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Silent Hill Bookends
Product: Silent Hill Origins, Silent Hill V
Company: Konami
Date: 07/15/2007
Avaliable On:

While Konami had already announced their PSP prequel to the ever-frightening Silent Hill series, at E3 they released basic information about a new title, Silent Hill V.

First, Silent Hill Origins. This is the series' first jaunt onto a handheld and with the PSP's graphical capabilities as well as its crisp screen, all of the horrific gore fans of the series have come to expect comes through loud and clear, well actually spotty and grainy, but that's by design. Origins lets you take control of a truck driver named Travis Grady, who begins to see visions of a little girl, supposedly dead, that once haunted his nightmares when he was little. There are a few things about this version of the game that are different from the standard console ones. For one thing, you have basic camera controls. That is, you can always pop the camera directly behind you with a shoulder button. The other is that you seem to be able to move between the light and dark worlds at will. This is done by interacting with mirrors. In the past, the game's ability to just switch between the two realms has always been one of the tools it had to creep you out, so it will be interesting to see how well the game does without that kind of control over you. Silent Hill Origins is due to come out this Fall.

Okay, and now for the new game. Not much information was released about the fifth (... err.. sixth?) game in this series, but here is what Konami said at their press conference. The game is being developed for the Xbox 360 and the PS3. It will feature a military man who has returned from several tours overseas only to find his mother in a catatonic state and his father and younger brother missing. Alex Shepherd, your character, must search for his missing family members not only in Silent Hill itself, but also in a new nearby town called Shepherd's Glen. Could it be a coincidence that this new town shares the same name as our hero? Well that's all they really said, it wasn't a lot, but it was definitely enough to get our lips wet. Hopefully more info will come out soon.

J.R. Nip aka Chris Meyer

GameVortex PSIllustrated