Review: Silent Hill Origins

Silent Hill Origins promised to reveal the events that led up to the small town of Silent Hill becoming what we know it to be but the only problem was that very little that we didn't already know was revealed.

The main playable character in the game, Travis Grady, a trucker who seems to have a bit of a troubled past causing him all sorts of nightmares but the real nightmare is just about to begin for him when he sees a figure run in front of his truck. He decides to investigate when he finds a house that's on fire when he realizes someone is inside and instantly rushes in to save them. He finds a half dead girl inside which he brings to safety before collapsing himself and when he wakes he's right in the middle of the fog covered town of Silent Hill.

The town of Silent Hill should be familiar to those who've played any of the previous games, other then Silent Hill 4 that is. One problem I see with this game is the fact that it's meant to show us how the town got the way it is but wait a second the town is already pretty fucked up by the time you get there and other then Travis there are very few people in the town other then the usual monsters. There are four other characters of interest that you meet in the town which among them is a nurse, a mysterious doctor, of course the familiar little girl Alessa, and Alessa's mother who should also be familiar to those who've played the original. Other then these four characters a few cult members appear near the end of the game however other then them it would seem that the entire town is completely deserted.

Moving right along the graphics are on par with the Playstation and Playstation 2 games which is impressive especially for this game being on a portable system. The voice acting could be better although it is once again on par with the previous games of the series. The music on the other hand is on a completely different level from the previous games. The music is especially good if you do as the game suggests and play through with a set of headphones on. The same goes for the sound effects throughout the game and although they're not much different from previous games, listening to them through a pair of headphones makes them even more realistic adding to the feeling of the game.

The controls in the game stay very similar to the previous games except for the game becoming much more of a button masher then the last. There are slightly different weapons from just random objects like toasters, portable televisions, and all sorts of other objects that you would never have thought could be weapons. The other two groups of weapons are the ones you've seen before including melee weapons like pipes and wooden planks and the other of course being a wide array of guns which seem to be the most useful this time around even though through the other series the guns were usually only a last resort as ammo was quite rare. The final method of combat is something else that is a bit new as well giving you the ability to fight with nothing but your bare hands which seems to prove that Travis is even more of a bad ass then any of the other main characters in the previous games. One problem with the combat system that makes the game a bit more difficult is the fact that after a series of attacks there will be about a two second period before you can attack again giving any monsters you're fighting the opportunity to get their own series of attacks in on you. Another new feature are the series of button combination sequences whenever certain types of monsters use a specialty attack on Travis during this point you will have to press a series of buttons in order to escape, sound familiar, yeah that's right Resident Evil 4 was based around this exact same basis, the only difference was that Resident Evil actually did it right and from the looks of things these challenges really had no point in Silent Hill Origins and if anything they were only an attempt to make the game similar to Resident Evil 4.

So I've had some good things to say about the game and a few low points which seem to balance it out but here comes the real problem in the game, that problem is that the game is so damn short. Now on my first time through the game I finished in three hours and I didn't know what I was doing yet so I started to wonder what the fastest possible time in the game was so I started to browser around for some speed runs for the game and what I found was that the game could actually be finished in a little over thirty minutes and yes I know Silent Hill games are known for being a bit on the short side but never quite as short as this.

So overall the game is not too bad but it could have been a lot better. The game was quite a bit more difficult from the previous games mainly due to the period of being almost completely defenseless after each series of attacks forcing you to rely more on firearms which are usually rare in a Silent Hill game however this one seems to be an exception as they seem to appear quite a bit more then usual. The storyline was a little disappointing due to the fact that not a whole lot of new material was revealed and the fact that the game was so short made the game seem as thought it wasn't worth the thirty dollars that I had payed for it.