Siren Blood Curse (PS3)

I purchased this game through the Playstation Network and I'm glad to see they are now releasing this game onto Blu-ray disc as it truly deserves it. I'm going to be buying this game for the second time because I like it that much and as a download it also eats up quite a large amount of space on your HD.

Siren: Blood Curse takes you on a terrifying adventure set in Japan. An American TV crew find themselves deserted on an island where they have come to investigate and document the legend of Hanuda, a "vanished village" where human sacrifices are said to have taken place thirty years prior. Each are eventually split up and have to face the dangers of the island alone. Another character, a teenager named Howard is also on the island and you will get to play each and every character in the game throughout your journey.

Sam and Melissa are a seperated couple who have come to the island and their daughter Bella has been brought along by Sam which Melissa isn't happy about. You get to play as Sam and Melissa and even play as Bella in a terrifying hospital level which involves creeping around in stealth.

The occupents of the island appear to be Japanese zombie-like creatures which vary in strength and difficulty as you progress. There are also some larger and very obscure and frightening enemies later on in the game. Each of the enemies and the characters show off some amazing graphical details and the game looks absolutely stunning. A fantastic part of the game with a huge enemy shaking a bus as you try to make your way through stood out as a really memorable part of this game for me which is one of many great atmospheric and frightening moments within the entire 20+ hour adventure.

Some of the gameplay includes fighting off enemies with various weapons, solving puzzles, shooting, combat, using memory and most noticebly sightjacking. Sightjacking gives you the ability to see through the eyes of nearby enemies and other characters whilst you still view the character you are playingin a split-screen mode. This works really well once you get the hang of it and comes in useful for when you are required to creep around or attack enemies from behind.

Siren: BC gives you the true feeling of horror and suspense that alot of survival horrors find hard to pull off. I was genuinely scared at moments and the game can make you jump quite a bit. The graphics are excellent, they're dark but you constantly have light sources and it can feel very eerie exploring the village. Some of the people who have turned into zombies are some off the collest looking zombies I have seen in a game yet.

If you love a decent story, great graphics, a scary/creepy experience and a decent length game with great characters and dicversity then you will love Siren BC. The game is seperated into episodes within chapters giving you a re-cap of what happened in the last episode, these are really cool and effective and if you want to just continue playing it doesn't interupt the game or make it less fluid in any way.

An amazing game that surprised me and became one of my best PS3 titles of 2008. 10/10

Last week I bought Siren Blood Curse after reading online that it was a semi scary game and a decent game overall, man did I get a very pleasent surprise.

I put in the game and I didn't get a tutorial, a 10 minute long cgi intro or anytime what so ever to brace myself for what comes flying at you. The game cleverly throws you in the thick of it making you panic and hurry along the first level and from there things pick up greatly.

The game is a horror based in Japan (surprise) on some abandoned island where some village rituals use to go on (another surprise) and you play a series of american tv workers, teenage boys, little girl etc... lots of characters to go through which is great.

The story itself is not worth telling because that ruins the fun of the game and its worth finding out by playing it.

Anyway... this island is riddled with darkness, the skys are red, the water is full of blood and the island is mobbed with Shibito. Now these Shibito are creepy and just plain horrible. Basically they're zombies, who have a small portion of intelligence and their basic instincts are to rip you to pieces. Their voices are phased and destorted (like classic Evil Dead) and they will hunt you and never stop.

The Shibito are quite clever in my opinion. They'll go about their daily tasks etc until they spot you. Then they're literally roam around the entire map until they find you. Turn your torch off and hide under your bed because they're clever AI. Not only do they like to hunt you but they also love to taunt you. Level 3 you have to sneak out of this abandoned hospital as this little girl and having one of these sucker chase you shouting "Im going to find you, I saw you!" etc was tense!

The graphics for this game are stunning. I admit i'm not a fan of the PS3, I find some of their games quite unimpressive due to bad graphics, screen tearing etc but this game is absolutly beautifal in it's dark twisted ways. Everything inthe game is surrounded by darkness, fog and damp and the guys who made this game pulled it off soo well. The body animations are fantastic and detailed. They did a very good job here.

Now the controls... I'v read alot of complaints about the controls and it's perfectly understandable to find them abit WONKY. But, in my honest opinion they fit the game very well... awkward like the game itself. The controls will take a short learning curve and if you play too muchgames like me I wouldn't worry about it.

Gameplay, now this is where I was extremely surprised. Think Silent Hill meets Splinter Cell. Yes, what we have here is a stealth horror game. You don't do any split legged jumps or hack computers but a fair portion of the game is about sneaking about the place, laying traps for Shibito or finding ways to distract the devils so you can sneak past them. This stealth system works well, it creates a severe amount of tension and makes the game different from the usual horror games (ie Big guns and grenades).

Sound, this is my favourite part about the game. I installed it, loaded it and then had to see to my baby for 2 minutes only to hear this wonderful creepy soundtrack oozing out my tv speakers. I tell you it's very rare to find a spooky soundtrack on agame these days but this game certianly has it.

Overall this game is fantastic if you like horror games or fancy a severe change. It lives up to it's prequels (which if you havent played are worth the purchase : Forbidden Siren 1+2) and looks twice as good. I'd recommend it for the price it's going for, for the simple fact it's probably the best game on the PS3 that no one pays attention too. :)

Siren Blood Curse - BDR (PS3)
Deep, engaging, atmospheric. A very Japanese survival horror ~
First of all, if you're a familiar with previous Siren games you're in for a treat ! More of a remix in my opinion rather than a remake of the first game, fans will be right at home with the setting and controls and very pleased with the new characters and unravelling story with plenty of mystery and suprise. If however you're new to the series, and maybe appealed by the Japanese horror movie genre(films like Grudge, Ring/Ringu) style you'll also be loving this.
As a previous reviewer metioned this is not a shoot 'em up run and gun style game, more so a stealth 'em up make it by the skin of your teeth type of affair. The best action is to stealthly negotiate a safe path through the swarms of shibito(zombies) avoiding combat as you creep around delapitated houses/builings/woodlands/mines in the darkness and when you do slip up and get spotted; my advice is run and hide ! But when you DO need to take down a shibito, your wisest move would be to creep up behind them (using 'sight jacking' to observe the enemy's point of view) and whack them over the head with a sake bottle !(or wench, hammer, axe etc.). I should also mention there are weapons like shotguns, pistols and sniper rifles for gun freaks too.
The format is really creative; like an interactive horror tv series with previous events previewed before the start of each chapter/episode just like the on TV. Not to mention being able to play from a diverse range of characters; from an American foreign exchange student, to a nun from the deranged cult to a 10 year old girl.
All in all if you're up for something quite different to recent hits like Resident Evil, and like to soak up some scary atmosphere and take your time to be absorbed with the intricate plot then definitely give it a play !