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...so it began. A beautiful lakeside town, a young girl, her
mother, a doctor and a lonely trucker with a troubled past.
In this prequel the mysterious past of Silent Hill is unveiled
as you confront unspeakable horrors and personal demons. See
the darkness descend...
Silent
Hill: Origins tells the tale of a solitary truck driver,
Travis Grady, who gets stuck in the terrifying town of Silent
Hill while making a routine delivery. He quickly discovers
the locals aren't quite normal, and neither is the town. To
complicate matters, Grady is confronted by crippling memories
from his troubled past. He must escape from Silent Hill while
resolving the memories that have plagued him since childhood.
If
you've ever wondered just how the town of Silent Hill became
the eerie mess that has been seen over four previous Silent
Hill games, then this new PSP title will reveal all, as
this game is a prequel to the events that have gone before.
Origins
captures all the creepiness of the original Playstation game.
For best results, you are advised to play this in a darkened
room while wearing headphones. Yes, it may sound corny, but
the truth is that there are a lot of noises that you can hear
on the headphones that you won't really pick up as well through
the PSP's speakers. Stick your headphones on, turn up the
volume and you'll hear your heart beat loud and clear - which
also helps to tip you off if your health is running low. The
atmospheric sounds are incredibly haunting - and if you don't
soil yourself when you meet your first beastie then you really
have become desensitised to horror games and should probably
seek medical help. Actually, if you really do soil yourself
you should probably seek medical help too.
And
while we're on the subject of creating the right atmosphere...
no Silent Hill game would be complete without Akira
Yamoka's haunting score. So, it was a relief to discover that
for this game he's pulled out all the stops to produce some
of the best music yet for the franchise.
Basically,
like the other games in the franchise, you are constantly
moving between two realities. You can switch between both
realities by simply finding a mirror and crossing over to
the other side. This allows you to access areas and objects
not available in the other reality, and it's a simple case
of moving between the two as you explore your environments
in a bid to find out what on earth is going on.
The
game gives up its secrets at just the right pace - it's not
too hard as to be frustrating, but equally it's not so easy
that you can play through in an afternoon. And herein lies
the first minor problem with this game. While the save points
are well placed, the fact that you have to do a lot of flipping
between reality(?) and the mirror world means that if you
put this game down for a few days and then come back to it
it's not overly easy to remember where you were up to and
what you were in the middle of doing. While the map can help
in this aspect, it's still a game that it's best to be engrossed
in for long periods at a time.
One
of the aspects I found to be a bit of a pain was down to the
camera (yes, that old chestnut raises its ugly head once again).
In some instances, where you move from one camera to another,
it's easy to become a little disoriented. To ease confusion
(I assume) the developers have configured the controls so
that if, for example, you are travelling left in one camera
angle and the next angle you appear to be moving in the opposite
direction then even though you are still pressing left you
will move right on screen. Unfortunately this doesn't actually
work in practise. As soon as you see the new camera angle
you are more likely instinctively to change the direction
button to ensure that you are heading in the way you want
to go. Unfortunately this means that you'll just go back the
way you came. This can be most annoying especially when you
are trying to escape from a monster.
You
can now lock onto different enemies, which is very helpful
if you are being attacked by more than one creature. And if
you are a little slow you can find yourself with a beastie
wrapped around you. If this happens you simply have to follow
the on screen instructions to get the little beastie off you.
This usually involves repeatedly tapping a certain button.
As
you examine your environment you'll unearth weapons, ammunition
and bits of useful information that will help you work out
why the streets and buildings in Silent Hill are home to a
bunch of deformed creatures. The weapons should be used sparingly.
There's not a whole lot of ammunitions available for the guns,
and if you overuse other weapons they can easily break, or
get stuck in a creature you're attacking.
Silent
Hill: Origins is one of the best games I've played on
the PSP. It's got a great story, fantastic graphics and is
as creepy as you can get. Fans of the previous games will
lap this up. This is one of the latest game I've played that
I'd recommend everyone should own.
Nick
Smithson
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