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Full Review for Silent Hill 4: The Room by Cheeky.Bastard

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Introduction

Once again it's time to pay a visit to the nightmare world of Silent Hill. And what an absolute horror it is. The series has built itself a huge following, built on the superb plots, charaters and it's ability to create a genuinely chilling atmosphere. This sets it apart from the almost B-movie style of it's closest compeditor, Resident Evil. But does 'The Room' beat blowing a zombies head off with a shot gun and, more to the point will any of it make sense this time!?

Graphics

The first thing a Silent Hill veteran will think is 'this looks just like the others'. That may not be a bad thing, as the graphics do set the mood so very well. In terms of other games though, Resident Evil 4 manages to set the atmosphere perfectly well without making everything look like a soft focus grey montage. The only reason I scored it five, is because it looks so scary!

Sound

Origonality has taken time off while the sounds were being produced! But just like the graphics, they serve their purpose so well that it's hard to complain about them. After all, in the world of Silent Hill it's usually what you hear rather than see that really helps brown the underwear! Also the voice acting, whilst not being worthy of an oscar, is still far better than most other games. That includes Resident Evil...

Gameplay

Now there is 2 ways of looking at this, one is to say that like the sound and graphics not much has changed, which is good. The other is far more realistic however. To start with the controls are as unresponsive as ever. The first person view mode that you use when in 'the room' really is just pointless and adds nothing. The other big change, if it can be called that, is that now you can't carry all your items with you. You have to use a chest like in Resident Evil. Although unlike in 'Resi' this only serves to annoy rather than add to the gameplay, mainly because there are new unkillable baddies. Whilst doing hours of back tracking to your chest, the ghosts will get in your way. At some points they will completely block the only way forward so that all you can do is run into them and hope you can slide past, with the best you can hope for being it will cost you health you can't spare and ammo you didn't want to use. Aside from that it's the usual combo of puzzles, reading weird notes, and shooting at things in the dark.

Lastability

Hang on a minute! Only 4 for gameplay yet a lastability of 7?! How is this madness possible? Surely if it's so bad to play then that score should be no higher than 5, right? Well, if it wasn't for the one thing that Silent Hill has in it's favour that would be true. Once you get into the story, you'll find yourself wishing that you could stop playing the game because it's so frustrating but unable to do so because you HAVE to know how it all ends. That and the fact that there is the mandatory different endings to try and see.

Overall

This should of been so much better than it is. As a fan of the series I stil ploughed through the game for the story, but I feel that for a first timer the problems may overwelm the urge to find out what happens. I would write more, but I don't think there is any need to. For those who love Silent Hill, we can hope that with the power of the Playstation 3, Konami will try that little bit harder and make the Silent Hill adventure that this should have been. As for everyone else... They won't give a crap either way after this.