Silent Hill Origins Impressions and Interview

***wraggster*** · April 26th, 2007, 00:36

Let's face it: Silent Hill is one of those places you don't want to live in, you'd hate to visit and you sure as hell hope you don't get a postcard from. Perhaps it's the continually fog-enshrouded streets that hide frightening skinned monsters. Maybe it's the messages from deceased or long-lost relatives that potentially draw hapless people to their doom. Or maybe it's simply the continual traveling between the seemingly normal and the completely hellish dimensions that bends a character's definition of reality and insanity. Over the course of four console games, Konami's adventure franchise has redefined psychological horror for players around the world. Now, thanks to the developers over at Climax, these scares are bringing a one-two punch for gamers: they're going portable and they're exploring the source of the town's insanity with Silent Hill: Origins.

The pre-alpha build we checked out introduced us to Travis O'Grady, a trucker driving past Silent Hill during a rainy night. Of course, going near this damned town is bound to court disaster, and as Travis slams on his brakes to avoid hitting a robed figure, he finds himself enveloped in fog. As he runs along the road in search of the mysterious figure, he comes upon a house in flames and a badly burned little girl inside. While he manages to carry the girl outside to safety, he quickly passes out and awakens the next day on a bench inside of the Silent Hill city limits. Although he has no idea how he managed to get to the town, Travis' primary concern is of the child he saved, and he runs through the deserted streets to the nearby hospital to check on her. However, once he gets there, Travis runs into the only other soul he's seen in town, a doctor that ignores his questions and disappears into the bowels of the building. Following the physician, Travis quickly finds himself in an alternate version of the hospital, complete with the dilapidated environments, malevolent nurses without faces and other elements that fans of the series know well.

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