Silent Hill 4: The Room

Even though it's not my favourite Silent Hill title, it is definitely one of the most disturbing horror games I've played. I'm glad it has been revived in an ever better version than the original. Hopefully SH 2 and 3 get the same treatment.

Ok, I'll be honest: SH4 isn't my favorite game in the franchise (despite i'm a huge fan of Silent Hill). So GOG, if you bring SH2 (mainly), SH3 or even SH1, I promisse: my wallet is yours and I you buy EVERY SINGLE THING of Silent Hill that you sell.

This is not a 5 star game. It's the most mixed bag out of all the SH games, including Homecoming. SH:H was just consistently poor. SH 4 is a constant give-and-take between peaks and valleys. It's got some of my favorite parts of the series and some of the most frustrating. You've got an achingly dull protagonist but also an incredibly compelling villain. Some of the best aesthetics and atmosphere in the series but also some obtuse level design. Excellent creature designs, poor creature encounters. Clunky combat system that wants you to engage with more and stronger monsters than previous games, but also lots of tricks like utilizing the invincibility frames when performing strong attacks. Awful, just awful A.I. for Eileen, but also the candle trick at the end of the game (look it up, it might save you some frustration). Subway world is great, but escalator section. Prison world is great, but room rotating mechanic. It's a whole lot of good and bad, often within the same levels, within a few minutes of each other, and it makes it so that there's no numerical score that could properly express how I feel about this game. However. I've been waiting for the Silent Hill games to start coming back, or at least to become more widely available, for a long time, which makes SH4 releasing on GOG a complete net positive. If writing this review will help even a little bit to drag Konami out from under their rock so they can start releasing these games again, I will 5 out of 5 this thing to kingdom come. P.S. Another unqualified positive is that this PC version of the game works great. I was able to install it and play immediately, it scales to full HD, and the controls work well. All thumbs up on that. Take my money, Konami.

Mimo, że w tej części miasteczko Silent Hill majaczy gdzieś w tle, to i tak bawiłem się świetnie i polubiłem pokręconą atmosferę, projekt lokacji i przeciwników. Według mnie tej części pod tym względem najbliżej najlepszej pierwszej odsłonie. Szkoda tylko, że poziomów jest tak naprawdę niewiele, bo od połowy gry ponownie odwiedzamy te same miejscówki co wcześniej, czasami trochę zmienione. Spodobało mi się za to powracanie do zmieniającego się mieszkania bohatera w widoku z perspektywy pierwszej osoby oraz oczywiście ścieżka dźwiękowa autorstwa Akiry Yamaoka. Gdyby autorzy dostali więcej czasu na produkcję (gra wyszła około rok po premierze trzeciej części), to mógłby to być dzisiaj klasyk porównywany do pierwszych dwóch odsłon.

I never played any Silent Hill before, but this won't be my last. Love the Soundtrack, the atmosphere, the weird characters and the whole plot and symbolism in everything.