A Shockingly Good Game Searches For Its Origins

Survival horror fans know that there are only two types of scares in gaming—the “boo” scare and the “edge” scare. For most of gaming’s 30-year history, games consistently aimed to scare players using the “boo” scare. Spring-loaded cats and monsters popping out of hidden closets, as in Doom and Resident Evil, were all too common. The release of Silent Hill on the PlayStation in 1999, however, introduced gamers to a second type of fear—the “edge” scare.

Instead of shocking players in short bursts with cheap thrills, Silent Hill relied on atmosphere and circumstance to constantly keep the player on edge. A revolution in survival horror gaming that was praised by critics as twisted, subversive, and unique, Silent Hill has spawned five sequels, with Origins being the latest. Though Origins is largely a good prequel to the first game, there are some nagging issues that can certainly drag down the overall experience.

Silent Hill Origins takes place in the seemingly quaint vacation town of Silent Hill, which our protagonist, trucker Travis O’Grady, happens to stumble upon while looking to take a break from his long trip on the highway. The town, which is shrouded in a ridiculously thick layer of fog, is the perfect setting for the game. Travis soon discovers that things are not what they seem. As he attempts to escape from Silent Hill in one piece, Travis finds that the town has a lot of underground occult activity going on.

The game takes players to all sorts of traditional Silent Hill locations, a hospital and a sanitarium being two of the most interesting featured locales. The imagery is absolutely horrifying and, unlike games that rely on cheap thrills, has significance in the overall narrative. Unfortunately for Travis, he also discovers that Silent Hill happens to mutate between quiet vacation town and rusted-off industrial-looking nightmare area. Really, it makes for quite the scenic vacation.

The game is an audiovisual treat. SHO has particularly impressive lighting, which contributes to the atmosphere of the game. The music was composed by series composer Akira Yamaoka, whose striking, eclectic mix of electric guitar with piano is absolutely brilliant, truly sending shivers down players’ spines. Yamaoka’s talent is beyond measure, and it shows: gamers may also recognize his work from the 2005 film adaptation of Silent Hill, as he was asked to contribute to the score.

The primary gameplay mechanic in SHO is exploration. Players will search the streets and buildings of Silent Hill for clues to solve puzzles that will lead them to unlock new areas to explore, and the process begins anew. This is all classic Silent Hill stuff, so series fans should be delighted. They should also be unsurprised to hear the combat is still broken—monsters in Travis’ way are completely stupid, making them rather tedious to fight. On top of that, the melee combat engine is repetitive and unintuitive, and the weapons all feature degradation, so players will find themselves looking for new crowbars with which to mindlessly strike flesh-eating dogs after only a few haphazard swings. After five iterations, there is no excuse for the combat to still be so subpar. Here’s hoping Konami fixes it for Silent Hill 5 on 360 and PS3.

Gamers concerned that Silent Hill Origins would turn out less than a shockingly good time because the game was being handled by a Western studio and not by series creator Team Silent have no cause for concern. All the series’ trademarks are in place, for better or for worse, and the game is a really great package that any fan is going to love and any newcomer should experience. Like most Silent Hill games, you can finish this game in about six hours, but it’s six hours of upright-hair-on-your-neck monster bashing. Check this one out.