Review: Silent Hill: Origins (PSP)

We all know the story- it was a visit to a hellish nightmare world, resembling the one we know and love but so completely and inescapably wrong it fills the heart with dread and the mind with confusion. Climax's original, Resident Evil 4-inspired vision for the Silent Hill franchise was such a complete misfire that it was mercifully aborted altogether, and a far more traditional entry into the canon has arrived in the form of Origins- and therein lies the problem.

On first impressions Origins is one of the more accomplished examples of a traditionally home-console genre working on a hand-held, on par with the Game Boy Advance's finer work- even the PSP's cut-down button layout works perfectly. Graphically comparable to an early PS2 title, the true icing on the cake is the excellent audio, a combination of predictably disconcerting effects and Akira Yamaoka's trademark score.  It's always been true that Silent Hill's fear-engine is powered 20% by the visuals and 80% by the suggestive, unsettling soundscape, and Origins is closer to the first and third games' in that respect, more traditionally scary than either the theatrical Restless Dreams or the staccato score of The Room.

It's a return to roots that extends throughout the title's character design, swapping the macabre, symbolic creatures of the second title for a rather tame cast of lumpy mutants and possessed mannequins. Even the bosses- among them a prototype Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2 in all but name- fail to have the same capacity to unsettle, an issue that is hardly helped by the lack of challenge involved in defeating them. While the previous games were hardly been a survival-horror Halo, Origins is possibly the least-threatening title in the whole canon. It's a move certain to address complaints that the combat in the other titles was a bothersome chore, but with no sense of danger there's no fear, and it stifles Origins at every turn.

The six-hour clear time goes some way to address this, preventing the uselessness of the enemies to sink in until late in the game. Regardless, it often drags on interminably, the puzzles lacking any sort of real complexity but requiring endless back-tracking and note-taking to resolve- compared to Silent Hill 3's Hard mode puzzles, it palls in comparison. It's not until the closing hour that the game truly starts to ratchet up the tension, mixing revelations regarding hero Travis' past with some ingeniously spooky set-pieces to create something at least approaching dramatic tension.

Despite this, the mere effect of being on a hand-held, rather than home console, goes some way to lift Origins above the merely competent. The uniquely suburban nature of Silent Hill's nightmare was always affecting at home, in a creaking old house, with the lights off and the sound up, but it's surprising how well the terror translates to the back of an empty night bus, or while sitting in an unfamiliar hotel room. It's a transition that isn't entirely perfect, with many of Origins puzzles require either a pad of paper or a brain that Professor Kawashima would be impressed with, never mind the interminable distance between many save points, frequently detracting from the atmosphere. Nothing being quite so lethal to immersion as having to fumble your PSP into Standby to give enough time to find a pen or get off the bus.

Pocket-sized foibles aside, what keeps Origins out of the big-leagues that its brethren inhabit is what saved the title from disaster in the first place- it's simply too conservative by far, with none of the occasionally misplaced inventiveness found in the other titles. Once the initial novelty wears off and the lifeless enemy-dodging wears thin, very little of Origins will be particularly revelatory for either series fans or newbies, but as proof that fear can haunt gamers far away from home, it deserves respect.

Rating: 6 / 10

Words by Colin Whiteside