Silent Hill: Origins

"Silent Hill, creepy and evil as ever and no different in a handheld form."

When I first though of this game in handheld form, I thought it would be just okay and wouldn't truly feel like a Silent Hill game. Boy, am I glad I was proven wrong as this is just like the other Silent Hill games, in a good way.

Gameplay:
You'll be spending most of your time running around Silent Hill or running around one of Silent Hill's "main attractions" so to speak. It's quite linear how you'll be told where to go next in the city, but not so linear on where to go once you're inside one of the buildings. Lucky for you, there is a map for each area where your character will jot down notes on which areas are blocked off or just simply locked with a key you need to find somewhere.

Pretty much as "staples" of the series, you'll have at all times your handy flashlight and handy radio. The flashlight of course, will light up your path but also attract unwanted attention from monsters. While the radio is in a sense a radar which will emit loud static whenever a monster is creeping up close to you. These are pretty much your basic tools to get around and should not be ignored too much.

And of course to be always found are the alternate dimensions of each building. A "hellish" version if you will where you get to see the trademark creepy building with the just as creepy monsters. But in general in each building you practically will be doing the same old, fetch this key to unlock this door or find the information to solve this weird puzzle. While it may not sound much, the creepy-ness of Silent Hill will get to you in each building possibly making it a heart thumping experience in each level. My biggest complaint here is that some of the buildings just seem to take forever to finish at times, especially with having to explore two different versions.

A big problem for some gamers might be your health. There seems to be not enough of health items to pickup in each area if you are the kind of person that likes to fight every monster or just has trouble running past monsters. It's as if the game was designed to give you a lot of weapons but at the same time not really fight any monsters except for the boss in each level. It might take some getting used to for new gamers or poor players, at least.

At least, there is a new added feature to the game where some enemies will grab onto you when they get close to attack you, in which you'll simply have to press a button sequence to avoid taking any damage. At least this way new gamers can get a little slack instead of being pummeled every time they get a little too close.

Sound:
Sound is important for the horror genre because after all, if you couldn't hear all those sick moans and screams this wouldn't be so scary for the most part. The game recommends you use headphones, but it's just as scary to play it without, in the dark alone of course. The sound really is great and fitting, capable of tensing you up with the ambient noises of things that may or may not be around the next corner. It does a great job of keeping you in the mood, whether you like it or not.

Controls:
As always Silent Hill features the "tank" controls where the most popular example would probably be Resident Evil. But what makes this different than all the other games is that it is like Silent Hill 4, where the combat is mostly melee based. And on top of that your melee weapons will break after a number of uses so you'll need to explore a little bit unless you like not being able to defend yourself.

Later you do get access to guns and surprisingly, a lot of ammo too. And to make things even more easier, you get a handy lock on feature which helps in basic combat and alerts you to any nearby monsters too.

Replay Value:
This game by itself is somewhat short. You probably could finish this in a day or two if you played it long enough but even so it's still quite worth it.

For some replay value, they decided to put in challenges that you can accomplished by how you decide to play the game. For example, there is a challenge for not using your flashlight often or killing most monsters with melee weapons. Completing any of these challenges will unlock special costumes to wear in a new game or unlock a special weapon to use in your new game.

Overall:
I say get this if you like the survival/action horror games. It's not the best in the series but it's good enough. And seeing as it's a prequel to the first game, new gamers and veterans of the series will find something to appreciate in here, even if the character development is somewhat lacking.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/07/07

Game Release: Silent Hill: Origins (US, 11/06/07)