SILENT
HILL: ORIGINS
Published by:
Konami
Developed by:
Climax
Available on: PSP – PS2
INTRODUCTION:
Note: Although this game came out a few months ago, it has just been
ported to the PS2 and from what I hear, it’s almost a direct port. So if you dig
the PSP version, get out there and get your hands on the brand spankin’ new PS2
version!
Let’s dive right in here.
Silent
Hill-
a series of videogames that has been fairly popular since the days of the PS1,
with several entries into the series that range from awful to fantastic. The
series even spawned a film a few years back, which was effects-heavy, but mostly
terrible. With that said, I’ve always been a fan of the series. I like survival
horror games and Silent Hill has produced some of the scariest and most surreal
horror experiences you’ll ever find on a video game console.
And this brings us to Origins (a prequel attempt), where you play as
Travis Grady, another unfortunate soul stuck in Silent Hill. You’re forced to
solve riddles and kill monsters- so it’s not much different from any other
Silent Hill game! As far as the prequel stuff, the plot ties are sort of weak
and the story is pretty thin, which sort of hurts the game overall.
GAMEPLAY:
Play is pretty easy, with well-adapted controls. You use the shoulder
buttons to observe and enter combat stances, and your face buttons are your
contextual buttons (running, etc). For some strange reason, you get a lot of
weapons in this game. Weapons break after awhile, but you’ll always find another
one nearby. Why not just have one weapon that lasts a bit longer? The camera has
been updated, and thank God for that because this over the shoulder view is
tremendously efficient in comparison to past games. It’s not perfect, but it
definitely works.
IF you’ve played a SH game before, then you know what to expect. Lots of
enemies and lots of puzzles, like unlocking doors and rearranging things. New
this time around is a strange way of getting around- teleporting between places
through mirrors(?). It’s really just a shortcut through levels and while it
helps, it wasn’t present in any other game and doesn’t feel integral to this
one. This game takes what worked in prior installments and scraps what didn’t
work, which is really all you can ask for, right?
Gameplay: 8/10
GRAPHICS:
The graphics in SH:
Origins are fantastic, among the best I’ve seen on the PSP, which bodes fairly
well for those adopting it on the PS2. Enemies looks fantastic, with great
texture effects. The town looks detailed as well. Cutscenes are also beautifully
rendered.
Graphics: 8.5/10
AUDIO:
Audio is another great feat here, as the game is scored fantastically by Akira
Yamoka. This is some moody, deep stuff and just couldn’t sound much better. Listen closely as you play to small details you’ll pick up in the atmosphere. IF there’s any complaint, it’s that the voice acting is a little lame, but that’s a relatively small gripe.
Audio: 8.5/10
FINAL VERDICT:
If you have a PSP
and you like survival horror, you’ll love this game. It’s tense, atmospheric,
scary and well made. No matter how bad the gameplay has been in past iterations
of the series, one thing stands above all else: this game is scary and it’ll
have you jumping if you play alone with headphones late at night. And at the end
of the day, all we want is to have the f*ck scared out of us, am I right?
Final Score:
8.5/10