Silent Hill: Origins

For a time there it seemed the US.american era of Silent Hill was going to be just mediocre. It didn't last long. This is the best one of the lot because it comes up with as little new ideas as possible, which sums up the whole era. If you're willing to put aside it's flaws you can still enjoy a decent playthorugh.

The most forgettable Silent Hill

As the first installment in the series after the breakup of Team Silent, but also after the motion picture, Silent Hill Origins is a bit caught between two stools. While it still plays similarly to its predecessors (probably due to the limitations of the PSP), the influences of the western interpretation of the series through Christophe Gans' film are already evident.
The game from developer Climax has gone through many (also well-documented) evolutions, and the difficulty in finding a clear vision is also noticeable in the ultimately released game. It starts with the story, which is supposed to be a prequel to the first part on the one hand, but also a personal story like Silent Hill 2 on the other. Unlike Harry Mason, the protagonist Travis Grady is not a blank slate. While parts 3 and 4 still went strictly in a different direction from the second part, this game starts the western tradition of taking it as a role model storywise. However, you have to give Origins credit for the fact that Travis' backstory is still quite different from James'. The problem of the storyline is rather that it drives on two tracks and at the same time still wants to tell the backstory around Alessa and the cult. In trying to make the already somewhat muddled lore more accessible, Climax fails much like the makers of the film. During the short running time, this storyline becomes more of a side issue, which is only picked up now and then and then concluded in the tonally somewhat incongruous finale.
While Origins plays like a traditional Silent Hill at first glance, there are a few innovations that are largely not thought through to the end. For one, there is the big problem with the controls. While the fixed camera perspectives are prominently represented here for the last time, the decision was made to abandon the tank controls. However, both elements only work in tandem, which is why the controls in Origins often feel disorienting. Maneuvering through a new camera angle is now significantly more complicated and requires a brief moment of rethinking from the player each time. Aligning the camera in the more open areas also often only works reluctantly. Whereas in previous games you could hold the camera behind the character by pressing a button, here it automatically jumps behind the character by command. In itself, this is not a bad idea, but the camera repeatedly gets caught in the often narrow environment and thus usually doesn't end up behind the character, but somewhere next to him. This again has a disorienting effect due to the abrupt jump. Admittedly, this problem already existed in Silent Hill 4: The Room. Another design decision that was not thought through to the end is that Travis eventually runs out of air while sprinting and slows down. To cancel out this effect, energy drinks can be found in the game world. To use them, however, the player must switch to the inventory. It takes less time to simply wait a few seconds for Travis to recover. You don't even have to stop to do this, so this mechanic puts itself into perspective and makes its implementation seem all the more questionable. Probably another leftover from an earlier conception of the game is that Travis now needs a short moment to start sprinting. Again, it's questionable why this element was decided to be included in the finished game.
Otherwise, Climax had noticeable ambitions to give the combat system a bit more variety, so Travis can use almost all objects in the game world as weapons until they break at some point. Whether you take on enemies with a wooden slat, a screwdriver or an IV stand makes little difference, though. As soon as the weapons break, you can simply beat them with your fists. Apart from the slightly lower damage, this makes little difference, because once Travis lands the first hit, many of the monsters are stunlocked, so you can keep hitting them undisturbed. With some of the larger monsters, however, you should switch to one of the many firearms. Undemanding button mashing is also the order of the day, by the way, when the enemies attack the player first. The rather clumsy combat system has never been a strength of the series, and Origins does little to change that. At least the monster designs are again grotesque and refreshingly diverse, a weak point in later instalments.
During the short game time, you only explore a handful of areas. While you've probably entered the Alchemilla Hospital once too often at this point in the series, an entirely new area follows with the Sanatorium. Although essential to Travi's storyline, this section of the game is by far the most tedious. The area is simply far too big and has to be run through twice thanks to the new mirror mechanic. Giving the player control over dimension switching is a nice idea, but sometimes feels more like artificial level recycling. Thus, you rattle through hundreds of doors until you find all the necessary items. Thankfully, the most important items are placed in such a way that you can hardly miss them. After an extremely dry start, the game improves in later environments like the cinema and the motel. Every now and then you come across puzzles, which vary between extremely simple and quite clever. In general, however, Origins is designed in such a way that you can play through it quite effortlessly in two to three sessions.
Of the post-Team-Silent parts, Origins is the one that most closely resembles the original game concept, but is so generic in almost all aspects that this relic of the PSP era is now only interesting for hardcore fans of the series. Before that, however, you can confidently throw in any other game of the series. Almost all ambitions to renew the concept come to nothing here and the storyline is a tired and half-baked mix of familiar elements from the predecessors. Despite the short playtime, boredom is not uncommon here. Fortunately, developer Climax was more willing to experiment with Shattered Memories, even though it has its own problems.

Badly written, shoddily directed lazy retread of entries one through three, pretending to reveal something new at us but leaving no lasting memory or impact apart from the semi-gripping opening sequence though even that feels more like put-on overkill. Charred naked children are not necessarily a great start to a story, especially when we already saw enough of that in the movie. And even Akira Yamaoka is quite useless on this, the nondescript background muzak betraying the apparent lack of passion or vision anyone had in making this needless game.

I thought “Silent Hill: Origin” was quite decent for a PSP game. Controls and battle system could be better, but that’s an issue that afflicted all games in the series. The plot has some details that don’t match the games it serves as a prequel for, but the atmosphere matched alright. I was not fond of the character design, though.