I’m a big fan of the Silent Hill series, and I want SH4 bad. My brother works in a gaming store and he said sales on it bombed there - nobody has bought any copies. Has anyone here played it? How’s it compare to the others? Does it explain anything from SH2? I really liked that SH3 tied up a lot of loose ends from the first game, so I’m kind of hoping SH4 will explain some of the mysteries in SH2. Try not to give away too much to me, though. I basically want to know if you think it’s worth buying, or if I should just rent it.
I hope I’m not being annoying by posting in all these game threads.
Silent Hill 4 was the first of the series that I tried, and I didn’t enjoy it. Fortunately, I had traded a couple other games in for it and only ended up paying $1.04. I’ve always heard good things about this series, so I was interested in playing this one. I found the controls to be awkward and the camera control miserable. There were times that you could hear enemies coming, but the camera refused to focus on anything but the top of the character’s (soon to be victim’s) head. This was the XBOX version, so I don’t know whether the PC version is better in this respect. I also don’t like enemies that can’t be killed - there were roomfuls of these that you had to run through several times. Also, if I smash a monster’s head in, then it ought to stay down. I shouldn’t have to step on it to make it even deader. The combat system seemed very slow to me too. The game used a hub system which forced you to always return to the room to heal and exchange items, so the constant backtracking was tedious. The story seemed interesting, and the atmosphere was sufficiently creepy, but the control issues I was having made me lose interest. I never did finish it, but I may try it again someday.
I’d say rent it, and if these aren’t issues for you, then go ahead and buy it.
I am a very big Silent Hill fan.
I found SH1 to be the most creepy game ever written.
SH2 was incredibly deep. The only game that the more I thought about it, the better it got.
SH3 was also good, but not great. It fleshed out the series. Lots of scares.
SH4… I got it, and haven’t finished it. No desire to. No real scary moments. No deep atmosphere. I got stuck at one point and didn’t want to go back to conserve resources. I’ll finish it someday, but I was seriously underwhelmed. Some intersting features, but too many annoying things. The spirits that couldn’t be stopped (just plain annoying) the silly stock sound tiger roar the dogs make when they die. Predictable moments. Just…not…impressive. I am very let down.
I kind of liked Silent Hill 2 even though it started out very slowly. I never played Silent Hill or Silent Hill 3 but I rented Silent Hill 4 a few weeks ago. I thought it was very dull though the graphics were pretty good and they did a good job making a creepy atmosphere. I’d rent it.
Marc