Silent Hill Origins review (PSP)

I was forming preemptive conclusions of Origin's shortcomings before I'd even obtained the game, and in spite of that being a somewhat counter-intuitive act when my sole purpose as a reviewer is to remain impartial, it was hard to refrain from premature judgement when the critically acclaimed scare 'em up franchise was to condense on to the portable platform.

I'm used to playing Silent Hill games on big TVs with the lights out and some S-Club 7 on standby just in case the shadows in my peripheral vision start playing tricks – it was all very methodical. And I liked it that way. It was an event; something for which I prepared myself... Something that needed preparation.

Because, let's face it, the Silent Hill games are rarely surpassed in terms of crap-the-bed intensity – one of the main reasons for the games' success and consequent following. However, I had come to expect, throughout the many years of seemingly endless locked doors and ludicrously breakable weapons, that a game's root fear-factor is grounded in its scale. Like, would Godzilla really be scary if he could fit in your pocket? He'd be a Crocodile's bastard child! Nonetheless, SHO – while touching a few nerves along the way – delivers a surprisingly apt horror experience for the portable generation.

Misplaced Priorities

The story nestles snuggly behind the entire SH series, giving one Travis Grady the opportunity to embark on a dumbfounded exploration of the ominous Silent Hill in a bid to find a little girl he almost ran over on his travels as a truck driver. Hardly a worthwhile reason to battle less-than-subtly-placed and wholly disturbing spawns of hell by throwing typewriters and portable TVs at them – especially when the little girl was Little Sister-esque creepy in the first place, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Of course, much in the vain of SH, Origins' overall goal is seldom addressed, replaced with a multitude of side tasks dictated by random pieces of paper spliced about the place. It's a functional method, and it's surprisingly relieving to find each literary step considering most expeditions involve mashing X on anything and everything hoping it'll yield some fruitful release – but such is the SH we've come to love.

Silent Kill... Hardly

To further maintain the SH reputation, Origins' combat is as cumbersome and frustrating as ever. Naturally, as has always been the case with SH, you're more than entitled to run away from your problems as long as you're comfortable traversing a door, complete with the classic mini load, and exiting with a face full of zombie – it's a treat for all senses.

Only later parts of the game where Travis gets his hands on the usual handgun, shotgun etc, do such occurrences become less taxing since there's no concern of a miscalculation in depth perception leaving you open to a zombie onslaught. Oddly, it's more tempting to avoid enemies with the firearms since you know you're only two buttons – RT + X – away from an auto-aimed discharge, and to further sweeten the deal, it's best to preserve what little ammunition you have anyway.

Keep it together

As we all know, though, SH has always been more about the act of investigation, and Origins consistently delivers on this aspect: Although the puzzles and cryptic clues span a range of difficulties, the sense of Silent Hill's two worlds – interchangeable by any in-game mirror – inspires a great sense of desolate and rather putrid history. Constantly changing between each 'world' can become somewhat laborious, but it is necessary to obtain certain objects from one for application in the other, not to mention the infrastructural mutations that occur between the two are a marvel to behold. It's an ostensibly barren landscape, and the game serves to conjure that fact in a very respectable way, something for which Climax should pat themselves on the back.

This kind of atmosphere lays a very firm groundwork for the horror to flourish, and for a portable game it still possesses the hair erection skill for which SH is known. I'll admit to tingling a little on the train up to London, and I'm fairly certain it wasn't due to the Kristin Kreuk lookalike adjacent from me; that was responsible for an entirely different bodily reaction.

Silent Hill... Hardly

Appearances aside, though, the true atmosphere behind all SH games is their jagged sound tracks and effects, and Origins successfully keeps in check with its older brothers. While the Game Over screen reminds you of your defeat with a nails-down-the-chalkboard style screech, the rest of the game's sound rarely falls below excellent as each word, scream, groan and even door opening create such spine chilling ambience, I'm biting my nails just writing about it.

Origins is everything Silent Hill, and to some extent that's a sickening fact. Every element of the game screams the names of its predecessors, and for that reason alone it is appealing to the hardcore fans of the series because it's just so God-damn recognisable. Is another rehash of seen-before level design, puzzles, enemies and narrative elements what we really want, though? Well, yes and no. The game works well because it doesn't stray from the known formula, but at the same time it leaves you with a strange sense of having done it before.