Silent Hill 4: The Room

aka: Jijing Ling 4: Mishi Jinghun, SH4
Moby ID: 14830
PlayStation 2 Specs
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Description official descriptions

Henry Townshend is a man living in a small apartment in South Ashfield, a neighboring town of the infamous Silent Hill. On one strange night, Henry has a terrible nightmare, with recurring events: his phone is dead, his windows are sealed, and his neighbors can't hear him. He looks at his door, only to see it is blocked by several thick metal chains. A note is pinned to the door: "Don't go out!" It is signed only by a man named Walter. Henry explores his apartment, trying to figure out what is happening, when he spots a giant hole in the wall of his bathroom. Henry goes through the hole, only to find a portal which leads him to alternate dimensions. Hopefully, Henry will find out the truth about his apartment, Room 302, and live.

Silent Hill 4: The Room is similar to past games in terms of atmosphere. The game is dark and foreboding, never letting the player know what's behind the next corner or down the street. This installment of the series includes multiple new features. Henry never actually leaves his apartment: he utilizes a strange portal to travel to alternate dimensions, including a hospital, a cult command center deep in the forest, and a prison. Aside from the traditional third-person-view, there is now a first-person mode, which is used to control Henry 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; this installment has much more combat involved. There are more enemies in a given area, and more narrow areas and cramped spaces. Henry mostly uses a standard Silent Hill arsenal of weapons, such as the steel pipe, pistol, and (new to this game) a golf club.

Spellings

  • 寂静岭4: 密室惊魂 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

94 People (74 developers, 20 thanks) · View all

Director, Scenario Writer
Program Director
Art Director
Sound Director
Engine Program
Interface Program
Player Program
Monster Program
Stream Program
Demo Program
Event Program
Camera Program
Horror Phenomenon Program
Sound Program
Monster Design
Character Design
Room Design
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 74% (based on 41 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 96 ratings with 4 reviews)

Absorbing from start to finish

The Good
This was the first Silent Hill game I've played and I really enjoyed it. Having been a fan of the survival horror genre since Alone in the Dark I've played a lot of games of this variety but this one really stood out. This is perhaps the most absorbing, disturbing, convincing games I've played in ages. The controls are simple and intuitive, the levels long and fun to explore, and there are four endings, which gives the game considerable replay value. Also, this is a pretty long game, which is nice. I'm usually able to clear a game in a little over a week and this one had me going for a solid month.

The Bad
Locking on to a desired enemy in the fight sequences can be difficult. During the last half of the game, when you get your "side kick" of sorts, it can be very difficult to get her to follow you, since she'll get stuck on things like attacking the zombies, which don't die. Also, there are lots of bats. Bats shouldn't be enemies in any video game. You'll see why.

The Bottom Line
I would say that this is not a game for the elderly or those with heart conditions. It is truely scary. However, for fans of the genre its extremely immersive, more so than most games. A really engaging world and a story that develops well along the way.

Xbox · by Jordan Owen (13) · 2006

Might have been cool, maybe the XBOX version is better...(?)

The Good
Classic eerie atmosphere that is bundled with any Silent Hill game. This game can be pretty creepy, aways good. The acting wasn't bad at all and the graphics were just as good, if not better than the rest of the series. Sound and music creates a great atmosphere for the game.

The Bad
The movement is down right horrible. I couldn't believe what I was dealing with. I can't believe Konami actually looked at the final product and thought it was acceptable. The movement is what caused me to sell the game within 4 days of owning it.

The way you have to look and examine objects is equally disappointing. I found it to be a headache and the frustration of trying to pick up an object took me right out of the game. Seriously, these two aspects of what I didn't like the game was enough to ruin the whole game for me.

The Bottom Line
I wouldn't recommend buying this game. Burn it for free or something, it might even be a waste of blank CDs. Play the demo, you'll see what I mean, the movement and character interaction is a joke. Either don't buy this game, or steal it.... don't waste your cash on this piece a junk.

Windows · by OlSkool_Gamer (88) · 2005

Revitalizing the series, much better than SH3

The Good
After a series of three successful games, it is very easy to expect the release of another one. The last of them SH3 was very poor in comparison with SH2, the best of the series, and most of the SH fans were fearing for the series to go worse and worse with every new part. When the first trailers and screenshot appeared, you could see the typical trailers from SH series which showed very little about the gameplay and the screenshots showed a worrisome amount of combat scenes. This was not a good indication, as I find the excess of combat in SH series the worst feature. But the game ended up being a very proud Silent Hill.

I have had a lot of luck with this game, relative to the situation I was in, when I played this game. It was Christmas time, and I was barely alone in a residence for students, in the last floor, in a rather creepy room (it was the cheapest of the building, you can make an idea), so this game became a personal experience. Indeed, this is a game with a lot of claustrophobic terror as I'm going to explain. If you have read a bit about this game, you will be surely puzzled by the base idea of this game, a game about being trapped in a room?, well, there is more than just a room, and I can assure you that the room, actually apartment, gives a lot more game than you can think.

This game is about a guy, trapped in his apartment, who slowly discovers what is its story (of the apartment) through visits to places related with a previous inhabitant of it. But more deeply, this game is about the desperation of a man who sees himself prisoned in a place that becomes more bizarre and menacing for every hour he spends inside. And the first person view while you are in the apartment helps a lot to make the player to feel the same.

The level structure of the game is very obvious, even if the disturbing nature of the game makes you think that everything can happens. You visit some different places, like a subway, a hospital and a tower, and in each of them, you meet a NPC, so lost like yourself and who will eventually need of your help. You will soon understand (and "suffer") the role of those characters. In the second part of the game (DON'T READ THIS if you want to play it for yourself) the evil forces that maintain you in the apartment start being more visible and even your apartment is no more a safe place. With this, and like it is usual in SH, you will revisit some levels, but with more difficult this time, and with your young neighbor girl trapped in that world with you and will accompany you (READ AGAIN!). And even if you can think this, when you have the possibility of going outside your apartment, maybe you wont want to...

And all this is because the story in SH4 is very immersive and surprising and every little detail counts. Like in SH2, the "terror" is not administered in great doses at concrete moments, it will be a part of the story and you will be disoriented, tense, uncomfortable and, at some point terrified. That is the spirit of SH and that is what differentiate a good terror story and an average "jumping form your seat" one. And, in addition to the usual formulas of the SH series, in this game you will experience claustrophobia too to as a mayor part of the feeling of the game. As you go on in your quest for understanding what happens with your apartment, this will transform slowly in a cursed place, and you will end up finding yourself more secure in the bizarre outer dimensions than in your apartment.

Of course, like in any other SH be prepare to enjoy a sublime artistic direction, which can be found resumed in any of the trailers.

The Bad
First of, this is a Silent Hill game, and, like any Silent Hill games, it has some habitual failures to the series. The more obvious one is the excessive amount of enemies and their lack of context, which makes them frivolous after some combats and which forces a break in the atmosphere, as you fight creatures that you can't really relate to the game as a whole. This was worse in SH3 and they haven't solve it for SH4. Still the ghosts are a hell of an enemy, in every meaning of the word.

Another endemic demotivation of the SH games is that they are too linear, specially this one, that happens no more in an apparently open city, but in a series of manifestly closed areas, one after another. This is specially annoying in this game, as you see the level design as a series of little rooms communicated by doors, it really kills the pleasing feeling of freedom you felt in SH2, where all the city seemed to be accessible.

But "The Room" has some negative points by his own too. Some of them appears compared to other SH games; you will miss, for example, the fog, the lantern, the city of Silent Hill itself. Aside of those, there are some minor failures we can point at, like the very poor graphics for what you can see through your windows and the fact that you visit twice a lot of levels.

Plus, there is no "W.C. moment" in SH4!!, even if there is a W.C., that was an icon for SH2 and SH3, when you enter a W.C. and you knock the closed door and... nothing, in SH4 you can't even knock, too bad!!

The Bottom Line
Even if you like it or not, find it an unnecessary SH, you must admit that this game is unique. If you like playing strange games here is one for you, and if you are a fan of SH games, I really think you should give it a try. In any case, this is not a game for everyone, but it's a SH you can play without having played the others.

It is always good that game designers experiment, let's hope the SH series hasn't died yet or have some good substitutes.

Windows · by MichaelPalin (1414) · 2006

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

Development

Silent Hill 4: The Room wasn't originally going to be a main Silent Hill game, but a spin-off with different mechanics. Towards the end of production, though, Konami decided to make it a main entry into the Silent Hill series. That's the reason why it doesn't actually take place in Silent Hill.

Rating

Silent Hill 4: The Room is the very first Silent Hill game to be rated 18.

References

  • Walter Sullivan is mentioned in Silent Hill 2. He is described as a psychopathic killer who chopped two children into pieces with an axe.
  • Another reference to Silent Hill 2, after you complete Building World, go into the bathroom and select the toilet. It will ask you if you want to remove an item that is stuck. The response is quite amusing and is a reference to James Sunderland removing a wallet from a toilet in Silent Hill 2. This was also referenced in Silent Hill 3 with Heather in the bathroom of the alternate mall.
  • If you turn on the radio in the first half of the game, when it still gives you the news, the game's producer, Suguru Murakoshi, is said to have been caught "urinating from atop a utility pole".

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2004 – PC Adventure Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)

Information also contributed by Link Ramza and william sterry

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by JPaterson.

PlayStation 3 added by MAT. Windows added by Syed GJ.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, tarmo888, Dae, Tiago Jacques, Patrick Bregger, brandon221234, 64er, John Mann.

Game added September 13, 2004. Last modified January 27, 2024.