Silent Hill: Origins

"It's Silent Hill, but with some minor issues."

Well, it seems that the game made for the portable Sony device was "ported" over to the PS2, so fans of the game didn't have to suffer. But as many fans of the series might know, this game was not done by Konami's Team Silent team. It was done by a US team, which might put people on the skeptical line and I'll be semi-writing this review mainly for those people.

Graphics: As most fans know, graphics were never important in a Silent Hill game. It was always about fear really, but I'll give my opinion on the graphics anyway. I think this could be best said as this could be looked at as an early PS2 game. The graphics have been updated from the PSP, and while they aren't the quality of Silent Hill 2 or 3, it still isn't bad.

Gameplay: So I'm sure most people, if they were watching previews, that one thing this new team kept talking about was "we want to make Silent Hill's combat more fun." And apparently they did not think about this too much. Silent Hill Origins combat is almost the same as ever. It's still the same slow combat, just with minor changes to it. These minor changes are only "mash X button when you get grabbed," "push certain button when it pops on screen," and a quick weapon change menu that is sort of Silent Hill 4-ish, but doesn't limit you on items. There is also no difficulty setting this time around. Fans of the previous games who played it on easy, will not get that option this time around. It seems to be set around the difficulty of normal and hard.

Gameplay Negativity: So we already know that Silent Hill's gameplay has been slightly altered, and as most people should assume, this comes not without it's flaws. As I've said before, Silent Hill was never about combat or anything. It's so considered boring combat never bothered me in previous versions. But this time around, it actually does annoy me a bit. One major complaint about the gameplay as a whole, is that this game features quite a bit of bugs to it. Yes that's right, a Silent Hill game with bugs.

The least bug that I noticed is one that I can't understand how they even missed. Namely, if you reload your gun through the menu screen instead of doing it while in combat, for whatever reason, the picture of your selected weapon will change to the weapon next to it. Not a huge issue, but this could be a sign of laziness from the game developers. Or maybe some rushing. Some other major flaws that should of been fixed before it's release, was the fact that sometimes, health items will fail to give you your health back, and since health items are limited in the game, it can really screw you over. The other major bug I've noticed is some times, you cannot finish off your enemies when they fall onto the ground. Allowing them to get back up and continue attacking you, probably making you break your weapon or waste some bullets.

Somehow I will say again, these things have been overlooked. I don't know if they're either the cause of laziness, or last minute pushing, or issues caused by being a port (I can't say if these issues are in the PSP version as I've never played it), but they're there and while it doesn't really downgrade the game a lot, it should of been an issue to be solved.

Sound: Akira Yamaoka is the returning director for the music and sound. I think that's all I need to really say about that.

Story: This is probably one of the bigger wonders of this game. If the story is good or not. The story of this one, is definitely not the best in the series, but it could of used some re-working. By the time you really finish the game, it almost feels as if this is really two games in one. I'll try not to spoil it too much, but I'll say that by the end of the game, you'll feel that maybe Travis (the main character) had some sort of major reason to end up in Silent Hill, but then it was cut off and lost somewhere. In fact, I feel free to say that this game could be considered incomplete.

Fear Factor: As I've said a few times already, Silent Hill was always about fear and story. And this one has some pretty horrific moments in it. While it's not the scariest in the game series, most people should still get freaked out a bit by it. Definitely more than what 4 had to offer.

Overall Opinion: In the end, I think Silent Hill 0rigins, despite all I've said, is still a good attempt at the series. It does feel more like a fan game though. But for only 30 dollars I would say that it is indeed worth the money. Returning fans should enjoy it, but starting ones should look into playing the previous games first.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/10/08

Game Release: Silent Hill: Origins (US, 03/04/08)