The best Silent Hill game on PC
This is the best PC port of any Silent Hill game. Without mods, of course. Silent Hill 2 has a wonderfully active mod scene that Silent Hill 4 may lack, but Silent Hill 4 is a near perfect port on its own. There are two issues that I can think of that are not as good as the console originals. First, the game doesn't have analog controls, even on a controller. The PC version on has 8-way controls. This really isn't a problem and for most people you'll never even notice, but it's worth pointing out. The other is that half of the apartment hauntings will never appear due to a bug. As I write this, there is a fan-patch to fix this currently being tested by a few people. Besides the availability of higher resolution patches, there's not much else different between console and PC versions.
As for the game itself, yes, this is the "weakest" of the four Silent Hill games. But that doesn't make it bad. Far from it. In fact, this game carries the name Silent Hill with pride and has one of the best plots and stories in the entire survival-horror genre even to this very day. It does deviate from the formula the first three games created in a few ways. First, this game has a hub that you come back to at the end of every area. The eponymous Room. The swap between first and third person perspective was heavily marketed, but it really makes little impact on the game overall. Second, this game actually makes use of a limited inventory so deciding what to bring with you on your trips into the various game zones is important. Do you bring extra ammo? Or maybe some more healing? Do you need this key item now? Or can you store it in your apartment for later? It makes for some slight strategizing. Lastly, the ghost enemies differ from all enemies seen up to this point. You can't permanently kill them. You can take them down, but they will always return to haunt you.
But beyond that,at its core it's still Silent Hill as you know it. Too bad they didn't make more after this one.
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