Silent Hill 4: The Room

Silent Hill 4
Developer(s)	Konami Team Silent
Publisher(s)	Konami
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2 Xbox PC
Release	JPN June 17, 2004 NA September 7, 2004 EUR September 17, 2004
Genre(s)	Survival Horror/Psychological horror
Mode(s)	Single player

Silent Hill 4: The Room is the fourth installment in the survival horror series Silent Hill. The game was released in Japan on June 17, 2004, North America on September 7, 2004, and Europe on September 17, 2004. The Room was released onto multiple platforms consisting of the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox and PC.

Silent Hill 4 features an altered gameplay style with plot elements taken from previous installments. Upon its release the game was mostly praised with a mixed reaction to the deviations from the original Silent Hill style.

Plot

The game begins with the player taking control of protagonist Henry Townshend, who has been locked in his apartment in South Ashfield, room 302, for five days with no means of communication and having recurring nightmares. Shortly afterwards a large hole inexplicably forms in the wall of his bathroom, and he enters. From there he enters a network of holes leading him through a series of Silent Hill-style worlds.

Henry's first destination is an abandoned subway station where he meets a woman named Cynthia Velasquez who is convinced she is in a dream, but is soon killed by an unknown man. On his radio he hears confirmation that she is indeed dead in the real world. The exact same thing happens to the next three people Henry finds: Jasper Gien, Andrew DeSalvo and Richard Braintree, a resident in Henry's apartment complex. The cases seem similar to the deceased serial killer Walter Sullivan's M.O., and Henry finds scraps of the diary of his apartment's former occupant, journalist Joseph Schreiber, who was investigating his spree. Henry learns that Walter was in fact an orphan raised by Silent Hill's resident cult who had been lead to believe that his biological mother was Henry's apartment, where he had been found.

It is revealed that Sullivan is in fact attempting to carry out a ritual which calls for 21 murders, the 21 Sacraments, to try and "awaken" his "mother," and is in an undead state through which he can kill his victims immortally. Henry is his intended 21st victim. Midway through the game a child manifestation of Walter's "innocent" self interrupts the murder of the intended 20th victim, Eileen Galvin, and she joins Henry trying to find Schreiber. At the same time hauntings begin to inhabit Henry's apartment. The two eventually find the ghost of Schreiber, who tells them that their only escape is to kill Sullivan.

Shortly after Henry acquires Walter's umbilical cord, a tool required to kill him for good, Eileen leaves Henry under Walter's influence. He finds her about to walk into a deathtrap with Walter, and the final bossfight ensues.

Endings

The game has a total of four possible endings after Walter is killed. In this game, however, there is no UFO ending, which to this point had been a staple of the series. There are two factors determining the ending achieved: whether or not Eileen dies in the final bossfight and if Henry has exorcised the majority of hauntings in his apartment.

If both the above conditions have been met the "Escape" ending is achieved, in which both protagonists survive and after Henry kills Walter he returns to the real world and visits Eileen in hospital after her assault. If the condition of Henry apartment is not keep up the "Mother" ending is achieved; this ending is identical to "Escape" expect for an added sequence showing the decay of the apartment remains in the "real world."

If Eileen dies during the final bossfight but Henry's apartment is mostly clean of hauntings, the "Eileen's Death" ending is achieved, where Henry hears on his radio that Eileen has died in the "real world," to his despair. Failing to satisfy either of these objectives results in the "21 Sacraments" ending, in which Henry collapses in pain after killing Walter. The scene cuts to the child Walter resting happily in room 302 while the radio announces the deaths of Henry, Eileen and others.

Gameplay

File:Sh4haunt.png

The player, in first-person perspective, finds a haunting in Henry's apartment.

Henry and Eileen fight a ghost.

Silent Hill 4: The Room was originally envisioned as a spinoff of the Silent Hill series, rather than a continuation of the main story, and possesses a substantially different gameplay style than the other games. The player is based on Henry Townshend's apartment, from which the player navigates through a first-person perspective and can access their only save point and reach the other levels of the game through mysterious holes formed in the walls. For the first half of the game the room will also heal the player. The second half of the game has the room become possessed by various hauntings which drain Henry's health.

In the main levels of the game the player uses the usual third person perspective of the Silent Hill series. Unlike other games the player only has a limited item inventory which can be managed by dumping unneeded items in a chest in Henry's room. Breakable melee weapons are also introduced in this game through a variety of golf clubs. While gun combat is not emphasized, a feature is added that allows melee attacks to be "charged" before they are launched.

One of the most significant changes is the introduction of the "Victim" monsters, the unkillable ghosts of Walter Sullivan's victims. The ghosts have the ability to hurt Henry with a damaging "aura" which can be nullified by the holy candle and saint medallions items. The same items can also exorcise the hauntings in Henry's apartment. Ghosts can also be knocked down for a long time with one of the two silver bullets and pinned permanently with a Sword of Obedience item.

In the second half of the game Henry is accompanied by his neighbor Eileen Galvin. Eileen cannot die while she is with Henry, although as she takes damage she succumbs to possession by Walter Sullivan. The player can also equip Eileen with a weapon to have her join Henry in combat. The damage Eileen takes in the game determines whether or not she dies in the final boss fight, directly affecting the ending achieved.

There is additional content which can be unlocked upon completion of the game. After completing the game once a chainsaw is unlocked for Henry and can be accessed from the forest/Wish House world while a 9-star ranking unlocks an unlimited-ammunition submachine gun for Eileen. An alternative "sexy nurse" costume for Eileen can be accessed on a third playthrough, and after all four endings are achieved using this will also enable an alternative lingerie costume for Cynthia. A 10-star ranking unlocks a "One Weapon Mode" option where Henry can use only one weapon for the entire game; completing this with a 10-star ranking enables a "Full Weapon Mode" giving the player all weapons and easy access to supplies.

Reaction

Upon its release in 2004 Silent Hill 4: The Room attracted the attention of mainstream news outlets CNN, the BBC and The Times as well as the main gaming reviewer community. Rating aggregation site Metacritic gave both console versions of the game approval ratings of 76 of 100, while Game Rankings listed 76% and 74% approval ratings for the Playstation 2 and Xbox respectively.

The Xbox and PS2 versions of the game received an "impressive" 8.0 rating from IGN reviewer Douglass C. Perry. Perry described it as "neither brilliant nor terrible", displeased by the lack of boss fights and complicated puzzles. The article expressed the author's mixed feeling towards the element of "the room", and while Perry noted that the room "itself is a good idea", he was displeased by the inconvenience of constantly having to return there. His closing comments also noted another problem: "While all the classic touches that have become so familiar and so great in the series have returned, they have simultaneously become cliché."

Kristan Reed, a reviewer for Eurogamer, expressed disappointment with the degree to which the game had been geared as a combat game with an absence of standard Silent Hill puzzles. He was nevertheless pleased with the game's plot, graphics and audio gave the game a 7/10 rating for the PS2, and 6/10 for the Xbox version. GameSpot gave both the PS2 and Xbox ports 7.9 ratings, concluding with "While not all of the changes made necessarily serve to enhance the series, the dark, gripping storytelling is what allows this game its Silent Hill credentials."

The PC ports of the game received lower ratings than the console versions. IGN reviewer Perry complained of "the blurriest textures we've seen in years and some serious graphical glitches" and "extremely low mouse sensitivity" inhibiting gameplay, giving it a comparatively low 6.9 rating. GameSpot's review was slightly lowered to 7.6, praising the graphics as having "been optimized well for the PC" but acknowledging "keyboard and mouse controls just don't fare that well in an environment of constantly shifting perspective views that can make navigation frustrating."

Connections to other games

Silent Hill 4: The Room uses two minor, unseen, characters from previous installments as major characters in its plot. The antagonist of the game, Walter Sullivan, was first referenced in a newspaper scrap in Silent Hill 2 as having killed himself shortly after killing twins Billy and Mirian Locane. These two victims also appear in the form of the "twin victim" creature Henry encounters. The second character is investigative journalist Joseph Schreiber, who was first referenced in Silent Hill 3 with a magazine article he has written condemning the "Hope House" orphanage run by The Order which the game's protagonist, Heather can discover. There is also fan speculation that Frank Sunderland is connected to, and possibly the father of, Silent Hill 2 's player character James Sunderland.

A remix of the song "Your Rain" from that game's soundtrack was used on Konami's Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME.

Music

Main article: Silent Hill 4: The Room - Original Soundtracks

The soundtrack for Silent Hill 4: The Room was released alongside the game in 2004. The Japanese version featured a second disk containing music by series composer Akira Yamaoka played along to the reading of traditional Japanese stories.

External links

• Official Silent Hill 4 site (Konami Europe)
• Gamespot
• Silent Hill 4: The Room at MusicBrainz
• Silent Hill 4: The Room at MobyGames