...::: Silent Hill Heaven v2.1~php :::...

..::Jan 12th 2004

Make it stop - Konami's latest attempt to out-weird David Lynch is mesmerisingly revolting.

Last Friday Konami dished out the first screens from its latest psychological horror title, Silent Hill 4. Since then we've seen the title in action albeit only in trailer form.

As has already been established, you take the role of a Henry Townshend, a fellow who finds himself trapped within his apartment. As a scenario for a sickening gorefest of mind-bending proportions that may not sound hugely promising, but the footage we saw on Friday was ickier than a Robert Kilroy-Silk newspaper article.

Hideously misshapen creatures are nothing new in the Silent Hill universe of course, but even we were taken aback by the two-headed quadrupeds stalking the screen. Aside from that memorable image, the chained up apartment and the washed out grimy visuals looked recognisably Silent Hill-esque, if even more impressive (in a twisted kind of way) than before.

As previously reported the game will feature other locations, with Henry's apartment acting as a kind of portal to other environments. As was suggested months ago, the central gameplay mechanics appear to have been given an extensive overhaul, with some areas of the game featuring a first-person view, though the more traditional third-person view appears to be more prominent.

You'll also be able to select items and weaponry without having to enter an inventory screen, which would suggest a less fiddly, more action-focused approach to this latest title.

As soon as we have the footage we'll stick it in our downloads section; for now, we've got some new artwork and some better quality versions of the screens that were released on Friday for you to view. Silent Hill 4 is released on PS2 and Xbox "in the next fiscal year", according to Konami, and yep, it really does look fantastic. Let's hope the gameplay's up to scratch.

Steve Colton - C&VG.com