Silent Hill 4: The Room is the fourth installment in the Silent Hill survival horror series. The game is similar to the past entries in terms of atmosphere, never letting the player know what's behind the next corner or down the street. Aside from the traditional third-person-view, there is now a first-person mode which is used to control the main character when he is in his apartment. Objects that can be interacted with are highlighted by eyeball icons. The previous games in the series have mostly been about exploring the town and solving puzzles, but this installment has much more combat involved. There are more enemies in a given area, spread in cramped spaces. The main character mostly uses a standard Silent Hill arsenal of weapons, such as the steel pipe, pistol and a golf club.
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Fuck those ghosts
Very fun and engaging game and I'm glad to call it a silent hill game, but did the ghosts really need to be a thing?
I don't think the game is bad but I did drop it because it wasn't for me. The horror aspects are great like the game truly is terrifying but man the story was just so bland to me I'm not sure why. I played like 4 hours and couldn't get invested so ya :>
Been thinking about this one lately. Silent Hill 4: The Room is a weird messy game, in line with honestly most of the series being weird and messy as well. This is a game that is about the corrosive effects of agoraphobia and how that leads to repetitious days, which of course gets reflected in the game itself in ways that can be honestly really frustrating to players including myself.
A fairly common critique of this game is that the second half is bad, and this is due to the fact that you are having to protect Eileen while going through environments that you were in before. It has often been speculated that the game was rushed development-wise which is what led to the recycling of assets, and that a lot of the game's flaws are therefore stemming from that. I can certainly understand this perspective, since Silent Hill 4: The Room has as many locations any other Silent Hill game before this point, and in terms of budget and development time it probably wasn't feasible to invent even more new areas for the back half of the game.
But like it's also complicated? This repetition is supposed to be frustrating because of how it is manifesting a lot of the game's subtextual notions. Henry is fairly explicitly an isolated agoraphobe, this is something that is true even outside of the context of the game's plot mechanics itself by examining how he actually lives in his apartment, how little care to decor he's devoted to and how little interest he has in the things around him. You can examine his stove for instance and he'll make a comment on how he isn't hungry or doesn't want to cook or anything, along with how often the game uses non-optional voyeuristic camera perspectives with him. This is why Henry speaks in such a strange detached way, I read it that he's not only very introverted but he's also very depressed.
Eileen is the only person in the game you are capable of having meaningful interactions with, which in a lot of metaphorical ways shows the frustrations of actually combatting agoraphobia. It can feel like a complete uphill battle to forge a meaningful connection with someone of you've convinced yourself the outside world is actively hostile and malevolent.
One thing that stuck in my mind is the WHY of why The Room is the center of how the Otherworld is projecting outwards, and at its core it all stems from loneliness and isolation. Walter Sullivan was indoctrinated into a cult that actively dehumanizes its individual members to hate the world, and yet in pretty fucked up ways he still wants to connect with people and attempt to see people. This is why he wants Eileen to be reborn as a Holy Mother, and also extremely notably why he wants Henry as this container of knowledge. I don't think it's coincidental that Henry of all people is involved with all this, I feel like a lot of this happened BECAUSE of how Walter related to those feelings of isolation and twisted that into these really dark manifestations. Why else would he continually have Henry see aspects of his own memories while he commits murders? He wants someone to see what he went through, but is incapable of progressing beyond showing his wounds.
All this to say, I ended up really vibing with this game. There are very many obvious issues to observe with it, but I want to accept and understand things the way they are now instead of imagining an alternate 'fixed' version that will never exist, and I relate highly to this game because it reflects a lot of my own issues in ways I rarely see other media tackle, which is enough for me.
A fairly common critique of this game is that the second half is bad, and this is due to the fact that you are having to protect Eileen while going through environments that you were in before. It has often been speculated that the game was rushed development-wise which is what led to the recycling of assets, and that a lot of the game's flaws are therefore stemming from that. I can certainly understand this perspective, since Silent Hill 4: The Room has as many locations any other Silent Hill game before this point, and in terms of budget and development time it probably wasn't feasible to invent even more new areas for the back half of the game.
But like it's also complicated? This repetition is supposed to be frustrating because of how it is manifesting a lot of the game's subtextual notions. Henry is fairly explicitly an isolated agoraphobe, this is something that is true even outside of the context of the game's plot mechanics itself by examining how he actually lives in his apartment, how little care to decor he's devoted to and how little interest he has in the things around him. You can examine his stove for instance and he'll make a comment on how he isn't hungry or doesn't want to cook or anything, along with how often the game uses non-optional voyeuristic camera perspectives with him. This is why Henry speaks in such a strange detached way, I read it that he's not only very introverted but he's also very depressed.
Eileen is the only person in the game you are capable of having meaningful interactions with, which in a lot of metaphorical ways shows the frustrations of actually combatting agoraphobia. It can feel like a complete uphill battle to forge a meaningful connection with someone of you've convinced yourself the outside world is actively hostile and malevolent.
One thing that stuck in my mind is the WHY of why The Room is the center of how the Otherworld is projecting outwards, and at its core it all stems from loneliness and isolation. Walter Sullivan was indoctrinated into a cult that actively dehumanizes its individual members to hate the world, and yet in pretty fucked up ways he still wants to connect with people and attempt to see people. This is why he wants Eileen to be reborn as a Holy Mother, and also extremely notably why he wants Henry as this container of knowledge. I don't think it's coincidental that Henry of all people is involved with all this, I feel like a lot of this happened BECAUSE of how Walter related to those feelings of isolation and twisted that into these really dark manifestations. Why else would he continually have Henry see aspects of his own memories while he commits murders? He wants someone to see what he went through, but is incapable of progressing beyond showing his wounds.
All this to say, I ended up really vibing with this game. There are very many obvious issues to observe with it, but I want to accept and understand things the way they are now instead of imagining an alternate 'fixed' version that will never exist, and I relate highly to this game because it reflects a lot of my own issues in ways I rarely see other media tackle, which is enough for me.
I've been dwelling on the decision to drop this for a month now. So I think it's finally time to call it quits. This game, is fucking terrible. I could not stand another minute playing this hunk of garbage, it started to make me so irritated I actually got outwardly pissed off. I wrote some notes on it a month ago when I was still playing it, which I was gonna expand upon, but fuck it, here's what I wrote:
Dumb protagonist
Cool soundtrack
Aside from SOME cool designs, the enemies are all ass
The room is a cool concept
Awkward mechanics
Dodge is nice, but clunky
Stupid characters
Riddles aren't good
Some cool visuals
The prison level is cool
Impeccably stupid writing
Apartment level sucks
*Gives me a headache.
I just don't gaf anymore it's not worth the time I've already wasted on it.
Dumb protagonist
Cool soundtrack
Aside from SOME cool designs, the enemies are all ass
The room is a cool concept
Awkward mechanics
Dodge is nice, but clunky
Stupid characters
Riddles aren't good
Some cool visuals
The prison level is cool
Impeccably stupid writing
Apartment level sucks
*Gives me a headache.
I just don't gaf anymore it's not worth the time I've already wasted on it.
Although I absolutely love Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3, I unfortunately can’t give this the same ratings as them. This is the last “real” Silent Hill and while it has so many great ideas and concept, it also suffers a lot more than the previous titles. I still really like this game but it just isn’t on the same level.
7.5/10
7.5/10