The first Silent Hill adventure on the original PlayStation console took the survival/horror genre created by Capcom’s legendary Resident Evil (or, arguably, even 3DO’s Alone in the Dark) and shaped it into something fresh, new, and downright wicked. A world that has since been explored by many titles such as Capcom’s Clock Tower 3 and Silicon Knights’ Eternal Darkness. A world where nothing is what it seems and it’s not what you see, but what you don’t see that you soon come to fear. After 3 best-selling entrances into the series, plus a darker, and more expansive twist on the second title (the Xbox’s Restless Dreams), Konami is once again attempting to raise the bar for fans of the "new-wave" horror genre with Silent Hill 4: The Room.

Like the previous games in the series dark history, Silent Hill 4: The Room will place the main focus on one character in a town known as Silent Hill, a miserable and enigmatic place covered in fog and crawling with monsters, ghosts, and cult-worshiping demon-midgets with knives (see: Silent Hill for the PSone). This time, the game focuses on a man named Henry Townshend, who has spent the last four days locked in his apartment with no way to escape. When the game begins, Henry notices a large hole in the bathroom wall that he is able to crawl out of, only to find that he may have been better off staying locked inside. Henry’s home town, Silent Hill, has been overrun with terrible creatures (think something along the line of H.P. Lovecraft), and a sinister fog that has covered the entire city. Though no other real details have been revealed about the game’s twisted story, Konami is promising some interesting new enhancements to the overall experience.

One of the biggest, and most exciting, changes made in The Room is the new bunch of enemies and their overall presentation. Drawing its blood from the same vien as Tecmo’s Fatal Frame series, Silent Hill 4 boasts enemies, such as ghosts, that can not only pursue you in open areas, but can literally chase you through the walls. This means that no matter where you are, you should never feel safe. Also, Silent Hill 4 will support many new weapons, from the standard-issue handgun to a bloodied pickaxe. In addition, the fog in the game is no longer being used as a mere mask for the traditionally lackluster graphics. Needless to say, although the game will retain the series’ grainy look and feel, The Room is already looking much better than the previous titles in the franchise. Running along those lines is the highly noticeable (and perhaps the most notable) change to the series’ look and feel; the environments. The locations in Silent Hill 4 are no longer the small, confined areas that we’ve become so accustom to, but have instead gone for a broader, more expansive look, ranging from sidewalks, to parks, apartment complexes, a prison, and even the classic hotel locale. So far, no word has been given on how the game controls, but with all these improvements inbound, surely the developers could find the time to work out a few kinks. JS

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