Silent Hill 4: The Room

A whole slew of facts and lore unfold via red pieces of paper which are regularly slipped under Henry's front door. The person responsible for delivering the notes surely knows the hideous secrets of The Room and how best to help our hero. It's only a matter of time before Henry's trip into his own personal nightmare culminates in the worst kind of violence and deprivation. Hey, it's why Silent Hill's fans love these games!

If this all sounds terribly morbid and scary, it's because it is. And that's one of the chief reasons that The Room is such a classy piece of horror storytelling. Thankfully, the bulk of the gameplay reverts to the classic Silent Hill third-person action view for the most part, and sees Henry picking up clues, weapons, and items that will ultimately help him solve puzzles and escape.


I must point out that I personally found The Room to feature some of the most obscure and non-lateral puzzles in the series so far. I found myself scratching my head on several occasions, and this is what I fear might turn off the more casual gamer. While I have no doubt that fans of the series will lap it up, The Room's story takes a little longer than the other games' to really pick up the pace, and as such, I can see some players getting frustrated and bored with the game early on. This is a great shame, as The Room is possibly the most visceral incarnation of Silent Hill yet. Perseverance, and possibly a hint book or strategy guide might help those people out.

Not much has changed here in terms of graphics, sounds, combat, and controls. Henry has the welcomed ability to jump backwards a few paces to dodge blows and will now auto-target the closest enemy within range when attacking. His head glances at items that might otherwise be easily missed, and his inventory allows up to 10 items to be carried at any one time. Surplus items are stored in a huge trunk found in the hub area of room 302. The usual array of healing items, drinks, and ampoules can be collected to regenerate health, but The Room's weapons were where I found most of the excitement of item collecting.


Aside from a rash of different golf clubs (which break after extended usage) I ended up favoring the rusty axe, lead pipe, and baseball bat for melee combat, while the nice 12-round pistol came in handy for trickier ranged boss battles. A cool new addition to combat comes in the form of a swing-'o-meter which can be filled by holding down the attack button or by continual usage of Henry's current weapon. Max it out and Henry takes an almighty swing of rage at the nearest enemy, doing more damage than normal.