Siren

"Feels too disjointed"

Siren is a fresh new take on the survival horror genre. What makes it different is that the game relies on stealth, rather than mindless shooting. However, a fresh new take isn't always a good thing.

The story is interesting. A boy wonders upon a girl, a ritual of some sort and some dead like thing. I really can't tell more because it would ruin the plot and the game moves on the fact that you don't know where it's going to take you. The game focuses on different characters and you play as each.

The graphics are nothing special but they work. It's really hard to see at time and when you can't use the flashlight, you may have a hard time seeing where you are going.

The sound in the game is pretty good. The music is kind of creepy, sound effects are the weak link but they aren't all that important here. The moaning and stuff is creepy at times but the voice acting is horrible. Imagine Asians with British accents and stuff, come on Sony, that is unacceptable.

The control is weird. Thankfully, Siren doesn't use the Resident Evil controls. I uses the 2d controls from Silent Hill (if you are the type to use that setting, like I am). I found it hard for some reason to use the link thing with the people around you. I just couldn't get a good enough grasp on it.

The gameplay is unique. The game cuts from here to there. Using different characters which gives the genre a new twist but after ten minutes of playing I was confused on who and what and all of that good stuff. Most of the time you can't fight because you don't have a weapon. Very few people will get a gun and sometimes you may find a fire poker or something. It seems to me that some of the levels (I didn't beat the game, it was a rental) had two goals and I'm not sure if you need to do both to finish the game but I was, for the most part, only doing one of the goals per level. I really didn't care for the mission type gameplay, it made the game feel tacky and disjointed. I found fighting to be unfair since enemies come back to life only moments later, making it all seem worthless. The puzzles are fairly easy but I ran into a few that made me think.

The replay value isn't much. I know I had no desire to play through it again and I was near the end and that's another thing. I didn't really care if I finished the game or not, which shows that it didn't fully hold my interest. There are much better survival horror games out there, try one of those.

5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/03/04