Village of the Damned meets Silent Hill meets Splinter Cell. Does it work?

Keiichiro Toyama, who headed up the original Silent Hill, this time ventures into new yet familiar territory with Siren, Sony’s new horror installment brought to you by not only the aforementioned Toyama-san, but also the creators of Sony’s earlier PS2 sci-fi/horror offering Extermination. By combining psychological horror with stealth elements, Siren makes good on Sony’s promise to innovate on PS2. Even more interesting is that the new play mechanics introduced in Siren serve to make the game scarier. And while not without its flaws, Siren is quite the breath of fresh air for fans of the horror genre -- maybe. Siren, while deservingly commended for being unique, is still a game that will appeal only to a niche crowd; one that can overlook obvious design flaws and can stomach a lot of trial and error gameplay.

Instead of the player landing the role of a single character, Siren has players seeing through the eyes of ten different personalities, all folks present in the Japanese village Hanuda when, after the beckoning of a disturbing siren, the village became plagued with fog, and the surrounding sea turned blood red. Even the rain was distinctly crimson. Worse, the people of Hanuda were transformed into “shibito”, a form of undead that bleeds from their eyes and develops an intolerable hatred for the living. Over the span of three days, players will live through the horrible events, made up of 78 missions, and guiding the surviving ten characters to safety using a few key play mechanics.

At its core, Siren is a stealth game. Players are encouraged to avoid combat as much as possible, because for the most part, players are virtually helpless. For one, very few of these characters can defend themselves with any sort of weapon, and the undead villagers can’t really die anyway (thanks to that red rain, which has mysterious healing powers). Fortunately, players have one unique power at their disposal. Called “sightjacking”, players can concentrate their thoughts on the surrounding area, and can see through the eyes of the shibito. In this mode, the player is helpless, and cannot control what he sees or hears, but can use the ability to navigate the levels by knowing where the shibito are, how much they can see, and their patrol patterns. Simply press the L2 button, and rotate the right analog stick like a radio tuner, and the player can “”tune in” to any shibito in the area. You can then assign what you see to one of the controller’s face buttons, and move on to the next shibito. With this ability, you can go into sightjacking mode, and simply press any of the face buttons to revert your visions to that particular enemy. More than being useful though, sightjacking actually serves to scare the player more than anything else. You can simply imagine a scenario where you tune in to a shibito’s visions, only to discover that it’s right behind you! And if that weren’t enough, the mere thought of seeing through the eyes of those out to kill you can be rather perturbing.

The game is based very highly on realism, so there are no mid-level saves, no life meter, and can take very few hits before you die (though the aforementioned red water can heal you too if you stay out of danger long enough). In addition, there are no meters or radar functions to help you know where your enemies are, making the sightjacking ability all the more critical. The only other attribute you have is the ability to run and hide (and a single, basic crouch) when you’re spotted, so for being a stealthy game, there is very little you can actually do to be stealthy. Furthermore, the sightjacking ability is less useful than it should be. If Siren took place in your home town, you could actually recognize where your enemies are, but because you’ve never been to this village, seeing through the eyes of your enemies helps very little in the grand scheme of things. The environments are foggy and dark, so conspicuous locales are rare. What all of this leads to is very frustrating trial and error gameplay, where you must learn each map step for step, as well as learning each shibito’s patrol route. Do all of this while continuing to die over and over until you get to the end of a mission. Rinse and repeat for 77 more levels (though you’ll often play through the same missions with minute variations), and you may be too frustrated to play all the way through.

Perhaps the gameplay flaws here would be less conspicuous you had the chance to care about the characters you play as. But since you’ll transverse the game through the eyes of ten different villagers, you don’t have the chance to really dig into their personal tales. In addition, the game’s story is told out of chronological order, so you must try to put the plot together yourself with the help of the Link Navigator, a chart that keeps track of the game’s events. Unfortunately, the Link Navigator does little to actually piece things together, and only serves to confuse even more in the end. Even the game’s puzzles are frustrating, as some of your objectives are so pointless you almost have to laugh at what the game wants you to do (find a shoe? One stinking shoe!?).

It’s not all bad, though. For the most part, the game’s controls are well done, with only a scant few areas that could use some tweaking. You’ll be right at home if you’ve played survival horror games before. The enemy AI is fairly smart too, or at least, smarter than the average undead abomination found in certain other horror titles. The shibito can climb anything you can, and stay very alert when they think they’ve spotted you. And since they are armed and you generally aren’t, they are more than formidable opponents. The only downside to the enemy AI is that they are sometimes too good, especially at shooting. These shambling undead jerks are crack shots with guns, even though it’s foggy and dark, and their, well, dead.

Graphically, Siren looks almost exactly like Silent Hill 2. That said, Siren is more 2001 than 2004, but that doesn’t mean the game doesn’t look good. The environments and color palette serve to create a very creepy atmosphere, though since the Silent Hill series did it first, the look no longer amazes like it once did, and comes off as more of a copycat than anything else. Noise filtering? Been there, done that. Blanket of swirling fog at all times? Yep, it’s here, but it’s been done elsewhere first. Even the blood is conspicuously similar to that of the Silent Hill series. Not that it’s bad. It’s actually rather good, and considering the game was spearheaded by a former Silent Hill mastermind, the comparisons make sense. But even though the graphics are appropriately dreary, it’s not on par with more recent horror releases, most notably the stunning Silent Hill 3.

Still, the mood is undeniable. Not being able to see the majority of what’s in front of you makes the game much more frightening, especially when a shibito pops into view through the fog, just when you’re feeling the safest. The character models look eerily realistic, sporting painted over digitized faces of the real actors performing their roles. Animation isn’t bad, though isn’t as impressive as it could be. And the draw distance is very short, thanks to all the fog and perpetual darkness.

The game may look a lot like Silent Hill, but for the most part, it doesn’t sound like it. The game is host to some fairly morbid musical scores, reminiscent of the original Resident Evil. It’s good and creepy, adding to an already frightening and lonely atmosphere. Even the voice acting is well done, which is unusual since horror games are notorious for sporting some of the industry’s worst voice acting. The only real downside to the voices is that the actors, who are clearly Asian in every respect, speak with heavy British accents. The UK version of the voice acting has been kept for the North American release, and as a result, the voices coming from Asian characters is unusually bizarre, even though we are often used to seeing Asian characters speak in English.

If judged purely on innovation alone, Siren would be an outstanding achievement. The game is definitely spooky, the plot is intriguing, and the creative play mechanics are a welcome change to the ever-tiring survival horror formula. In the hands of those who like horror games with a heavy dose of realism and stealth gameplay, Siren could become an all-time favorite.

Despite its unique approach though, the game is also very frustrating, and at times, feels more like work than like fun. The stealth gameplay is much too basic, and though the ability to see through the eyes of your attackers is creative (and spooky), it doesn’t help the player as well as it was intended. For the most die-hard of terror titles, it may be wise to give it a rent to see if it’s up your alley, as the gameplay will likely make you love it or hate it. But if the idea of dying 15 times on the same level or studying your enemies’ patrol routes for ten minutes just to take five steps forward sounds excruciating to you, it’d be wise to stay away from this one.





Article By: Brendon Hivner