Siren

by Sony

Product Features

• Choose to play one of 10 characters -- all with their own equipment, abilities & storylines
• Use your wits, senses & ability to move fast -- stay out of sight or the zombies will come after you in force
• Some characters have companions -- you'll have to defend them while you play
• Stealth action combines with strategic gameplay, as you avoid the zombies and prepare to fight through them when you must
• Eerily realistic characters with motion-captured movements, combined with cinematic camera angles, bring this creepy game world to life

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0001NBNGG
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches ; 5.4 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: April 20, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,087 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #76 in Video Games > PlayStation 2 > Adventure
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Game Informer Review

The creepy tale of a possessed Japanese village (Hanuda) told through the eyes of ten playable characters in combination with some impressively innovative gameplay features should totally make my day – but playing Siren turns out to be sadly different than I was expecting.

The game's two big features: sightjacking (where you see through the eyes of other characters) and the Link Navigator (which manages the plot's order of events) sadly don't add to the player's experience enough to justify their problematic existence.

Sightjacking is more fun to mess around with than it is helpful to the player. Watching the paths of roaming enemies can offer useful information, but the stealth mechanic is so simplistic that the data is rarely necessary. In many situations, being seen by enemies is something that you can't avoid or recover from – they will find you, and they will kill you. This is fine by me, but when the only stealth-orientated skill that is offered is a painfully slow crawl (and a distracting yell, which had little to no effect that I could perceive), it doesn't make me want to be all that sneaky. There isn't a sound meter, no real way to know if enemies can see you or not (like a vision cone or shadow meter), and very little chance of distracting them with diversions. It is more fun and more efficient to just run through levels and see what happens than to use the sightjacking feature to suss out a plan of attack.

Which leads to discussion of the game's other big feature, the Link Navigator. Siren's storytelling plan sounds like a survival horror Real World season: Pick 10 characters to escape the apocalypse and find out what happens over 3 days through 78 missions – you could call it Siren: Hanuda. The complication is that the order of events is jumbled and the Link Navigator is supposed to help you keep track. What this means, from a player's point of view, is that the game's story doesn't really get its hook into you – not even in the first few hours. The tales are too disjointed, the characters too many, and the plot too slow in getting going.

The more conventional aspects of this game like sound design and graphics are also something that people will have mixed feelings about. The creatures' insane, maniacal laughs are honestly unnerving, and therefore good for this game. The graphics look to be actual pictures of the characters' faces and lend a realistic, but still skewed version of each person – they're detailed, but strangely flat. I think that this is a nice subtle touch, but others may disagree.

I really, really wanted to like Siren, but in the end, I just didn't have much fun or feel like the innovative parts of the game were used to their advantage. It has good ideas, and I'm glad to see experimentation in survival horror, but this should be chalked up as a failed test in the genre.

Concept:
Navigate a horrific village as ten different characters

Graphics:
Muddy and jerky – but it fits with the disjointed feel of the gameplay

Sound:
The best part of this game, the sound effects are creepy and (for lack of a better word) icky

Playability:
The context-sensitive menu system is counter-intuitive and the stealth mechanics are pretty archaic and basic

Entertainment:
I really need a reason to care in a game this cerebral and slow-paced, and Siren doesn't give it to me

Replay:
Moderate

Rated: 6.25 out of 10
Editor: Lisa Mason
Issue: May 2004

2nd Opinion:
From a conceptual standpoint, Siren is chock-full of ingenuity, and is a soaring success when it comes to the delivery of unusual ideas. Forming a mental bond with your attackers so that you see the surroundings from their perspective is a great idea that leads to some unnerving situations. This gimmick only goes so far, however. I found its functionality, and the entire gameplay package for that matter, to be clunky, and above all, frustrating. I grew so disenchanted with trying to pick up enemy sight that I avoided using this technique whenever I could. I love the episodic approach to storytelling – but the execution of gameplay bothered me to no end.

Rated: 5.75 out of 10
Editor: Andrew Reiner


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Product Description

Siren is a new kind of horror game, sure to raise goosebumps with its aura of suspense & fear. In a remote Japanese fishing village, there is a terrible earthquake, and a mysterious siren blares. The next morning, the village is isolated by a sea of blood. Out of this sea crawl the former residents of the town -- now transformed into hideous zombies. A few have not been changed - lead them off the island to safety at all costs. Players have the unique power to see through the eyes of the undead, for a new level of strategy and terror -- try not to jump when you switch views & see the undead sneaking up right behind you!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tough and Grim, April 23, 2004

By 

A. Griffiths "Adrian" (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Siren (Video Game)

I'm not a wimp or a gaming novice, so its not often I think that a game is too difficult...but this is exactly how I feel about Siren. I was very excited about playing it after seeing advance demos and previews of it, but I was unprepared for the challenge that was ahead of me.
The game plays like a cross-breed of Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid, in that your adventure takes place in a nightmare world of derelict locations populated by sub-human zombie type monsters, but, with little or no means of attacking them, your success is largely down to using stealth tactics to sneak your way through the game, or to surprise and attack the enemy from strategic hiding places. Unlike the radar map in MSG, here your characters have the ability to see through the eyes of other people, which helps you plan your safest route, or warns you of attack when you suddenly "tune in" to the sight of yourself being run towards from behind! The game's setting is spot on. The many locations are on the small side, but all fully detailed and explorable. The enemies are horrifically realistic, mostly made up of zombified townsfolk who are all bleeding from the eyes and lurching around armed with various weapons and torches to seek you out with. It has been said that survival in this game is tough, and it's true. Be prepared to spend a lot of time watching your characters die as you try to work out the various strategies to passing each stage. The try-die-try again gameplay echoes that of the PS game "Fear Effect", so if that drove you crazy, expect more of the same. The playable characters are exceptionally vunerable to attack, and two swipes with a knife or one well-placed bullet will be then end of you, and the zombie enemies are relentless in their pursuit. In addition to this, when you do actually get a weapon with which to attack the zombies, you have to act fast because they always get up again after being knocked out for a minute or so. It adds up to an exceedingly punishing game, but I guess its actually far more realistic than the life bar and instant healing products of other survival horror games.

More problematic than actually just surviving, though, is working out what on earth you are supposed to be doing. The game is split between several playable characters, each of whom have separate "missions" to complete, and all are played non-chronologically at varying times within the game's 3 day timescale. The levels usually require a very obscure set of conditions to be met before you can accomplish each mission, and sometimes, the same stage will also feature a further, hidden puzzle that needs solving so that different characters can proceed through later missions. The menu for this is a kind of 3 day plan-o-gram with slots for all the characters at different days and times, with coloured lines linking them all up...it's quite a mental feat to piece all this together to work out what is going on. One really annoying aspect of the game is that if the hidden conditions to "open up" later missions are not met in the levels you have already completed, you are forced into a loop of replaying the same levels over and over again until you realise that there is a part of the river you did not think to look in (if you went that way), or a spot on the ground that the game prompts you can be dug up (if you happen to be standing in exactly the right place). Many players may suffer immense frustration whilst playing when they find they are never allowed to go anywhere new. I know I did, and it leads me to believe that only a truly dedicated player is going to put in the amount of work needed to make it through to the end.
This is a real shame, because the general concept and story behind the game is truly original, and there are some genuinely unsettling scenes to be encountered, which should startle even survival horror veterans. The graphics are amazing, characters look and move like real people, but sadly the obviously authentic Japanese setting has been weakened by the saddling of all the speaking characters with British (sometimes even cockney) accents, which is a terrible mistake. Still, the other design strengths just about manage to make up for it. Characters have recognisable personalities and all play differently. You'll soon find yourself with favourites and don't be surprised if you occasionally find yourself moved to sadness at their plight, or terrified along with them.

In conclusion, this is a teeth-grittingly hard game to play. Combining all too easily killed characters with obscure puzzle hunting, in levels where you have no pointers towards what to do or where to go, is a triple whammy that the game struggles to win you over with. Otherwise it is so near to being the most terrifying game on the PS2.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Original Idea, January 1, 2005

By 

bean-fiend (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Siren (Video Game)

"Siren" is a game I was looking forward to for a long time. Horror is my favorite type of game because it is one (and possibly the only) genre that games can pull off far better than any other medium. "Siren" is a good attempt at frightening the player and, while it is not always successful, it is certainly unlike any other horror game you've played up to now.
The story revolves around a small Japanese village in which the residents have become 'shibito' - zombies. The player controls more than a half-dozen still-human characters who are trying to escape from the village. The 'shibito' can't be killed and they frequently carry firearms. They won't hesitate to chase you at full speed, either.
The game's biggest innovation is the so-called 'sightjack' whereby the player can see through the eyes of the zombies within a certain range to determine a path through the level. This is a necessary ability, as the 'shibito' are very, very dangerous and have nothing better to do than kill your character.
The sounds the enemies make are perfect- some 'shibito' mumble to themselves or utter high-pitched howls. When in 'sightjack' mode the player can hear them breathing and whining. Levels have no music, which adds to the realism and intensifies the fright from hearing a zombie come after you. All this adds up to a very scary scenario.
But "Siren" drops the ball in other ways. Much of the game takes place during the daytime, where all of the enemies are easily visible. Clearly being able to see the monsters at a distance is not scary. The nighttime levels, in which many characters (and many 'shibito') carry flashlights, are much better.
Many, MANY 'shibito' carry firearms, which significantly ups the difficulty level of the game, but also makes it less scary and more frustrating. Being shot at in "Siren" is about as scary as it was in "Metal Gear Solid"- which is to say, not at all. Only occasionally does a player-character have a gun, and using it on the 'shibito' only puts them down for, on average, thirty seconds or less. Very often, the player has no weapons, melee or ranged, making a face-off against six gun-toting 'shibito' in a confined space extra annoying. It's also impossible to kill any enemies. This was a good idea, but becomes too frustrating when there are so many 'shibito' in each level. At the very least, the player should be able to pick up a downed zombie and throw the body off a cliff, or something to that effect- perhaps not killing it but removing it from the level.
The only really awful thing in "Siren" is the cutscenes. The story itself is rather weak considering how long it will take a person to complete this game, and it is told in some of the most terrible cutscenes ever put into this generation of games. First off, the designers used real actors' faces for the parts, which probably seemed like a good idea on paper: their lips will move realistically and creating realistic expressions will be possible on a smaller budget. But the reality just looks laughable- more like someone putting their face into a hole above a cardboard cutout at a carnival. Then, since "Siren" was released in Europe before the US, the voices were never re-dubbed. Now we have polygonal bodies, Japanese faces, and thick London accents. Putting subtitles over the original Japanese dialog would have been the best option. As it is, throughout the entire game the British voices (which were quite whiny in the female characters) seem just as jarring (and funny) as they did in the very first scene.
Finally, there is the total lack of logic in most of the mission objectives that makes this game both far too difficult and far too frustrating. Most of the levels require the player to simply go from Point A to Point B. However, very rarely is it so simple as watching enemy patterns and having good timing. More often, the player must complete a series of objectives that make no sense. This is especially true of the secondary objectives- one would never guess what to do or why. Dumb luck or outside assistance are the only ways to accomplish these goals.
In short, this is a highly-frustrating guess-and-check puzzle game. There are a few nerve-wracking moments, to be sure, and it is a fair attempt at striking out in a (slightly) new direction in the horror genre. In truth, the game could have been improved a great deal without adding or omitting any features, but simply by adjusting the parameters: give guns to fewer 'shibito'; make mission objectives simpler and more intuitive; keep the zombies down for much, much longer after being shot; etc. The development cycle for "Siren 2" is wrapping up and, if we see it in the States, hopefully it will have made some changes in the important areas.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I have really fond memories of Siren., June 4, 2005

By 

Aramis Gutierrez (NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Siren (Video Game)

I took a risk and bought Siren even though I had read many conflicting reviews. I really enjoyed playing this game. However, baring the assumption that you can foresee the future, I wouldn't even dream of recommending this game without a guide. The puzzles and items that you are some how magically supposed to solve are absurd. If you don't heed this warning you will waste hours of backtracking through unforgivably hard levels to get them (after you magically figure out that you forget to grab them in the first place). In fact, completely ignore the fact that there are puzzles (use a guide) because it is hard enough to survive getting from point A to point B. Also, the voice acting isn't that bad the first time you hear it (as bad as using American accent to translate, instead of leaving in Japanese with subtitles), it is that it becomes grating because you will die and have to hear it again and again. Oh yeah, you will get killed by snipers repeatedly, so a great deal of patience is needed to get through this game.

I liked everything else about Siren. It is the first survival horror game since the original Silent Hill (original designer of Silent Hill worked on this title) that really felt sprawling and immersing. The Shibito and incarnations of fallen characters are creepy as hell. The visuals are superbly minimal which makes them far more effective and ethereal. The false "heavy metal" ending was really funny. So if you have enjoyed any of the Silent Hill series and always wished they were a little longer, a little more threatening and more challenging give this title a chance.

Again, don't bother with attempting to figure out the puzzles on your own.