In the interest of full disclosure(I'm not sure it matters), I suppose I should say that this is a review of the PC version. Up to this one, each iteration had minor adjustments or fixes; this one is a reinvention. The voyeurism(not seen before in these) and claustrophobia are gripping and immensely effective, and put you in a gruesome world with touches of, as others have noted, Alice in Wonderland and the works of David Lynch. You visit strange and varied environments, including, as the cover promises, a grisly prison. This is psychological terror, and the atmosphere is again excellent. It is built up by the unnerving occurrences and sights, and the sound-side, assembled with careful precision and skill akin to what you'd expect from a brain surgeon. The music fits the mood like a tailored glove. Audio FX are marvelous, with next to no exceptions. The voice acting tends to be great, other than perhaps the lead, who is flat and emotionless. I'm not sure it's the performer's fault; the role has no personality, and in general, you frankly don't learn enough about, or form any kind of a bond with, these characters(maybe partially because there are so many of them)... I can barely determine if they're credible or likable. This switches back and forth between 1st and 3rd person(I won't tell you exactly why or how, you get the hang of it immediately). In the former, you choose between rotation/strafing with the arrow keys. Unfortunately, in the latter, you are stuck with these controls that you may have experienced elsewhere; the direction you press will be the one you move in. That in itself is not necessarily bad; the problem arises when the camera(which you now have no real power over, except you can sometimes switch it from behind to in front, or vice versa; also, I think this has less of those freaky, warped angles that we love) changes(and that happens quite often), since you suddenly have to press another button, and this will cost you valuable seconds many times(no, the old way may not have been perfect, but once you got used to it, it, unlike this, did not detract from the whole). I think the best, most appropriate word is awkward. Sadly, that goes for other of the things this does different. The enemies are frustrating before anything else(they appear *everywhere*, the combat takes up an excessive portion of this, and too many you can't push past and/or are hard to defeat), and a couple of the designs(not all of them *that* grotesque or chilling) produce monsters that are simply goofy(as do other of the things intended to be creepy in this), not intimidating. Does anyone like those monkeys? Haven't we had enough dogs in these? The ghosts are just a pest, and for coming through the walls, they don't use this ability once they have, and in spite of moving around by floating, they continue to use stairs. Left-over memories from when they were alive? The concept itself is brilliant, and I do not believe it's been used in any other game(yes, Stephen King wrote a similar story... so? He surely did not invent "someone is trapped in an apparently haunted room"; there are other... ahem... "inspirations" in this that are troubling), and this utilizes being lost to the outside well, with you being able to witness life going on from your window, and not able to rouse their attention; with that said, I think it would have served this well if there had been a greater amount of unsettling events, and not as much of a sense of security. Honestly, it gets to be like a routine, and when you're used to something, it ceases to be scary. AI is not flawless, the same goes for hit detection. The puzzles can be kinda basic, and you'll figure their solutions out pretty fast. That does bring me back to the positive; this is a solid challenge even on the easiest of the three difficulty setting, and that can not be said about the "trilogy" before this(if to varying degrees). This is about the length of the original or III, and it doesn't overstay its welcome. The plot is great, and it is rather enjoyable to piece the mystery together. This alters the inventory, so you do not pause by bringing it up(so you don't have to go back and forth if you're finding the exact spot to use something), and you can cycle it while walking around. It is now limited; you have to decide what to bring and what not to, and may have to mentally note where supplies are if you can't pick them up when you locate them. There are breakable weapons, and items that provide an advantage over certain foes. You will not be shooting a lot in this, ammo is uncommon and takes up space to carry. There are nearly no bosses. You do not have the light or radio anymore, and they're not really missed. This time, you draw your own map; I'm not going to claim that I wished for that often in the rest of the series, this works for here and that for there. The cut-scenes are entirely in-engine, and there are only a handful of bits where CGI would have been preferable to that. I don't see a giant leap forward in the graphics, merely the minor upgrade that was the case between the previous two. On the whole, I'm thrilled that they took the chance and went with this idea and approach. It helped prevent the franchise from growing stale, and some of what this has that the others don't is amazing. There is continuous disturbing content, plenty of bloody, gory and brutal violence, and a little sexuality and moderate language in this. I recommend this to all fans of any of the other Silent Hill titles, as well as complete new-comers, as you don't need knowledge of them to get into this. 8/10
Review of Silent Hill 4: The Room
