Siren: Blood Curse Review

by Neal Norton - 2008/08/06 9:58am

Siren: Blood Curse is a remake of the first in the Japanese horror series, Siren, but from the perspective of a different set of characters. In Siren: Blood Curse, an American television crew arrive in Japan to make a documentary on the legend of Hanuda, a village in which human sacrifices appear to be common place. As the TV crew slowly approach the village, they begin to hear screams and witness a human sacrifice. After being chased by what appear to be humans but are later revealed as something much more satanic, The Shibito.

As the game gives you control of your character, you'll notice a number of things; It's extremely dark, there's no indication of where to go other than an "objective" telling you to run away from the policeman, and little useful control over the camera. You'll also note that trying to combat the Shibito without a weapon will leave you face down in a ditch. After all, this is described as a stealth horror, so hand to hand combat is not encouraged. Even so, Shibito aren't your conventional zombie. Bullets to the head, guitars round the face and a kitchen knife in their eye will only stall them by knocking them out for a few moments while you scramble about either trying to escape or solve a puzzle until they get right back up again and start chewing on your ankles. Sneaking is a must at times, and the game offers you plenty of sofas to hide behind and cupboards to jump into at the sight of a Shibito.

Much unlike most horror games, Siren's story does not progress in the way that you'd expect. When starting an Episode you will be given control of a character, and once you complete that characters section you will be given control of a completely different character in a different area and situation altogether, and in the case of Howard Wright, no relation other than being a human in a town of blood-thirsty Shibito to the previous character you played as. This usual system will be right at home with fans of the previous Siren titles. Luckily controls remain the same for the most part whichever character you're given.



Another thing which Siren does differently is the chapters. If you download it from the PlayStation Store you will have to download a couple of separate files and install them all on to your PS3's hard drive, taking up a massive 9GB. Once you've installed your chosen Chapter, you can open the game and play it from the games menu, going back and forth through any chapter at time you wish. The difference is that the game itself is divided, they're not just separate parts of a file. Once you have completed an episode, the game shows you a short trailer for the next one and returns you to the main menu where you can decide to play the next one, as well as being able to delete the data from the episode you just completed which can be re downloaded from the PlayStation Store at any time. There are 12 Episodes which totals a decent 6 - 8 hours of gameplay, making it well worth the price tag.

The environments in Siren are disappointingly dark. Most of the time you will barely be able to see where you're going which would usually build quite an atmosphere, giving you the feeling that anything could burst out of the darkness any minute and rip your face off, but with the frustrating movement and lack of camera control this can become more of an annoyance than a means to scare you. When the darkness resides and you have some daylight or happen to be inside, the graphics show themselves for what they really are. Textures are pretty blurry and the overall polish of the game drops as you see more of it. Graphics on particular characters like Miyako can be outstanding at times, but are often ruined by her face turning a golden colour when you shine the light in her eye.



The combat controls stiffer as well, mostly in the rare instance when you're aiming a gun. There's no cross-hair or ability to use an iron site, and the aiming uses the same mechanic as the camera control, in that it's not the same as, say, Metal Gear Solid 4, but more like Silent Hill 2 when you hold down the look button. The camera constantly tries to swing back to the centre, so you have to hold the analogue stick in a weird position at a weird angle which is just frustrating when you need to blow a Shibito's brains out. However, this is not too much of an issue as you'll rarely be using a gun unless instructed to or you're very lucky. Most of the time you'll be using one of the games huge range of weapons, from fire pokers to sledgehammers. After successfully sneaking up on a Shibito, you can hold down R1 (or Square) which will execute a special finisher. Each weapon has its own unique finisher which is rather impressive, due to the fact that there are 50 unique weapons in the game.

Another good feature when combating an enemy or choosing not to is the new, revamped Sight Jack system. In Siren: Blood Curse the player can manually scan the area for a Shibito or ally, and quite literally "jack" their sight, giving you the ability to see what they see. The addition to Blood Curse is that once you've found your target, you can lock on to them and regain the control of your character and split the screen between you and their vision. This is often very useful for either finding where your friend has run off to in the darkness, or see what a Shibito sees while you sneak past, ensuring that they don't notice you. The game also starts these sequences for you at times if it feels you need it, such as when you're being chased or if an ally is being attacked. Apart from being an asset to help you it does add to the tension. If you're wondering through a rice field and half of your screen turns to a Shibito's vision running towards you it can be pretty unnerving.



Siren: Blood Curse isn't going to be loved by everyone thanks to the considerably bad controls, but we can recommend it to fans of the series. If you're just curious the Chapter 1 - 3 pack is worth its low price tag, and it's a good couple of house of gameplay alone. If you're a fan of Siren and have accepted the issues of the previous titles then you'll very much enjoy Siren: Blood Curse. If you're just a fan of horror, you might also be interested downloading this (or purchase when it's eventually out on Blu-Ray) because it does offer some scares and can freak you out quite nicely at times.

If Sony decide that another Siren game is in order then we’re all for it, but issues with the controls are trademarks of an extremely out-dated game in terms of actually playing it. Hopefully Team Siren will pay attention to Silent Hill: Homecoming who have addressed these past issues which both the Siren series and the Silent Hill series share.