Silent Hill Origins Second Playthrough

Total enemies killed using melee weapons : 238
Total enemies killed using firearms: 25
Total enemies killed using fists: 39
Total items collected : 341
Number of map views : 204
Number of times saved: 26
Distance walked : 34.81 km
Total game time : 6:57:58
Total flashlight use time: 2:42:27
Number of game completions: 2
% of enemies killed with melee weapons : 79
% of enemies killed with firearms : 13
% of enemies killed with fists : 8

You Enjoy All The Killing, That's Why

In your first playthrough Silent Hill Origins you will end up with the default good ending no matter what you do. Getting the other bad ending in your subsequent playthrough however requires a bit more work. It doesn't really makes sense why the good ending is the default ending especially for a series that have traditionally favours bad ending, perhaps it's because the good ending ties into the canon whereby the ending sort of leads to the events of the first game.

Anyways in order to achieve the bad ending you have to kill more than 200 enemies to re-discover travis's inner demons which have been kept hidden away all these years. It's no small task even more which the game only reveals to you how many you have killed once you have finished the game so there is no way of really telling if you are close to your target when playing the game. Thankfully you unlock the moon gaunlets after finishing the game once which should be more than enough to mow down every monster in sight. Even so i grew weary of running around looking for things to kill, i'm afraid i may have over done again as usual so it would be interesting to see how many i have killed once i finished the game.

Going Downhill

I have been playing a lot of Silent Hill recently, re-discovering my love for the series which sort of went downhill since the fourth installment. I never really talk about i came to the series mainly because it wasn't nearly half as dramatic as my introduction to Resident Evil , i was introduced to the series by a fellow close friend not having own a PSone yet so somehow it was difficult to form your own opinion with someone constantly telling you how good this is.

Anyway over the years i remained supportive of the series even more so than my friend, to the point where i was being criticised of being biased. I suppose i am to some degree but isn't that what being fanboys are all about? I went back to playing Silent Hill Origins over the long weekend after finishing the first Silent Hill, i'm amazed by how good the game looks when you switched the noise filter off though it isn't to the level i would expect from a Wii game. Speaking of which, where is the trailer for Shattered Memories? So far we have only been treated to a bunch of screen captures and developer interviews, surely they must have put together enough for a trailer by now right? Well the May issue of Nintendo Power should probably have arrived at my local newstands by now so i should start looking for it really soon, seeing that there is a coverage on Darkside Chronicles in there too.

Wet Dream Come True

I wasn't too thrilled when i first heard rumours of a Silent Hill remake heading to the Wii, if only because it was also rumoured to be appearing on the PSP and the fact that Climax Studios will be developing this only further strengthen my belief. Now the i have previewed the Nintendo Power cover story on Shattered Memories (the new subtitle for the remake) i'm much more optimistic about this remake and actually looking forward to it. Not many Wii games can prompt me to make a day one purchase but NP and Climax studio managed to do just that with still images and interviews alone! Ok maybe that's my fanboyism love for the series talking but to Climax studio credit, Origins was a worthy entry into the series so i have high expectations that this will more REmake than konami's own Twin Snakes for last generation.

What Climax is trying to do with the wiimote and storytelling is generally pretty ambitious, and has got me more excited about this than i ever was with Homecoming, the series debut on the current gen consoles. It seems everything you do and where you go will ultimately have an effect on who you meet and how the story will end. Now the first two Silent Hill games had a similar non-linear storyline where you could completely skip certain subplot should you miss going to certain area or put your character on-track to a different ending depending how long you spend with NPC and what file you pick up. The subsequent Silent Hill seem to have abandon this idea in favour of a more linear story and ending so Climax re-imagining of the original and ideas on how to implement the story seems like a welcome return to the roots for the series. I was also very impressed with how they plan to utilise the wiimote to function as the series trademark radio and flashlight, it seems like this could very well be a survival horror game that is only possible on the Wii. If only the texture and character model didn't look like PSP standards but i trust NP judgment enough when they say the game looks better in-motion than in picture. Time for me to dust off the original which i still owned on Platinum release and fire up that bad boy.

wait are those psp textures and character models i see?

Zero to 2

That's it, they have finally gone and done it. For months the media have been speculating if Silent Hill Origins, originally developed exclusively for the PSP will eventually be ported to the PS2. Even after Amazon released the cover box art and started taking pre-orders, Konami and Climax still remained hush-hush on the matter. Not anymore, a Konami exec has officially announced that Silent Hill Origins will be making it's way to the PS2 early this year.

I thought I take this moment to post up my completion time and score for the game, when i originally complete the game on my PSP a while back...

Total enemies killed using melee weapons : 60
Total enemies killed using firearms: 26
Total enemies killed using fists: 57
Total items collected : 337
Number of map views : 613
Number of times saved: 33
Distance walked : 29.81 km
Total game time : 7:18:53
Total flashlight use time: 5:13:10
Number of game completions: 1
% of enemies killed with melee weapons : 42
% of enemies killed with firearms : 18
% of enemies killed with fists : 40
Saviour accolade achieved!
Collector accolade achieved!
Explorer accolade achieved!

Born From A Wish

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?

Guilty Pleasure

They say with constant technology advancements, games are becoming more like movies...or rather movies are becoming more like games, judging the lack of creativityfrom Hollywood these days. Games and consoles have become popular holiday gifts that parents buy for their children so it's little surprise that many major games are released during this time of the year. Myself, i plan to occupy my time with my much-neglected PSP playing Konami's one-two punch of Dracula X Chronicles and Silent Hill Origins (released back-to-back over the last two months).

Traverse around galaxy with Mario this season?

Then it got me thinking, if games are becoming more like movies and with the holiday seasons around, why don't we see an influx of feel good games like the type of Christmas movies of Hollywood? Could it be because, playing games itself is just a pleasure that whether you are playing the Grand Thefts or Loco-Rocos of the season, you are likely to have a smile on your face. I guess games have this timeless appeal that makes them suitable to play anytime of the year, because let's face it shooting down undeads never gets old. So maybe in light of the festive season, we should all put down our guns and pick up something happy, like the Loco-Roco of this year....Crush. I certainly plan to....

Or take a gamble with a 'small' game like Crush?

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