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Tough and Grim

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 34 / 34
Date: April 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

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.

I would rather perform my own root canal!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: January 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I am an avid survival horror fan and anticipated the release of this game as it sounded great. Once this game hit the shelves, I had to own a copy for myself and added it to my collection. I have owned this game for about four years now and must have attempted it at least a dozen times on separate occasions. I really wanted this game to be worth the money I paid for it, but after attempting it for the last time I was willing to give it... all I can say is that it has to be by far the WORST game I have ever played... EVER!

This game had the potential to become a great addition to the survival horror genre, but every element traditionally found in these games was NO WHERE to be found! Actually, taking everything into consideration, this game lacks all that is needed to make a good game in general!

The graphics are just plain terrible! From the hype this game was given, it was hard to believe that this aspect was one of the game's selling points! The developers decided to use a different technique to render the graphics; by wrapping images onto 3D planes. This could have been an interesting and new style for visuals, but it failed to deliver! Everything in the game seemed to blend together and no definition is found in the any of the details. Character faces where horribly pixilated and a "fuzzy filter" is placed over all of the environments! No where will sharp and clear imagery be found. I guess the use of a "fuzzy filter" could have worked in some instances, but I found it to be annoying as it only made it difficult to see where I was going and what I was even doing!

The game had no story! NONE! Right from the beginning, you expect to be given something, some clue about where you are, who you are, what you are doing, etc, but instead, you are thrown immediately into gameplay without a tutorial, no information, nothing to spark your interest and worst of all, even after completing a few missions, you still do not get ANYTHING! What type of game expects players to continue playing as there is no point and no motivation to keep going? Even something small would have been nice, but this game did not deliver in this aspect as well! This game could never be placed in the survival horror genre for this huge flaw alone!

Survival horror games rely heavily on music to create an unsettling mood in the audience. I completed quite a few missions and NO music was ever heard! The developers obviously saved a lot of money by neglecting to include a haunting soundtrack! How in the world can you expect your players to find this game appealing aurally without any sound except a dissonant siren and gun shots from enemy weapons?! Even the worst games I have played had some music which complemented gameplay!

The gameplay is really lacking and is perhaps the worst aspect of the game! Cumbersome controls, annoying action menus and unexplained EVERYTHING takes all of the fun out the game and immediately frustrates the player!

The player is expected to perform mundane tasks flawlessly without any guidance. Walking is easy as long as your character does not physically hit anything, stumble or need to turn around. Once your character hits something, they will immediately stop and take their time recovering from the small collision... if you stumble, you character is most likely going to die from a gun shot wound fired from some enemy... and if you have to turn around, make sure no enemies are close as every character is difficult to maneuver in the obscure environments and hit everything causing this cycle to repeat over and over!

The action menus are a joke! In order to complete the most unexciting tasks, you are prompted for each small movement involved! In the first mission, you are required to escape an enemy by getting into a truck to drive away, but this requires multiple steps such as: "would you like to unlock the door?, would you like to use a key?, would you like to turn the key?, would you like to open the door?, would you like to get into the truck?, would you like to sit down?, would you like to close the door?, would you like to put the key into the ignition?, would you like to turn the key?". You would think that this would make the actions in the game more realistic, but everyone can perform mundane tasks with no brain power, so this becomes utterly annoying and ridiculous! This is what the games designers came up with to create fear in the player and it failed miserably!

By the way, nothing is explained prior to attempting any mission. You have no map. You have no weapons. You do not know what to do. If you need to find items to solve puzzles, there is no way of knowing what they are and where they are located as they do not blink or stand out in any way. Good luck avoiding any enemies because the `sight-jacking' ability is useless and only confuses gameplay even more. Your character is VERY weak and cannot handle any physical abuse so getting hit just once could send you back to the beginning to do it all over again and again! This is why many people will tell you that an immense amount of patience is required in order to simply play this game... and even more beyond that is required to enjoy it!

I feel sorry for the many people who purchased this game and ultimately gave up after trying so hard to like it; hence, the reason why I attempted it so many times. This game is horrible and EVERYONE should avoid it! It is not survival horror and IT IS NOT LIKE SILENT HILL! Everyone who compared this game to that masterpiece obviously never played any title in the Silent Hill series! I do not recommend this game and hope that I save someone from wasting their time and money and keep them from throwing their PlayStation 2/3 out the window!

Beautiful Disaster

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: May 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Remote Japanese Villages.

If you're a survivor of All God's Village from the game Fatal Frame II, you're probably aware that these are the last places on earth you want to go, particularly ones with legends concerning evil rituals (check), horrific consequences if said ritual should go wrong (usually a given), and anything involving young girls whatsoever, particularly if they are loners with some kind of physical disability (yep, we got that too.)

So, at first glance, one wonders why Siren has not one playable character to traipse through a hellish village of questionable religious practices, but TEN, and that's not counting the people they bring with them. Hanuda, the village in question, not only has that hallmark "ritual on night X or bad thing Y happens" practice going on, but the last time this event misfired wasn't even all that long ago: 27 years.

As the game explains it, this is actually the reason for all the protagonists the game throws at you. They're either in the village to begin with and are now stuck there, or they're actually there to investigate said bizarre occurrence in the first place.

It's here that Siren gets it's hooks in you, and they come with a wicked barb. The game is told non-chronologically. That is, at the beginning of each stage the player is presented with three pieces of information: Who they are playing as, what they have to do, and what time is in the three-day chronology of the game. This allows for some fantastic storytelling, as the game will drop hints, clues, red-herrings, and all manner of little teases in your path and then make you sit tight to find out of you were right or not.

The game turns the screw like no other in this regard, and the payoff, while incredibly bizarre, is actually sensical at the same time, and makes as much sense as anything else in the game. It works, plot wise, because by the time you get to the finale, there have been so many twists and turns in regards to the whys, whereas, and hows of what is going on in this town that the player is pretty much willing to accept anything, and it has the added bonus of being unpredictable.

If this sounds incredibly vague, it's like that intentionally. Siren, like the best stories, NEEDS to be played "blind". The less you know about the plot of this game (which is ideally "nothing") the stronger the impact it will have, and subsequently the more fun you'll get out of it. And, as you'll see, you're going to want to squeeze this game for all it's worth, because while the good parts of this game are really, really good, the bad parts are really, really bad. Read on...

Siren was a game that I, like just about anyone who enjoys the Survival Horror genre, was eagerly looking foreward to. By all accounts, the plot and storytelling were second to none, and the few reviews that trickled in from the Japanese version of the game were glowing. It had "character" like no other horror game.

In fact, the only complaints I could find about it (and these concerned the European version) were in regards to the supposedly god-awful translations into the western languages. Imagine my surprise about three hours into the game when I came to the conclusion that the dub was absolutely the least of my worries with this game. The dub is transparent once you get used to the British accents and slightly bewildered line readings. It does it's job. It's the only aspect of the game that does, really.

It's safe to say that those few import reviews I managed to read beforehand had, erm, "glossed over" a few key points. Things like this game having the worst controls since the first Resident Evil game, a staggeringly fun-sucking level of difficulty, and ridiculous puzzles that make absolutely no sense, even in the context of an admittedly strange game. So, I'm supposed to break into a house in this town, get a towel, bring it somewhere else, soak it in a sink, and then put it in a freezer so that, a day later, another character can use it for another bizarre, who-thinks-of-that-except-for-videogame-puzzle-designers purpose? All this with no indication that it's even necessary until I'm forced to replay the level hours down the road? Sure.

Siren falls flat on it's face in the gameplay department, no other way to put it. This game is a chore to play, and a vast majority of the time the player's death is because of poor development, not any lack of skill or thinking. Because of the plot, most playable characters are unarmed, but the enemies of the game wield human weapons, and they seem to have no problem scrounging up plenty of rifles and pistols. Hmm. While the game's story is enough to redeem it, it's only because the story is so outstandingly cool that you're willing to suffer through the game to see it.

Here's my advice with this game: Buy a GameShark to cheat your way through. This turns the game into what amounts to an old-school PC adventure game with extremely high production values.
This is the only time I'll ever say this, but this game is far more fun when you can't die, and it's worth cheating to do. Normally cheating would take the fun out of the gameplay, but that's a moot point here, so you may as well get straight to the plot and not let the horrific gameplay get in the way of it.

Provided you've got either an endless supply of patience or somewhat loose gaming morals, Siren has a phenominal kick that's unlike anything else out in gaming today. Unfortunatlely, the completely frustrating, broken gameplay will stop most people from ever seeing it through to completion

Original Idea

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: January 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

"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.

The Siren is warning you not to Play this game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: September 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Fans of the survival horror gaming genre were no doubt excited by unraveling the mystery of Sirens errie Japanese town with the terrifying past. Sadly, the premise is about as exciting as the game gets.

The Pros

This game is a really gorgeous visual treat. The chracters are rendered with a new technolgy that actually wraps realistic images onto 3d computerized planes.
The setting has been developed well. The village of Hanuda is a scary place cast in eternal darkness surrounded by a sea of blood and of course the Siren going off in the background.

The Cons (and there are many)
The game developers dubbed the game with a British voice over crew which in the beginning is comical but after awhile just feels ridiculous. For some people this may not be an issue at all but for me it just seemed distracting playing a Japanese guy and to hear him shout "Oi Mate! wait up!"

Secondly, the gameplay is terribly limited and re-do's abound. More skilled gamers may not have to replay missions as much but I found it hard not to be killed as 80% of the time your only defense is to run and hide. The game employs a drop down menu to issue command to your character. The menu is easy to use but truly annoying. A good example occurs on the first mission. Your goal is to escape a bad guy via car. The drop down menu asks you 1) Would you like to pick up the car key? 2) Would you like get in the car? 3) Put key in ignition? 4) Turn key to start car?- truly gets to be cumbersome to game play.

Lastly, the game uses a event system/ time table for you to keep track of events as they happen to all 10 playable chracters. While that sounds convoluted in itself it only gets worse that you have to play all ten characters and not one at a time. The game is broken up into missions. For example,one mission may involve a journalist and reveal certian parts of the mystery and these events are recorded on the time table. The next mission you are introduced to a new character and complete the next mission and learn more. You must refer back to the time table to try and piece it all together.

Siren was a truly exciting idea thta really failed to deliver. I don't feel many people actually completed as I myself grew bored and gave up halfway through. If you truly want to be scared and enetertained I recommend Fatal Frame 1 or 2 as both are in my opinion the best (and scariest) the genre has to offer.

Siren! All the fun of looking and walking!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: June 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'm sure I'll be jeered by some for not appreciating how "original" this title is. I like games that are original, but I also like games that are scary, fun, and well-crafted. Nothing akin to this game has ever been attempted before, and one can see why, as Siren is completely unplayable. It's as if someone said "You know how those horrible, clunky, Resident Evil style controls severely hamper player enjoyment? Well those controls are too intuitive, lets make the player use a pull-down menu whenever he wants to pick up or use an item!" The visuals are so full of artful (read pretentious) "fog" and film scratches, they turn out to be no better than PS-1 graphics. The sound might be passable, except for the fact that all the Japanese characters have been inexplicably dubbed with cheesy British accents. The sight-jacking feature allows you to see through the eyes of your enemy, as strategy it's all but completely useless, as unless you've run through a level (and died) many, many, many times, you have no clue what the zombies are looking at (Ooh! He sees a twig, and his own hand! That will save my life!) This is one of the most frustrating and pointless games I have ever played in my life, and to make matters worse, ever game-mag I've read is giving this one high marks! As a huge Silent Hill fan, and working from such reviews, I was ready to plunk down cold hard cash to buy this title sight unseen, until I read some reviews from actual gamers. Thank God I rented it first! This is why I write this review, as a service to you. Do not buy into the hype! This game is as scary as athlete's foot, and twice as irritating. Unless of course your idea of the ultimate in terror involves crouching behind shrubbery to avoid un-killable jerks (it's a moot point anyway, as you almost never have a weapon, and the fighting mechanics are awful) who giggle like drunken yokels while looking for you with a flashlight. Or perhaps running through poorly rendered woods while trying to lead a spastically controlled, simpering woman-child, who constantly shrieks "It's about time! Hurry up!...Wait! Don't run so fast!" I rented this game with a discount coupon, I'd like to be pithy and say I overpaid But after that imbecile had run away from me into the waiting maw of a giggling pseudo-zombie for the tenth time whilst mewling orders at me, I found out that you can "accidentally" use weapons on your companions. Bludgeoning that twit to death was worth every penny!

A hard hard hard hard but great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: February 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you want a game that will last as long as GTA then get this. The story is actually quite amazing to say the least but you will be in it for the long haul.

There are several maps and over twelve characters that meet in the story at different times. It is like Silent Hill but slower as you are not given great weapons to defeat the enemy. Instead you have the power of second sight. You do things in the map that are for the characters benefit and to set up something for another character who will arrive there later. The story is sort of like Pulp Fiction in that all the characters finally meet as you take them through the story.

It is very very very difficult and very easy to die but there is a method to the game and once you manage to use the second site to run around the place so that the monsters do not see you it gets a lot easier.

Stick with it, but this is by no means an out-of-box couple of days game play. It is more like twenty minutes a day for the next 12 months.

Addictive but slow.

I have really fond memories of Siren.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: June 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

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.

Huh.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: May 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Why oh why didn't I get Fatal Frame 2 instead??

Not that Siren is a bad game; quite the opposite. It's just that there are far better examples of survival horror and tactical infiltration games available than this.

I'll explain.

The Plot, briefly, concerns a handful of survivors who have to get out of a small inland Japanese town, which, for reasons yet unknown, is now overrun with Zombies and other such nasties. In the time-honoured Survival Horror tradition, you must employ various keys, guns and whatever else is handy to make good your escape.

The graphics are beautiful in places, and, even at their worst, still do the job nicely. Sound is good, even if the voice acting is sometimes a little hammy, but certainly isn;t half as bad as some people would have you believe.

So far, so predictable.

Where Siren differs from others in this vein is in its approach to the gameplay, and this is both good and bad. The story is played out in a series of short-ish Missions or Chapters - and there is a new ability to 'Sightjack' - to see from the point of view of any enemies or allies in the immediate vicinity. Both of these ideas are excellent, and a welcome change to a genre where, if the story's no good, neither is the game. Sightjacking, in particular, adds a new and creepy dimension to the proceedings - Log onto an enemy to see if they can see you, and wait for your reaction :-)

Similarly refreshing is the fact that your characters are as brittle as real-life people. They cannot fight or shoot very well, or generally stand up to much physical punishment at all. This too adds huge amounts of tension to an already atmospheric and chilling scenario.

And, if the control system wasn't such a yowling, sluggish, disobedient dog of a mess, then 'Siren' would rank alongside Fatal Frame and Silent Hill 2 as an all-time Great. Sadly, this isn't the case, and trying not to smash your expensive PS 2 pad against the wall/console/friend/whatever is nearest at the time becomes the greatest challenge in completing the game. It's woeful - slow and unresponsive, and, in a game where fifty per cent of your chances of survival hinge on your ability to react quickly to unexpected scenarios, this is a huge, unfair problem.

I can't give this game 5 stars, much and all as the new additions and innovations are highly commendable. If you are a patient person with the stomach for oftentimes-repetitive gameplay, then Siren is for you. If not, then go with Fatal Frame 2 or wait for Silent Hill 4.

Another Horror Masterpiece

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: June 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Created by the developers of the original Silent Hill, Siren is a survival horror game that many fans of the genre have been waiting for. With Resident Evil looking more and more like an action game, and with Silent Hill suffering from a new staff that wants to recreate the series entirely--gamers needed a game to bring us back to the roots and the very basic guidelines of survival horror. Siren not only satiates this need, it also introduces some unique features that have rarely been tried before, making it a traditional survival horror with a lot of experimental attributes, or vexations, depending on who you ask.

The story is this game's biggest masterstroke, having many similarities with Silent Hill. Instead of an American New England Town being consumed by iniquity, in Siren it is a remote Japanese village, populated by a country people who adhere to a strange occult. Also much like Silent Hill, the game utilizes the sound of the old fire sirens used in the 'Second Red Scare', except in this game, the siren is not a mechanical devise, but an inhuman call from across a sea of blood, whom the villagers answer, and return anew, in another form cleansed of human stain, after receiving the blessings of their God. Typically a village nestled in the mountains, it is sucked into another dimension where the blood of the King of Gods flows, giving the inhabitants eternal life. Some meet the call willingly, while others resist it, wanting to remain human, and you play as the village renegades, or as the characters who are not true inhabitants of the village.

Gameplay is somewhat lacking. Although you play as many different characters, with engaging storylines for each, you visit the same locations throughout the game numerous times, only as a different person with different objectives. Most objectives are simply to survive. Often characters have no weapons, and they must use the sightjack ability, which allows them to see through the eyes of any given enemy within the proximity, to help you determine where the enemy patrols and your best route to sneak around them. You can also divert the attention of enemies elsewhere by making sounds, setting off alarms and so forth. Sometimes characters find weapons, but these missions require a lot of sightjacking and sneaking around too, since the enemy often has weapons and will see you and shoot you before you even know you've been spotted.

Missions require a lot of trial and error in order to complete, which makes this game an acquired taste. Furthermore, the game does not play in chronological order, which makes for a much distorted gaming experience. For example, you play future events before the past events have occurred, and sometimes find yourself playing characters that got killed. That's like starting a book in the middle, and reading the ending before you read the beginning. Another aggravating aspect to the game is that in order to advance and open up new levels, you must revert to levels you have already played, but attempt to do something differently. For instance, instead of finding a route of escape, you must locate a hidden item somewhere in the stage.

Because of these hindrances, you will not understand the game's story the first time you beat it, and will be fairly confused. I would have abandoned this game entirely if it were not for the `Level Select' feature, which is automatically unlocked after so many missions have been completed. I have enjoyed this game thoroughly after having unlocked every stage, and have replayed it many times selecting the missions in chronological order. It truly has a wonderful, imaginative, creepy, and downright DISTURBING storyline.

Cold blooded murder. Two suicides. Being hunted by friends or relatives that are no longer human. Occultism. Children in peril. Human sacrifice. Separate plains of existences. Alien Gods.

Horror enthusiasts will love this stuff. The IGN website provides a great picture walkthrough for this game that will help you through the really tough missions.

Graphics are moderate. They used the faces of real actors and superimposed them on the pixilated bodies. The movie scenes looked like those real old hand-drawn cartoons where all the images are jumpy and jerk around a lot. I liked it personally. It gave the game an antique feeling, like I was watching an old reel of film. The actual gameplay world is not like this, and is realistic enough. It looks better than the first Silent Hill game, but probably not as good as Silent Hill 2.

I can only hope Siren 2 comes to the United States.

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