Silent Hill 4: The Room Import Impressions

Silent Hill 4: The Room is the latest entry in Konami's Silent Hill survival horror franchise. While the subtitle "The Room" may lead you to think that Konami has opted to go with some artsy playwright for the game's tale, don't fret--it's just the same old Silent Hill team being their same old crazy selves. The subtitle refers to the game's action hub, a simple apartment with a bathroom capable of taking you to mysterious places. We got our hand on the recently released Japanese import of Silent Hill 4 for the PlayStation 2 and we saw what happens in this fourth entry in the series.

Take a look around the infamous room in this gameplay movie. Click "stream" for a larger view.

The game casts you in the role of Henry Townsend, a slightly unkempt apartment-dweller. When you first start the game, you're treated to an interactive nightmare version of Henry's room. After a bit of exploration and marveling at the overall crappiness of Henry's housekeeping skills, you'll trigger a scripted event that sends an unholy creature clawing its way out of one of the walls in your living room. Once that bit of unpleasantness is over, Henry wakes up from what is ostensibly a bad dream and the proper game begins. However, since this is a Silent Hill game, you know there's a terrible, terrible twist waiting in the wings.

Your first hint that something is amiss comes when you venture out to your living room and find all kinds of locks on your front door, preventing you from leaving, and a message painted in blood that warns you from going outside of your apartment. You'll have a bit of time to get your bearings around your pad and to explore the various nooks and crannies. You're clued in to hot spots by an eye icon that appears onscreen, prompting you to be nosy. You'll want to pay special attention to your apartment's windows, which when examined, will shift your view to an outdoor shot that lets you have a look at the activity bustling on the street below and in the building across from yours. You can also look through the peephole in your front door to see what's in front of your door. Oddly enough, the wall in front of your door seems to be covered in bloody handprints, which seems to tie in nicely with the written warning and many locks on your door.

A little later on in this beginning sequence, you'll hear an unsettling thump, and upon further investigation you find that it has come from your bathroom. Upon approaching your commode, you'll notice something is amiss, mainly due to the gaping hole that has appeared next to it. Now, while there are a plethora of things any sane person would do in this kind of situation, bear in mind this is a Konami survival horror game, which explains why our boy decides that crawling into said hole is the right thing to do.

Henry Townsend is trapped in his apartment with a portal to some crazy alternate dimension as his only means of escape.

Once you crawl in the hole, the game shifts to a grainy tunnel view that has you crawling toward a light. Once you reach it, you'll find yourself sitting on a descending escalator in what appears to be a wrecked train station of some kind. Once you start exploring this new area you'll meet up with a strange woman who is convinced she's having a dream and is surprised to see Henry. After a bit of banter, you'll head off with her, but she'll soon fall ill and go into a nearby bathroom. Once you've waited the appropriate amount of time needed to let someone throw up their guts, the bathroom door will open and some demonic, doglike things will come out and require you to give them an ass-whooping.