Silent Hill Origins (PS2) Review

Posted by James McGee on 04.11.2008

Welcome to Silent Hill...again...for the first time...something...

As a fan of survival-horror, I hold a particularly cozy place in my heart for the Silent Hill franchise. Therefore, it was a given that I would pick up Silent Hill Origins, which was recently ported to the Playstation 2 from the original PSP version. It turns out I’m precisely the target audience for this title. There was a great outcry among series fans when early details indicated a departure from the old formula. Well, rest-assured that those concerns were taken seriously, for better or worse, because things was left virtually untouched. What we have here is the same game people have been playing since the first Silent Hill arrived in 1999, with all the familiar survival-horror trappings. It undoubtedly works, but it’s starting to show its age. Still, when the series evolves (which it certainly must in order to survive), Origins will serve as a fitting send-off to the old formula. It values exploration over action, atmosphere over structure, and the familiar over the new. In other words: Welcome to Silent Hill.


Familiar places…

Graphics
Visual design has always been one of the Silent Hill series strong points, and Origins is no different. However, like most of the game, it falls under the “love it or hate it” caveat. The game is dark, gloomy, and pretty drab for the most part, but it helps evoke the despair and isolation that give the game its edge. All of the environments have a very “lived in” look, with debris strewn about for that extra bit of authenticity (the voyeur’s crawlspace at the motel is especially eerie). When players slip over into the “nightmare” realm, things are even darker, but the details get a little more interesting—bloody carcasses hanging from walls and that sort of thing.

Travis, Alyssa and the other characters aren’t all that interesting or expressive when it comes to looks, but that seems to be because designers devoted their energy to all the beasties that inhabit the foggy streets and claustrophobic corridors of Silent Hill. The creepy nurses and lesser demons make a comeback, and they’re joined by a few new monstrosities—from bulbous, writhing flesh-bags with surprising speed, to floating shadow-memories of mal-treated asylum patients. The nasties are the real stars of the game, and so they get the extra polish when it comes to graphics.

Like most PSP-to-PS2 ports, Origins loses a little in translation when it comes to graphics. It doesn’t seem like Climax did much tweaking to take advantage of the PS2’s slight edge in power, so things tend to look a little more jagged and murky (and no, it isn’t just Silent Hill’s trademark fog at work). Still, it isn’t a huge difference. The game looked good on the PSP, and it looks almost as good on the big screen, provided you like what you see to begin with.

Gameplay
Both Origin’s strong and weak points can be summed up in one phrase: more of the same. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the gameplay. After engaging in a noble (but failed) experiment with Silent Hill 4, the series returns to its roots here with tried-and-true survival-horror gameplay. Puzzles and exploration abound, with largely optional combat thrown in for good measure. Players spend most of their time wandering through labyrinthian buildings collecting key items. This is what made the series popular to begin with, but after almost a decade, you’d think developers could come up with some better level design. Progression through these environments is often a tedious, choppy affair, as there is very little flow to the levels. You’ll spend more time shaking locked doorknobs than actually getting anywhere. Puzzles are similarly standard password or “fetch the doo-hickey to unlock the thingamabob” affairs, though they tend to be a bit more clever than the average Silent Hill brain-teaser. Again, this is all par for the course, and represent some of the conventional blemishes that players have either learned to deal with or long since given up on.

A new twist has been added to combat in the form of destructible melee weapons. These items are scattered throughout the environment, ranging from the largely useless razors and scalpels, to the downright awesome katanas and sledgehammers. The catch is that each item can only be used a certain number of times before breaking. Still, there are so many weapons scattered about that you’ll rarely be in danger of running out (and if you do, you can always dish out a knuckle sandwich—a welcome last-ditch option). You’ll likely find yourself hoarding some of the better items, only to find out you needn’t have worried. Combat—like every aspect of Silent Hill’s gameplay—is really starting to show its age. While the new melee system is a valiant effort to overhaul things, it really doesn’t amount to much in the end.

Sound
Silent Hill has always distinguished itself from other survival-horror titles with sound design, and this is the one aspect of Origins where there’s very little to complain about. Akira Yamaoka again lends his talents to the series with a haunting score. Music combines with ambient sound to provide an effect that is not only eerie, but deeply, fundamentally unnerving. The brash, metallic rhythms will leave you completely on edge—obviously the best place to be when playing a game like this.

The sound effect may not stand out to the same degree as the music, but they certainly get the job done. Creatures wail and bellow in fittingly inhuman ways, weapons make satisfying thuds, and there are plenty of bumps-in-the-night to keep you jumping. The voice work is surprisingly solid for this type of game, with actors having apparently read the script beforehand, receiving direction on how to deliver the lines. None of the performances are spectacular, precisely, but in a genre long-chastised for laughably bad dialogue, Silent Hill Origins comes off sounding like Citizen Kane.


Familiar faces…

Lasting Appeal
Origins feels pretty short, even for a survival-horror title. If you spend more time running than fighting, you can easily plow through the game in less than three hours. After that, there are the obligatory multiple endings for fulfilling certain criteria (though none of them really add much to the plot), and the game has also taken a page out of Microsoft’s playbook by offering achievements…oops, I mean “accomplishments”...to entice multiple play-throughs. The goals only offer bragging rights, new costumes and the occasional weapon as incentives, so whether you want to spend the time replaying the game all boils down to how much you enjoy visiting the twisted world of Silent Hill.

Fun Factor
I keep coming back to the fact that Origins offers more of the same, and that’s what the fun factor all comes down to. Fans of the series know better than to expect a fully revealed storyline from Silent Hill. Despite the fact that this game touts itself as a prequel setting up the entire series, very few questions are answered. There are some familiar faces—Dahlia and Alessa Gillespie, Dr. Kaufmann, even a primitive version of Pyramid Head—but no grand revelations fans haven’t long-since inferred on their own. Likewise, the gameplay is nothing we haven’t seen in the four previous titles.

But Silent Hill has always been more than the sum of its parts. Atmosphere and the overall experience are what keep people coming back to the franchise, and Origins delivers on that promise. This isn’t a game trying to convert new players. It’s a game aimed squarely at fans of the series who are willing to take the good with the bad.


All new disgusting monstrosities.

The 411
Silent Hill Origins doesn’t do anything new. It’s the same formula gamers have been either loving or hating for years, so any recommendation depends on which side of the fence you happen to sit on. This is undoubtedly Silent Hill, as both the enduring strengths and glaring weaknesses are on display. There’s a lot to like, but there’s a lot that’s pretty long in the tooth, as well. Hopefully, the upcoming Silent Hill V can take a cue from this prequel to figure out what still works, and what needs an overhaul.

Graphics	7.5	Blowing up the PSP-sized visuals for the big-screen isn’t always pretty, but the graphics here are always passable. Environments are appropriately creepy, enemies are disgusting, and characters animate well.
Gameplay	7.0	Nothing new here. This is the same Silent Hill game we’ve been playing for years, and it’s starting to show its age. The formula works, but its definitely time for an overhaul—and that includes more than a slightly-tweaked combat system.
Sound	8.0	The star of the show is the sound design. The music is as beautiful, melancholy, and disturbing as ever. Ambient sound and creature noises are effective and unnerving, and the voice acting is a shining beacon in a largely embarrassing genre.
Lasting Appeal	6.0	With multiple endings and accomplishments, there are plenty of things to bring you back to Origins. The question is if you can bear to slog through the same game over and over. The answer depends on if you’re a fan of the series.
Fun Factor	6.5	“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” may have been Climax’s motto for designing this prequel. It’s hard to argue with that logic, but I think they could have at least squeezed in a few more renovations. It is what it is, and if you like it, you’ll find pl
Overall	7.0   [ Good ]

Screenshots
All 5 Silent Hill Origins Screenshots