Silent Hill: Origins -- Completion.

I've finished my first playthrough of Silent Hill: Origins. My exact play time was six hours and thirteen minutes and twenty-four seconds. I killed zero enemies by firearms, five by melee weapon, and one-hundred twenty-two by my fists. I found three-hundred forty-seven items. The game features an achievement like system called accolades. I earned the following accolades: savior, stalker, collector, explorer, and brawler. Savior is for just completing the game. Stalker is for having the flashlight off for most of the game. Collector is for the items I found. Explorer is for the distance I traveled, twenty-six kilometers by the way. And brawler for fighting with my fists for most of the game. In my subsequent playthroughs I'll need to earn the accolades for fighting with melee weapons and fighting with firearms as well as seeing a couple different endings. So what did I think of Silent Hill: Origins and what of the other questions in the previous entry? Let's answer them shall we? Firstly, yes, survival horror can work on a handheld system. The game loads up with a screen saying that Silent Hill: Origins should be played with the lights off and with headphones on. Of course survival horror isn't going to work if you're attempting to play it on the morning train to work or something along those lines. Heed the advice of the game and play in the dark with the headphones on and the volume turned up. The PSP's screen size makes you concentrate on the game more so than you would playing it on a television. The nature of the music and sound effects within headphones actually creates a very cool sense of it being in your head. The music and sound work wonderfully and with you playing in total darkness concentrating on the PSP screen survival horror has no problems getting the job done on a portable system. Graphically the game is impressive as it registers just under Silent Hill 2 in terms of graphics. The game is very clean as far as graphics go. Aesthetically the game is still very dark and dirty and rusty and ugly, just as it should be. Travis animates well as do the numerous and surprisingly creepy enemies.  As far as gameplay goes it's very much Silent Hill. Still using the classic tank like controls for the character. Melee combat is a brutal dance of timing. Getting out of the way of their attacks so you can close in and finish them off. New to the mix are items that you can pick up and throw at enemies. Items like televisions or typewriters. Heavy objects to bash their heads in with from a distance. And you'll need to make use of the distance factor this time around as a few of the enemies are quite tough to deal with. The combat is handled well given that it fully replicates the console style on a handheld. The story of Silent Hill: Origins is good. It's not great. It's good. It's a small story. You get Travis' story for the most part and then a little bit of Silent Hill. What's in the Silent Hill part doesn't mess anything up which is great. But the problem is that it also plays it a tad too safe. Nothing comes off as shocking or surprising. It more comes off as well, yeah, of course. Climax delivered a pretty good and valid game overall. I still don't know if the game needed to be made. But they didn't do any damage and they did create a game that has some Silent Hill feel to it and that's worth playing through. My only complaint with the game is in the voice acting for Lisa Garland. She couldn't decide if she was a hick country girl or not. A bit in and out. The voice work for Travis, his mother and father, Dr. Kaufman, and Dahlia Gillespie faired better. I do still have a couple playthroughs left in Silent Hill: Origins but I can say I enjoyed it and I'm going to be giving it an 8. It's better than Silent Hill: The Room, but lacks the impact of the rest of the series. But it's always good to get back home to Silent Hill every now and again, isn't it?