I can't believe what I read this morning...well, it's probably afternoon at this point. But that's not important right now. I log in today and the first thing I see is the review of Silent Hill Origins. While reading the review, I can't help but to translate it into "I don't like this game, I don't want to be playing this game, I don't even think I'll finish this game." Every last line of the review seems to say "this has all been done before" and"what is good about the game was good in other games so it doesn't matter here". I know for a fact that I am biased when it comes to Silent Hill titles, but this review just pushed me over the edge. GameSpot has gone downhill with their reviewers lately and this was the last straw.

First of all, Silent Hill Origins is absolutely beautiful...for a town in ruin and pure evil. What the reviewer completely ignored was that this game is on par with all of the other entries in the Silent Hill franchise in terms of graphics. This isn't so impressive until you take a moment to consider that THIS IS A HANDHELD. You can't compair a handheld to a console. That said, this isone of themost impressivelooking games the system has seen as of yet. The graphics weren't even taken into consideration. The only thing that was mentioned was (and I quote) "Origins certainly looks the part, thanks to the traditional Silent Hill mist and its fine re-creation of the environments we've come to know over the years. Interior environments feature a lot of fine detail and crisp textures, and the contrast between the real world and the otherworld is palpable." What about the creepy movement of each of the creatures? The enemy that most impressed me was found in the sanitorium. It looked like some kind of floating harness for restraining lunatics until your light shone on it and revealed a human shadow on the wall...yet the harness was still empty.

Moving on, there was nothing but complaint about how everything had been done before in previous Silent Hill games. Well, let's think about this for a second...IT'S A PREQUEL! Of course things are going to be recycled. Look at every Mega Man title. Every Legend Of Zelda title. Every Mario title. The fans of the series come to expect certain things in every entry. Mario has his mushrooms and fire flowers, Link has to find his bombs and boomerang, and Mega Man collects the boss' weapons. You can't have Silent Hill without fog, rusted metal walls, and freaky creatures.

And finally, there was complaint about the story. "Travis doesn't have any pressing reason to visit Silent Hill, save for pursuing the strange child." As I remember, all of the Silent Hill stories have been left a bit loose for the sake of player interpretation. I interpreted the opening as Travis being on a long haul past Silent Hill (oh wait, that was told in the opening) and maybe his character isn't as uncaring as the reviewer and Travis is just concerned for the child's safety. It's not an uncommon thing for someone to stop their vehicle when they almost hit someone/something. Being a father, I would have done the exact same thing. I would have been looking for the child to make sure she was ok. The reviewer sounds like he would have made sure there was no damage to his truck and went right on through the night without another thought except that it might make him late for his next stop.

Overall, this was a completely rediculous review and the "official" rating is far from well written. Sure, I gave it high marks, but I said it was because I'm a big fan of the series. I wouldhave liked to see the review include some recognition of the graphics and the overall game being a great entry into the series. Hell, even I commented in my review that it was a bit short by today's standards and the camera could get in the way, but that didn't keep me from enjoying the game. Obviously the reviewer wasn't playing to enjoy the game. Sad really. So many people are going to read that pathetic excuse for journalism and not buy it because they didn't look beyond the score and see that it was poorly written, as most GS reviews are.