SIREN: Blood Curse

"Something for the survival horrors fans..."

If I am entirely honest I have absolutely no idea why I brought Siren. I love a few survival horror games (Resident Evil and Silent Hill, so only a few then) but Im not really a fan of them or anything. I saw a review for Siren in the official UK PS3 magazine, and I just decided to get it. Siren is available on the Playstation network for £20, or on Blu-Ray, which will be released later this year. Siren is, for the most part, a remake of the original game, called Forbidden Siren (which I'd never played), thus improving the game play, one of the main criticisms of the original game. Since I had never played the original Siren I didn't really know what was improved or not, but I know I definitely had a fun, if not slightly frustrating, time playing this game.

The story is rather strange, like most horror games. Sometime in the 1970s, a small rural Japanese village, called Hanuda, is destroyed and lost in a mudslide. Back to modern day, an American TV crew head out to film a documentary about Hanuda, the mysterious village that has suddenly reappeared. Whilst lost in the village, the crew come across a ritual, where a female is killed in cold blood. Another female is about to be sacrificed but the main hero of sorts, Howard Wright, comes to the rescue and saves her. This soon compromises the TV crew. Suddenly a loud Siren calls, and the villagers of Hanuda turn into the Shibito. The Shibito act almost like normal humans, however they have a desire for blood and are extremely violent towards normal humans, and are peaceful with other Shibito. The game tells the story of multiple characters over just a few days. You are able to play as most main characters seen in the game at some point, and there is always a date and time shown (since later on in the game you play some events that happened before, you just didn't see them). The game is split into 12 episodes, each with two different sections to them (you usually play as different characters for both sections), although the episode system mainly splits up the game, which is mainly to do with the PSN system. An interesting aspect of the story however, is the Archive system. Similar to the Files that you can find scattered around the Resident Evil games, the Archive provides 50 different sources, offering an insight into characters and what exactly happens after the game. The archive sources range from actual videos (acted with real people, which isn't that bad) and just plain old text. The archive entries however, must be found and although the game gives you a fair few of them, they are extremely difficult to find. Since the game only features a few areas you replay the same areas later on, and to obtain some archive entries you must do something earlier on so you can get the archive later on in the game, if that makes sense. However I was satisfied with the story, although it can be very confusing at times I felt that just added to the story, considering the Archive is there to help.

The gameplay is fairly standard survival horror affair. However Siren also has a lot of stealth aspects as well. You play the game is multiple characters, including a child, and one of the Japanese villagers who has a gun. The game is split into 12 episodes, and for each section in an episode you are given clear objectives. Whilst I did found a few objectives confusing, they're often very clear and give you step by step instructions for what you need to do. You can also access a 3D map, where the location of objectives are shown, and just general locations are noted. The map can be VERY helpful, and I can guarantee it will help you on a number of occasions (once I used it to find a door). The game controls like a third person shooter, in a sense. The camera is over the shoulder, and the controls are essentially the same. The combat wasn't that bad, it's not Resident Evil 4. All guns (seemed) to have infinite ammo, however you had to aim them to shoot them, and it always went into a rather odd first person mode when aiming, which made some parts a little difficult. Apart from that there are loads of melee weapons to choose from, which are all fairly generic, every day items. You simply ready the weapon then swing, it's fairly simple. When an enemy knocks you onto the ground you must shake the controller to get back up, and on occasion the character will perform an execution move (one thing I did notice about Siren however was the gore, or lack of, it wasn't a particularly gory game). The combat is fairly simple and it works, although at times it can be very frustrating. You rarely start with a weapon and quite often it's hard to find one, and it's not nice when a load of Shibito are on your tail.

However, like mentioned before, the game encourages stealth. The shibito will always wake up after a few minutes (so they're essentially invincible, although it is helpful to just kill them quickly so they're not in your way). The game also gives you a few stealth based objectives where getting caught fails you. Also, since you play as a child for a few levels, there obviously aren't any weapons they can use. Whenever a Shibito runs up to you, as long as you're close enough, you fail just like that (as you can probably imagine they can't show a small child getting killed by a Shibito). The game features something called "Sight Jacking", where you can essentially jack the sight of the Shibito. This splits the screen in half so you can see exactly what the Shibito are looking at, for your stealth needs. Enemies are shown as red, you're shown as green and allies are shown as blue (I think it goes like that) so you have clear view of whats going on. The game is also fairly dark, and things like lights and sound effect the Shibito, so it's probably not best to go running around with your torch on. However these gameplay elements do provide a few game play flaws...

Although this game isn't particularly hard, it can get very frustrating. The Shibito soon evolve into flying and spider like creatures. A particular act later on requires you to kill the Shibito Brain (these only apply to the flying and spider shibito, kill the brain and in that are all the others die along with it, minus the ordinary Shibito) so you can advance. Unfortunately it's a flying shibito and you only have a melee weapon. And there is a Shibito sniper which kills you in one shot if you're seen. You have to sneak past, climb up a house and then quickly kill the brain before it flies off, very frustrating. A lot of the time you can get easily lost or confused with a few objectives, the mine when you're playing as Sol comes to mind. Despite the excellent map, areas can get confusing. The combat can get a little frustrating as well, especially when you're surrounded and have no weapon. Another annoying thing is when you're playing as the child. Yes, I understand they can't show a death scene (thus she essentially has no health), but one part of the game requires you to open a locked door and escape through it, with a Shibito guarding the door. The lock picking is automatic but it takes a lot of time and when you stop it restarts. It takes way too long, and it was very difficult to distract the Shibito long enough for you unlock the door and escape, especially considering when the Shibito runs up to you you're finished. The sight jacking was also fairly difficult to adjust to. When you activate it the screen turns incredibly dark and some kind of giant eye thing pops up, making it incredibly hard to see and find Shibito. Fortunately, you can use the shoulder buttons to automatically target characters around the vicinity, so it's not too much of a problem. But that brings up the issue of darkness. Siren is a survival horror game and as such, it's incredibly dark. Fortunately the game doesn't go down the night time cliche (For the most part, you play quite a few levels in the day light), but when it's dark, it's dark. I was actually stuck on the very first level for half an hour, since I could not see a thing. I was meant to escape from a Shibito policeman, and the escape route was a small path hidden behind a bus stop, and it was impossible to see. I found it completely by chance (the first level you don't seem to get a map unfortunately) and that got me quite frustrated. If you're going to get this game, I definitely recommend you turn the brightness up to max, it doesn't really the ruin the gameplay and makes it less frustrating in the long run.

The graphics weren't the best, however considering the game is downloaded off PSN (and was a hefty 9.2GB or so), they do the job well. The archive pieces are really well done, as is the isometric map. The area's appear a lot throughout the game though, but you can easily see the change in them later on in the game, and how they've changed. The character models are pretty good and the environments are too. The graphics do the job, but again, there are much better graphics out there. The music on the other hand, was also great. I really enjoyed the freaky music, and the voice acting wasn't too bad. One thing I did like was the fact the Japanese villagers all spoke in Japanese, with American and Japanese characters some times unable to understand each other, which I thought was a nice touch.

For just £20, Siren is a great buy. It lasts around 10 hours (kinda average length of a game now, but for under half price of a retail game) and it's great fun. The game plays differently to most games you might be used to now. If you want to try something a little different than an FPS, Siren is for you. It's dark, it's scary, and it's fun. The gameplay can get a little frustrating at times, but for the most part it was a very enjoyable experience. If you've never played a Siren game before definitely try it out. And if you're a fan of survival horror games, check it out. Do you really need a reason not to?

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/08

Game Release: SIREN: Blood Curse (EU, 07/24/08)