Another point of interest is the perspective from which the game-player views the surroundings. In parts of the game where Henry is in his apartment, there is a first-person viewpoint, designed to make the player feel claustrophobic. In the worlds beyond the portal however, the viewpoint changes to a third-person perspective. Regarding the graphics however, whilst impressive, they have not improved a great deal since Silent Hill 3; most of the characters still possess the paddle-like hands and relatively simple skeletal structures. In general however, it is a hugely impressive game, and fans of the franchise will not be at all disappointed. Just remember not to play it whilst home alone - especially if you live in an apartment.

A SURREAL GAME
Silent Hill 4: The Room is the most unusual entry in a most unusual video game franchise. While earlier installments in the series have focused on stories designed to evoke spine- chilling horror, this fourth chapter in the saga causes much deeper feelings of anxiety and unease. I remember being more traditionally scared playing Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams, but the underlying, more psychological sensation of existential dread I felt playing this game was something altogether new.

The Silent Hill games have shown a narrative progression by which the nature of the town is expanded upon in each game. In the first two games, your character went to Silent Hill and had his horrific adventure. In the third, Silent Hill itself "came to" the main character of Heather, who merely wanted to have a nice day at the mall. In Silent Hill 4, the town has now invaded your last refuge of security, your home.

You play Henry Townshend, who lives alone in a small apartment in the bustling town of South Ashfield, half a day's drive from Silent Hill. After suffering from inexplicable nightmares, Harry awakens to find that his apartment door has been chained and padlocked shut from the INSIDE. He can't open his windows, and no one, even people standing directly outside his front door, can hear him when he pounds on the door and cries for help.

The game expertly evokes the desperate confusion and lurking fear you would feel if you simply couldn't get out of your house. The strangeness of Henry's situation is underscored by the fact that, tantalizingly, he can see the real world right outside his window, with cars and pedestrians zipping by on a street only fifty yards away. Neighbors in the apartment building opposite his can be seen going about their business (one guy, amusingly, is playing air guitar). The banality of day to day life takes on a whole new meaning when one person is suddenly set apart from it by horrific circumstances he can't understand or control. The next time you're taking a walk down the block, imagine if something terrifyingly Silent Hill-ish was happening to someone in the very house you're walking past, and you're safe outside with no way of knowing. The whole character of the neighborhood will change. That's the kind of thing the Silent Hill series does so well: conveying the deep terror that can result when what is normal and commonplace suddenly and without warning goes all WRONG.

The action begins when Henry discovers that a large hole has emerged in his bathroom wall. As it's the only way out, he must crawl through it, and doing so, finds himself in the decaying, blood-spattered environments of Silent Hill with which the series' fans have become so familiar. But this game offers alarming differences. Some of the creatures that menace you -- like the ghosts that look more like floating paralyzed corpses -- can't be killed, and others -- like the two-headed babies that walk on adult arms -- are so bizarre they beggar imagination. You're also limited in what you can carry, and the only place you can save your game is in your apartment, a safe haven you can return to through holes in walls spread throughout the levels. But even that safe haven isn't safe for long.

In earlier games, the horror, while nightmarish, was still rooted in a sense of realism that, in turn, created realistic horror. You'd walk down dark corridors or misty deserted streets armed with a flashlight and your weapon. But here, the environments are more outrageously surreal, as if you're literally wandering through a bad dream. Spiral staircases seem to float in thin air. A enormous woman's face peers at you from a hospital wall. Living tendrils of no discernible biology dangle upwards from the floor to bar your way. Wheelchairs zoom down corridors by themselves, as if it were a freeway for paraplegic ghosts. It's as if the game designers just decided to let Salvador Dali loose with 3D rendering software and instructions that he was to exercise no restraint at all in coming up with ways to freak people out.

Sometimes it gets a little TOO weird. At times I found myself less frightened by this game than morbidly intrigued; I was actually interested in getting to certain rooms just to see what kind of crazy thing I'd encounter next. In that sense, I'd have to say the earlier games work a little better as pure, edge of your seat, bloodcurdling horror. But Silent Hill 4 still does a bang-up job of generating an entirely different kind of fear, one that doesn't so much leap out at you from the dark as crawl deep into the back of your mind and lurk there.

I leave you with two pieces of advice. One: if you're new to the series, don't start here, start with 2 and 3. Two: don't take the doll.