Siren

"Forbidden Siren will give you nightmares..."

Introduction

Forbidden Siren. Japanese horror in a Japanese village. Only for Japan? Only for people in Japan? Nope, it’s there for you too… if you can survive and stand the horror. Forbidden Siren is a scary game that will make you climb the ceiling of terror when you try to control you character running and hiding from the evil shibitos. A ‘Shibito‘ is the word for the horrible looking zombies in this game, the shibitos have bloody tears coming out from their eyes, they can run, climb, open doors, use guns and other weapons. They will try to hunt you down, they will use whatever they are holding to try to torture and make it your last day. Forbidden Siren is the most brilliant horror game a player can scare himself each night with.

Gameplay

When you start playing Siren, it will be rather confusing. You will probably get lost on the maps, you will have no clue how the Link Navigator work, and the first missions tends to not deliver the scary factor as you probably wished to experience the moment you started the game. The Link Navigator is very well made, it will take time to learn, but it will show itself very pleasing, it will give the player a freer controlling of the game. ..You might wonder what exactly the Link navigator is. The Link Navigator is where each stage and movie scene is controlled. They each have their own Day and time, and each are listed under a character. After the player has played the game a little time, the ‘Stage Select’ will be unlocked; the player will now be able to play which stage or movie scene he has unlocked. He can play any stage he wants, in no chronically order. He will reveal more and more of the interesting story. Most of the stages have two missions. The first mission is automatically unlocked, to unlock the second mission the player has in another stage find an object or item, that will unlock the second mission. Ex, in one stage a certain character needs a screwdriver, and the player finds this screwdriver with the same character in a previous stage. It however is not always the same character that finds this item/object or does a certain task that unlocks the second mission in a future stage. The game control during the game is working fine, it might take some time to learn it, and it will also take time until the player knows the area around him. This brings me to the map. To map is accessible by pressing a button. On the map screen you don’t see your current position, this is however pretty easy to figure out… on the map screen you can also rotate it, or press a button so it will rotate to the characters current direction. The playable character of the game has the ability to sight jack other nearby people. So they will see through their eyes and hear what they hear. This is an interesting gaming feature, and plays a big part of the game. The fear will arise when a shibito sneaks nearby yourself hiding behind some bushes, and you can see this situation from the shibitos eyes.

Story

Forbidden Siren has a complex and interesting story. To get to know it fully, you have to complete each stages second mission, get all items and even read some stuff at the Internet with Internet-address you find in the game. This is not a must, and it might be a chance the player understand enough parts of the story without getting all items etc. the story is first rather simple, is a town, and the villagers have become shibitos, and a few villagers have survived. Now it’s up to the player why this has happened, and why ex. has the water become blood?

Graphics/Sound

Each character in the game had their own real model. Even the shibitos had. So they look very well made, especially if you look closely at them. The atmosphere is the strong part of this game; it gives the player an intense and scary experience. The sound effects are as mostly always well made for the survival/atmospheric games. The music however, is almost completely gone, is this bad? No, no, it makes things more professional. And it makes the atmosphere grow and grow even more, until you someday will get nightmares.

Play Time/Replay ability

This is not your ordinary survivor game, where you have to play the game over and over and unlock more and more. Forbidden Siren you just have to complete once. To do so is not the easiest, and it will be even much harder if you are going for a 100% game. You can’t miss anything in this game permanent; you can replay old stages over and over. This game takes longer time to beat then your average Survivor game; it can take up to 20 hours if you are after a 100% game.

Final Recommendation

Siren is a game to buy, if it seem hard and confusing at first, give it a few tried and it will grow and grow on your interest. It would be rather hard to beat the game by just renting it.

Forbidden Siren is probably among one of the best and most well made games you can buy for Play station 2, so prepare yourself, the terror is waiting for you to buy it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/12/04