Silent Hill: Origins, PlayStation 2

Silent Hill: Origins – the fifth part of the Silent Hill series – was developed by British company Climax Action (with the help of some outsourcing), and not Konami, so was the first Silent Hill game not developed in Japan. It was initially released for the PlayStation Portable in 2007 and this PlayStation 2 port followed later, in 2008.

In this game you play as truck driver Travis Grady, who is dragged into the nightmare that is Silent Hill, after rescuing a young girl from a house fire.

If you’ve read my review of the original PSP version you might notice that I was not at all impressed with it. I thought it was a poor relative of the classic Silent Hill games that preceded it. Everything about it felt lower-grade and ‘by-the-numbers’ – the story, the characters, the situations, the controls, the weapons, and the overall execution of the game I thought was well below what was expected of this survival horror series. And – while this PS2 conversion is better than the PSP version on a number of fronts – it’s still nowhere near good enough.

On the plus side: the graphic fidelity is much improved, and the combat is still fun to a degree, although monsters re-spawn far too often and breakable weapons are a bad idea. On the down side: the directional movement is highly annoying (should’ve stuck with ‘tank’ controls – they’re much better in a game like this) and the pacing, dialogue, story and nuance are all wrong for a Silent Hill game.

Silent Hill: Origins does have its moments and might keep a Silent Hill fan quiet for a while, but it’s not going to thrill anyone like the first three games did. Overall: this is a relatively poor Silent Hill game and should arguably have never been made. Harsh words maybe, but Climax were unfortunately not up to the job of making a game that lived up to the rest of the series. They played it too safe and made a game that tries to be Silent Hill, but is really just a pale imitation.

Silent Hill series on The King of Grabs: Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3, Silent Hill 4: The Room, Silent Hill: Origins (PSP), Silent Hill: Origins (PS2), and Silent Hill: Homecoming.