Silent Hill Origins

Surprisingly solid entry for a handheld.

Silent Hill Origins is Silent Hill's first romp on a handheld console, and oh does it make me hope it's not its last. It makes the transition well, and despite being pint sized, it still lives up to the rest of the titles in the series.
This time we follow a man named Travis, a trucker with a troubled past (okay, even though I'd gladly make love to silent hill if it was human, that part is getting old), while he romps around silent hill with all manner of blunt objects and projectile weapons. The Story is very solid, living up to it's expectations. Travis' story, while borrowing a bit too much from James in Silent Hill 2, was still shocking and horrific. The only problem i had with the story is, in an effort to tie it into the original, you rescue a child from a burning building her mother apparantly tried to kill her in (wink wink). Travis' only motivation for staying in the town until very late in the game is to discover what happened to the child. Not a huge complaint, but it did bother me when i thought of how quickly I'd say "eff this kid" when being attacked by bleeding puppets walking on their hands.

The biggest change you'll notice is that this time, rather than the game telling you when you have to go to the "other world," you have to make the transition yourself by touching mirrors. While many people complain about this, i think this serves to make the game scarrier. Not only does it add another element to the puzzles, as often you'll have to change something in one world to further your progress in the other, but it actually makes being there more frightening. Previously, you'd go through a door, the walls start bleeding, and you're think "crap... i don't wanna be here!" It makes it alot harder to do when you've got to do it yourself. I know it might sound cheesey, but you'll know what i mean as soon as you sit in front of a mirror knowing that if you press the button you'll go into a deralict world filled with horrid sounds, rusty floors, and the afforementioned inverted bleeding puppets.

They added yet another feature to this game, and if it weren't for this feature, i'd have considered giving the game a 5. Your weapons break. You pick up plenty of melee weapons, but you only get about enough life from each weapon to kill a single monster. This made me drastically alter my playing because I hardly ever use guns on anything other than bosses in these games. In the early game, you're hesitant to kill anything in fear that you'll really need a weapon later, making you run from everything and kind of ruining the feel of the game. It mellows out as the game goes on, and it's not really THAT big of a deal. The only reason it bothers me is because I'm clueless as to how anyone could have thought this would have been a good idea.

Also, for a handheld game, there aren't nearly enough save points.

The audio remains true to the other entries in the series, and while most of the ingame music is nothing extraordinary, I'd be tempted to say that Silent Hill Origins has the best "other world" music in the series. I don't know what it is about this time, but it really really increases the sense of claustrophobic dread that these games are supposed to inspire. Just one thing. Headphones are a MUST.

I wanted to save these gripes for last, and i mentioned them before, but if you stop and think about what's going on in the game, you'll notice some serious silent hill 2 ripoffs. Halfway through the game, you encounter a creature that wears a metal helmet, a buther's apron, and has a huge knife. And it ISN'T silent hill 2's pyramid head. I just wanted to get that out there.

If you have a PSP and even remotely enjoyed a silent hill game before, this is a must play. It feels like a full entry to the series, and is not by any means a watered down version of one of the originals. I can say with full confidence that it deserves the title of Silent Hill more than Silent Hill 4 did.

Just Not Scary

I have been the biggest Silent Hill fan, ever since I playes the first Silent Hill on the PS1, and have been waiting for this portable version to hit the PSP. Unfortunately, when I finally got my hands on it, I was disappointed to find that this was not the Silent Hill I remembered.

For those uneducated, Silent Hill Origin is a prequel staring a truck driver named Travis Grady. He stumbles upon franchise familiars Alessa, Dahlia and the Order, and thus sets off on a quest that unravels the origins (get it) of the whole Silent Hill story. Unfortunately, in trying to craft an original plot for this iteration, the developers added a new feature that all but kills any sort of fear to the game.

One of the hooks of the story is that the evil world (Silent Hill's "Other World") is crossing over through the mirrors. This in turn translates into a new feature where Travis has the ability to travel from the normal world to the other world through mirrors placed around the town. The problem with this is that one of the hallmarks of the franchise was the fact that your character never had control over when he traveled to the other world and back. It was completely random, and felt more like you were traveling in and out of your sanity than moving from two different real worlds.

By splitting the two worlds apart and making access easy, it makes the other world less scary because you can easily escape it. More so, it feels more like all the other world does is arbitrarily extent exploration without adding any real new areas. It really underminds the terror that Silent Hill's hallmark "Other World" has created for itself.

Another lesser strike against the game is the combat mechanics. Back from the dead od past Alone in the Dark games is the ability to fight enemies with your bare hands. It's a cool feature. But also returning from previous SH games is the unlimited inventory that allows you to hold ungodly amounts of stuff on your person. This, combo-ed with the degrading weapons that break after long term use, just makes the game feel even less scary. Degrading weapons is a good way to give a sense that you could be at a loss against your enemies. Unfortunately, you trip over weapons all the time. And since you can hold an unlimited amount of weapons on you, you're never without a weapon. Had they brought back the limited inventory of SH4, it would have made for more tense gameplay, where you are constantly needing to find a weapon. It really doesn't help the already mundane feel of the game.

Though these are big problems with the feel of the game, the overall mechanics are fine. Controls are smooth, gun-play and hand-to-hand combat are solid, and graphic are suitable, although due to the confines of the hardware, the graphics have a flat look compared to the later SH games on the PS2. This looks alot like a High-res version of the original SH. Audi-wise, the game is top-notch, especially the random break of story dialogue during gameplay.So all-in-all, it;s a competent game that just isn;t as scary as the likes of SH2 or even SH4.