The Origins demo starts with an FMV. A trucker sleepily driving late at night, rain pounding his truck as he explains to another long-hauler over the radio that he's taking a shortcut past Silent Hill as they kvetch about their problems. His fellow trucker exhorts Travis Grady (our hero) to just go seduce a girl and bring her back to the cab. That, he promises, would solve all of Grady's problems. Grady reminds the other trucker that that's just not what he wants to do, and with that mysterious bit of background trauma set up, the conversation ends. As he nears Silent Hill, Grady's eyes begin to fall shut, and he sees a young girl in the road just in time slam his truck to a stop. When he steps out, she's gone -- but a girl appears in his rear view mirror. He turns, and she's gone, still visible in the mirror. He follows her, and gameplay begins.
It was a dark and stormy...
Following the girl, stumbling in the rain, you bring Grady to an isolated home that's now roaringly aflame. Hearing someone in the house, Grady charges in. The gameplay is pretty much exactly what I expected from a PSP Silent Hill. You use the analog stick to move, the square button to run, the circle button to turn on your flashlight, triangle to look at the map, and the R1 button to lock on. The d-pad provides quick item access, and x is for attacks. Holding it down yields a charged heavy attack. Inside the house, there aren't any enemies yet, but careful navigation is necessary to avoid the flickering flames. Ascending to the second floor, the stairs collapse behind Grady. Finally, he finds the hideously burned body of (presumably) the little girl from his rear-view mirror. Her eyes snap open and she says "Let me burn." Grady proclaims "You're coming with me," takes up the paper-thin body, and as they escape the burning building, he passes out. He awakens on a bench in the foggy villa of Silent Hill, by the hospital called Alchemilla.
At this point, it's easy to tell that this is another of those "How did they do that?" PSP titles. The design holds tight to the standards established by the series. Colors are rich, blacks are deep pools of shadow with the depth to allow you to spot scuttling foes, and character animation is spot on. The effect of Grady's flashlight beam as he explores darkened areas is perfect -- illuminating, but only making the areas outside the range of the beam seem more frightening. This doesn't reach the bar set by Tekken: Dark Resurrection, but there's nothing to be disappointed about here graphically.
