Silent Hill Origins PSP Review

Horror games have come a long way since the days of Alone in the Dark. They've stumbled here and there, but on consoles they've thrived into a widely successful sub-genre spawning tons of copycats and innovaters. On handhelds, horror games have never been able to take off. I've pretty much placed the blame squarely on the technological limitations of the portable format up until now. The Resident Evil Gaiden game for the GBC, for example, could barely even be considered a horror game... unless horror here is defined by your terror at the awful gameplay. Nonetheless, I've always had a theory that handhelds might in fact be one of the best mediums for horror games. That it was untapped made this theory sort of hard to prove. Thankfully that has ended.

Silent Hill Origins wastes no time returning you to the town that gives the game its namesake. The fog-ridden vistas are here no less spooky then they have been in the series best, and Climax UK does a phenomenal job capturing this ghost world in all its dense, dilapidated glory. As the story goes, you're Travis Grady, an truck driver whose work takes him a little too close to Silent Hill for his own good. As he passes through, he sees a person dash across the road causing him to stop and begin his journey through this wicked place. From there, you get the typical Silent Hill storyline only this time with a bonus for fans of the franchise: it helps to explain how it all started. As you're steadily introduced to the frightening inhabitants of the small town, you'll also learn of their plights some of which can be pretty tragic in their own right. All of this keeps you compelled to move forward, since mystery is another element that fits the horror genre extremely well.

Melee Weapons are scattered every where, and they range from televisions to hammers. The problem is, all of these break in relatively short order. There is a fantastic argument to be made for and against the merits of this system, but it's really hard to know exactly where to stand. On the one hand, it can get frustrating mid battle to have your weapon break, and that it happens so frequently can leave you perilously shorthanded and feel cheap as enemies are constantly respawning and your wepaons don't. On the other, there's no denying exactly how much this ratchets up the tension in the tight situations. Still, you'll get some ranged weapons which make things a bit easier and your fists work pretty well most of the time, all things considered. The addition of QTE (Quick Time Events) on enemies mixes things up as well, but ultimately it's a rather pointless addition that just forces you to waste time watching canned animations.

While the game is short, it never feels like you've wasted your money... the world is packed with little details to find, and there are also multiple endings which encourage replays. The graphics are among the very best on the PSP, hands down, and deserves commendation for taking the hardware as seriously as it should be. Not only that, the music and ambience is generally extremely well done, perfectly capturing the mood of any given moment and giving you the jitters where appropriate. One can only hope that this (and the DS' Dementium) is the start of a rush of quality handheld horror games that will take great advantage of the format to deliver new thrills. Silent Hill Origins certainly proves it's worth it.