Return to Silent Hill as lonely trucker Travis Grady gets more than he bargains for when he decides to help a particular girl out from a burning building. You must help him escape the city’s horrific inhabitants while confronting his inner demons in this prequel to the original game. Check out what we thought of it after the jump.

NATE AGUILERA

As the series’ first installment onto a handheld, Silent Hill 0rigins looks great on the PSP. From the detailed environments and misty smoke to the peeling walls and shining glare coming from your flashlight, it’s everything you’ve come to expect a Silent Hill game to look like. Whenever monsters like the familiar nurses and straightjacket zombies are nearby, the screen turns gray and a distorting radio sound is heard to greet the wary visitor. The screen also occasionally turns white and black for when sudden flashbacks occur, wherein voices speak in the background, upping the amount of creeps the game has to offer. Series composer Akira Yamaoka makes his return delivering his disturbing metal crunching style of music that gives you that sense of caution and uncertainty.

Sort of like real life where you would try to grab the nearest thing to you and throw or use it as weapon, Travis can grab a variety of items to use it in just this way — TVs, toasters, sledgehammers, drip stands, meat hooks, etc. Also like real life, however, these items break over time. Although this’ll probably make you concerned about using items at all, the amount of items that can be found around town is actually plentiful. Thankfully, you eventually get an array of firearms at your disposal to attack from afar. If all else fails, you also have your bare fists to do damage.

There are some things that spice combat up a bit. When an enemy gets on you, it may activate a quick time event, where you could mash X to push them off, or time button presses to avoid a sequence of attacks. When an enemy is down, you can run up to do a death kill, else they would just get up to stalk after you again. Pretty cool. In all honesty, however, you’ll soon develop a sense that fighting is just for getting to the next puzzle rather than to survive. The enemies, in truth, are slow except for a select few and are usually only a hassle if there’s more than one. This could be due to the attempt with keeping the series’ familiar gameplay, but it isn’t anything crazy.

The best aspect of the game comes from its puzzles. 0rigins makes the use of mirrors to travel back and forth between the regular world and the “other” world. A lot of games have found success with this dual-world type of puzzle gameplay, and 0rigins is no different. Some doors would be locked in one world while unlocked in the other, while key items and clues would be scattered between both. One of the more notable locations that uses this mirror system is when in the theater where it can bring you to a couple other worlds as well… The best tip to give is to be sure you find that map.

The game itself is rather short — about 4-5 hours worth for a playthrough. This isn’t necessarily bad since the game offers a variety of extras to unlock, making it easier to replay the game a couple times to get everything (therefore extending its overall gameplay time). Extras vary from multiple endings (including a UFO one) and new items to funny costumes like wrestler, fire man, and special ops outfits. Of course, a longer adventure would’ve been nice especially by today’s standards.

One last thing to note is the game’s storyline. Although it’s advertised as being a prequel to the original game, it actually focuses more on Travis overcoming his troubled past rather than fleshing out the origins of a certain Alessa Gillespie. As such, some characters from the Silent Hill world do make appearances, but they’re more like cameos rather than guides of any sort at all. Those expecting to go in-depth with the cult’s prior happenings may be a bit disappointed because of this.

Aside from the its shortcomings, for what it’s worth, the game’s overall presentation is handled very well. The story’s focus may not be what everyone had expected… but it’s still a solid survival horror title to say the least. With that in mind, fans of the series should enjoy this quick romp through their favorite town.