"Siren" is a somewhat lesser known series of survival horror games, developed internally by SCE Japan. The franchise is most well known for its Silent Hill-esque game play, supernatural scares taken from the mythology of rural Japan, and for "sight jacking", which allows the player to look directly through the eyes of the enemy. Unfortunately, this newest addition to the Siren mythology does little to improve or reinvent the genre, despite providing a number of truly frightening scenarios and game play concepts that would be more than welcome if they were only developed a little further.



Click here for an explanation of our review and scoring format.

The latest entry to the modestly received Siren series, Blood Curse (known as New Translation in Japan) is an interesting title. While there are a number of legitimate scares in the game, most of them are derived from the Silent Hill book on creepiness, in that you're more often than not scared of what could happen rather than what actually does. Not to suggest that this is a weakness to the game, but S:BC doesn't dare to tread much new ground, even when its own series is concerned.

In S:BC, an American television crew has traveled to the land of the Rising Sun to investigate the so-called "legend of Hanuda", which states that a village where human sacrifices had once taken place had supposedly disappeared into thin air. The team, needless to say, manages to stumble across the village and naturally, horrors ensue. Although I can't speak for the Blu-ray release in Japan, Sony's choice to distribute the game episodically via PSN makes the experience play out somewhat like a survival-horror soap opera, with occasional interludes to either catch you up to the story so far, or give you a sneak peek at the next episode. The episodic nature of the game seems to work in its favor, with the only obvious gripe being the roughly 10 gigabytes of hard drive storage that a simultaneous install of every episode requires.

---

The game play is your typical survival horror fare, with various blunt objects, pistols, and the occasional rifle provided as you either stumble across them or they are provided via narrative. Although somewhat arbitrary based on the given situation, the option to occasionally hide in shelves, closets, or pull makeshift weapons from wrecks and piles of garbage or tool sheds does add an open-ended element to an otherwise linear progression.

The familiar "sight jacking" feature is back, which allows the player to look through the eyes of the various possessed villagers to assist in avoiding them, only this time with the much welcomed switch to a split-screen view rather one that takes up the entire display. The feature, although extremely useful in more confined environments, tends to fall apart once you get into more wide open areas, with enemies detecting you at what seems almost random at times.

At the risk of comparing S:BC to Silent Hill too much, when it comes down to the overall look of the game, the obligatory static filter doesn't do a very good job of hiding very PS2-era character models. The environments, while more detailed than the people who occupy them, ironically tend to shine mostly when they're veiled in darkness. Siren has always been very good at suggestion in scares, story, and aesthetics, and even though that might be the point of it all, when held up to even the most rudimentary examination, the presentation just doesn't hold up.

Despite its numerous flaws, however, the Siren series has always been more about the sum of its parts rather than its individual elements. With a number of truly scary moments and competent level and scenario design, the creators are definitely on to something and if they could just step outside of their own safety zone, the Siren series could rise to become something that not just derives from Silent Hill, but easily rivals it.

GB Review: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (360) [11/18/08] 25% match
GB Review: Samba de Amigo (Wii) [11/18/08] 25% match
GB Review: Gears of War 2 (360) [11/16/08] 25% match
Nihongo Patapon 2 Demo, Yorokonde! [11/13/08] 25% match
Official PS3 Headset: A Non-technical, Non... [10/19/08] 25% match
PlayStation Store Update: Best. Week. Ever. [9/25/08] 25% match
GB Review: Infinite Undiscovery (360) [9/25/08] 25% match