Silent Hill Origins (PS2)

If you liked sh1 sh2 & sh3 you will appreciate this as a return to early silent hill as it has all the old, solve the puzzles, bash or shoot the monsters chasing you, good ole silent hill maps, creepy music,not the original developers but they have captured the essence of the game (in my opinion i am glad they never spent too much time analyzing sh4 "the room")...hats off to them.Mirrors to the otherworld were a nice touch, no limit to the amount of stuff you can carry either which is welcomed,I thought the game was quite large an entertained me for quite a while, highly recommended.

Watching my friend soil his pants (not literally) is pretty fun!! So many scares in those headphones u can hear everything seems great so far!!

Having purchased this a few years ago and having multiple starts and stops, I finally got around to beating Origins on the PS2. And I have to say, it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. In fact, it's a solid experience but it does have its many flaws.Many SH fans might like Origins more than the previous Silent Hill 4 for having more to do with the series and for having a familiar experience and story. Whilst I enjoyed Silent Hill 4 for trying new things, I did enjoy Origins for going back to the original formula of Silent Hill: Person goes to Silent Hill, weird stuff happens. Acting as a prequel to the very first game, Origins delves more into the backstory of Alessa and the creepy cult goings on, with returning characters of fan favourite nurse Lisa Garland, jerk doctor Kaufmann and resident madwoman Dahlia Gillespie. Newcomer to the series is Travis Grady, a trucker taking a (suicidal) shortcut through Silent Hill.The game does a nice enough job of filling in some backstory for these characters before we meet them in SH1. The biggest challenge was that this was a Western developers' first try of creating a Silent Hill title following the disbanding of Japan's Team Silent from Konami. Climax Action developed this and I feel that they did a pretty bang up job of recreating the atmosphere and tone of the original quadrilogy of games. Dark and brooding, shadows brought up by your flashlight, crackling radio and frustrating tank controls all make you feel at home that this is a Silent Hill game. The soundtrack done by Akira Yamaoka is also a pleasant stay.Some of the stages in this game were excellent, others not so much. The Hospital in this game I felt was rather lackluster, possibly due to it being the first level. The Sanitarium stood out most for me for being the most disturbing and claustrophobic, it's great we finally get to explore a proper nuthouse in the series following the incredible Brookhaven Hospital in SH2 and SH3. It seemed like a reward after the first level. It fit right at home in the SH world, a solitary wheelchair in a darkened room, musty furniture and walls from the 70's, depressing notes left by negligent care-staff, it was all creepy stuff and a brilliant location. The Theater was also a well done level from its creativity and originality of the stage and props puzzle even if it was easy. Overall, good level designs.In terms of gameplay, this is where the game's quality drops for me. Combat is a huge chore. Fighting more than one enemy at a time is cumbersome and like trying to sew wearing boxing gloves. The targeting system and hit rate is a little shoddy and there seemed to be some delay with button responses when throwing items. It was fun though to experiment with all the creative ways of killing an enemy in Silent Hill, mine ended up being death by toaster. Something I have a big issue with is the button prompts with the new enemy grappling system; they're essentially QTE's and they really don't fit into a Silent Hill game. It feels like an attempt of actionizing an otherwise subtle and psychological horror series. All of Origins melee weapons are breakable which sort of defeats the purpose of having things like sledgehammers, aren't they supposed to be durable or at least more durable than a plank of wood? Moreover, there are so many throwable items to find that it will clutter your inventory (at least it did to me). Since all your melee weapons are stuck in a horizontal list, you need to press repeatably through to find the weapon you want to use. By the late stages of the game, you might have amassed dozens of weapons to scroll through, enough to make even Frank West blush. The inventory system isn't well designed. It could have done with more categories for your melee weapons like one use throwable and multiple use melee ect. The lack of being able to choose a difficulty mode also hurts the game, whereas in previous installments you could pick your combat/action difficulty. Depending on how good you are in Origins, you will either have a really rough experience or an easy one so this is why modes exist.There are some interesting new monster designs but unfortunately some enemies fall victim to overuse. The puppets seem cool at first before they pop up all over the stage like wildfire. The devs seem to have thought that adding an enemy into every room and a couple in every corridor was scary but it's actually a lot more atmospheric and creepy when there's *less* enemies around. See the Hospital level of SH2. One room featured heavy breathing noises and in another, a glass smashes. No enemies, but it was so effective in creating tension! My favourite enemy in this game were these invisible like enemies with harnesses in the Sanitarium who create shadows when you shine your light on them, they were very creep and always kept me on my toes when I encountered them. What was sort of lazy was how one of the new enemies later in the game, who I nicknamed Godzilla, is just one of the older enemies but made a LOT bigger. It wasn't scary, it was just silly. The Butcher was a great new monster/side boss, reminding me of Pyramid Head. But the Butcher was so underused you forget he was there besides a rather anticlimactic and easy boss fight near the end. I would have liked if he had more of a role. I really sensed some sort of personal connection between the Butcher and Travis in the game's bad ending... but for the rest of the game there was just nothing. I do also have to mention how disappointing the final boss was, feeling more like a final boss from Doom with horns than anything Silent Hill. The concept of using mirrors to enter the Otherworld was kinda cool and scary at first but I never really got much of a sense of dread or fear of using them after that because I'm controlling when the super evil world appears, as of such I feel prepared. But in previous games, you had no control over when it would appear which was more scary in my opinion. But kudos to the devs though for coming up with a creative Otherworld transition.The devs did try and incorporate puzzle solving using these mirrors but some of it felt rather predictable on what to do. I was annoyed at the lack of a movable camera by pressing L1 which was in SH2 and SH3, it made it a lot easier to see enemies in front of you and look at the environments. And there is some very good design in this game, it's sadly hidden behind the confines of a fixed camera. Not being able to see an enemy in front of you just felt cheap. This game was originally made for the PSP so perhaps that's where this limit lies. The map was also frustrating to use, being either locked into super close up view where you can't see the rest of the map, or far away and you can't read the map as it's too small. This is especially an issue on large maps like the Sanitarium and Motel.Now, the story like I said is far more familiar for a SH fan and people might be more welcoming to this than the slightly polarizing experience of Silent Hill 4. Whilst Origins certainly doesn't have a bad story, it just felt kinda... meh? Nothing really to write home about. It does set out to do its main goal which is to tell the Origins of Alessa and Silent Hill. The story is: Travis' truck breaks down in Silent Hill, he rescues Alessa from burning to death in her house, but she is badly burned and dies shortly after in hospital (well done on prolonging her pain, Travis). From then, Travis starts seeing ghostly visions of her which he follows across town which he finds that he cannot leave. This was a huge issue for me, what exactly is keeping Travis here? As soon as he finds out the girl dies, he still sticks around. Why? The game doesn't really give you enough to go on other than implying that Travis really enjoys walking into abandoned insane asylums and theater deathtraps for fun because either: He found some trash belonging to said location or someone mentioned it briefly in a conversation. I know that we do find out about Travis' history but it never had a real bearing on the Alessa storyline, his trauma wasn't keeping him in the town, it was more of a distraction for him. Anyways, you revisit some old locations of SH1 with an excellently recreated map from the first game and meet the old characters, get to see the hijinks they got up to before the original game began. From this, you understand more about Alessa's origins, the Cult ritual and why Silent Hill is the way it is.The other half of the story of course is a history into the protagonist of Travis Grady and the crazy things which happened to him in his childhood. I appreciate that this was done and it was nice to see but Travis himself is kind of a bore. But then again, so was Henry Townshend of SH4 but it sort of suited his character. He'd been locked in a room for close to a week and I really felt motivated to save him from the room. I feel like a lot more could have been done with Travis' character to make him more interesting to us as a player to get to know and sympathize for, rather than him just being the guy who "met the SH1 characters before Harry did".Some people might think the game is too short, coming in at around 7 or 8 hours for myself. Possibly shorter to 6 hours if you're quick but I think the game had just the right amount of length. Remember, SH1 and SH2 were only around 6 or so hours each but they were fine as they are. Origins is kinda short but it doesn't overstay its welcome, it does what it sets out to do which is to tell a prequel story.Overall, if I was to describe Origins in one word it would be "consistent". It's more of what you would expect for a SH game and it's not too bad considering it came from a Western developer. It really does get the Silent Hill tone right despite all of its other shortcomings I talked about. If what you want is familiarity and more backstory on the first game then I think you'd enjoy it. It's a decent enough game. Unfortunately, the story and main character isn't very memorable and there are several annoying gameplay flaws which brings this game down a notch.PROS:-Familiar to older fans-Additional backstory given to old characters is nice-Akira Yamaoko soundtrack-Devs did a great job of recreating the dark and gritty SH experience-Some good level designs apart from the hospital-Good voice acting for the supporting charactersCONS:-Story isn't very interesting or memorable-QTE's detract from the subtle horror experience the series is known for-Combat and inventory management is a huge chore with breakable weapons-Boring main character-Frustrating camera control-Only one difficulty mode-Butcher was underused and just "sort of there"

I only got this game yesterday and I'll shamelessly admit that I'm hooked, and although this is meant to be the prequal to "Silent Hill" and "Silent Hill 3" I can kid of guess that it was more of a brush up the starting sequence was quite different to previous games that's for sure although going through a burning house to save Alessa Gillespie actually left me running around in circles. (Slight spoiler)But this game still has the aspect of pyschological fear and the otherworlds will undoubtably keep you on your toes but there's the upside because you can go back and forth between the normal and the reverse, which makes things a little easier also the puzzles are challenging. If your a longtime fan (Like myself) or if your new to the series I suggest you buy this game it's worth it.

Just remembered I ordered this. Felt bad not leaving a review as I got it so cheap a while ago, especially it being brand new. Was all good. Seller was great. He asked for feedback and I ignored the e-mail. Feel bad looking back. Glad I have it. Just a shame the PS2 version is so valuable now.

So.. Sequel or Prequel... hmmmn. Origins takes us on a journey in thelife of Travis, your average all-American, friendly truck driving guy.He's a loner (awww) and is happiest alone driving his truck. He tendsnot to forge relationships and he prefers to leave his encounters inhis rear view mirror. Until he stumbles upon a house ablaze in a sleepylittle town called Silent Hill.....This is, actually, quite a good game in the S.H series, (better thanHomecoming in my opinion) but it still lacks a certain something. It'snot up to the standard of S.H 2, 3 or 4 (the room) in terms ofcomplexity, darkness, oppressive fear, subtle creepiness and plot. Andthe overall time it takes to complete is WAY too short. You do sort ofget the impression this one didn't take too long to develop incomparison to the former titles. However, it still has the foundationsof a great horror RPG with a dark dense atmosphere, nice graphics andgame-play. Along with the typical scares, puzzles and nasty creaturesto defeat which are all synonymous with Silent Hill. The extra additionof improved combat whilst fighting enemies is also a nice new feature.Overall a 7 out of 10 (for me). I did enjoy it, but it is nowhere near as goodas the earlier titles (but better than Homecoming).Whether the like of S.H 1, 2 and 3 can be recreated in thisage, remains to be seen, and is doubtful. But I'd still recommend it ifyou are a S.H fan, and if you're not, you'll still enjoy the back seatride! On a side note-- I purchased one and played it (and it had acouple of VERY annoying glitches). however, I purchased another veryrecently, and it had none?