Silent Hill Origins is a pretty good prequel to the original classic, but it could have been better overall.

User Rating: 7 | Silent Hill: Origins PS2
Konami has had its share of awesome, classic franchises. Frogger, Metal Gear Solid, Dance Dance Revolution, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Silent Hill. However, out of all of the franchises mentioned, Frogger, Dance Dance Revolution, and Yu-Gi-Oh have lost their touch at some point. Silent Hill is another one, but this one barely misses its touch, which is just what we're about to cover.

Silent Hill Origins for the PlayStation 2 is the prequel to the original Silent Hill game on Sony's first console, the PlayStation (or PSX/PSOne) and a port of the original version on Sony's handheld console, the PlayStation Portable (or PSP). You play as Travis, a trucker who finds a burning house, and inside a girl lays on the floor, burning to death. A religious symbol is what she's laying on, so you can guess that this was all the work of a religious cult. Travis later passes out, when he gets out of the burning house. A while later, he winds up in the hospital in the spooky town of Silent Hill, where the burned girl is being treated. A man walks by, and Travis asks him how the girl is doing and where she is. He walks away saying that he has business to take care of, and takes off in an elevator. Something is going on. He tries to follow the man, when he later stumbles into a room with a strange mirror. A girl is on the other side of the mirror, and the reflection depicts the same room, only covered in blood, gore, and rust. The girl leaves behind a bloody hand on the other side, and Travis puts his hand on the same place, transporting him into the other side. It turns out that it is haunted, and this isn't the only building that had these strange mirrors. What could be happening in this strange town known as Silent Hill? That's up to you to find out.

Silent Hill Origins is similar to the other games as the franchise, but a few tweaks have been made to this paticular installment, but not enough, so basically, you're playing the same game as Silent Hill 1, 2, & 3. The reason why I don't count the fourth one, is because that the fourth one doesn't take place in Silent Hill and some of the notable gameplay mechanics have changed (like the first person view in your apartment). In Silent Hills 1-3, the premis is to search EVERYWHERE for key items, health/energy, and weapons when you come across monsters, which has been a basis for almost every survival horror game like Capcom's Resident Evil. In Silent Hill Origins, it's no different. Go into a room, find items. Get out of the room, go to another room, search again. The cycle keeps going.

Of course you'll come across monsters. All you do is either fight 'em with your fists, a melee weapon, or a firearm. However, the battle system has been tweaked a bit. When you get near an enemy, and the enemy grabs you, you usually wiggle the left analog stick right? Not in this one. You either have to button mash, or press a certain button combination (a la God of War). This kind of doesn't feel right to the franchise, but I can understand that Konami was experimenting with that to see what fans would think, and I don't think many fans liked it.

The graphics are washed down just a bit, but it still has that gory and spooky feel to it, like the other games. The character and monster designs are rather fitting as well. The characters show a lot of expression, and the monsters are vicious looking.

The sound is also good, but not as good as the other games. As for the voice acting, it's decent. It's not going to win a grammy, but like I said, at least it's decent. More could be done to put more emotion into the characters. The monsters, however, sound awesome. I love the monsters growling and roaring at me, while I'm smacking them with a two-by-four like in Namco's Splatterhouse, or shooting them with a 12-gauge shotgun. As for the music, it's pretty good and has that creepy feel, but some of the memorable tunes from the other games could have beem added in just for kicks.

Overall, Silent Hill Origins is not the best in the franchise, because it could do much better and be more innovative. The game is best suited to dedicated fans of the Silent Hill franchise, or those who have never played a Silent Hill game before, since the game can be welcoming to new players before they move on to other games in the franchise.