semu: Thanks. I was sort of afraid of that. You better get the earlier installments to your catalog then so I can get to playing >.<
visserzer0: The references to other games (mostly just SH2) are just subtle nods for the most part. SH4 is very detached from the rest of the series and it's not at all necessary to play the previous entries to understand this game. I would say go for it.
You're right that it is not necessary to play the previous games. Playing Silent Hill 4 made me interested even more in looking into connections between characters (even if they were not necessarily present in the previous games and only mentioned for example in a newspaper article). I would love to mention some examples, but I will not do that in case I spoil anything important :D
watvin: Hey!
Personally, I've found plenty of references to the previous Silent Hill games! Even the characters mentioned in the game also appear somewhat in for example Silent Hill 2.
semu: Thanks. I was sort of afraid of that. You better get the earlier installments to your catalog then so I can get to playing >.<
If you're afraid of playing Silent Hill 4 because it could spoil some major events from the previous games, don't worry, that's not the case. It is still a unique experience. At the beginning, I didn't even notice some of the references and to be honest, you can understand the plot without knowing the stories from the previous games.