'Silent Hill 4: The Room' travels through two separate worlds

The game alternates between real and nightmarish worlds.
By JOHN BREEDEN II
SPECIAL TO WASHINGTON POST
The computer game "Silent Hill 4: The Room" starts when you wake up in your comfy little efficiency apartment and realize that, with the door chained shut and the windows sealed, your only exit is through a portal leading to various horrific worlds filled with malevolent zombies, blood-sucking insects and murder victims. As in earlier Silent Hill games, you explore these odd worlds in third-person mode but can also retreat to your apartment to heal and re-arm (your weapons include golf clubs and guns); there, the game switches to first-person perspective.
Interaction
The interaction between real and nightmarish worlds is thoroughly creepy. While imprisoned in your apartment, you can watch things going on outside, even if you can't do anything about them. The things that happen in the alternative reality below seem to have effects on the real one -- after a girl is murdered in the underworld's subway, you see police cars and firetrucks swarming outside your apartment. In the course of all this, you slowly learn that your entrapment in your apartment is due to a series of grisly murders that occurred years ago. Exploring the nightmare world to find out how it and reality are connected might be your only chance of escape.
Like other Silent Hill games, this one is a nightmarish sight, filled with unlit subway stations, abandoned orphanages, haunted hotels, dark forests and other locales infested with lurking enemies. Fans of blood and gore and things that go bump in the night won't be disappointed.
X"Silent Hill 4: The Room" by Konami Digital Entertainment-America, is for Windows 98 or newer, PlayStation2 and Xbox.