If you happened to play Konami's Silent Hill Zero on your PSP you will notice a slightly amusing disclaimer right before the start menu, one that suggest that this game is designed to be played in the dark with your headphones on. For all intents and purposes, the game does manage to be a lot scarier when it is played that way but it also begs the question, when did handheld cease being portable? Well it all started with Sony making a brave foray into the handheld market with their Sony PSP. The approach was very clear right from the start, a handheld that is able to provide a console experience on the go. Well, Sony certainly packed a lot of horsepower under that PSP hood because the PSP still continues to amaze me with what it can do even three years after it's launch.
Silent Hill Zero does more justice to the series than Portable Ops did for Metal Gear, you don't get the sense of any compromise being made because it's a handheld game, the series' famed meticulous art style is still prevalent throughtout the game and the soundtrack is just awesome, albeit a bit familiar. I finished both this game and Umbrella Chronicles yesterday and came off wishing Umbrella Chronicles could be more like Origins and thoroughly surprised by the level of polish in this handheld title. It just goes to shows you can really revitalize a series by injecting new talents, possibly the reason why Konami decided to go with a different development team in Silent Hill 5. Sure the back-tracking and puzzle elements feel archaic by today's gaming standards but Origins had a good sense of storytelling which just improve and adds to the series mythos of the mysterious town. This is probably the last time you will get to play Silent Hill in its' traditional style as Silent Hill 5 is surely to reboot and reinvent the series in unimaginable ways.... so what are you waiting for?
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