Zero Tolerance

I recently received my pre-order of Silent Hill Zero (or Origins as it's known outside Japan) Konamistyle Edition after what seems like an eternal wait. Although it looks nothing like the picture that was released during the pre-order, it's still a classy piece of collectible worthy of a place in any Silent Hill fans' collection. Putting a slight damper on the whole thing would be the rather concerning rumours circulating around that Konami is preparing to port the once PSP-exclusive game over to the PS2 system.

Now ports are nothing new in the games industry but seeing that this was one of the few titles I primarily got my PSP for, i'm a little less than pleased. Konami has been a strong supporter of the PSP right from launch (in fact, i would say they are the best third-party developer for the PSP) so it does comes as a bit of a surprise to me. In this case, Silent Hill Zero would be still remained on the Sony platform but now, appealing to those without PSP who have followed the series from the first installment on the Playstation. If Sony is still serious about priming the PSP as a contender to Nintendo's DS, they better put a stop to all these PSP to PS2 ports already.

Admitedly, most of the time when a title is ported, it is done so in order to reach out to a wider mass audience but i for one, think that a little something is lost during the translation. You see, these game are often developed to the original system's strengths and weaknesses so when it's made to run on another system, certain compromises are made (though it would be less of a problem here when it's ported to a technically-superior system like the PS2). Silent Hill Zero is reportedly only a four-five hour game which is still acceptable for a handheld game but how would the average PS2 react? Unless it's priced accordingly, a lot of people are going to feel a little short changed if they bought the game not anticpating this. So for the love of the game and the people who made the game, try and play the game in the original platform it was made for... it does make a difference.

Almost enough to make you shoot someone in the face