Silent Hill: Origins

"Smaller Scares for a Smaller System"

The original Silent Hill for the Playstation remains one of the classics of the survival horror genre and the franchise remains amongst the top series for instilling fear, anxiety, and unexpected bladder attacks in gamers everywhere. However, after numerous sequels, several books, a movie, action figures, collectible plates, and the official Silent Hill energy drink (appropriately titled “OH GOD DRINK ME QUICK SO THAT MONSTER DOESN'T CLEAVE YOU IN HALF!”), the innovation in the series has started to slow, and the formula that established the series as a mainstay is beginning to stale. Thus, with the spin-offs reaching the saturation point of absurdity, the developers have decided to take the series back to its starting point, and the release of Silent Hill: Origins looks to bring the title back to basics and (hopefully) reinvigorate the fanbase. The game serves as an origin story for the town of Silent Hill and the game sets out to resolve some unresolved questions plaguing the series. Unfortunately, there are numerous issues that end up marring the experience, ranging from questionable mechanics to poor implementation of ideas. However, if you can ignore these issues, there is actually a fairly good experience to be had, and at least fans of the series should find SH:O enjoyable.

Like most of these types of stories, the game opens up on a dark, empty road late at night. Trucker Travis Grady is making a delivery, and lets one of his fellow truckers know of his intended route. Apparently, the shortcut through the abandoned mineshaft that empties out into the derelict graveyard adjacent to the condemned circus was closed off, and instead Travis cuts through Silent Hill to make his delivery. Or tries to, anyway. Some mysterious shadowy figure darts out in front of his truck, and after Travis exits to investigate, an even more mysterious ghost girl appears in his mirror, surrounded by fog and slowly advancing towards him. Instead of getting back in his truck, smashing his windows, and avoiding that side of the state for the remainder of his life, he instead decides this situation could use a little more investigation, and with Scooby and the gang MIA, the task falls to him. He advances to the entrance of the town on foot, only to find a building in flames and a burned body upstairs, arranged in some sort of altar. Better yet, the body speaks to him through what appears to be telepathy, warning him to leave it alone. Still not convinced that running out of town, screaming and peeing everywhere is in order (which I would have done after the girl started haunting my mirrors, but that's just me), he attempts to save the body before the smoke overtakes him and he collapses after exiting the house with the body, the sounds of sirens blaring through the air. When he finally comes to, he awakens in Silent Hill. Great going, doofus. Welcome to your nightmare.

The story ends up being pretty much what you'd expect from a Silent Hill game, and the plot plods through familiar territory for fans of the series. While it is billed as a lead in story to the events in the original Silent Hill, it really doesn't address much that isn't already covered and a lot of the story just recycles plot points or concepts employed in the first couple Silent Hill titles. While the game does address some issues brought up earlier in the series, SH:O fails to provide any sort of definitive explanation to the history of the town. A couple of plot points actually end up muddling the narrative developed in earlier titles, and the game causes as many mysteries as it resolves. The narrative also fails to draw you in as well as some of the past titles, and while the story is interesting it never becomes anything great. The game vacillates between making supposed revelations far too obvious, dampening their effect and intensity, and not explaining plot points to the point where they make much sense. Travis' presence in Silent Hill also comes off as somewhat weird and incongruous to the tone the game is trying to set. While the town is crawling with all sorts of demons and deformed monstrosities, Travis never seems that surprised or terrified by it. Some sort of reaction would have been nice, but Travis acts as if he is exploring a playground instead of a monster infested the town and his greatest reaction to these creatures never extends much beyond mild inconvenience. It becomes kind of hard to be frightened while Travis is so nonchalant about the experience. In fact, Travis' whole presence in the town is never really established, and he ends up having some very weak motivations to keep on plodding through Silent Hill. The whole story just is not set up very well, and while the story gets more interesting as the game progresses, some of these issues are never addressed.

Exploring Travis' past ends up being the most interesting aspect of the story, and while it is a bit predictable, his story segments are nicely integrated into the game. The story ends up being told through a mixture of cutscenes and notes scattered throughout the town that you can pick up and read. The notes do a nice job elaborating on the story and provided some additional suspense to the title, but the cutscenes tend to be a little sketchy. Some are nicely done, while others don't fit into the game very well. The primary problem is the title is so focused on Travis, and the origins story seems almost like an afterthought. So when characters from previous Silent Hill titles appear, they really aren't developed very well or do anything particularly interesting or noteworthy. People who are just being introduced to the title are not likely to understand everything that's going or develop any sort of attachment to these characters because of how weakly they were implemented. While veterans of the series might be more appreciative of these cameos, they are also likely to be somewhat apathetic towards these appearances because they don't really do or say anything that we didn't already know. There just isn't very much to the origins story, and a little more elaboration on the origin of Silent Hill would have gone a long way to making the story more interesting. Without it, the game is forced to rely primarily on unraveling Travis' past, and while it does a fairly good job of drawing the player in, there isn't very much content to it and the game doesn't do a great job in telling it.

While the story might be a little lacking, the game does have a nice atmosphere which in turn contributes to the mood of the title and is likely to amplify the scares in the game. The music and sound in SH:O are top notch, and both do a nice job developing tension and contributing intensity during your stay in Silent Hill. The music stops in all of the right parts, and when it does play it carries a very ominous tone, letting you know something around the corner is almost certainly going to eat you (or nibble at you, at the very least). The voice acting is still pretty bad, but it is a huge improvement from the typically robotic and awful performances found in a Silent Hill game.

Like the sound, the visuals in the game to a great job contributing to the atmosphere. The enemies are nicely detailed and thoroughly demented looking, and even though some are rehashed from previous titles, they are nicely integrated into the levels. Demonic nurses populate the hospital (complete with low-cut, come hither so I can skewer you with my scalpel outfits) and possessed mannequins will attack you in the theatre. Like the enemies, the environments are all nicely detailed and helps contribute to the overall atmosphere in the game. The levels are all nicely designed, and places like a theatre and hotel come off even creepier than most small town theatres and hotels (a true feat!). Levels are unlocked slowly by solving puzzles and locating keys, and the overall layout of all the levels is very nicely done. A map of each locations is always conveniently located near the entrance even in locations that don't typically need maps, like theatres (the populations of Silent Hill must have a terrible sense of direction). While some of the levels are somewhat on the small side, this is partly remedied that each level is actually only half of what you end up exploring, as a series of events lead Travis to enter the mirrors in Silent Hill and transverse a bloody, rusty, awful mirror world. Getting to the end of the level means transporting through both of these worlds, as a path might be blocked in one version but clear in the other. This is a standby to past Silent Hill titles, but is once again used effectively, making for some memorable levels in SH:O.

The graphics in SH:O are great for a PSP title, and the couple of cutscenes featured in the game look on par with most PS2 titles. Even the in game graphics are nice, and the only problem with most of the title is the game is just too dark. This brightness can be adjusted, and the problem is almost completely remedied by playing in a dark room, so this ends up not being a huge concern. This game is nearly impossible to play outside during the day time though, although perhaps it was intentionally designed that way.

Gameplay in SH:O mixes some of the mechanics from previous Silent Hill games, and also introduces some new concepts to reinvigorate the gameplay. Unfortunately, Travis can either move or prepare for combat, but for some reason he can't do both at the same time. When enemies appear, you must enter the combat stance to draw your weapon and you cannot move once your weapon is raised (apparently the weapons are really dense and heavy in Silent Hill). While this does heighten the intensity of battles (you have to wait for enemies to approach you to attack them), this is an outdated mechanic that makes the combat feel somewhat clunky. A frustrating camera that often makes observing your enemies impossible until they are right on top of you makes the combat even more frustrating. While the enemies themselves typically aren't that difficult, the camera proves to be a much more formidable adversary and likes to trap Travis off in the corner or switch at a bad time and cause you to return to a previous screen. Thus, the combat mechanics just aren't implemented very well and enemies are often better off avoided.

Ignoring the evil camera and dated battle mechanics, the rest of SH:O plays fairly well. There are numerous puzzles spread throughout the town that must be solved in order to proceed, and most of them provide enough of a challenge without being overly complex. There are a couple of really clever ones (there is a pill puzzle in the Sanitarium that might take a couple of minutes to solve the first time through) and searching Silent Hill for clues to solve its numerous puzzles proves to be far more entertaining than the clunky encounters with enemies. Unfortunately, the puzzles are a little too thinly spread throughout the game, and the inclusion of a few more would have helped. And, if you can ignore the initial impressions caused by the awkward battle mechanics, most of the combat in the game is at least bearable. While some enemies have attacks that are unblockable (especially not fun when one of these jerks is camping outside of a door for you), most of them have attacks that can be avoided if some button presses are timed correctly. Either by pressing a couple of buttons in the order indicated on the screen or mashing one repeatedly, you can avoid the attacks and then counter (or run like a coward) at your leisure. These help keep you on your toes and the added variety is nice, but all of these moves are so easy to escape from that it makes the battles even easier. There are a variety of weapons to pick up, varying from drip stands to hammers to katanas (the local theater must have been putting on a kabuki play). While these break, there are plenty scattered around town, and if you happen to run out of weapons you can always trust your fists to do the talking for you. Ammo is scattered throughout town, and tends to be a little on the excessive side. It is somewhat hard to be scared when you are packing an AK47 with ammunition overflowing your pouch. Overall, while the gameplay is not necessarily good, it is entertaining enough to keep you playing and the puzzles do enough to keep the experience fresh.

While the creatures lurking in Silent Hill are nicely rendered, they don't provide much of a challenge. By turning off your flashlight, you are almost invisible to the monsters wandering the halls and streets of Silent Hill, and unless you bump into them, turn your flashlight back on, or loudly insult their mother, the battles are essentially avoidable. Even when the monsters do spot you (which is common outside of the buildings), Travis has the speed to outrun even the most nimble of the hellspawn. While he does tire eventually, simply walking away tends to be enough of a pace to escape most enemies. Boss battles tend to be a bit more intense, but all of these are straightforward enough that unless you mess up, you never are in any real danger of getting a game over. Even your encounters with the Butcher, a character the game spends a lot of time hyping up, ends up being a huge disappointment. The strategy of running around and shooting when at a safe distance is a strategy that will take down even the final boss, and it would have been nice if they provided at least a little extra challenge. A couple of the bosses end up being used as generic enemies later in the game, which seems to be a failure of creativity.

Most distressing is the brevity of the quest, and on your first time through you can guide Travis out of Silent Hill within five hours, and that is only if you are thorough. The game does come with an excellent supply of extra features, including unlockable accolades and multiple endings (three in total for those that have to collect them all). Unfortunately, after you have figured out all of the puzzles the first time through, repeated playthroughs are somewhat brainless. The accolades do provide extra incentive to play back through the game, and some of the more fun ones include never using a save point throughout the game or completing a speed run in under two hours. These provide extra costumes and weapons to play through the game again with, as well as providing bragging rights for being so thoroughly awesome at SH:O. While these might not seem to add that much to the replay value, there is something about running through town in a dog suit that makes a third playthrough totally worth it.

SH:O is a game that comes close to being really good, but suffers from too many shortcomings to be classified as a must own for the PSP. The sound and visuals are very well done by PSP standards and contribute to an impressive atmosphere for the game. Additionally, SH:O provides some of the best unlockables of the series. Unfortunately, the developers should have spent as much time on the normal content as they did the additional content. The story and gameplay are both only average, and while this is one of the best looking and sounding games for the PSP, it just isn't as fun to play as some past Silent Hill titles. Fans of the series and of survival horror games in general should find lots to like here though, and with a few improvements this could have been one of the best titles out for the PSP. Hopefully, next time some unsuspecting chump decides to cut through Silent Hill, the town can provide a few more scares.

Highway (THE GOOD):
+Great atmosphere for a horror game
+Very nice graphics; hard to differentiate from some PS2 games
+Nice music and sound that really complement the mood
+Some puzzles are nicely implemented into the gameplay
+ Fantastic extra content; multiple endings and accolades will result with multiple playthroughs
+Levels are well designed and the fairly memorable

Detour (THE BAD):
-Far too short; can be completed within five hours on the first playthough
-Bad camera can become very frustrating at times
-Shooting mechanics are slightly somewhat archaic and a little choppy at times
-Story is not as innovative or as immersive as previous titles in the series
-Not much of a challenge; boss fights are straight forward and enemies are simple to defeat

Dead End (THE UGLY): The two-back enemies populating the motel. They are comprised of what looks like two bodies having….er…well….let's say relations. So sorry to interrupt. Don't mind me. No need to stand up and vomit towards me. I'll just collect this huge pile of ammo and let you two get back to what you were doing.

THE VERDICT: 6.00/10.00

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/13/09, Updated 06/29/09

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