Maybe now that Silent Hill 4’s PC release is getting some cut hauntings you’ll admit it’s quite good, actually
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I love Silent Hill 4: The Room. It was actually the first game I played in the series, and when I did I wasn’t aware that it wasn’t universally loved or even liked at its release. Not that knowing other people’s opinions would have changed my mind about it, I’m the kind of person that will ardently defend a 6/10, but still, I think there’s a lot to love about it… unless you played the game on PC. For a long time, it was missing a few things that were featured in the PS2 version of the game, but GOG’s Preservation Program is adding them back in.
For those of you that never got to Silent Hill 4, the thing that sort of sets it apart from the other games in the series was that you had a sort of hub area, your apartment, where you could go back to intermittently to save and rest for a moment. It’s meant to be a safe zone of sorts, but after a while hauntings start happening, unsettling events like windows getting rattled, finding a dead cat in your fridge, or your kitchen faucet pouring out blood. It was a great way of keeping you on your toes, even in a supposed safe area, except a handful of them were missing from the PC version, despite being present in the code.
GOG essentially just switched them back on, but I’m sure I’m being very reductive about something that was probably a good bit of hard work. On top of bringing these hauntings back, the PC version on GOG will work better on modern hardware, and there’s even modern controller support, meaning you can bust out your DualSense (and more) if that’s your weapon of choice.
I know everyone’s been buzzing about Silent Hill f recently, and last year brought us Bloober’s remake of 2, but I really do think you should give 4 a go. The second half is sort of one long escort mission for a character Eileen, though she’s honestly a really likeable companion character – I often think about a line of hers where she says “Considering the circumstances, I guess we’re doing pretty good, huh” that just feels so human in a way you don’t see very often. Get on it, especially considering it’s only a fiver right now.