Silent Hill Origins

thank you

Having recently aquired a PSP 3000 (Cheers wife!) I find myself for possibly the first time having a well established piece of hardware, with a large back catologue of games. Being a gamer since the early 80s I have usually aquired consoles as they are released and then pick and chose games as they come out, paying full price.Thanks to never getting around to purchasing the PSP first time, I am now in a nice position where I can pick and choose from a vast selection of games, the majority of which are at a fraction of their original price.Silent Hill is my first foray into the realms of survival horror/adult gaming on the PSP.The game starts with a rendered cut scene which is well animated, giving you an introduction to your character and the town. The cut scene then changes to one which is rendered using the in game engine, which while not as pretty as the first cut scene, is still decent for the PSPs graphical limitations.Your character (Mr Ten-four buddy trucker) then gets his chance to wander about a bit, to the sounds of some Dido-esque intro song.He eventually reaches the town and it all goes bent from there.I will not go into the story line but say that the game is divided into two parts, the streets and the buildings. The streets are dividers for the levels which take place in large buildings which act as the 'levels' themselves.The first 'level' is a hospital. You walk around, solve puzzles, open locked doors until you have a certain item. You then exit and walk the streets to the next 'level' which is an asylum.While in the buildings you meet ghoulish enemies which are easy to kill at first but then get harder the more you progress, you can slap them about using your hands but a more effective way is using the melee weapons which are scattered around and plentiful.As you progress you can also pick up guns and ammo which is more effective but less fun than lobbing a bottle of alcohol at a zombie nurse thing and knocking her sparko.If you are low on health (which is in the usual form of medikits or food) you can just circumnavigate most enemies and run around like a wuss but remember to turn your torch off as it makes you less visible.So far this is a fun game and has bags of atmosphere, you should be able to pick it up for well under £15 these days to there is no excuse (unless the excuse is you have no money after the credit crunch, and if that is the case, stop reading reviews of psp games and get back to work)

Brilliant! And I've only got as far as confronting the nurse in the hospital!I have only recently bought the Sony PSP and a friend recommended Silent Hill Origins as the first game to play. Despite still getting used to the buttons on the console itself and then trying to remember what I can press with other buttons, I have found the start of the game very enjoyable indeed! For the moment, I don't think I've hit a red icon which allows me to save my gameplay and so, consequently, I have to start the game from scratch - but it's not a problem. (Does anyone know where the first red icon appears where I can save my game to avoid starting from the beginning?) As soon as the trucker jumps down out of his cab and spots the lonely girl behind him, the action starts. A burning house then offers the first victim and after recovering his consciousness it is time to go to the hospital to see how the fire victim is doing. A doctor (?) standing by the lift offers little help and so it is inevitable the trucker will go to the same floor - enter the featureless nurse from hell! But there's a hammer, a spray of blood and that's as far as I get because the trucker is killed through my negligence! D'oh!Highly recommended - will definitely be buying the new Silent Hill game when it comes out. Now, about that red icon...

Most people who have enjoyed one, some, or all of the Silent Hill series know the formula to the games. By no means is that a criticism, maintaining a formula but adding twists and tweaks to each release is, as far as I'm concerned, the best way to keep the fans of a series happy and if it is a good formula will continue to attract new fans.I won't give away any of the plot lines as it is really enough to say it follows the usual character wakes up in Silent Hill after an accident/event and must uncover the mystery of the town while also on a mission o self discovery.Gameplay does have its faults, mostly the poor camera angles, which make it difficult to see enemies before they have already attacked you. In addition some of the new monsters are pretty poor and look that blobs of mucus with legs.The positives are many and the criticisms are few and mostly ongoing issues that do not detract from the overall enjoyability of the game and the entire series.

Note - I haven't played any other Silent Hill games.I've seen better graphics on PS1 games.The puzzles can be frustrated, you end up going back and forth, back and forth only to find out there was a much quicker way: - making items glow or stand out would've been useful. Due to the poor graphics it's very easily to miss some important info because it's an unidentifiable mess on a wall. Such repetition sucks the fun from the game as well as meaning you can't play this in 10 minute intervals.Since you can only save at certain save points this further adds to the frustration - spend ages wandering round, find the way, get killed, have to start from way back and repeat. Easily waste 30 minutes at a time.The camera is intensely infuriating - instead of being behind you so that you can see, it's on a sort of cinematic view, so often you are attacked but unable to see the attacker! The camera reset doesn't help in this regard - because it's not a mistake that's how the camera was designed. The camera is also fixed - there's no way to manually control it or shift between view types.What's also maddening is the every time you go through a door the game stops to load. This means the game struggles to really get going.Having said all this, playing it in the dark with the music turned up as recommended does provide a fear factor which is great fun.

An excellent game. just like the ones on the larger consoles. A really good and satisfying horror game. [if satisfying is the correct word to use] good graphics, despite being played on the psp, the game is still scary, especially when played at night-time all by yourself with some headphones plugged in. Very well recommended.