Silent Hill 4, Now with 50% less Piramid Heads! Options

[unitself]

So... SH4.
I love Silent Hill 2. I've never played 1 or 3, but I bet they're cool too. So, I was totally psyched when SH4 came out.
Now that I been playing it for a little bit, I am ... a bit ... underwhelmed. It's still a lot of fun, but I am just not getting into it the way SH2 got me. I think it's the lack of damage I dish out. The first monster things you run across are these horrible skinned dog looking things. Well, they are tough S.O.B.s! And you only have a damn bent pipe (and maybe a glass bottle) to hit them with... and they take ALOT of hits to go down. Meanwhile, they are chopping on you like no tomorrow. So, I soon found that running away is simply the best option. Then along came the ghosts. Now these guys don't die... they're already dead! So, you have to just run away from them too (for now)! And they have this ability to hurt you without touching you. It seems that you are allergic to ghosts and they give you a "killer" headache.
So... so far, I am doing alot of running away. Yeah, it's allows for some very tense moments, but I am kinda used to blasting my way past the ghoolys. Maybe that's why I am not very good at RE games. Still... I hope it gets a bit better. Yeah, I'm gonna play it all the way through, because I've read a bunch about it and I know there is ALOT more spooky stuff down the road. I just hope that I find a shot gun or something so I can just do what I wanna do. Blast those baddies!

Oh yeah... the apartment... Now, this part is very cool. I love looking out the peep hole at my front door and seeing something random going on in the outside world. I've even just looked out the window for a long time. I don't think I've even seen the same car, or set of cars, go by twice. Very nice touch.

[Crushinator]

I played through most of this game at T-wolfs the other weekend.

The concept is very cool, but like you said... it just doesn't have the impact of any of the previous games. The sense of mystery is there, but it lacks the Silent Hill dread that we love so much about the games.

The puzzles were also a joke. One thing I always enjoy on SH are the brain-bending puzzles, but SH4 leaves much to be desired in that department. And where the hell are the bosses? Granted I didn't get all the way to the end, but I played a good 8 hours into the game, finished up all the "stages" up to the empty area after the hospital... but not a single boss so far.

As far as gameplay goes, combat is just as mediocre as it has always been on SH, but the fast item switching is nice. What is not nice however, is the limited inventory space. This was a total step backwards, and for an even worse kick in the face your health items and ammo clips don't even stack! You only have 8 or so inventory slots, and if you are gearing up for some serious fighting you have to fill up on ammo, then go back thru the hole to put some away when you NEED to pick up a story item. And they don't let you set items down, so I found myself wasting Health Drinks that I just picked up just so I could carry around a new puzzle/story item I found.

SH4 to me, is an example of an overly-ambitious high-concept game, where they fell through on the actual game component. I think SH4 came too hot-on-the-heels of SH3, and they could have used another 6 months or so to flesh out the puzzles and combat.