Surprisingly, even though this game is a survival horror title, a genre normally thought to consist solely of a solitary experience, on a portable system, OTA offers players the chance to play cooperatively through the adventure. While playing through by yourself, as long as your PSP's WLAN switch is turned on, a second player can join in and control your second character. This can certainly help moving through the experience, since you'll no longer need to try to babysit an A.I.-controlled teammate but also detracts somewhat from the feelings of isolation that would otherwise be more apparent.

Perhaps where OTA is at its best is in the presentation department. For a PSP title, the graphics look incredibly sharp. The game's six main characters all look exceptional and have unique animations that help them feel different from one another. The environments, especially once things start getting creepy, all look solid and surprisingly have quite a bit of detail even on the small screen. OTA's mood is also heightened a great deal by the fairly spooky and well done audio. The soundtrack is exactly what you'd want from a game of this type and can be off-putting - in a good way. However, the voiced over dialogue is disconcerting, sounding mostly like it was being read by some sort of High School Musical robots, which I suppose is horrifying in its own way.

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So if you're itching for a decent survival horror game on the go and can deal with the "teen slasher film" feel and storyline, OTA is a pretty good choice. The series may not be as well known as Resident Evil or Silent Hill, but it still provides a healthy amount of scares and plays at least as well as the earlier entries in those series. Likewise, the fact that the game gives you the option of playing co-op is also an incredible feat, especially on the PSP where that feature is commonly underused. In the end, OTA may not blow your socks off, but it is definitely worth a play-through for fans of the genre.

By Adam Brown
CCC Staff Contributor