GC: Hands on with Silent Hill mobile

There were few mobile games on the Leipzig Games Convention show floor so it was up to Konami, a company that's only now getting on board with mobile games in Europe, to set the tone for the platform.

And having heard plenty about its ambitions from head of the publisher's Paris studio, Axel de Rougé, we made a beeline for the Konami's booth looking to get some quality time with the most sinister of the mobile offerings on show, Silent Hill.

Rather than try to shoehorn a full-on 3D survival horror action game onto a phone, Konami has opted to give the franchise a point-and-click flavour. In this way, it hopes to capitalise on the series' trademark foreboding environments and well-paced psychological terror, rather than turn it into another cheap zombie blastathon.

Silent Hill games aren't known for their 'Once upon a time… and they all lived happily ever after' style storylines and the mobile version is no different. Set in an abandoned orphanage, you begin the game as an ex-resident returning 30 years after a horrific incident in which all but you and two other children were killed in their beds. As the plot unfolds and the terrible truth begins to creep out of the woodwork, you get the opportunity to experience various events from the perspective of the three survivors, each of whom sheds a unique perspective on what happened.

Sounds creepy? Well, it is.

Played on a Nokia N76, the directional keys were ascribed to moving the cursor around (which could just as easily be a thumbstick or the '2', '4', '6' and '8' keys on other handsets, we'd imagine). Depending on the context, the cursor prompts you to either move in a specific direction or interact with an object. When you choose to interact with an object (by pressing '5' or the centre spot on the directional keys), four small icons appear – look, touch/interact, talk and take – each of which corresponds with one of the directional keys.

It works well and besides occasionally having to use the '1' and '3' keys for certain items, this is essentially a one-thumb game. The '3' key is for accessing medikits, while pressing '1' draws your gun, which can be aimed and fired with the directional and '5'/centre keys. It's a basic form of combat but ultimately it worked fluidly during our play-through and any fumbling was due to genuine feelings of frenzy and panic when confronted by something non-human (which we won't spoil here by going into details).

In fact, despite the illusion being somewhat disrupted by the relentless rumbles and cheers emanating from the Star Wars: Force Unleashed booth next door, we found Silent Hill mobile to be quite scary. This is in large part thanks to the visuals. The screens are largely static but by moving the cursor out to the edge of the display we discovered a small amount of panning. It's a tremendously subtle effect but one that adds atmosphere. Similarly, the washed out grey corridors full of dark corners and detailed rooms just wouldn't have been possible were this a 3D mobile game.

And it clearly worked as we ended up playing the game for about 50 minutes, being kept busy by solving puzzles, exploring the orphanage and occasional bouts of battling nasties. In traditional Silent Hill fare, the game is more about exploration than combat.

But we didn't get very far into story. According to de Rougé, it took him five hours to play through Silent Hill mobile, so there should be plenty to get your teeth into when it's released, sometime during September.