Released in 1999, Silent Hill seemed to be Konami’s answer to Capcom’s popular Resident Evil franchise, though proved to be anything but unoriginal. With more emphasis on characters and story telling and scaring more through ambience than unexpected bumps, the game went on to scare the daylights and prove Konami’s prowess once again.

Therefore, it was very encouraging when Konami announced they would be bringing a version of Silent Hill to Game Boy Advance and even more exciting when a fantastic FMV demo was shown for the game. Once the game was actually witnessed in action, it turns out the news isn’t all that spectacular after all. Konami have essentially turned made game into a reading bonanza, more reminiscent of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books of old opposed to the exploration and action of the original game.

Apparently, a barrage of text runs across some pre-rendered stills and some interactive action sections in the game. Unfortunately, the interactive parts are few and far between and seemingly leave much to be desired in the way of gameplay. Think of the game as one long cinema scene—a real long one and imagine how fun (or scary) it would be to play. Simply put, it wouldn’t be.

Most peculiar is the lack of most sound or music in the game, completely withdrawing the ambience of the first game. The only real positive is that it continues the story of the first game and follows the further exploits of Cybil and Harry. If you were really into the first Silent Hill, you might like this game if you were on a super-long car ride and had no other good reading material. Yet practically devoid of gameplay, there’s no real reason to get stoked for this text-laden outing. Also, there’s no reason you should even think about importing it either. Unless you’re fluent in Japanese, it’d be totally worthless.

Japanese gamers may go in for this sort of game, though US gamers almost certainly will not. Consequently it seems unlikely that Konami will take the trouble to translate the game in order to bring it to Western shores, despite it being tied to the popular Silent Hill franchise. On the up side, it doesn’t sound like American gamers will be missing out on much. If anything surfaces, we’ll let ya know.