The sorta poorly received Silent Hill Origins is making the jump from Playstation Portable to Playstation 2, Konami said today. The title is currently in development for the last-gen console.

"Console gamers can now expect the same chilling, suspenseful and fear-filled experience that handheld gamers encountered when we released Silent Hill Origins on the PSP system," said Anthony Crouts, Vice President of Marketing for Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. "This is their chance to learn more of the mystery and mythos surrounding Silent Hill that's been hinted at in earlier games and made the series such a success."

The game will still have you playing as Travis Grady, trucker extraordinare, but will also include updated controls for combat. Zero P will be so happy.

Survival Horror Title Makes Transition from Handheld to Console

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. - January 22, 2008 - Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. today confirmed speculation that Silent Hill® Origins, released last year for the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system is in fact currently in development for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system. Now PlayStation 2 system owners will have the opportunity to experience this frightening and popular survival horror game, complete with signature sound and music from renowned Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka.

"Console gamers can now expect the same chilling, suspenseful and fear-filled experience that handheld gamers encountered when we released Silent Hill Origins on the PSP system," said Anthony Crouts, Vice President of Marketing for Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. "This is their chance to learn more of the mystery and mythos surrounding Silent Hill that's been hinted at in earlier games and made the series such a success."

Players take on the role of Travis Grady, a lone truck driver making a routine delivery when he makes an unfortunate detour to the mysterious town of Silent Hill. Players must help Travis escape the city's horrific inhabitants and unravel the mystery of the strange hallucinations from Travis' past, visions that have plagued him since childhood.

Updated controls maximize combat, allowing Travis to use his fists, his wits and an array of weapons including a meat cleaver, pool cue and sledgehammer to fight his way through the nightmarish world of Silent Hill and face multiple endings based on his actions.

For more information, please visit www.konami.com.

Amazon's details on the port don't mention any additions to Silent Hill Origins, so we expect something quick and dirty. Well, probably not dirty, but you know what I mean.

Silent Hill Origins PS2 port looking increasingly probable [Siliconera]

The official Climax site does mention that the group is working on a second unannounced project for Konami, but reps for the publisher have not yet responded to our request for confirmation that Silent Hill Origins for the PlayStation 2 is the unnamed title. If true, I certainly hope that Climax is giving the game a bit of a visual upgrade for those who passed on the on-the-go frightfest.

"All I can say is that code did not leak from Climax - 100 per cent guaranteed," said Jeffery.

"The code that is out there is fingerprinted and was supplied solely to Konami for marketing purposes."

Silent Hill PSP demo leaked online [GamesIndustry.biz]

That the three are listed as for the PC may simply be in error, as the trailers themselves may just be shown non-interactively played from a PC. However, the USK also specifies that some trailers specified for Games Convention will be shown on a DVD-Player. On the other hand, there are plenty of titles, such as Crash of the Titans, Escape From Bug Island and Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 Mobile, that have rated trailers with a system specification of PC, releases that sound unlikely.

Still, why show a new trailer for Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow at Leipzig when the Game Boy Advance version was released in Europe over four years ago? Is Konami pursuing yet another Castlevania remake? Are they readying a Game Boy Advance collection for some other platform? Whatever the theory, it's a curious new entry.

The next rating for Silent Hill Orphan may reveal either the final name of Silent Hill V or the European localized name of the PSP prequel Silent Hill Origins. It's also possible this is a new product altogether, as it too is listed for the PC.

Finally, the Metal Gear Solid 4 Games Convention trailer has been rated by the USK, dubbed the "Camp Trailer." It is also, as specified earlier, listed as for the PC. The last Metal Gear Solid to makes its way to PCs courtesy of Konami was Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance.

As already mentioned, just because these trailers are listed for the PC doesn't necessarily mean they're coming to that platform. We'll keep an eye on these three titles and will be in contact with Konami USA in an attempt to learn more about the listings.

Titelsuche in der USK-Prüfdatenbank [USK]

The game's trucker protagonist seems out of place with the blank slate characters from the previous Silent Hills, but this is a minor quibble. That can be mostly overlooked given that the team at Climax has been very successful porting the look and feel of Silent Hill to the PSP, while adding a handful of game improving enhancements.

One of the issues I've always had with the series is that the game is largely a door-checking simulator disguised in a horror adventure's clothing. The lead character will now look not only at collectible items like health drinks and puzzle solving items, he'll eye-fix on door's that can be opened. There's still a good amount of quick-looking at the map to see what doors you've opened, but it's a welcome enhancement.

The screen will also become more grainy and scratched when enemies are nearby, similar to the series staple of radio static.

Weapon-wise, you'll find plenty of one time use items scattered about, including portable TVs and toasters that one can throw at enemies. Players will find them useful as weapons—lead pipes, crowbars, scalpels, etc—will degrade over time and ultimately break. At one point, I was forced to take out enemies with only my fists and a finishing trucker boot stomp.

Visually, the game looks great. Lighting effects from your vest-mounted flashlight look fantastic, casting believable shadows on walls and floors. Character models look on par with the PSP's graphical capabilities, but Silent Hill Origins' environments rival the PlayStation 2 releases.

For the most part, my doubts about Silent Hill Origins for the PSP were put to rest. It's mostly formulaic, yes, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. With Silent Hill V clearly a long time off, it should do well in filling the Silent Hill void until a proper new-gen sequel is released.

Sadly, none of these screens feature shots of your character solving an in-game puzzle with a plastic liver. You can't have your cake and eat it, too, you know. Michael McWhertor

Actually I'm just a big pussy.

These games scare the living crap out of me to the point where I can't play them. I want to play them so hard, but as soon as shit starts going down I'm turning off the system and turning on the lights. Maybe if I were the dashing protagonist type I'd be more brave, but I'm more of the big dopey maintenance guy the audience feels sorry for when his head is discovered hanging from a hook in the basement. Michael Fahey

If you want to keep yourself spoiler free, you may want to just look at the pretty pictures, which definitely seem to be more inline with the grainy, rusty aesthetic from previous Silent Hill games. However, if you want to know how exactly the more action-oriented Origins will play, read on.

I just hope there are no sewer monsters. I'll skip the gory details, but I get most of my PSP time in while sitting down. Michael McWhertor

Silent Hill Origins Exclusive Hands-On [Game Informer]

Early on management in charge of the game's development made a bad call that lead to the team not getting their hands on a working engine until June of this year, according to a mole.

The same managers were reluctant to hire new employees despite that poor planning and employee treatment were causing the company to "hemorrhage" employees, including the lead designer and lead artist, according to the insider.

Because of those setbacks, the mole says, the game had been cut extensively to try and meet the increasingly unrealistic deadlines. Origins, once envisioned as a robust PSP game that would take eight hours to complete, has been shriveled down to a handful of much smaller levels and three to four hours of gameplay, the mole says.

Many of these difficulties were hidden from publisher Konami by management until a few weeks ago, when they were finally told the truth. Konami was understandably disappointed because the project would miss fiscal 2006 entirely as a result of the needed delays, and employees were told there were "no assurances" that the Origins project would continue. Last Wednesday, employees were told there would be lay-offs and given envelopes with an appointment time. In those appointments they were told whether or not they would have a job by the company's CFO, which most had never met.

The laid-off employees, some of which had only started a week prior, were each given a week's severance. Some of those who remain will help transition the now hobbled version of Origins to Climax's Solent studio in the UK, where expectations are the game will continue to suffer, the source said.

The rest will then wrap up their development of Steel Horizons and the studio will likely be effectively shuttered, leaving only a shell office for meetings with LA-based publishers, according to the mole.

While the company told GameSpot that there was a third project in the concept phase, the mole says none of the employees were aware of it and that even current staffing couldn't develop a new game. Brian Crecente

Kikizo has some beautiful screens (the first, they assure us, and our internet quasi-omniscience tells us they're probably right, maybe) of the upcoming PSP port of the first Silent Hill game, Silent Hill Origins. They certainly look more vivid than the muddy, foggy mess I remember playing on the Playstation many moons ago in a kingdom by the sea.

The Kikizo post stresses that the engine has been changed not only to offer a camera more appropriate for a portable but to be more engaging on the PSP, specifically citing a new combat system that allows you to drag obstacles in front of enemies to slow them down. That doesn't really seem all that engaging to us — more a nuisance. We don't really play games to drag stuff around... Silent Hill should be a game of eerie psychological horror and depravity, not a simulation of doing chores for my mom. - Florian Eckhardt

Silent Hill Origins Scares the PSP [Kikizo]

(Edit: We've since been informed that our quasi Internet omniscience has indeed failed us. This is a whole new title, apparently. We were confused - we could have sworn this was supposed to be a remake)